Practical instructions for pastors: Extracts from diary notebooks (1860-1865)

Contents From the publishers Instead of a foreword. A word to the shepherds Section 1. “Be holy, for I am holy...” 1. What a priest should be (the height of the priestly rank) 2. “The rule of a shepherd” (rules of external and internal behavior) Section 2. “Feed My sheep...” 1. Shepherding. Clergy. Relationships with parishioners 2. Preaching 3. Confession Section 3. “My servant Job will pray...” Liturgical practice: temptations, advice Appendix. Power and Glory of the Priesthood Extracts from diary notebooks for 1860–1865. What should a priest be like? – This question constantly sounds on the pages of the diary entries of the holy righteous John of Kronstadt for the years 1860–1865. And Father John himself answers: “A priest is an angel of the Lord, a priest is an intercessor for the people, a priest is a servant of God, an instrument of God’s grace...” This question occupies the All-Russian Pastor so much that he is even planning to publish a special magazine “Presbyter” for clergy. In 1860, he wrote in his diary: “Magazines are adapted to all conditions of life. There is no magazine on how to perform high pastoral service.” Indeed, in Russia at that time, and even today, no magazine was published that met the needs of clergy. With his characteristic energy, the young Kronstadt pastor strives to implement his plan to publish the magazine “Presbyter”. In his diary for 1859–1860, he notes to himself: “to show the height of the priesthood, how high the shepherds are, the performers of all services and Sacraments, and how shepherds of the people... how they should be attentive to themselves, sober... how to behave outwardly.” And further, in the same place, he also writes: “I take it upon myself to offer reasoning about prayer from experience... also moralizing thoughts, borrowed from experience; practical instructions on how to address the needs, how to read prayers and how to deal with the laity.” Looking through the diary entries of Father John for the years 1860–1865, we see that most of the entries are addressed specifically to the clergy. These are Father John’s thoughts on the appointment of a priest; these are instructions on how to conduct spiritual warfare for a priest; practical recommendations and advice in relation to liturgical practice; individual comments regarding the external and even everyday life of a priest, etc. By publishing this book, we continue the themes outlined in the book “To the Priest.” The material is organized into three sections. The first section, “Be holy, for I am holy...” contains Father John’s reflections on the height of the priestly rank (what a priest should be) and specific advice to pastors regarding their external and internal behavior (the title for this topic is “The Rule of the Shepherd” - we chose words from the troparion to the holy righteous John of Kronstadt, who, with his invaluable spiritual experience, his very life, truly became a rule, a spiritual example for all pastors). In the second section, “Feed My Sheep...” we have collected from the pages of Father John’s diaries all the entries related to the topic of shepherding and clergy. Here are teachings and advice to pastors - how to behave with parishioners, how to teach and instruct their spiritual children; how to write sermons; how to prepare for confession, etc. And finally, the third section of the book, “My servant Job will pray...” provides practical instructions to pastors regarding their liturgical practice. And first of all, we are talking about temptations that occur during public and private prayer of a priest. Father John gives instructions to pastors - how to prepare for the liturgy, how to perform services, how to say prayers, how to stand before the Lord, how to fight temptations. In the Appendix we have placed the word of Father John of Kronstadt himself, “The Power and Glory of the Priesthood,” spoken by him on the day of the forty-fifth anniversary of his priestly ministry (December 12/25, 1900). In this word, in our opinion, the views of the holy righteous John of Kronstadt on the very essence of priestly service are most succinctly and deeply expressed. In addition, this word is also interesting because it reveals the secret work of Father John himself, his inner struggle, intense spiritual work as a priest, as a minister of the Mysteries of God. The publishers hope for the attention and good will of all our readers to this book. The publishing house thanks schema-abbot ILIYA (Optina Pustyn) for his holy prayers and blessing for this work. Instead of a preface. A word to the shepherds (...) 1 Dear brothers, priests and co-shepherds of the verbal flock of Christ! We have been entrusted by God with the greatest ministry. We are clothed with the grace of the priesthood, we are authorized by the grace of the All-active and All-sanctifying Spirit of God to perform the greatest Mysteries of God in the Church of the revival and sanctification of sinful humanity, renewal, reconciliation of ourselves and him with God, we stand before the Throne of the Almighty face to face, we talk with Him, we beg Him, we glorify and thank Him, we constantly turn to Him as His closest servants and builders of His Mysteries (Wed: 1 Cor. 4:1). What faith is required of us, what reverence, what unceasing attention to ourselves, what purity of heart, what dispassion, what trust in God, what love for God and neighbor, what boldness, what wisdom and simplicity, what detachment from all evil, what mercy and compassion for people mired in sins! A priest, living on earth, must be heavenly, wise on high, and not earthly (Col. 3:2) and completely devoted to God and the salvation of men. Where can we get all this, where can we get such abundant grace? God has given us all grace. We must constantly test ourselves, awaken ourselves from the sleep with which the enemy constantly tries to rob us; We must warm up the gift of God’s grace (cf. 2 Tim. 1:6), given to us at our ordination, and we must be on guard day and night for ourselves and our flocks. We are endowed with the grace of the priesthood, the grace of intercession for the people and for the whole world, the grace to perform the great Christian Mysteries, which can greatly contribute to our salvation, wisdom, strengthening of spirit and body, and the salvation of our neighbors. The saints were people obedient to us, but they themselves were saved and saved many, many people who obeyed them. We will save ourselves and others if we are zealous, for the Holy Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings that cannot be uttered (cf. Rom. 8:26). And thank God! The shepherds have now ardently taken up their holy work of shepherding, excited and encouraged by their archpastors. Schools in the spirit of the church are multiplying and growing, the fruits of teaching are visible everywhere; people are enlightened. And this is necessary. These are shaky, rebellious, turbulent times. Sectarians and schismatics diligently sow the tares of false teachings among the people, trying to tear away simple-minded people from the Church, but the grace of God is stronger than the wiles of the enemy, greater is He who is in us, that is, the Lord, than he who is in the world, that is, the spirit of flattery and malice (Compare: 1 John 4:4). The Lord put all His enemies under His feet (Compare: 1 Cor. 15:25). And we will be His zealous helpers, as the Apostle says: For we are God’s helpers (1 Cor. 3:9). (...) “The words in the Missal about the priest are remarkable: endowed with the grace of the priesthood. Just as clothing embraces and envelops a person from all sides and covers all his members, except the head and hands, assigned to constant activity, so the grace of God embraces the soul and body of a priest, like clothing, from all sides, healing and, as it were, hiding his infirmities and replenishing what is lacking in him. Just as the air clothes us from all sides, so the grace of the Spirit clothes the priest; and the sacred clothes that he puts on in church are a visible indication of how invisibly the grace of the Spirit dresses him, giving him the power and authority to perform his high service, for which, it would seem, only Angels are capable.” St. rights John of Kronstadt (From the diary for 1860–1861). Section 1. “Be holy, for I am holy...” 1. What should a priest be like (the height of the priestly rank) The priesthood, or saints in general, are sacred reservoirs from which blessed water is carried or spreads to other believers. The priest is primarily God's pet, God's refector - almost every day he attends the Lord's supper and eats and drinks at His meal. What should a priest be like? The priest, above all others, must remember and fulfill the following commandment of Christ: if anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and come after Me (Matthew 16:24). For from the priest his service requires a lot of self-sacrifice (They are Christ’s, says the Apostle, having crucified the flesh with passions and lusts (Gal. 5:24)). We must bear the weaknesses of the weak and not please ourselves: for Christ did not please himself (Rom. 15:1, 3). Woe to the priest if he falls in love with peace and bliss. Then he will be overwhelmed like salt that has overcome him, and nothing will come of it, except that he may be poured out and be trampled underfoot by men (cf. Matt. 5:13). The devil, look for someone to devour (cf. 1 Pet. 5:8), will find in such a priest a glorious catch for himself, as well as in the sheep of such a shepherd. The mercenary flees, as there is a mercenary and neglects the sheep... and the wolf plunders and scatters the sheep (John 10:13, 12). Yes, the priest must remember the spiritual weaknesses of his spiritual children, who involuntarily rely on their spiritual father, and bear these weaknesses (cf. Rom. 15:1). In order to be always cheerful and elusive to the enemy, he must not be satisfied with an abundance of food and drink, must not be greedy, money-loving, stingy, but must love greed and thirst, be uncovetous and generous, must sincerely love everyone and from the heart call everyone children, as he is called father, and truly see children in everyone, like Jesus Christ, like the apostles; must forget about the embarrassment that comes from lack of faith, pride and false shame, and it is not good to be inaccessible to this false, devilish shame even when you really do something wrong. Especially the priest must beware of being bound by any passion before the Sacrament of Confession, when hundreds are waiting for a word of instruction and advice from their shepherd, for the enemy, having then tripped up the priest, then does not easily leave him and often deprives him of real reason and words for the entire confession, because of his sins, because of his passions that are at war in his destiny (Cf.: James 4:1). And knowing the weaknesses of the priest, the devil always tries to influence these sides by strongly irritating them before confession. Woe, for example, to the covetous and stingy priest at the cathedral, when, before the people, the general confession, the enemy stops him by calling him to another service, for example, to baptism. Another person, not a covetous one, would look at this circumstance calmly, without worrying about missing out on income, while a covetous person would be indignant at the inopportuneness and would regret in his soul the expected money for confession. You must look at everything indifferently, at all accidents, and fall in love with them, saying: be the will of the Lord in everything. And the Lord allows everything precisely for our testing. He left the enemy free rein over us. Simone, Simone, behold, Satan asks you to sow like wheat: I have prayed for you, so that your faith will not fail (Luke 22:31-32). And pay attention so that your faith does not fail. What will you do if you become scarce and if the dark forces cover your entire soul with their multitude? What kind of sincere, fiery and firm love for everyone should the heart of a priest be imbued with, so that he can pray unfeignedly to the Lord, the Father of all men, for His children, in order to preach His word with zeal and power and tirelessly shepherd them or instruct them in faith, piety and good deeds? Yes, priest of God, you must take care of gaining such love through prayer and self-sacrifice for the good of the Lord’s people or by crucifying all your passions and their mother - self-love. – Otherwise, you will be an unworthy servant of the Lord and not a shepherd, but a hireling (cf. John 10:12). Many priests will start well, and then weaken on their path - they will begin with faith and love, and then extinguish faith and love in their hearts. One must be faithful to death. The Imam is upon you, says the Lord, because you have forsaken your first love (Rev. 2:4). Behold, I send My angel before You, who will prepare Your way before You (Mk.1:2; Mal.3:1). – The priest is the angel of the Lord Almighty, who must prepare the way for the Lord in the hearts of people in whom He, the Master, wants to dwell and walk, according to the Scripture: I will dwell in them and become like them, and I will be like the Father to them, and they will be my sons and daughters (Cf.: 2 Cor. 6:16; Lev. 26:12), says the Lord Almighty. So, the priest must cry out often: prepare the way of the Lord, do His paths upright (Matthew 3:3; Isaiah 40:3), that is, live rightly according to His commandments. The priest must fast for the intemperate people; for those who do not pray, pray day and night, or early and late; To be merciful for the hard-hearted. What pure, spiritual lips a priest must have, so often pronouncing the all-holy name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Even more, what a spiritual, pure heart must be in order to contain and feel the sweetness of this most honorable, magnificent and venerable Name 2 . ABOUT! As a priest, he must withdraw from carnal pleasures, lest he become flesh in which the Spirit of God does not dwell. Is it a matter of carnal pleasures for a priest, when he must irrevocably enjoy the one and only Lord, may He grant him the petitions of his heart (cf. Ps. 19:5, 6). Is it before carnal pleasures, when he has so many spiritual children presenting to him their many different spiritual or physical infirmities, in which he needs to sympathize with them spiritually, give sincere and sound advice, when every day he faces a feat with all his heart and with tears to pray for them before the Lord, so that the mental wolf does not run at them and plunder them 3, may the Lord give them success in life and faith and reason spiritual! 4 Is there any time for carnal pleasures for a priest, when he must often perform services in the church and stand before the throne of the Lord, when he so often must perform the Divine, wonderful Liturgy and be a performer and communicant of the Heavenly, Immortal and Life-giving Mysteries 5, when in general he so often has to perform other Sacraments and prayers? – A heart that loves carnal pleasures is not faithful to the Lord. You cannot work for God and mammon (Matthew 6:24). Woe to Christians, especially priests, who have known through experience Who is their Life, and for all that, they place the hope of their lives in this, which is not life, but a passing shadow, dust that is sweet for food, or beautiful to look at (cf. Gen. 3:6), and cling with their hearts to this dust, as if to something permanent, imperishable, quickening... They will receive a share with adulterers if they do not repent. It would be better for them not to know the way of truth (Wed: 2 Peter 2:21)... My Spirit shall not abide in these men forever, for they are flesh (Gen. 6:3). The more spiritual a person is, so to speak, by rank, the more he angers the Holy Spirit with his carnal way of life and the more he will be exacted from him at the Judgment, for he had to show others an example of how to be filled with the Spirit (cf. Eph. 5:18), and lead a spiritual life, be the light and salt of the earth (cf. Matt. 5:14, 13) - and did not want or care to be spiritual. Thus, a priest who indulges in carnal pleasures is much more guilty than a layman and will be punished incomparably more severely than him. For gluttony and drunkenness, for the love of money, covetousness and stinginess, the priest will be exacted the more severely, the more he should have been, by his very rank, temperate, uncovetous and generous - placing his hope in the Providence of God. For love of money and stinginess, the more severely he will be punished, the more comfortable his condition was, the more the Lord showed him the experiences of His non-abandonment and generosity in the previous and current life; for the love of money and stinginess, for gluttony and drunkenness, the clergy will be punished without mercy, while the worldly, subject to the same sins, will be punished more leniently: for the little, says the Lord, is worthy of mercy, but the strong will be tormented more severely (Wis. 6:6). Do not quench the Spirit (1 Thess. 5:19), says the Word of God. Remember this every Christian, especially a priest and a teacher of children. – You especially need to always burn in spirit with your high service to God and humanity: how much you will do for God, for people and for yourself when you do your work with faith, with love, with zeal, with ardor and energy, and how little, dry, fruitless your work will be when you begin to do it sluggishly, lazily, with coldness, without any zeal and energy! – You will be greatly responsible before God both for yourself and for those entrusted to your care. When we see a clergyman performing the sacred service calmly, evenly and firmly, we are all pleased with this and say to ourselves and others: how well, calmly and firmly he serves. This means that everyone internally demands from the clergyman calmness and firmness, so characteristic of the servant of the God of peace. Remember this, embarrassed priest or deacon or reader, and do your job decently, with due calm and firmness. Hallowed be Thy name (Matthew 6:9). The responsibility to sanctify the name of God lies with everyone, but especially with us, for the Lord has appointed us to be the light of the world (Matthew 5:14) and we must glorify the Lord more than anyone else with all our lives; our entire life should be a burning lamp (cf. John 5:35). The priest should primarily shine with meekness, humility, faith and trust in God, love, lack of covetousness, zeal for the glory of God and the salvation of human souls, and diligent service to all. Nevertheless, we, who are called spiritual, must demonstrate to all the laity a spiritual way of life, and not a carnal, sensual one; our very face should express our heavenly wisdom (cf. Col. 3:2); in the church of God, which is designated to be a special, sacred place for glorifying the name of God, we must show everyone an example of reverent service to the Lord the All-Tsar; This is where our light should especially shine before people (cf. Matt. 5:16), for here the priest, deacon and cleric stand as if on the candlestick, in the sight of everyone, as living guides to the people of faith and hope in God, as living examples of meekness, humility, reverence for the holiness of the church, for all services, for all sacred readings, hymns and sacred actions. 2. "Rule of the shepherd" (rules of external and internal behavior) Remember that with the concept of a priest, people are accustomed to connecting the concept of holiness, goodness, meekness and humility, simplicity, calmness and equanimity of spirit and at the same time the greatness inherent in the servant of the Living God. Try to be like that internally and externally without the slightest shadow of pride and arrogance. Try to turn your whole life into serving God: whether you read anything at home, begin this work with a short heartfelt prayer, so that God will enlighten and make you wise in faith and piety and in carefully fulfilling your duties, and never read out of idleness, to pass the time: by doing this you will humiliate the word, which should all serve our salvation, and not idle talk and a means for pleasure and a pleasant pastime; When you speak to your neighbors, speak wisely, prudently, instructively, edifyingly; Avoid idle talk, like the poison of the serpent, remembering that for every idle word that men speak, they will give a word about it on the Day of Judgment (Matthew 12:36), that is, they will hear the just verdict of the Judge. Whether you teach your own children or those of others, turn the matter into the service of God, teaching them with diligence, first thinking through the means for teaching clear, intelligible, complete (if possible) and fruitful. Defeat in the name of the Lord and the power of the Cross the machinations of the enemy, who is trying to confuse, overshadow, constrain, and relax you. Even if you eat, drink, or do anything else that is lawful, do everything for the glory of God (Cf.: 1 Cor. 10:31). Overcome heaviness, despondency and melancholy and relaxation of the heart, which prevent you from doing the things of your calling, which require your initiative, your mind and your heart; be always ready for a word of edification in church, in homes and in every place; be quick to love and sluggish (cf. James 1:19) and immovable to enmity. So, remember that all evil mental heaviness, all despondency, melancholy and relaxation of the heart are from the devil. - Make every effort, constantly try to cultivate the fields of human souls. This is your position, your indispensable duty. - God! Help! In serving God, place all your happiness and all the people of God who require your service, be a diligent servant; do not be burdened by the work of God if all day long they invite you to different places and for different needs; do not have the slightest, even heartfelt, inner impatience, do not be irritated, do not complain, but be complacent, be kind to everyone who requires your service - and thank God that He deigns you to spend most of your time in conversation with Him and in serving the spiritual benefits of His people; know for sure that this is the happiest time in your life. What should you do next? Rest? – But after minor labors, what kind of rest? - Eat and drink? - An animal matter. - Talk to your own people? – Conversation with God is better. Do not rush to food and drink, but rather hurry to the work of God and, while doing the work of God, do not think about food and drink. Remember firmly before Whom you stand, with Whom you talk, Whom you sing; be all in God; belong entirely to Him alone; pray with all your heart; sing with all your heart; Serve for your neighbors as you would for yourself, cordially, wholeheartedly, without double hearts and thoughts. - God! Help: without You I can do nothing (Wed: John 15:5). Despise in every possible way at all times all materiality - precisely because through it the devil strongly fights against our soul and torments us. – For the sake of the peace of your soul, neglect the material. In matters and things related to food and drink, clothing and various household utensils, if something goes wrong, do not pay attention to it, and everything, even if it is faulty, let it seem to be in order; Consider all materiality as nothing if because of it you have to lose your peace of mind. Moreover, if we get used to paying attention to material disturbances, then over time we will become so picky that every trifle, every slightest malfunction in household things will disturb and anger us, and we will harm ourselves in the affairs of our calling, depriving ourselves of spiritual light and tranquility and losing our spiritual integrity and energy: for passions and addictions darken the spiritual eye and violate the integrity of the soul, about which I said Lord: be whole as doves (Matthew 10:16). Do not generously feed your flesh, do not caress and please it, and do not strengthen it thereby against the spirit. Otherwise, when you have to work in the spirit, for example, to pray or write a spiritually edifying essay, then you will see how she prevailed over the spirit and tied him hand and foot; He will overthrow all his impulses: he will not allow him to stand up and enter into his strength. He will remain a slave to the flesh. Do not desire or seek a spacious and beautiful apartment; elegant, soft and expensive clothes; pleasant foods and drinks: honey, beer and others - all this pampers the body and spirit and makes the soul carnivorous and impatient; In general, do not want everything to happen according to your desire, because if you meet anything contrary to your desire, you will become irritated and indulge in anger - and thus you will lose the spirit of Christ’s meekness and humility, you will find yourself despising His commandment: learn from Me, for I am meek and humble in heart (Matthew 11:29). - More. Do not wear precious and soft clothes: they are God’s condemnation on the priest, and so, it seems, God’s oath weighs heavily on you. Remember the word of the Savior: behold, those who wear soft clothes are in kings' houses (Matthew 11:8). Don’t go to invited dinners, balls or evenings: this greatly weakens the soul and removes you from God. Love not the world, nor that which is in the world: for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not from the Father, but is of this world (1 John 2:15-16). Don’t dance, for dancing is the work of an empty and frivolous soul, like Herodias (See: Matthew 14:6). The feet of a person, it is said, will proclaim what is said about him (Sir.19:27). Do not pamper the sinful body with frequent baths: they relax the body and soul. - In general, do not feast on sleep, food and drink, pleasant clothing, frequent baths, spacious and beautiful housing, beautifully printed and bound books, excellent furniture - nothing corporeal, nothing perishable and fleeting. – Do not cling to the body or to anything material: it passes away; be diligent about souls, things more immortal 6. – Tell your soul: what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world (Matthew 16:26). Do not enjoy long sleep, but get up when you feel sleepy; complete saturation with sleep is harmful both to the soul and to the body, just like the always complete saturation of the body with food and drink. Do not sleep under a very warm blanket, so as not to relax the body and soul together with excessive warmth: because the soul is closely connected with the body and weakness, bliss in the body responds with weakness and bliss, relaxation in the soul. It is clear that there is no need to drink a lot of warm drinks internally, for example, tea, coffee, which also does not strengthen, but only relaxes the body and spirit; a glass or two - no more; more - to the detriment; however, an overweight person can drink three glasses without harm. – And so prefer food that is cooling or moderately warm and hot, and moderately warm, semi-cool blankets. The bed and pillows are not very soft, in no case downy. – The flesh should not be indulging in anything, but should be given only what it needs, serving to strengthen and invigorate it and the Spirit living in it. Even though it’s hard, overcome it somehow, don’t sleep during the day and be active all day long: this refines the heart, lightens the flesh and makes prayer of the heart and every task convenient. Only sleep during the day as a last resort. Experience. And he sleeps well at night and gets up easily. If it happens that after being tempted in a dream by unclean ghosts of the devil 7 and upon awakening from sleep, with a firm memory of the temptation, we will, in a feeling of carnal bliss, be insensitive to this fall and, having stood in prayer, will not feel the need for repentance, then we must convince ourselves that our sin, which was in a dream, is very important: because it is an abomination before God and through our sleepy fornication made us unclean and filthy before God; The very insensibility of one’s sin, the very lack of lust felt at that time, must be considered as moral weakness and misfortune and pray to the Lord with warmth and contrition of heart, as a condemned and vile sinner. The cause of temptation is tasty and nutritious food, the well-being of the body, pampered by prolonged sleep and a walk in the fresh air, and sometimes actual thoughts of voluptuousness in reality; Often the reason for this is the envy of the enemy, who cannot tolerate our fervent prayer in the evening, as at any time. Never sleep in the evening before the evening rule, lest your heart (cf. Is.6:10; Acts 28:27) become white from untimely sleep—and lest the enemy stifle it with stony insensibility 8 in prayer. – Be sober and watchful (1 Peter 5:8). Watch and pray, so that you do not fall into misfortune (Matthew 26:41). - Watch out, for you do not know the hour of the day, in the same place the Son of Man will come (Matthew 25:13). - Be on the lookout: you don’t know when the Lord will come to your home, evening, or midnight, or at the sound of a loop, or morning: lest he come suddenly, he will find you sleeping. And as I say to you, I say to everyone: watch (Mark 13:35–37)... Try to read your evening prayers heartily, even though you are in a strong sleep; do not spare your body for the Lord. Who knows if this will be your last evening prayer. Maybe you’ll go to bed and not wake up, or you’ll wake up feeling unwell. “Therefore, child, always cleanse your sins in the evening with fervent prayer.” After communion of the Holy Mysteries, as at any other time, avoid by all means greed in the consumption of food and the slightest satiety, do not clothe the spiritual heart (cf. Is. 6:10; Acts 28:27), do not burden the lungs. – Greed for food and drink and satiety are an abomination to the Lord. (Do not eat fish or meat after communion, perhaps only a little.) At home, when you sit down at the table, avoid by all means greed in eating food and do not thereby expose your addiction to food and drink, like an animal. In this case, your heart reveals its love for food, and not for the Lord, for decay, and not for His Holy Word, for corruptible food, and not for the incorruptible food (Compare: John 6:27) of the Body and Blood of Christ. When you are hungry, do not lean heavily on food, otherwise you will burden both your heart and body. Eat without greed, quietly, with meditation, for the glory of God, remembering God the Nourisher, especially His incorruptible and heavenly food - His Body and Blood, how He gave Himself to us for love for food and drink, and about the holy Word of the Gospel. Be afraid to eat a lot when you do little or no work. This is sacrilege, parasitism and suicide. But don’t hesitate to eat a lot when you work hard. This is necessary to strengthen your strength. Be careful, consume only the essential amount of food and drink, that is, sufficient to strengthen your strength, and not excess: otherwise Satan will enter you, who, like the Lord, enters a person, among other things, through food, for example, with excess, with delicacy, with greed. - Don’t drink a lot of tea, coffee, don’t eat a lot during lunch or dinner. Drinking strong tea, especially a lot (3-4 and 5 glasses) is a disaster for a priest; greatly irritates the nerves and drives out the Holy Spirit. - Experience. Don’t indulge yourself: tea, as strong as tobacco, is irritating. There is no need to eat a lot on the eve of the Liturgy, especially fish with black bread and especially raw fish, meat, butter, milk - be content with more tea. Remember the Apostolic rule: do not drink water, but drink little wine, for the sake of your and your frequent illnesses (1 Tim. 5:23). This is useful. Rules for eating food. When after eating you have to walk a lot or talk a lot from a book and act together, do not hesitate to eat enough, but when you don’t have to walk and talk or sing a lot, but on the contrary, after eating you want to rest, take as little food as possible, only the amount necessary to maintain bodily strength. In general, eat enough for the upcoming work, and when there is no work ahead, eat little. However, drink abstinently and always eat little, and you will be healthy, according to St. Mitrophanius. Look at food like the ground you walk on. Just as you don’t worry about what to walk on, so you shouldn’t worry about what to drink and eat (cf. Matthew 6:31). Food is the same dust. It would not be appropriate for a priest to consume milk, cow’s butter, especially meat, although this is not prohibited due to our weakness. What suits a layman does not suit a priest. It especially does not suit him to drink vodka, perhaps just a little, and to smoke or sniff tobacco. All this cherishes our flesh, which must be crucified with its lusts (cf.: Gal.5:24), and makes our heart white (cf.: Is.6:10; Acts.28:27) and more or less entangles it in approaching God, in union with Him. Yes, the mouths, which are so often sanctified by the use of the Divine Mysteries and serve as doors for them, must receive food and drink with extreme discernment! With what care and reverence must the entrance of the King of glory be guarded (Ps. 23:7-10) 9 from all that is superfluous and brings uncleanness into our hearts! If the entrance of the earthly king is carefully always kept clean, if there is always a guard at his entrance, then we must keep our lips - this entrance of the Heavenly King 10 as clean as possible and always have with him as a guard - our mind, which must prohibit the entry into these royal doors to everything that can make this entrance unclean and unseemly, especially the very chamber of the Heavenly King - the heart. “Take heed to yourselves,” says the Savior, lest your hearts be burdened with gluttony and drunkenness... (Luke 21:34). I also mean here words spoken not in grace, words that are idle, immodest, false, words that express the growths of our hearts. “The lips and tongue of every Christian, especially a priest, must be protected in every possible way.” - Priest of God! Understand how much your lips mean, what honor they have received from the Heavenly King, Your Creator and Lord, and be afraid to make them a conduit for rubbish and all uncleanness. Never make promises hastily or recklessly to anyone, knowing that what is promised can sometimes be difficult and even impossible to fulfill and you can easily turn out to be a liar. Treasure every word and do not throw away this precious pearl at random. Do not assert what you do not know for certain, so that you do not soon be ashamed of being caught in a lie. – Don’t be ashamed to say “I don’t know” when you really don’t know something, even though you should know it. Remember who is the father of all lies (John 8:44). Be simple in thoughts, desires, words and deeds. Our inner peace and contentment and freedom from the machinations of the enemy depend on this blissful simplicity in everything and trust. Humble yourself constantly, watch and pray, so that you do not fall into misfortune (cf. Matthew 26:41). Above all, take heed to yourself, according to Spasov’s words, so that your heart is not burdened by gluttony and drunkenness (cf. Luke 21:34), the source of all evil. Eat fish occasionally, and consume meat and milk only occasionally and in very small quantities. Eat more cooked grains, especially grains or barley. Demonic ventriloquism arises from gluttony, over-eating and over-drinking. From the same comes the hardening (whitening) of the heart (cf.: Isa. 6:10; Acts 28:27), internal connection, coldness of the heart towards God and neighbor, hypocritical prayer and hypocritical treatment of neighbors, extreme pride, stinginess, malice, envy, pride and arrogance, murmuring and blasphemy, and all prodigal uncleanness done according to teaching the devil, despondency, despair; moral, mental and physical inaction, irritability towards those who require our labor for themselves; unsociability with people and selfish loneliness. Do not seek in everything what is pleasant and pleasing to the flesh, otherwise you will have an aversion to everything that is unpleasant, and since unpleasant things have contact with a person or are in him and on him, you will have an aversion to the person himself, and through this you will act contrary to the commandment of God and you will lose your spiritual peace, not having it until then, until you repent of your folly. You must be indifferent to everything in the world, except sin. True. Try to be completely simple, impartial in relation to all earthly, perishable goods. Say: the Lord is everything to me. Love hunger and thirst, for Christ's sake. As long as you pacify the body, you benefit the soul. For He who rewards judgment according to deeds, words and thoughts (cf. Heb. 4:12; Rev. 22:12) will reward with good and little that we endure for Him with joy. St. Gennady about the faith and life of Christians. 41 art. When you need to do something, but you don’t want to, and the lazy flesh, neglecting the task, puts it off further and further, then say to yourself a firm word in your heart: “It is necessary,” - let this word become an immutable law for you and without any blame, at the first opportunity, get down to business according to this word, inciting and forcing yourself, like a strict work orderer. Our lazy heart will somehow find an excuse to consider everything as unimportant, to neglect everything, to pass everything by, and if you just give in to it, then, perhaps, you will not do anything. When some passion attacks you and strongly carries you away like a fast river, then say to yourself internally: these are the remnants in me of the old man, which must be completely put aside, - and read with faith the words of the Apostle: put aside for you, according to the first life, the old man, which is decaying in delightful lusts, and put on the new man, created according to God (in the image and in the likeness of God) (cf. Gen. 1:26–27), in righteousness and in the likeness of truth (Eph. 4:22, 24). After this, the passion will subside. Do not say: I am a priest, they must respect me; they must give in to me; I should be excused if I say or do something wrong - no, respect me; you give in to others; excuse me, but always humble yourself and be as strict with yourself as possible. Be before people like a meek, humble, kind, compliant, and simple-minded child. - Surrender your will. Surrender to the will of God. Our will is proud, evil, capricious, picky, vague, destructive for the soul and body, and not only for us, but also for others, in a word - an old will, the will of evil and death. Treat the Lord God with such reverence, with such faith, hope and love, as if for the first time and suddenly you received perfect knowledge of Him. It’s the same with the holy Angels and holy people of God. Treat people the same the first time and always. Be unchanging in your love for them and pray and cry about their sins as if they were your own. Try to acquire ardent love for God and for human souls. Put the salvation of their souls above all else. – Pray harder to God for their salvation. Keep in your mind and heart the commandments of the Savior and His entire life on the cross from the swaddling clothes to the tomb, and try with all your might to order your life according to the commandments and example of your Savior, your Giver of Life, remembering that His commandment is eternal life (John 12:50). Fight with the strongest, unflagging wisdom against the evil enemy, valiantly defending yourself with all spiritual armor, and especially with faith and the Word of God, in order to destroy all the demonic strength and snatch your soul and the souls of men from the jaws of the devil. Section 2. “Feed My sheep...” 1. Shepherding. Clergy. Relationships with parishioners If you love Me, feed My sheep... (John 21:16). Truly, one must have steadfast love for the Lord in order to diligently feed His sheep. He who loves not the Lord, but this world, not His sheep, but their wool, cannot feed them: because he seeks not them, but theirs. Always rejoice when they call you to any need, because you are going to talk with the Lord Himself and serve His sheep, whom He loved to death, even death on the cross (Phil. 2:8). Rejoice also in the fact that by serving the members of Christ (cf.: 1 Cor. 6:15, 12:27), you are fulfilling the word of the Savior: whoever willed to be in you, let him be a servant of all, just as the Son of Man did not come and be served, but serve and give His soul redemption for many (Matthew 20:26, 28). Don’t think about the payment: whatever they give you is fine. It’s a disaster if selfishness creeps into a holy cause: the enemy will fail - and you will perform the Sacrament or prayer insincerely, carelessly, to judgment and condemnation 11 of yourself. Be also afraid of extreme reluctance, slowness, laziness in holy work. Hurry to every poor person, do not be alienated from him in your heart; don’t say to yourself: a dry spoon hurts your mouth; they won’t give you anything for your efforts; It's not worth the trouble. You work for the Lord Jesus Christ (cf. Col. 3:24), who will reward you with eternal life. Blessed are you, for the poor have no recompense to give; but He will reward you for the resurrection of the righteous (Luke 14:14). Be prosperous in heart, word and deed at all times to serve others, without the slightest annoyance or irritability, remembering the words of the Savior: whatever He will be in you, let him be a servant of all (Matthew 20:26). Look with love at every person who comes or approaches you, no matter why he comes and no matter what his rank and condition and appearance. All malice is the dream of the enemy, whether it is in you or in others. - Don't know her. When you are called to your home to serve a prayer service with an image from the church in a spiritual procession or without an image by a beggar, and, moreover, ugly in face, do not succumb to the temptation of the enemy, do not be indignant at the beggar in your heart, but with readiness and all willingness go where he calls - as if a rich man was calling you; Do not have the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ outwardly. If a poor woman with thin clothing comes into your congregation (the church) ... (James 2:1-2). If you happen to be tempted by the action of the devil and by your own foolishness and passion - if, that is, you despise the beggar and become embittered at him for his request - immediately bring sincere repentance to God and tell Him: I have sinned against You, Lord (Wed: Luke 15:18) - I have despised Your living royal image (man is the image of God) (Wed: Gen. 1:27) according to my partiality. Have mercy on me: do not despise me, as I despised my brother, and grant me to honor every person unfeignedly and love him sincerely, as yourself, according to the Scripture: love your sincere as yourself (Matthew 22:39; Lev.19:18). And in order to protect yourself from such partiality in the future, always remember the words of the Savior: whosoever will be in you, let him be the servant of all (Matthew 20:26). And also the words of the Apostle: have not God chosen the poor of this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the Kingdom, which God has promised to those who love Him? (James 2:5). - Moreover, it often happens that a beggar rewards no worse than a rich one. - How, then, should we honor the poor man for such a sacrifice? This wretched widow, you can’t help but say, is more cast down than everyone else... (Mark 12:43). May everyone be equal for you, O priest: the noble and the simple, the rich and the poor, the happy and the unfortunate, and when you have to deal spiritually with your parishioners, do not despise in your heart the ignorant or the poor and unfortunate, but consider it a special happiness to serve the poor and unfortunate and do for them spiritual works of faith with special readiness and pleasure. Do not serve your belly: for those who please the rich, noble and happy and despise the humble, poor and unfortunate truly serve their own belly. When you desire free money or clothes from parishioners, immediately repent of this thirst for acquisition or covetousness and remember the words of the Apostle Paul: I have desired not one silver or garment (from you): you yourselves know that I have served my need (need) and those who are with me with these hands (Acts 20:33-34). You should not set an example for others of covetousness, bribery and parasitism, but deserve everything through your labors. An undeserved gift is difficult for the soul: with the gift we take upon ourselves the obligation to pray with all our hearts for those who gave the gift, we take on their sins. Kindly fulfill the requests of parishioners to satisfy their spiritual needs, putting yourself in their place, that is, imagine that you yourself have this need and yourself ask your spiritual father to satisfy it, and how nice it is for you if the priest receives you kindly, with love and readily promises you his service. With spiritual readiness, meekness and love, fulfill the spiritual requests of your parishioners, no matter how busy you are or how tired you are, knowing that you have been appointed for this, for this you live, to be a zealous servant of all the members of Christ (cf.: 1 Cor. 6:15, 12:27), that is, your parishioners. Do not spare yourself, your body and the energy of your soul for them, but sacrifice for them your peace of mind, your health, and everything, and do not refer to a secondary position, if you have one, that you have no time for. Look, if you feel sorry for yourself and serve the parishioners reluctantly or with inner indignation, then you will hurt yourself extremely, and you will not please God, and you will not bring any benefit to the parishioners with the truth. God loves a willing giver (2 Cor. 9:7). Remember: the good shepherd does not spare himself for the sheep and lays down his soul, that is, his life, for the sheep (John 10:11). Serve your neighbor with joy, in fulfillment of the words of the Savior: let him be a servant to all, just as the Son of Man did not come and be served, but let him serve and give His soul deliverance for many (cf. Matt. 20:26–28). With what meekness should a priest treat his parishioners who come to him for advice or to call him for needs. Another comes to call him to give communion to his child, while his father or mother is in the grave, and those left have nothing! And they are in grief and despair. What if the priest gets angry with them or treats them rudely? Will it not completely kill their spirit? Remember that man is the breath of God (cf. Gen. 2:7), the image of God (cf. Gen. 1:27), little god: love him, because love is from God; do not despise him for his sinful ulcers, do not push him away from your heart, for in that case you yourself would have to be pushed away by everyone. Love a person, despite any of his whims, like a temporary illness: as you want to be loved, despite any of your whims. Bear the infirmities of the weak (Rom.15:1), and thus fulfill the law of Christ (Gal.6:2). Often in your life you will have to encounter the weak and, willy-nilly or unwillingly, bear their weaknesses. Wear them willingly and with patience, without grumbling, without displeasure and bitter expressions, meaning Christ, the Rewarder, who Himself bore the infirmities of the whole world. He accepted our ailments and bore our illnesses (Isa.53:4; Matt.8:17). We must be strong in rank, in power, in intelligence and education, in property, in position in the world and in physical strength - to bear the weaknesses of the weak and not to please ourselves: for Christ did not please himself (Rom. 15: 1, 3). Your carnal, old man (Eph.4:22; Col.3:9) will insistently demand that you please only yourself and that you do not bear the infirmities of the weak, that you do not worry, do not spend money on them, do not tolerate them with you, but do not listen to him at all, but strive with zeal to fulfill the law of Christ, firmly believing that for its fulfillment a crown of immortality awaits you. God! Grant me to serve others in every way and not to please myself (Rom. 15:1). Look not at your own, but also at your neighbor (cf. Phil. 2:4). This, by the way, means - not only correct and save yourself, but also your neighbors; Do not only give instructions to yourself, but also to your neighbors, especially in church. Often we are reluctant to say a few words from our hearts, softly, affectionately to a neighbor, a short acquaintance or our own, who lives with us or does not live together: and we often speak to him, we order, we ask, we ask, we answer rudely, reluctantly, in our hearts. And this is the work of sin, and this is the work of the old man (Eph.4:22; Col.3:9). Here, too, you must overcome yourself and always try to speak kindly to everyone, from a good heart - whether with your family, with your own people living on their own, or with those you meet, you need to be meek and kind with everyone, forcing your heart to be tender and sympathetic. – Without forcing ourselves to be soft-hearted, we can become stuck in the rudeness and hardness of our hearts. We do not have a pastoral, fatherly, cordial, compassionate attitude towards our parishioners as spiritual children. But we must certainly acquire it, like the Apostles: we must acquire apostolic love for the flock. Give it, Lord! We must never forget that we are all one body (Rom. 12:5; 1 Cor. 10:17) and must encourage each other to love and good deeds; especially we, shepherds, must remember and do this. Yes, we must remember that if we are bright in soul, stand firm in faith and piety, then our flock becomes stronger, brighter and purer in life: if the head is bright, so are the members; and if we have darkened our souls from manifold passions, the body of the Church, our flock, will also be darker; because there is a close connection between the Head and the members, between the shepherd and the flock. That is why the Lord said: let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in heaven (Matthew 5:16). - If there is darkness within you, then how much darkness is there? (Matthew 6:23). - So, do you think that your gluttony, your covetousness does not have a disastrous effect on your flock, firstly, because of your carelessness about souls: for what care for souls does he have who cares about rubles? – none; He has long been an evil Judas 12 and flattering: he talks about saving souls for money and for show, so that people will praise him. Yes, if the light in the shepherd is darkened, then it is necessarily darkened in the flock, due to his close spiritual connection with it, heads with members. “You commit sins at home, for example, you are greedy, stingy, envious, quarreling, and this affects the parishioners outside: your soul is weakened, and their souls even more so.” You stand strong in your spiritual virtues - and they are firm. You stand in prayer and pray earnestly for them - and they feel it; If you become stronger spiritually, they too will become stronger; If you relax, they will relax too. Lord, have mercy on me! The love of a shepherd for his flock is revealed by whether or not he loves his sheep, but he loves them [the flock] when he is not lazy to teach them in church and from house to house in simple language, the language of the heart, about faith and the duties of a Christian; when he is zealous about the eradication of vices and bad habits and inclinations among the people, about the conversion of those who are mistaken in the faith to the truth of the faith; [when] he is ready to help and helps the poor and unfortunate, consoles the sad, whether he is quick and diligent and thorough in fulfilling their Christian needs. – In order to truly love the sheep of the Lord’s pasture, you need to sincerely pray to God about it. “You don’t need anything earthly to undead and soothe and lull your heart.” For a grounded heart is not capable of sincere and true love, and is not capable of preaching. My sweetest Savior! You, having gone out to serve the human race, not only preached the word of heavenly truth in the church, but flowed 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. So You did not sit at home, but had fellowship of love with everyone. Grant us also to have this communion of love with Your people; May we, shepherds, not be confined from Your sheep in our houses, as in castles or dungeons, leaving only for services in the church or for needs in houses - according to one duty, with only memorized prayers. May our lips open for free speech with our parishioners in the spirit of faith and love. May our Christian love for our spiritual children be revealed and strengthened through lively, free, fatherly conversation with them. ABOUT! What sweetness You, Master, our boundless Love, hid in the spiritual, love-warmed conversation of the spiritual father with his spiritual children, what bliss! - Oh angelic bliss! O God's 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! – Especially love the fellowship of charity, both material and spiritual. Do not forget about charity and fellowship (Heb. 13:16). When a parishioner comes to you to call you to the service (especially if to a sick person for a farewell message or to a sick baby for hasty baptism), go immediately, complacently and willingly, and do not send him to another priest, although you are not the next one, except in those cases when you are busy with another necessary matter; Consider any service to the good of your neighbor as an acquisition, especially in his spiritual need, knowing firmly that you are serving Christ Himself, who will reward everyone according to his deeds (cf. Rev. 22:12). Since you have created only these least of my brothers, you have created with Me (Matthew 25:40), He says, “and if, because of serving your neighbors, you receive illness or are exposed to adversity, insult or misfortune, sorrow and need, consider this as the great mercy of the Lord, who thus merits you the happiness of having a lot among those who lay down their lives for their friends (Cf.: John 15:13) and the corresponding reward in heaven (Matt. 5:12). When they call you to give prayer to a mother in labor and a baby, or to baptize him, or to give communion, or to unction a sick person in a very low, dirty and stuffy hut, and your soul, accustomed to a spacious, clean, bright and dry dwelling, abhors this hut: then 1) remember that Christ Himself was born and laid in a manger (See: Luke 2:7); 2) do not shun dirt, remembering that you yourself were formed from dirt and will turn to dirt, and that your soul is very, very unclean before God - and it is this spiritual uncleanness that you must shun and fear, and not this material one; 3) do not be afraid of damp and unclean, stuffy air: if God is in you and God is with us, then He will transform harmful air into healthy air; 4) remember that in rich dwellings there lives mostly a lack of faith, coldness towards God, arrogance, effeminacy, hard-heartedness, love of money, stinginess, and often laziness, and in the poor - faith, zeal for God, patience, humility, simplicity, generosity, work - and, therefore, poor dwellings are incomparably more precious and higher in the eyes of God than rich ones. – God looks at the heart, but man looks at the face (1 Samuel 16:7), at rank, at insignia, at clothes, and at walls, and at money, at furniture, and at the outer gloss of secular education. “Do not refuse to baptize in poor huts, you who live in the city and are accustomed to the splendor of the huts and to your spacious, beautiful, clean and comfortable home.” Do not despise his low face and humble home, but humble yourself before him and be like his equal and do not despise his wretched home, so that you do not anger God with your pride. Dear brother! When you administer the Sacraments of Repentance and Communion or Blessing of Anointing to a sick person, gather all the strength of your mind and heart, all your faith in order to convey to the soul of the sick person your faith and your trust in God; let your living faith and your hope shine in your eyes and on your face; Let the peace of your heart be heard in your words and in the words of prayer: use all your strength to pour into your spiritual child your faith, hope and love, which it will look for at this time in your gaze. Ah, brother, these, perhaps the last, hours are extremely precious both for you and for him: for you, because they will decide whether you were a good shepherd for this sheep of the verbal flock of Christ, laying down your life for the sheep, or a mercenary, not caring about the sheep, leaving them and running from them (cf. John 10:11-13) when they were attacked by a mental wolf 13; for them - because their fate for all eternity depends, perhaps decisively, on this hour, depending on how they accept the Sacraments of Repentance, Communion and Holy Anointing. Do not forget, during all services, to strain your whole heart towards faith and hope and to show to all those praying in the church that you are a true believer and truly have hope for future blessings; Let your gaze and your face be a mirror for the people of God, in which they would clearly read your faith and your hope and love. Treat your neighbor with a perfect heart, that is, truly and with the love that you have for yourself, so that your neighbor will love you, and if he does not love you, then at least he will honor your virtue in your face and be imbued with respect for it, and may he himself be jealous of it. Go to those without in wisdom; time is redemptive. Let your word always be in grace, mingled with salt (grace), leading as it is fitting for us alone to answer each other (Col. 4:5-6). Remember this and do it. You will say different words: some will bring you to life, and others will kill your soul and the soul, perhaps, of your neighbor. That is why it is said: let your word always be in grace, mixed with salt (Col. 4:6), so that it gives grace to those who hear; Let not every corrupt word proceed out of your mouth (Eph.4:29). Do not reprove anyone with a spirit of hostility, because such reproof will not correct, but will irritate. Let all love be with you (1 Cor. 16:14). Love is patient, merciful, love is not arrogant (but humbles itself), is not proud, does not act outrageously... (1 Cor. 13:4-5). There is no need to reprimand anyone out of suspicion or in a restless spirit. You will get into trouble: you will insult someone else in vain and cause shame to yourself. Be patient. Doctor, heal yourself (Luke 4:23), if you want to instruct, correct or heal others. Ugh, how evil you are: everything is not right for you in others, although everything has turned upside down for you; You see a speck in your neighbor’s eye, but you don’t feel the beam in yourself (cf. Matthew 7:3). - Oh, a man blind with the eyes of his soul. Remove your own thorns first, and then treat the thorns of others. God! Grant me not to judge my brother maliciously for everything! Gain patience. To endure everything, not to be irritated by anything, to reprove and admonish with meekness and love. The spirit of impatience and irritability with our neighbors for their misdeeds means that we do not love them, but love only ourselves because they do something unpleasant to us; and that they harm themselves, mentally and physically, and anger God with their sins - we do not grieve about that. We need to root for them and feel sorry for them, pray and cry. We endure a lot from people we love and respect; but we do not tolerate unpleasant trifles from those who are unloved and disrespected. You shouldn’t even pay attention to the enmity, malice and malicious antics of others against you, especially if you in conscience recognize yourself as not deserving of all this, because all this is the work of the devil, who, through people who do not fear God, pours out his rage on you and amuses his old malice against you. Do not respond with enmity to those who offend, but conquer through love (cf. Rom. 12:21); also, do not be troubled in spirit, as if by something important, but be calm and laugh at the machinations of the enemy; Have pity on those who are at war as if they were your sick members. Train your heart not to be embittered against those who offend you, no matter what, but to pray with love for them, according to the commandment of the Savior: pray for those who offend you (cf. Matthew 5:44). Do not repay with insult for insult to you: that you were insulted, others might not notice it out of pride, but that you insulted another - they will not only notice it, but also exaggerate it a hundred times: even if you accidentally insulted them, they will not forgive you if you do not ask for forgiveness or if you do not explain yourself. In general, never take revenge for an insult. When meeting each person, speak from your heart: save him, Lord! The Lord so wants salvation for everyone that he would like all His faithful servants to pray for the salvation of our other weak brethren. Yes, he strongly wants: to save people, He laid down His life, He gave them His Body and Blood, so that they, tasting His Mysteries, would be alive and saved. Prayer for the salvation of people is the most pleasing prayer to the Lord. – Everywhere, at all times and for everyone, seek first of all salvation, or the Kingdom of God, and everything else necessary for temporary life will certainly be added to you (cf. Matthew 6:33). Look at those who are sick with spiritual passions and embitter you with their passionate actions as if they were your sick members, do not irritate them, but apply to their hearts the medicine of meekness, gentle conviction and love. Treat them like your sick members. – We are not vain and annoying to each other. Brothers, even if a person falls into some sin, you spiritually correct such a person with a spirit of meekness. Bear each other’s burdens (both moral and not just physical), and thus fulfill the law of Christ (Gal. 5:26, 6:1, 2). Be as meek, humble, and simple in your dealings with everyone as possible, considering yourself unhypocritically lower than everyone else in your mental state, that is, more sinful and weaker than everyone else. Of the sinners, I am the first 14, speak. From pride comes pompousness, cold treatment without any sincerity towards those who are lower than us or from whom we do not hope to benefit ourselves. Do not be faint-hearted and do not be discouraged when men hate you for rebuking their ways, but rejoice even more, remembering the words of the Savior: blessed will you be when men hate you... (Luke 6:22). And wish every good thing to the one who hates and blasphemes you, especially the salvation of the soul. Admonish him with meekness and love, even if he does not want to listen to you, if he resists you, he laughs at you. Be patient with everyone (cf. 1 Thessalonians 5:14), like the Master. Do not be angry with parishioners who lie to you - in order to rush you to the service at a time when you have no time for it, perhaps, but remembering the many of your sins and, in particular, how often you yourself flatter God with your tongue (cf. Ps. 5:10, 14:3) in prayer - humble yourself before God and leave your neighbor his debt and pray for him, so that God has forgiven you your sins. What to do? We are all sinners. We must correct those who sin with meekness and under no circumstances become irritated or angry. You, who correct others and hear rudeness from them, remember the saying of the Holy Scripture - do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (Rom. 12:21). They are rude to you, they irritate you, they breathe contempt and malice at you - do not repay the same, but be quiet, meek and affectionate, respectful and loving towards those who behave unworthily in front of you. If you yourself become embarrassed and speak with emotion, rudely, contemptuously and, therefore, without any love, then you yourself are defeated and those who offended you have the right to say: doctor, heal yourself (Luke 4:23), or: why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye, but do you not recognize the log in your eye? First remove the logs from your mind, and then... (Matthew 7:3, 5); Do not be surprised then if rudeness from those who insult you is often repeated to you, for they will notice your weakness and will deliberately irritate you. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (Rom. 12:21). Show the one who insulted you that he did not offend you, but himself, take pity on him heartily, that he is so conveniently overcome by his passions, that he is mentally ill, show him the greater meekness and love, the ruder and more irritable he is, the more he hates you: and you will surely defeat him. Good is always stronger than evil and therefore is always victorious. Remember also that we are all weak and are extremely easily overcome by any passion, and therefore be meek and lenient towards those who sin against you, knowing that you yourself often suffer from the same illness as your brother; forgive your debtors, and the Heavenly Father will forgive you your debts (cf. Matthew 6:12), unlike the great debts of your debtors. Be always calm, sublime, unobtrusive and strong in spirit, and simple and kind in heart; and you will always triumph over your enemies. Do not reprove the unrighteous, lest he hate you. Rebuking the wicked wounds him. Tell the righteous, and he will receive it (cf. Proverbs 9:8, 7, 9). Teach blessings to the poor and others who require blessings with meekness and humility, slowly and with patience, and God grant you to bless with disdain and contempt in the heart of any beggar, in whose person is Christ Himself, who became poor for our sake, Himself born of a poor Mother who spent her life in poverty. Always try to caress a boy or girl of another religion or belief when you see her in a circle of Orthodox boys or girls at school - so that you will give glory to Your meek and humble Christ, and to your faith, which allows for great tolerance of religions and faiths, according to the word of Christ, and by no means have indignation or zeal in your heart for the innocent children, although they are of a different faith, for example Jewish or Tatar. When addressing and talking with other people, carefully observe the movements of your heart, so that it does not deceive, does not be hypocritical, say what you feel, or speak from the heart, sincerely. What is not in the heart, let not be on the lips. For example, do not invite into your house with your tongue someone whom your heart does not want to invite: otherwise you will fall into hypocrisy. Or in other words: if you invite someone to your place, then invite them with your heart and lips. Do not be double-minded and do not serve the liar-devil with your hypocrisy (cf. John 8:44). Also carefully watch the movements of your eyes, or better yet, the movements of your soul in your eyes, so that they do not look at anyone unchastely, or maliciously, or disdainfully, or enviously. – Always remember that the Lord is watching you, and the enemy is watching your heel (cf. Gen. 3:15), like a roaring lion prowling around seeking to devour you (cf. 1 Pet. 5:8). From the heart comes the evil eye (Mark 7:21, 22). Believe a sick person who frankly says about himself that he is sick, and do not torture him with disbelief and suspicion of the truth of his words, so that God does not send you the same illness as his and give you experience to find out what a bitter insult it is for a sick person when they do not believe his illness and torment him with offensive suspicion. – When you measure accordingly, it will be measured back to you (Matthew 7:2). Go quickly to fulfill every need when anyone calls you, remembering that you must be, according to the word of the Savior, a servant of all (See: Matt. 20:25-28) and that disobedience is a sin equal to idolatry: just as sin is idolatry, so sin is disobedience (Cf.: 1 Samuel 15:23), and that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Supreme Shepherd (1 Pet. 5:4) was obedient even to death (Phil. 2:8) for the sake of our salvation 15, the death of the cross (Phil. 2:8). I would save everyone, that I might save everyone (1 Cor. 9:22). The priest must adapt to the diverse characters of people, patiently enduring their weaknesses, passions, bad habits, obstinacy, ardor, etc. - so that he can save some. Therefore, what is primarily required of a priest is meekness and humility, kindness, long-suffering, mercy and compassion. When dealing with people, the enemy tries to push us away from them with feelings of malice and wickedness, which are murderous for ourselves and plunge us into despondency, but we should not pay attention to this hellish smoke in the heart, spread by Satan, but we must talk with people with love, simplicity and trust. How does this happen to us? Some of the laity will not kiss hands - that’s nothing; the other one doesn’t kiss - it’s a disaster, we’re offended. Do not seek honor, but to admonish the ignorant: for they do not know what they are doing (Luke 23:34), they do not know that the honor given to the priest is given to Christ... Woe, woe, woe to us, the shepherds, that we do not reprove, forbid and beg (Compare: 2 Tim. 4:2) Christians so that they behave like Christians. We are silent, but our sheep go where they shouldn’t and do what they shouldn’t; we slumber, and the wolf plunders and destroys them (cf. John 10:12); We do not shine for them with our teaching and life, but they are covered by the alien darkness of the accursed 16, and in this darkness they do all sorts of deeds of destruction. My God! What have we come to? – It is impossible to recognize Christians in us: we all live in the flesh, not in the spirit, we all did not even think of crucifying our flesh with passions and lusts (Gal. 5:24), we are all innocent: do not do goodness (Ps. 13:3). What kind of shepherds are we that we scatter our sheep - and they fast in different places for no reason and leave their spiritual fathers? O shepherds! Shepherds! Shepherds feed themselves (Ezek. 34:3, 8, 10), they only make money, they line their pockets, they play cards, they are jealous of amusements, but they do not feed the Lord’s sheep! They dress in waves (Ezek. 34:3), but do not think about protecting them from the mental wolf 17. A hireling, like a shepherd, who is not his own sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep, and the wolf plunders and scatters the sheep (John 10:12). Until we, the priests, rise up against all the outrages on the feasts of the Lord, and which of the priests of God will have the zeal of Eli (See: 1 Kings 17:1, 18:36–37), or Phinehas (See: Num. 25:7–11), or Isain (See 2 Kings 19–20), or Jeremiah (See: Jer. 1:9-10) (to rise with the power of the Holy Spirit against all these outrages on the feasts of the Lord in the new Israel), so that all your strength, your whole life, can be used for the glory of God - to eradicate these indecencies among Christians? - God! When will we hallow Thy feasts, as befits saints? When will we console our holy mother Church by obedience to her statutes, when will we drink in her spirit? – How long, having begun in the spirit, will we finish in the flesh (Wed: Gal.3:3) the celebration of the great, saving events of the Orthodox faith? How long will the enemy mock the members of Christ (cf. 1 Cor. 6:15), who are Christians? How long will people of other faiths point to us and say: “Look! Here are Christians who call themselves Orthodox! How they live! What faith they have in their hearts! What knowledge do they have about faith! What kind of priests they have! How badly they teach the people the faith, how little they explain to them the holidays, their object and purpose of establishment! How little they teach them to live by faith!” My God! What a criticism of our Orthodox faith and of us shepherds! Or, however, perhaps what they say about us shepherds is fair? There is a lot of our fault that Christians do not spend holidays as they should; We do not rebuke, we do not forbid, we do not implore them with all long-suffering and teaching (Compare: 2 Tim. 4:2) - to conduct holidays and generally live in a Christian way. We talk little about idleness, drunkenness, debauchery, we do not thunder in the Church of God with the Word of God against these vices that have terribly taken hold of the Christians of our city, almost more than anywhere else. We do not always excommunicate, out of fear, from the Holy Chalice those known for their drunkenness and adultery, and thereby allow these contagious and vile vices to increase more and more; We give weak penances in confession to persons who deserve strict church punishment; we do not monitor, as we should, the fulfillment of those penances that we impose on them! Righteous God! Both shepherds and flock are irresponsible before You. We all deviated, and together we failed: not one of us should do goodness, not even one (Cf.: Ps. 13:3). What will finally happen given the existing disorder in Your Church? Lawlessness spreads across the earth; the enemy's kingdom is spreading; Your kingdom is shrinking: there are few of Your chosen ones, in whose hearts You rest; There are many slaves of the devil, in whose hearts the original murderer sits like a thief (cf. John 8:44)! What will you do to us, Lord? The Blood of Your Covenant cries out from the earth; Your Gospel voice does not penetrate the hearts of Christians, Your commandments are neglected, Church statutes are trampled upon. What will you do to us, Lord? - God! Send zealous workers into Thy garden, not seeking their own, but seeking Thy Christ (cf. Phil. 2:21). Grant them zeal, prophetic and apostolic power and wisdom, may they tirelessly cultivate the fields of human hearts day and night! Priests of the Lord! When you pray in church with the people, pray heartily for the people present 18 and all Orthodox Christians, and do not pray only for yourself, for example, when preparing for communion during the service. This is displeasing to the Master; pray especially for the sheep of the Lord entrusted to you: you were appointed for them and serve. Then only you are allowed to pray for yourself during the service, when before the service you have bound yourself by some sin, because of your sins you do not have the boldness to pray for people; but, having brought sincere repentance for yourself, immediately pray for people; also - when there are no people in the church on weekdays, and on Sundays and holidays and days of Great Lent, be sure to pray for the people ahead and with them. Do not be priests in name only: the Lord has entrusted His sheep, your spiritual guard, to your prayer. How better for you to shepherd the sheep, if not with prayer and words? Therefore, try to preach often and simply, from the heart, at every opportunity. Reprove mercilessly in the home and in church. Whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God (James 4:4). Therefore, we must wage war against the adulterous and sinful world, we must be harsh and truthful in the society of the world. Where the matter concerns the common good, there one must abandon one’s self-esteem and put aside every slightest concern about one’s honor. You are a servant of the Truth of God: why should you be embarrassed, fearing the inconsistency and unfavorable opinion of others about yourself? Let them think as much as they want, but you know your business. Remember that the spiritual one strives for everything, but he himself does not compete with one (1 Cor. 2:15). No one will judge you. Do not extend your priestly hand, which often holds the Holy Lamb, to everyone, and especially to those who do not love the Lamb of God and are swept away from His church. Conduct yourself with the dignity befitting your rank and do not humiliate your priestly dignity, the dignity of the Church of which you serve as a representative. Extend your hand thoughtfully. Otherwise they will say: he extends his hand to us, which means we still mean something; This means that our affairs are still okay, we can go on a spree and not go to church. Look: the devil uses another person as an instrument for himself and through him approaches you with flattering words: “Father, do me a favor - intercede for such and such before such and such; write at least two or three words – and it’s a win. “You,” he will add, “there is nothing to say, are held in high esteem and great respect here; just your name and the job will be done.” Do not accept, look, these devilish words that incite pride; If you accept it, you will find yourself proud, like a star, who dreamed of himself as something great and for that was cast down from the heights of lordship (See: Is. 14:12–15). Say: I am an ordinary person among ordinary people, a sinner among sinners, a weak person among weak people, a person who does not deserve any special respect. - However, if you hope that your request for the poor and those in need of a place in the service will be successful before man, do not refuse to do it, out of Christian love. A priest often has to confess his faith outside the church before people of all nations, religions, classes, ranks, and morals. How should you confess? – Through carrying the Holy Gifts, the Holy Cross, and holy icons into homes. Here he is the confessor of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Life-giving Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ, the confessor of His redemptive merits for us, the confessor of the dogma of the veneration of saints, especially the Most Pure Mother of God, and the dogma of the veneration of holy icons. May your heart be firm in holy reverence for the borne Holy Gifts, for the Honorable Cross and the holy icons, and may you not be ashamed of the holiness of faith before any human faces (cf. Deut. 1:17), but graciously embrace them in your heart with faith and love and firmly believe that the procession of the Holy Gifts, and the Holy Honorable Cross, and the holy icons is air The ground on which they rush is also sanctified. Do not allow the devil to touch your heart and enter into it by irritation with the faces asking you to make a procession of the cross with images into their home, do not despise their pious desire from the simplicity of faith of what is happening - on the contrary, learn from them the simplicity, zeal and fervor of faith. - Especially do not allow yourself to become blind and evil irritability and blasphemy against the most holy icons, firmly believing that icons are, as it were, the most holy, for example, the icon of the Mother of God as if it were the Most Pure Mother of God, and placing your special happiness in accompanying them to the place of zealous and pious Christians and back. - So, do not be ashamed to confess the crucified Lord for us in the Life-Giving Mysteries and in His Cross, just as do not be ashamed to confess the holy saints of God in their honest icons and, as if they themselves, venerate their images. The priest needs to notice and remove moral weeds from the people, and for this he needs to have intercourse with society. We go to the neighboring towns and cities, and there we preach: for this I died (Mark 1:38). So a priest must walk around his parish in order to preach the Kingdom of God to everyone: for this he came and came, for this he was appointed by God. You, the spiritual father, need to visit your spiritual children (and instill them in others) and see how they live, whether in a Christian way, with the fear of God, whether they remember the commandments of the Lord and try to fulfill them, especially whether they live in mutual love, whether they remember the promises of Christ; whether they are close to the church of God, whether they read God’s Word and listen to it in church; Do they go to confession and communion every year? Will they not become stuck in laziness and negligence, in drunkenness and other vices - and admonish and frighten the careless with the fear of God's Judgment, and encourage the pious with the promises of Christ. – If possible, you should try to know all your parishioners (...) Always firmly believe in the right given to you by the Lord - to teach the Christian people faith and pious life and with firmness, with reason, in time and at the wrong time, teach the people of God with authority, knowing that you will answer before God at the Judgment, as you taught people to be faithful and pious. Teach diligently and carefully to every disciple or every Christian: for their angels in heaven always see the face of their Father in heaven (Matthew 18:10). When you want to teach truth and goodness to the people of God, then approach this with full faith and with hope in God and for success, and say to yourself internally: this is what teaching has made of me, of me, a rude, village boy; The teaching can do the same with others, because these people are people like me, also created in the image of God (cf. Gen. 1:27). If you take up the tug, be strong: if you take up writing and speaking conversations, think more, with all your heart, about their subject; read for them, collect treasures from the Holy Scriptures and the works of the holy fathers: and things will go well. You start preaching, and you have no desire; darkness in the head, coldness in the heart; if you feel an extreme aversion to work - do not be discouraged, but gather and strain the strength of your spirit and, calling on the Lord for help, write: at first the work will be difficult, dry, sluggish, and then, God willing, it will go easily and well, briskly. Doesn’t this often happen with our prayer? At first there is no desire to pray, but lazy flesh is always ready to run away from prayer; and then, as soon as you overcome yourself, prayer begins to flow smoothly, from the heart, with desire: and your heart will warm up and it will become so easy, easy for you - so that sometimes you would pray for a long, long time. - So, just force yourself, just strain your strength in the holy work - and it will go; but it’s bad if you get lazy and don’t force yourself to do something: the lazy flesh expects that, it’s for it, it’s happy. You look: the matter is postponed and postponed until the deadline comes and trouble is at hand. Likewise, lazy Christians put off the repentance of their souls from day to day, not wanting to force themselves to repent today or this week. When you preach a sermon, have high respect for it, as for the Lord’s living seed, and look at yourself with respect, as for the Lord’s life-giving, which he gives to his servants during the life-giving (cf.: Luke 12:42). Don’t be embarrassed, don’t lose your opinion because of anything, even if the sermon wasn’t brilliant: the simpler and more heartfelt, the better it is; even if your voice is not good, sonorous or graceful, even if your appearance does not promise anything - remember that the Lord is with you and He speaks through your mouth. – He is our only Teacher, our Shepherd, our High Priest. When you speak the truth of God in church or at school, or anywhere in the house, speak it with heartfelt conviction and firmness, without hesitating or weakening your heart in the least, being far from thoughts of doubt and from any selfish thought: where the truth of God is, there is a stronghold, there our glory must be completely trampled upon. - Don’t think about how or what to say, but say completely artlessly what God puts on your heart, in complete hope of Him. And for this, be all in your heart, conversing with the God of your heart (Compare: Ps. 73:26), loving Him and being zealous for His glory. When teaching boys or preparing conversations to teach the people the truths of faith and activity, be extremely attentive to yourself, so that your heart is with you, so that it freely and willingly controls its subject, and do not allow in your heart - through prayer and remembrance of Jesus Christ - the devil's kindling and opposition or the internal paralysis of your heart by the devil's machinations. Chew it yourself, and give what you chewed to the parishioners... Take your time, think and discuss what you are saying, so as not to create absurdities. When you speak in a meeting, do not think about your honor, but keep in mind - to serve the Truth with your speech; Don’t think to yourself: I’ll say something bad and they’ll judge me; The truth is simple: speak simply and calmly. It’s a sin to blush for yourself ahead of time. You have been given from God everything that is given to others. Distrust of oneself in speech and embarrassment are the same as the action of any passion in life. All the work of the devil. One must always be a believer or gullible, always be good-natured and not lose heart. They have noticed and strongly emphasized that you write your conversations briefly, unproductively, setting out the pure truth, but you still do not come to your senses and write at length, with the intention of showing off, and as a result your conversations are slow and unsuccessful. Throw away all human glory and all artificiality and speak simply! When composing conversations, put aside all pride and any desire to shine with expressions. Simplicity. Be lower than every word, every thought read in sacred books, or even in worldly books of good content: for, predominantly, in sacred books every word is an image of the Supreme Mind and Word, Which are simple in their essence, like our thought and word, or infinitely simpler. See to it that God (the Trinity) is the basis of all your thinking and speech and activity, just as air is the basis of the articulate sounds of words. When you are going to write a sermon, concentrate entirely on your subject, give yourself entirely to it. And for this, be sure to establish a specific object that you are talking about, and examine it from all sides in order to present it, if possible, as it is. Note: the sermon should be dominated by simplicity and unity of the main thought, around which all private thoughts would revolve, like planets around the sun. – God is a Simple Being, like our soul. Therefore, the main quality of a sermon is simplicity, on which depends the warmth of the heart, clarity of thought and words, and a strong effect on the hearts of the listeners. The Savior's word is incredibly simple. – Apostolic – also, because it is presented in the form of letters, in the form of a conversation between a father and his children. When composing conversations, do not have the goal of publishing them, but have the goal of teaching your flock with them. Always have it before your eyes. Don't be distracted from reality. Write from life. Writing for a publication means pride. Do God’s work—preaching—with joy and great diligence, and not at all lazily, reluctantly, or carelessly. My brothers! Do every task entrusted to you on time and overcome the attraction to peace and inaction. Especially you, brothers, who write edifying works or preach the Word of God. Pay attention. The crafty flesh keeps distracting us from urgent matters. I sat for a while, just started to get started, as she said: that’s enough, now go for a walk, you didn’t walk much today, but you need to take a walk for your health. You go for a walk, you walk, an hour passes and another; you come home, and then guests have arrived or some other obstacle to your work has been encountered: the flesh is glad of this, and the work is not done again and is again postponed, a task, by the way, that cannot be postponed and loses a lot from lazy postponement; and in such negligence days after days pass, the talent does not multiply, but is buried in the ground (See: Matt. 25:13-30), and responsibility is called upon the head of the idle on the day of righteous reward. Brethren, be careful not to be lazy (Rom. 12:11) - according to the advice of the Apostle. Self-sacrifice is necessary for a person at every step when doing any good deed: it often and very often happens that in order to do a good deed one must sacrifice one’s peace of mind and even one’s health; If you don’t sacrifice, you won’t get the job done, or you’ll do it in bad faith and you won’t receive the crown that the Lord would reward for a good deed done in good faith. Apply this, shepherds, to your preaching works. Be extremely careful that the hellish dog in your heart does not bark at God’s truth, proclaimed in the Word of God and in the church. When you read sermons or any other sacred books, accept with an open, simple, humble heart the teaching of truth or the rules of life, try to imprint it in the depths and with all your heart give thanks to the All-Holy Spirit, who guides us through His chosen ones into all truth (Compare: John 16:13). Nowadays there is a very abundance of sermons and various books of spiritual content; do not neglect this abundance, but even more so thank the Most Generous and Greatly Gifted God, who gives us the gifts of spiritual wisdom in infinite abundance. - Remember that the writers of spiritual writings are not content to think that they are from themselves, as if from themselves, but their contentment, their ability to speak the truth with anointing, with spiritual power, comes from God (2 Cor. 3:5). Amen. Look how kindly and wisely the Lord God arranged it: the bee works, collecting honey not for itself, but for others, for the pleasure of people. So you should not only work for yourself and use the fruits of your labors, but for others: let others taste the sweetness of your labors. – And this is both in spiritual and everyday, economic terms. – Rejoice that you can be an instrument of God’s infinite goodness to others, a conductor of His bounties to His rational creatures, worthy or unworthy. A priest should read not for curiosity, not for news, but to excite himself for preaching, that is, when reading books, he must keep in mind the spiritual benefit of parishioners. Therefore, keep all idle reading away from the priest, lest those who talk idle be judged at the Judgment. The priest must take care of the formation of the gift of speech. We, preachers, only need to help God’s actions on human hearts, catch their ready dispositions to repentance and strengthen them. The action or inaction of preaching words is based on the mutual intuition or understanding of our souls of each other: if the preacher does not speak from the heart, hypocritically, the listeners with their inner instinct understand the discrepancy between the preacher’s words and his heart, with his life, and the word does not have the power that it could bring if the preacher uttered it from the heart, especially when he himself fulfilled his word in practice. There is too close an internal connection and communication between human souls, which is why good, pious, heartfelt dispositions are communicated to the souls of others, especially good deeds. Since a person consists of a soul and a body, then accordingly the means for maintaining his life are twofold: bodily and spiritual. The following are used to maintain bodily life: air, food, drink, light, warmth; to maintain spiritual life - prayer (like air), reading the Word of God, Life-giving Mysteries, pious reflections. When a priest speaks a sermon, or serves in church, or performs any Sacrament or prayer, then the Holy Spirit seals, instills, increases and confirms what is said in the hearts of those present: the words are heard in the air, and He gives them power and action or accomplishment. When priests teach in church or at home: then one God teaches, who gives everyone mouth, light and understanding (cf. 1 John 5:20). Confession is the pangs of birth. Just as grandmothers help during childbirth, so that the mother is safely delivered as a baby, so priests must help those suffering from the pangs of spiritual birth, so that they are safely resolved by their sins - these creatures of hell, these Babylonian babies who should be smashed against a stone - Christ (Wed: Ps. 136: 8, 9). Priests must help the unbelief of their spiritual children to be born into a living and firm faith, and for this they themselves must certainly be strong in faith, so that in the event of the spiritual drowning of their spiritual children by unbelief, they can be brought to the solid shore of faith with their unshakable faith. – But if the teacher of faith is himself unfaithful, where will the one of little faith get help and reinforcement for himself? - In the danger of lack of faith and disbelief, he needs a teacher like him, strong in faith, to support his weak faith, especially if faith is needed quickly, without delay. Then the strong word of the priest, the calm word of sublime and firm faith, will immediately return the wavering one to firm faith. Woe is it when dryness meets dryness, when a priest in confession, himself struck by the enemy in his heart and morally deadened, meets a spiritual child who is not at all prepared for confession, insensitive, cold, unresponsive. And how many there are! During confession, on the right side of the priest stands the devil, who resists him (cf. Zech. 3:1) throughout the entire celebration of the Sacrament, in order, as much as possible, to prevent the priest from confessing calmly, sensibly and wisely, in order to inflame him into impatience, in order to darken his heart and mind, while taking away from those confessing the feeling of their sins, making them cold, unresponsive, ignorant of their own sins. Before the communion of his spiritual children in Lent, the confessor bears, according to the definition of God's Truth, the severity of punishment for those sins for which they [the children] should have been removed from communion and for which, however, he did not remove them. Public confession for a priest is a school of self-sacrifice. How many reasons for the pride of priests for impatience, irritability, laziness, contemplation, negligence, and inattention! – Here is a touchstone of the priest’s love for his parishioners! A priest should by no means live in bliss and especially cherish himself with sleep and pleasant foods and drinks, otherwise the devil will easily stifle his heart with some passion and plunge him into crampedness and relaxation. - Crucify, be sure to crucify your belly! Confession for a priest is a feat of love for his spiritual children, not looking at faces (cf.: James 2:1), long-suffering, merciful, not arrogant, not proud, not looking for one’s own (one’s own peace of mind, self-interest), not being irritated, not rejoicing or not condoning untruth, but rejoicing in the truth, which covers all, endures all, no longer falling away (Compare: 1 Cor. 13:4–8). Here it is clear, the priest himself sees, his spiritual children see - he is a shepherd or a hired hand (cf. John 10:12), a father or a stranger to his children, whether he is looking for his own or even Christ Jesus (Phil. 2:21). - My God! How difficult it is to confess properly! How many obstacles there are from the enemy! How gravely you sin before God by confessing improperly! How the word becomes impoverished! How the source of the word is blocked - the heart! How language changes the mind! ABOUT! How much preparation is needed for confession! How much you need to pray for the successful completion of this feat! And what ignorance of spiritual children! – Day and night you need to sit with them: teach each of them with calmness, meekness and long-suffering. What a cross for a priest - confession! Because of the consciousness of the ignorance of those confessing, their coldness, all kinds of sinfulness and because of the consciousness of their wretchedness, their weakness, lethargy, the inertia of their hearts towards sympathy and zeal for the glory of God and the salvation of their neighbors, as for their own! And how many crosses the devil puts on you during confession! He transforms the work of love, the work of a conversation between a father and his children, into the work of a slave or into the work of a mercenary with slaves, reluctantly paying them back! By performing the Sacrament of Repentance, you feel both your most remorseful repentance before God and all the poverty, ignorance, and sinfulness of human nature. The cross, truly the cross is a confession! What a debtor a priest feels to his spiritual children during confession! Truly an unpaid debtor, guilty of Heavenly Truth and deserving of a thousand fires of hell. You see and feel that with people’s deep ignorance of the truths of faith and their sins, with their petrified insensibility, 19 the confessor must pray firmly, firmly for them and teach them day and night, early and late. - Oh, what ignorance! They don't know the Trinity! They don't know who Christ is! They don’t know why they live on earth! - What about the falls? “And we are looking for enrichment, peace, we don’t like work, we get irritated when there is more of it than usual!” – We are looking for a spacious home, all kinds of convenience. - No, brother, do not seek wealth, a spacious home, rich clothes - lest you love earthly peace, lest you become lazy, lest you neglect your spiritual affairs, and lest you lose eternal blessings and heavenly peace. – For those who have tasted the abundance of worldly peace here, what peace can they expect there? Are you going to repent? Feel your sins and look for tears. Every week of Lent one must prepare daily for confession. Before confession, you don’t need to eat anything hot, so as not to somehow outweigh your carnal life over your spiritual one, but drink cold water and generally eat as little as possible. Do not be discouraged by grief, crampedness, coldness, powerlessness and insensibility of the heart during confession, but even in crampedness and insensibility, do God’s work, constantly sighing to the Lord for mercy, knowing that hordes of evil demons are treacherous over you. However, train yourself in advance for confession by reading the Holy Scriptures and the writings of the holy fathers or their lives. Prepare for confession with prayer and fasting; arouse in yourself a thirst to work with all zeal for the glory of God and for the salvation of human souls. Give up calmness and self-indulgence in general for the time of confession - and for the entire time of serving the verbal sheep. Surrender yourself completely, put yourself into the salvation of your neighbors. Keep in mind the example of the Lord, who says: “Today I will rise, I will rely on salvation, I will not complain about it” (Ps. 11:6). Meditate and gain wisdom for the salvation of human souls. Teach, reprove, rebuke, plead with all longsuffering (2 Tim. 4:2). Read the Gospel, the Acts of the Holy Apostles and the Apostolic Epistles with the Apocalypse more often in order to learn how to save sinners. - Rejoice when the work of confession comes - in the hope that with this work you will greatly please your Master Jesus Christ, Who came for this purpose, as it were, to call sinners to repentance (cf. Matthew 9:13), - this means that you are doing the dearest, dearest thing to your Christ; equally in the hope that this work will not exhaust, but will strengthen your body, according to the indispensable and everlasting dispensation of the Life-Giver. Yes, this work strengthens, if you at least perform it conscientiously, both our soul and body, so that our soul becomes stronger in faith, hope and love for God and in virtue, and our heart becomes purer. – How can one who purifies others not purify himself? - And the body becomes stronger - so that for our sleep, for strengthening our bodily strength after confession, we need only the least amount of time - from 4 to 5 hours and that’s enough. “You see, there is no excuse for you to indulge in ardor, impatience and anger in confession, nor haste, thirsting for your enrichment and bodily peace. - Be calm, meek, important, prudent, slow, not selfish, Christ-loving, soul-loving, diligent, hardworking, despising bodily rest. Ask about sins and teach with firmness and sincerity, and not sluggishly and with a divided heart; a firm word will evoke firm repentance, will soon pierce the heart and evoke tears of tenderness and contrition of the heart, but if the priest asks not firmly, but sluggishly, double-mindedly, then the spiritual child, seeing the sluggishness and double-mindedness of the spiritual father, is not himself mentally, heartily disposed to repent. Don’t be hasty: whoever is in a hurry, pursuing another, extraneous goal when doing something (and not that one), whose heart is double, is impatient and cannot do things in good faith, because his attention is distracted by an extraneous goal. When confessing, do not pursue the goal: to collect more money - and rather to go on vacation. Work like an ox. It’s not often that you get to work like this, but according to the words of the Apostle: they are abundant in labor (2 Cor. 11:23). – Don’t look for a person’s property, but for the person himself. How little do you still deserve condemnation and torment 20 from the Lord for confession and those spiritual children who come to you! What would happen, what condemnation would you not deserve, if there were incomparably more of them? How would you deal with them? If this number of spiritual children is far from being due to your weakness, then what can be said about more? “Don’t rush to confess out of jealousy for your comrade, who confesses quickly and a lot.” Remember the words of the Holy Scripture: cursed is everyone who does the work of the Lord with negligence (Jer. 48:10). And repentance is primarily the work of the Lord, who said about Himself: I came to call sinners to repentance (cf. Matthew 9:13). Spiritual sacrilege or extortion, by the way, consists of when a priest deliberately tries to quickly confess as many spiritual children as possible, passing to him from his other brothers, and has the goal of collecting as much money as possible. Beware of covetousness: for there is no time to overflow... his possessions (Luke 12:15). Only then will you perform the Sacrament of Repentance worthily, when you are not selfish, but loving, when you are patient and not irritable. Oh, what great love is needed for the souls of our neighbors in order to confess them worthily, without haste and without getting excited! The confessing priest must remember that there is joy in heaven for one sinner who repents (Luke 15:10). How should he try to arouse repentant feelings in those who repent, who do not know what to repent of, as it should be (cf. Rom. 8:26). The priest must also remember how the Apostle taught each of the newly enlightened Christians day and night, teaching with tears (cf. Acts 20:31). All selfishness in the work of God must be cast aside - the bribe must be placed in the one God the Lover of Souls. Section 3. “My servant Job will pray...” Liturgical practice: temptations, advice Priest of God! Believe, always believe with all your heart in the grace given to you from God to pray for the people of God: may this greatest gift of God, with which you can save many souls, not be in vain in you; The Master soon hears your heartfelt prayer for people and conveniently bows to mercy towards people, like the prayer of Moses, Aaron, Samuel (Cf. Ps. 98:6), the apostles; atone for every prayer occasion - in church, when you perform Divine services or the Sacraments, at home when performing the Sacraments, prayers and molebens; everywhere and at all times, pray for the salvation of God’s people - and you will gain God’s great grace for yourself. Believe also with all your heart in the God-given right to perform the Sacraments of faith and firmly remember that by the grace of the priesthood that lives in you and invests you, each Sacrament is undoubtedly performed by the Holy Spirit, although you are unworthy and will be unworthy to perform it. But this should not be a reason for you to unworthily perform the Sacraments: the Lord will exact punishment for your unworthy performance, and sin will be yours. Cursed is everyone who does the work of the Lord with negligence (Jer. 48:10), says the Word of God. Do not be lazy with diligence, fervent in spirit, working for the Lord (Rom. 12:11). This instruction of the Apostle must be kept in mind and try to fulfill it both in any service to God, and especially when celebrating the Divine Liturgy: from beginning to end, try to serve it with a burning spirit, with all your heart, with faith and love, by no means allowing your heart to relax, laziness and coldness, having cast away from your heart everything earthly, all worldly cares 21, all worldly passions, everything everyday troubles, all sorts of earthly calculations. The Lord sacrificed Himself on the Cross for our salvation, He gave Himself all to us, giving us His Body and Blood and His soul and His Divinity: we must sacrifice to Him the trampling of all earthly things, present ourselves as a sacrifice, with the sacrifice of everything that is dear to our carnal man on earth. Just as Abraham sacrificed his son (See: Gen. 22:9-10), so we must sacrifice, especially during the Liturgy, our old man to God (Eph.4:22; Col.3:9) with his passions and lusts and crucify him on the cross of self-denial, according to Scripture: they are like Christ, having crucified their flesh with passions and lusts (Gal.5:24). If ever, then especially during the Liturgy, the priest must remember the words of the Lord: we know your deeds, as if you are neither cold nor warm. Oh, that you may be cold or burning. Because you are stupefied, and neither warm nor cold, the Imam vomited you out of My mouth (Rev. 3:15–16). Imagine your body as a living sacrifice, acceptable to God (Rom. 12:1). - Meanwhile, what are many of us doing? They perform services, Sacraments and prayers reluctantly, sluggishly, carelessly, hastily, with omissions, wanting to quickly finish the holy work and rush to the bustle of life. What a terrible deception and what a grave sin! A grave sin, I say, because by performing the Sacrament carelessly, we thereby blaspheme the Holy Place of the Lord. – What needs to be done in order to perform the Sacraments and services with dignity, carefully, and with a burning spirit? - We must always have a living faith that our God, worshiped in the Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - is always with us, looks at us and, at the first word of our sincere prayer for help, is ready to help us in a holy matter, for the prayer of faith (James 5:15), like breath for our body, is absolutely necessary for us while we live on earth: what breath is for the body, the prayer of faith is for the soul. Remembering that the Almighty is always with us, and having Him as the very thing in our thoughts, rejecting from our hearts all thoughts of doubt, worldly cares and passions, we will always do God’s work worthily. At the same time, you involuntarily remember the formidable word of the Lord to the careless performers of His works: cursed is everyone who does the work of the Lord with negligence (Jer. 48:10)! I said: what a terrible seduction! Yes, a terrible deception, because in our blindness we neglect the words of the Holy Spirit, breathing in the prayers of the Sacraments and services, we neglect the very thing that would serve for us, with proper diligence and zeal, as a source of sweet peace, joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17) and even a source of bodily health, for the words of prayers read during services and Sacraments, read with faith, with reverence, the fear of God, a calm, burning spirit, they have an undoubted and wonderful property, together with the soul, to revive, strengthen and heal our very body. – This has been proven by experience. Look at the throne as you look at life. After the worthy performance of the service and the Sacrament, always thank the Lord with a short prayer from the bottom of your heart, that He has vouchsafed you with all your heart, with faith and love, to serve Him, His most loving intentions and deeds, for our service to the Lord, the All-Creator and our Redeemer, is the greatest gift and benefit to us sinners - very fruitful both for those who receive God’s sanctification and salvation through us, and for ourselves, because for us pacifies, revitalizes and pleases them too. (...) When you perform a service or a Sacrament, or a prayer, firmly believe and remember that it is through you that the Holy Spirit, who accomplishes everything, speaks and acts, descending on you through the episcopal ordination in the Sacrament of the Priesthood, and not your weakness; believe that in all prayers the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, the Life-giving Spirit breathes, 22 and do not doubt the truth of a single word, not a single sacred action. That in the words and actions of services, Sacraments and prayers the Life-giving Spirit of truth breathes - this is proven clearly and palpably by the fact that when you perform a service, a Sacrament, a prayer with unashamed, undoubted faith, you feel in your heart a heavenly peace that surpasses all understanding (Phil. 4:7), joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17) and holiness and bliss. Amen. So that you know and, so to speak, see with your eyes that the grace of the All-Holy, All-Powerful and Life-Giving Spirit is always inherent in you, during every church service you put on an stole - it is like an ointment of grace descending from your head to your feet (cf. Ps. 132:2) yours: for the grace of God has been abundantly poured out on you (and instill this in others). Be faith an instrument of the Almighty Spirit. During the service, have firm confidence that your heart is in the hand of God (Cf.: Proverbs 21:1). If the devil plots his intrigues over him, begins to confuse him with something, say to yourself with undoubted faith: my heart is in the hand of God. When you pray to the Lord and ask Him for yourself or for other benefits, spiritual, heavenly and material, earthly, then for complete confidence in receiving what you ask for or in general the good that is most beneficial for us according to the wisdom and goodness of God, keep in mind and in your heart the following words of the Savior: ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; ask, and it will be opened to you: everyone you ask He receives, and he who seeks finds, and it is opened to him who interprets. Or whoever is a man from you... (if his son asks for bread, food will give him a stone... how much more will your Heavenly Father) give good things to those who ask Him (Matthew 7:7-11). When during prayer you doubt the possibility of fulfilling any of your requests, then remember that from God’s side the whole point is possible (Mark 10:27) - to grant you, except for direct evil, which is characteristic only of the devil, that the very word or your very request for something is already a sure guarantee on your part that its fulfillment is possible, for if I could only think about something, whether it is possible for me or impossible, then this is something certainly possible for the Lord, for whom one thought is already a deed, if He deigns to carry it out. Yes, and for you, this requested good already exists in word - and only does not exist in deed, but for this, that is, for bringing the request to fulfillment, He has the Son - the Creator, and the Holy Spirit is the Finisher. To the ability to accomplish everything add His infinite goodness, according to which He is the ever-flowing Source 23 of both being and all the gifts of being: He is the God of gifts, the God of mercy and bounty 24 . Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; push, and the door will be opened to you (Matthew 7:7). Add to this the wisdom of God, which in its gift knows how to choose for us the best, the most appropriate good to our spiritual and physical state. “On your part, what is required is firm, undoubted confidence in the possibility of your request being fulfilled for the Lord, and also that your request is certainly good, about something good, and not about something bad.” He will give, it is said, good things to those who ask Him (Matthew 7:11). When you rebuke the devil in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, then this very name, sweetest for us and terrible and bitter for demons, itself creates power, like a two-edged sword (cf. Heb. 4:12). Likewise, if you ask something from the Heavenly Father or do something in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, then the Heavenly Father will give you everything in the Holy Spirit in the name of His beloved Son, if you do His commandments; and in the Sacraments - and, despite your unworthiness, he will give a gift to the believers. – Where the name of God is used with faith, there it accomplishes power: for the very Name of God is power. When you doubt the truth of the words of any holy father, for example, John Chrysostom in his Divine Liturgy, or when performing other Sacraments, you doubt the words of prayers and the devil will confuse and weaken your heart, remember the words of the Savior in the Gospel: can food create evil from a good tree? (Wed: Matthew 7:18). Or the words of the Apostle: food can make one and the same source sweet and make water sweet? (Wed: James 3:12). Or the words of the Savior: by their fruit you will know them (Matthew 7:20). And Saint John Chrysostom showed only good fruits in his life and works: the voice of his contemporaries and the works of his pen reveal in him a completely holy man. The Holy Spirit Himself glorified him even after death, making his body incorruptible and miraculous, like a church of the soul, completely sanctified by His grace. Remember also the words of the Savior to the disciples: I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Comforter, that he may be with you forever (John 14:16). You will guide him into all truth (John 16:13). You see: the Holy Spirit is always with us - especially the shepherds (and the flock), and He guides us into all truth. If the words of any prayer, song or conversation during the Divine Service seem to you to have been said stupidly or inappropriately, in a word: when you feel contempt and blasphemy towards them, which you did not feel in yourself before, for example, when reading at home, and, on the contrary, found them smart and perfectly corresponding to the essence of the matter itself, then know that the spirit of pride and blasphemy is at work in you, which means you yourself allowed ascend to this spirit - and immediately repent, if you can, with tears. Oh, how guilty, vile, unworthy of God and His saints you feel at this time of contempt and blasphemy - what a devil! How easy it is for a person to quickly fall through the heaviest fall! And You allow this to be in us, O our God, so that we learn to constantly look to You alone and to Your infinite wisdom, and to consider our minds foolish and foolish, so that we do not attach our hearts to anything earthly (Compare: Ps. 61:11), so that we always remember our wretchedness, our poverty, misery, blindness and nakedness (Compare: Rev. 3:17) and, remembering this, were always humble before You and before their neighbors, considering themselves truly the most sinful, the worst, the stupidest and the last of all, so as not to condemn their neighbors, to be lenient towards their infirmities, weaknesses and passions, considering their sins to be incomparably graver than their sins, respecting and loving them and thus fulfilling the first and Your main commandment: love one another (John 13:34, 15:12, 17). – Nothing makes us so blind and uncommunicative with our neighbors as pride; and it is deeply rooted in our hearts: it is this that must be eradicated from the heart by all means; This is what the Heavenly Physician, who knows all the secrets of the heart, expels from us at the right opportunity, if we do not resist Him, through misfortunes, various sorrows and illnesses. While healing her, the Lord sends upon us unforeseen and sudden temptations, which we would not like to bear and about which, however, we must say to the Lord: Lord! If this cup cannot pass by Me, Thy will be done! - God! Not as I want, but as You want. God! Thy will be done (Wed: Matthew 26:42, 39). This is where you submit where you don’t want to. This is where you humble yourself, where your pride falls completely to dust - where you turn out to be a nonentity, a sinful abomination, an abyss of evil of every kind. Do not allow insolence and contempt in your heart for a moment before God and the Divine, if anything painful or sorrowful happens to you, but generously endure everything - and humble yourself, truly considering yourself as weakness, as sin, as nothing. Insolence, murmuring and contempt are the breath of the devil. Pay attention to yourself. By submission to the will of God, patience, meekness and humility, simplicity and goodness of heart, save your soul. In prayer, in every activity and in your entire life, avoid suspiciousness or doubt and devilish daydreaming: may your spiritual eye be simple, so that the whole body of your prayer, your deeds and your life will be bright (cf. Matthew 6:22). During public prayer, let your whole heart be in God and not at all cleave to anything earthly for a moment; also have a 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; We are all, it is said, in troubles, subject to the charms of the evil one 25. If the enemy, during prayer or when dealing with people, bothers you with thoughts of doubt or blasphemy, or evil thoughts: then in your heart and in your thoughts hold firmly the name of the Lord and resist them in the name of the Lord (Compare: Ps. 117:12). If you are carried away by a stream of nasty and evil and blasphemous thoughts 26 regarding saints or living people, tell the slanderer: we are all people of God - children of God (John 1:12), we are all the property of God, the royal priesthood (because we are sanctified and sanctified by the Lord through the Sacraments, home and public prayer, especially through the suffering for us of our Lord Jesus Christ); that we are a holy language (holy people), people of renewal (1 Peter 2:9) (renewed people - reborn through Baptism, renewed through Repentance and Communion); Although we are sinners, we are God’s, although we are defiled, we are sprinkled with the Most Pure Blood of the Lord, which cleanses us from all sin. As for the saints of God, they are one spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17), the Lord is in them and they are in Him; they are in God, like hot coals in a burning furnace, completely bright, all fiery, without any stain of sin, by the grace of the Master: for the sprinkling of His Blood; for they washed (purified) their garments in the Blood of the Lamb (Rev. 7:14), just as we make the robe of our souls white in the Blood of the same will of the Lamb of God who was slain for all 27 . Melancholy, despondency, despair torment your heart: immediately call the Savior or the Mother of God for help; That’s why the Savior is there, that’s why Mati Spasova is there, to save us from all evils, troubles and misfortunes. An evil thought came into your head during prayer and sank into your heart and stung you, oppresses you, scorches you and darkens you: again know that this is a devilish obsession, a demonic dream, and call again on the Lord to help protect you from the abominations of the enemy. When something arouses laughter in you and your insides rush to laughter, say to yourself: how dare I laugh in the face of the Lord God, before whom one should always be with fear and reverence. I laugh: sin (Eccl. 2:2), - say again through the mouth of the wise Solomon. When sorrow and the oppression of the enemy take hold of your heart, then say: what will separate us from the love of God? sorrow or distress?.. (Rom.8:35). When you stand before the face of God in prayer, whether in church or at home, do not turn and do not attach your heart to anything worldly, so that you do not offend by inattention and negligence the Lord who is at your right hand (Compare: Ps. 15:8) and who listens to you. Standing before the earthly king, do you dare address others without paying attention to the king? Isn't your whole heart then with him? – How much more before the Heavenly King, who holds the hearts of all kings in His hand (Compare: Proverbs 21:1), one must stand with extreme reverence. Do not be afraid of people of every class and condition when performing church services and Sacraments, for example Baptism, Marriage, Blessing of Anointing: they are flesh and blood. What and who should a priest be afraid of during Divine services and especially the Liturgy, for example, at the large entrance? – The Lord is near (Phil.4:5), we must fear Him alone, we must rely on Him alone, but there is nothing to be afraid of people. These are your sheep, whoever they are. Should a shepherd be afraid of sheep? Do not be annoyed by the people standing noisily in the church during and before the wedding: these are demons in them, demons of absent-mindedness and talkativeness. If someone falls asleep on the floor during prayer, do not be upset with him, although you will be frightened by this accidental fall, but cover his weakness with love and raise him up with meekness and kindness. Before a church service or any required service, and also before any civil service, be careful in every possible way so as not to fall into a gloomy, despondent and dissatisfied mood for some reason, so that such disposition of spirit does not lead you to reckless irritability, annoyance and impatience in church or in civil service and does not become the cause of your stumbling in prayer and unworthy agreement with the Lord, the King of peace and love, or the cause of stumbling in the civil service. Usually out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Matthew 12:34). During prayer, this must certainly be done, but how will the lips speak freely from excess, when the heart is dissatisfied, constrained, annoyed, irritated, rushing towards blind haste and words of impatience and anger, when it breathes hatred towards one or those persons who ask you to perform some requirement, ritual or are waiting for your word? – Cursed is everyone, it is said, do the work of the Lord with negligence (Jer. 48:10). Oh, how this curse weighs heavily on you when, without peace in your heart, but with annoyance and irritability towards your neighbor, you say any prayers! - The heart is vague, constricted; the word dries up and stops flowing, like a stream whose source has dried up or dried up. The enemy is very cunning: he usually always tries to confuse us with something before the service, so that during the service we cannot serve with dignity or fruitfully; he always tries to block the very source of our life, thoughts, words - the heart. He stabs everyone, looking out for everyone's weaknesses. Having noticed a weak side in the heart, he usually shoots his arrow at it and hurts the unwary: he strikes those prone to suspiciousness, despondency and cowardice with arrows of suspiciousness and despondency; to pride or vanity - pride and vanity; to envy - envy; to care about worldly things, to stinginess and love of money - with worldly care, stinginess - he kills everyone with whatever is at hand. While standing in prayer, remember that the Heavenly King, the Mother of God, the Heavenly Powers and all the saints are looking at you. How you should stand! What a soul you must have! What sobriety! What humility! Take care that during the celebration of the Divine Liturgy, as well as any other service or Sacrament, the thorns of passions do not furrow in your heart; pay close attention to yourself - be all your eyes; put aside all worldly cares 28 and all malice. Take care by all means that before the service of the Liturgy, especially early, you do not eat much in the evening, but as moderately as possible, tea with one roll, no more and nothing more edible, no oatmeal - nothing like that. “Otherwise, the enemy can strongly stifle our heart with some passion, for example, envy, stinginess, malice and the like. – A similar thing happened to me in the second week of Great Lent, on Saturday - before the Liturgy, during and after the Liturgy. He barely escaped from the mouth of the lion and the serpent (Wed: Ps.90:13). When, standing up for prayer or starting to write a spiritually edifying essay, you feel a reluctance to do something, even to the point of disgust, laziness, relaxation throughout your whole body, then try in every possible way to overcome, overcome yourself and force yourself to do it; remember that our sinful, old man (Eph.4:22; Col.3:9) turns away from everything good and must be forced to do the work by force: the Kingdom of Heaven, says the Savior, is taken by force, and those who use force take it away (Matthew 11:12). Woe to you if you are always overcome by your lazy flesh: you will lose the Kingdom of God through laziness and inaction. My God! How painful it is to see that the evil flesh turns away in every possible way from serious matters and turns with pleasure to some insignificant, empty matter! When the devil hits you with some everyday earthly addiction, for example, to food, drink, clothing, to someone’s face, or passions: envy, stinginess, malice, despondency, pride, doubt, lack of faith or haste in words and wounds your heart and continues his fiery wounding, tightness in the heart, then, sitting at home alone or walking along the road, or even when gathering of people in any house or in a church, tell him in your heart: that you have spread your long tail in me, Satan, that you have let your paw into my heart, fallen archangel - I see you clearly, you will not hide from me, although you are trying in every possible way to hide your tail and your black paw from me; and if you say these words with confidence, he will not tolerate shame, for he is too proud to endure such shame from a lower and weaker creature than himself - and will immediately run away: peace, lightness, joy will take the place of anxiety, heaviness, tightness and languor in the heart. Taken from repeated experiments. “But beware later: he will try to take diabolical revenge on you for this shame.” Be sober and watchful (Wed: 1 Peter 5:8). When, during prayer at home or in church, your heart becomes indignant and embittered towards your brother because of the damage or loss of some thing, even a church thing, do not get carried away by this indignation and malice, but leave all regret for things as perishable, all anger towards your brother and pray with a heart burning with faith and love to your Lord, who is with you and who listens to you: for is it not dearer than all else to you Lord your God? And is it possible, leaving Him, to become attached to something earthly and perishable, even sanctified? Is this not an extreme insult to the Divine, in Whom our whole heart should be? For isn’t there a clear preference here for the thing that we regret and because of which we are indignant and angry with our brother - the Divine, before Whom we stand in prayer? – And don’t we prefer a thing to our brother who damaged it or lost it? - What madness happens to us! Because of a damaged or lost item, we are sometimes ready to tear our brother to pieces; moreover, we condemn him to eternal destruction, send him to hell, to Gehenna! Pray about your brother’s sin as if it were your own, regret his sin as if it were your own, be sorry, but do not be embittered towards him, do not ask the Lord for vengeance on your brother for his sins against you or others. When your brother, a subordinate, disobeyed you in some way, although he had previously been obedient, then carefully consider your actions: did you yourself retain love for him, did you not show hostility towards him in absentia in bitter reviews of him, in reproaches to him, did you condemn him with malice? But his soul senses this, although it is unclear, because we are one body, and so, as you alienate him, so he alienates you. Who is to blame? - You yourself; You don’t know how to get down to business. Pay attention: do not be angry with any disobedient person, but pray for him; and how do you want perfection from another when you yourself are so imperfect? How do you want to correct someone else when you yourself are faulty? – Doctor, heal yourself (Luke 4:23), and then heal others. Do not condemn your brother and do not say: he serves God without a soul, hypocritically, - and do not exalt yourself about him, saying secretly: this is how I serve unhypocritically, from the heart - so that if, in fact, by the grace of God, you serve from the heart, truly, then God would not deprive you of His grace for pride and you would not serve without a soul, without the warmth of faith, hope and love, hypocritically. To serve God always from the heart, sincerely, is the great gift of God, which is given to the humble, self-controlled, kindly and impartial to earthly things! There are few such servants of God! On the other hand, coldness and hypocrisy in prayer are often the fruit in a person’s heart of the devil’s action, the devil’s darkening, the bondage that, although a person feels and from which he wants to get rid of and strives to get rid of, he cannot without the special assistance of the grace of God, which leaves us for a certain time to feel our weakness and our insignificance, our sinfulness, our blindness and recklessness in life and for our conversion to the path Evangelical. When, during a conciliar service or outside the service, you do not want to bow from your heart to the primate, in whom you notice pride, force yourself to worship him sincerely, as the image of God (cf. Gen. 1:27), imprinted on his soul, as the primate bearing the image of the primacy and headship of Christ, and do not pay attention to his pride, but rather teach yourself to humble yourself and walk in love; love does not think evil of a brother and covers everything (Compare: 1 Cor. 13:5, 7). If the devil tempts you during the Liturgy or at other sacred times with anger towards a fellow servant to whom we are not inclined, do not love him for anything and are moving away from him in life, then we must henceforth come closer to him and more often start a brotherly, sincere conversation with him, in order to thus harden our heart in sincere love for him - brotherly love for one another (Rom. 12:10). Behold, whatever is good, or whatever is good, but let the brethren live together (Ps. 133:1). If the devil stops you in prayer with doubt that this prayer is not from God and does not lead to God, tell him: does it lead from you to you? But you, a spirit fallen by pride and malice, do not pray to the All-Creator, the Judge, unless only so that He does not torment you - and then with your characteristic pride and malice, due to the cruelty of the torments you endure, and all church prayers are composed with the greatest humility; and all true prayer books humbly ask the Lord, with a feeling of their wretchedness, poverty, poverty and blindness (Compare: Rev. 3:17) for various benefits, mainly spiritual, according to the commandment of the Lord: seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matthew 6:33); and you, the devil, forever and ever, have never asked and do not ask God for any good, for you are pure evil. (And so from the fruits of prayer, humility.) In addition, all our prayers are holy in content, pure, peaceful, joyful, life-giving. And from whom comes peace, joy (cf. Rom. 14:17) and life? – Is it not from the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Life-Giving 29 . From you, evil soul, comes only anxiety, languor, evil despondency 30 and spiritual death. As you approach the Communion of the Divine Body and Blood of Christ, remember your uncorrectable life, your sinfulness and many passions, and weep over the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29). Do not approach with coldness and insensibility - so that you do not anger the Lamb of God who is so kind to you. What should we do when the waters of unbelief or anger towards our neighbor reach our soul (cf. Ps. 68:2) just before Communion? We must try in every possible way to arouse in ourselves a contrite and humble spirit (Compare: Ps. 50:19) and, if possible, shed tears over our wretchedness 31 . Whether you pray or read, think about everything. Whether you baptize, anoint, perform the Sacrament of Repentance or Communion, Marriage, Blessing of Unction, or offer any other verbal service to the Lord: cast all your sorrow on the Lord, for He cares for you (cf. 1 Peter 5:7). Before serving the Liturgy, always urgently try to strengthen your heart with warm, repentant prayer and do not weaken it in the evening by eating and drinking too much: excessive food and drink is the enemy and persecutor of our faith and love for God and neighbor. Before great holidays, we must be extremely careful not to eat excessively, otherwise the enemy will greatly hinder us and deprive us of the opportunity to rejoice on the holiday and plunge us into sorrow, cramped conditions, despondency and despair. Before the solemn, conciliar service of the Liturgy on holidays and highly solemn days, be extremely careful that the enemy does not overpower you with any passion, for example, malice, or unbelief, or stinginess, or some other thing. In the evening, before cathedral services, eat as little as possible and in general when you serve. A well-fed belly is a convenient means for the enemy to stifle the soul with passions. If you have to perform some pious custom in your home or in another place, for example, even to pray to icons, and your heart slyly doubts the truth and holiness of this custom, do not trust your heart: at that moment it is combined with the devil, but believe without reasoning that this thing is true, because it has been accepted and commanded since ancient times by the God-wise Mother - the Church. So in everything that is accepted by the Church, fulfill it unquestioningly and without reasoning, without hesitation in the least by doubt. Subjecting everything church to the criticism of reason is a sign of pride. When you perform a task, do not think about paying for it, but seek first of all in your work the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, how to accomplish it more worthy and for the salvation of those who pray; everything else will be added to you (cf. Matthew 6:33); God will take care of the payment, Who said: The worker is worthy of his wages (Luke 10:7), and: Thou shalt not stop the mouth of the threshing ox (Deut. 25:4; 1 Cor. 9:9). Whenever you celebrate lunch (mass) or supper, do not call your relatives, nor the neighbors of the rich... but call the poor... (Luke 14:12, 13). Do not be partial during mass, do not send prosphira only to the noble and rich. Do not pay attention to the darkness, fire and oppression of the enemy while praying, but firmly rely with your heart on the very words of the prayer, with the confidence that the treasures of the Holy Spirit are hidden in them - truth, light, life-giving fire, forgiveness of sins, space, peace and joy of the heart, life and bliss. Rivers of evil flow to your heart, especially before a holy cause: do not be indignant, do not hesitate, stand on the stone; those rivers came to you (?) (cf. Matthew 7:25), about which the Savior said in the Gospel: they will flow back, do not be afraid. The enemy only intimidates and tries to drown you, but if you stand firm and call on the Lord for help, he will not be able to drown you. If the enemy sits in your heart, hurting, oppressing, burning and darkening you, call on the Lord with faith and depict the sign of the Cross on your belly; say: Lord, You are always with me, testing my heart and entrails (Cf.: Ps. 7:10; Jer. 11:20; Rev. 2:23), then drive away my enemy by the power of Your Cross. When the evil one with evil thoughts forces you to laugh slyly before a person, then say in your heart to the Lord: Lord! Plant Thy fear in the heart of Thy servant 32. God! Do not allow your heart to wander into the thoughts of wickedness (Cf.: Ps. 140:4). If your soul hurts from a decline in your opinion of yourself among a gathering of people or alone, cross your chest with a cross and say to it: my soul! This is your dignity! And her illness will pass. When blasphemous thoughts come into your head from the heart during prayer, then quickly humble your heart and say inwardly: I am not worthy to pronounce even the name of the Lord or His Most Pure Mother, or any saint. When you remember the names of the dead before the throne of the Lord, remember that they are looking at you with the hope that you will sincerely pray for their repose. When you are asked to pray for the salvation of someone from bodily death, for example from drowning, from death due to illness, from fire or any other disaster, praise the faith of those asking for this and say to yourself: blessed be your faith; according to your faith (Matthew 9:29), may the Lord grant the fulfillment of my unworthy, little-faithful prayer and may He add faith to me (cf. Luke 17:5). Before you ride with the Cross, lift up your heart’s eyes to the Lord, ask for His help for the work ahead, cross yourself with warm faith, saying: Lord, bless, and - go, and in every house, when you sing the troparion and kontakion of the holiday, descend mentally into your very heart, imagine Christ in it and the face of the holiday, press the Cross from your heart to your forehead - and you will see what grace will be with you, how they will gladly accept you. - Experience. If the devil confuses you during prayer with doubt about something true, committed by Scripture and the Church, tell him: everything is God, and the words of God and the Holy Church of God, guided by the Holy Spirit, and all the rites and creatures of God, everything is God. There is nothing of yours, devil, here. You are a lie (cf. John 8:44), but here is the truth. If any thoughts and desires of the heart bring with them painful fire and oppression into the soul, do not follow them, but throw them out immediately, like poisonous snakes, like hellish fire, and say: these thoughts are death, they are from the devil, I do not sympathize with them for a moment. When inner exhaustion in goodness and the resulting sorrows befall you: then thank God both for this abandonment of you by His grace and for these sorrows, but only pray that you may remain faithful to the Lord. Learn to despise and suppress your heart by the power of the name of the Lord and your will at the very time when it suffers most from impulses of pride, when it is ready to smash and break everyone and everything. When the devil bites and disturbs your spirit and there is tightness, confusion and illness in your heart, take the trouble not to show others a sad and confused face and do not get irritated with others in this state of tightness: for what is the fault of others that you, due to your sins, suffer wounding from the enemy? Be patient with one, and don’t even show to others that you are internally embittered. When, while performing a Divine Service, a Sacrament, or any requirement, you feel in your heart stubborn unbelief or a stony insensibility 33 of the heart to what is said in them, tightness and difficulty in pronouncing prayers, then say with all your heart and in your heart: Lord, transform me from a proud Pharisee into a humble publican and grant me to pray with a publican’s disposition and contrition of heart (See: Luke 18:10–14)! “And believe that unbelief and insensibility will pass and you will soon feel in your heart blissful humility, living faith and sweet tenderness: you will emerge into freedom of heart, calm down and rejoice and thank the Lord, who does wonderful things with His humble servants.” Yes, the Lord always looks upon the humility of His servants (cf. Luke 1:48), gives them His grace, but resists the proud (James 4:6; Proverbs 3:34). Oh, it is hard for the proud to resist the prick (Acts 9:5). “All the deeds and the whole life of the proud are hard, unbearable work, because the Almighty opposes them at every moment.” Hope, and carefully fight your thoughts and passions. Do not pay attention to fear and the devil’s relaxation of the heart in the work of God, but, strengthened by faith and trust in the Lord, cheerfully continue it. Do not lose heart in any sorrowful circumstances, but always, without turning away from looking to the Lord, hope in Him. When praying, always firmly believe and remember that every thought of yours and every word of yours can, undoubtedly can be prophetic, deed. With God every word fails (Luke 1:37). But be joined to the Lord; there is one spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17). This means that your word will not fail. All things are possible to the believer (Mark 9:23). - Take care of your word: the word is precious - for every idle word people will give an answer on the Day of Judgment (Matthew 12:36). Remember that in the word itself lies the possibility of action: you just need to have firm faith in the power of the word, in its creative ability. With the Lord, deeds are inseparable from words; not a single word returned to Him faint (cf. Is. 55:11): with God every word cannot faint (Luke 1:37). So it should be with us, for we are images of the Word, and the Word sincerely united (Cf.: Heb. 2:14) with us through the incarnation, deifying us, accepting us into the communion of the Divine nature (Cf.: 2 Pet. 1:4). 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 should be (cf. Rom. 8:26), is and is called the Perfecter Himself; He is the one who performs our prayer. Made by the Spirit. Remember that the word is power: it will not fail, it is said, with God is every word (Luke 1:37). The word of the Lord will not return to Him empty (cf.: Is. 55:11), but, like rain or snow, it will water the earth of our hearts and give seed (fulfillment) to the sower (cf.: 2 Cor. 9:10). “And they say about people: he has extraordinary power of words.” You see, the word is power, spirit, life. GOD THE FATHER, acting in our mind and heart, through HIS Hypostatic WORD, expressed in our word, by HIS HOLY SPIRIT, resting in HIS HYPOSTASTIC WORD, and through our word of faith, hope, meekness, love, proceeding from our mouths, IN an INSTANT he accomplishes once and for all from the foundation of the world (Matthew 25:34) the predetermined miraculous works of our rebirth, sanctification, strengthening, spiritual nutrition and healing in Christ, although the preparatory rites for these actions can be very long, for God is a Simple, Almighty Being. – For example, the transformation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ occurs immediately upon the utterance of the words: create therefore this bread the Honest Body of Thy Christ; and in this cup - the Honest Blood of Thy Christ, transposed by Thy Holy Spirit 34 - after these last words and the blessing of the cruciform hand, in an instant the bread and wine are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ, but not before, for Divine omnipotence awaits the words of the priest assisting Him: For God has an assistant (1 Cor. 3:9). In this case, the sign of the cross, a blessing in the name of the Lord, means that the Mystery is performed by the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus Christ and for the sake of Jesus Christ, for the sake of His intercession with the good pleasure of God the Father. In cases and circumstances of life for which there are no Sacraments of faith, for example, in cases of demonic possession, insanity and other diseases of the spirit or body, for example blindness, deafness, muteness, illnesses in general, miracles of God are performed only according to the special intention of God: for example, the works of God appear through a famous person or as a reward and for glorifying the faith and piety of some saint of God, and therefore sometimes it takes a lot of prayers for a famous person in order for this person to suffer sufficient punishment or has received sufficient spiritual healing, or so that the faith of the person praying is strengthened and elevated through prolonged exercise in prayer for the ailing person. – For everything is possible only to a believer (Mark 9:23). For a believer, nothing is impossible, and living, unshakable faith can instantly perform great miracles. Often, however, miracles happen even without our sincere and firm faith. These are the miracles of the Sacraments: for the Mystery of God is always accomplished, even if we have little faith when performing it or are unfaithful, for our unbelief will not abolish God’s faith (cf. Rom. 3:3) and our malice will not overcome the unspeakable Divine goodness and mercy 35, our stupidity - God’s wisdom, our weakness - God’s omnipotence. The Holy Spirit performs all powers and miracles. To another (is given) strength by the same Spirit; to others, the actions of powers - you just speak with faith: the perfection of the word is not your concern, but the Holy Spirit's. When a priest says to the evil spirit: I forbid you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ (cf. Acts 16:18), then it is the same as what the Lord Jesus Christ Himself forbids - and this prohibition is effective. In addition, be united through the faith of the Lord; there is one spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17), undoubtedly: what that person wants while he is with the Lord, the Lord Himself wants; whatever he does, so does the Lord. The airs with which the sacred vessels are covered are God-bearing, for they are saturated with vapors from the Body and Blood of the Lords and therefore, for believers, they are undoubtedly celibate. – We must use them with faith for the sick and those possessed by evil spirits. – If Pavlov’s handkerchiefs and towels (See: Acts 19:12) and Petrov’s shadow healed the sick and those possessed by evil spirits (See: Acts 5:15), then, of course, the veil over the Body and Blood of the Lord of the Belly 36. Don’t think, don’t desire, don’t say, don’t undertake, don’t do anything that is not commanded or indicated in the Holy Scriptures. Only it leads to the true Life. For about every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, it is said, a man will live (Matthew 4:4). When praying to God or the Most Pure Mother of God, the Angels or saints, or chanting them, be extremely humble, remembering that you are praying or chanting with foul lips, from a vile heart, from an unclean tongue, from a soul defiled 37 . When praying, adhere to the rule that it is better to say five words from the heart than ten thousand words with the tongue (cf.: 1 Cor. 14:19). When you notice that your heart is cold and reluctant to pray, hurrying to quickly finish a long series of prayers, stop, warm your heart with some living idea - for example, of your wretchedness, your poverty, misery and blindness (cf. Rev. 3:17), - or the idea of the great, moment-to-moment benefits of God to you and to the human race, especially to Christians, and then pray slowly, with a warm feeling; even if you don’t have time to read all the prayers in time, there is no problem, and you will receive incomparably more benefit from warm and unhurried prayer than if you read all the prayers, but hastily, without sympathy. I would rather speak five words with my mind than ten thousand words with my tongue (1 Cor. 14:19). But it would be very good, of course, if we could say with due sympathy in prayer even in a thousand words: the Lord does not abandon those who labor for Him and those who stand long before Him, but in the least measure they measure, He also measures (Cf.: Matt. 7:2) and, according to the abundance of the true words of their prayer, sends into their soul an abundance of spiritual light, spiritual warmth, peace and joy. – It is good to pray long and unceasingly, but not everyone can receive this word, but to them it has been given to eat: he who is able to receive it, let him receive it (Matthew 19:11, 12). But for those who cannot accommodate long prayers, it is better to say short prayers, but with a burning soul. They say we soon get tired of praying. Why? Because you do not imagine the Lord alive before you - as if He is at their right hand (cf. Ps. 15:8), but look at Him constantly with the eyes of your heart: then you will stand the whole night in prayer - and you will not get tired. What am I saying: night? “Stay for three days and three nights and you won’t get tired.” Remember the stylites. For many years they stood in a prayerful mood of spirit on the pillar - and overcame their flesh, which, both in you and in them, was also prone to laziness. “And you are burdened by several hours of public prayer.” Even for one hour. When you pray to the Lord God, let your heart be with God and with no one or anything else, that is, let it not be passionately attached to anything. Do not please the lazy flesh in prayer - do not rush: the flesh, bored and burdened by the holy work, hurries towards the end, in order to rest or get busy with carnal, worldly affairs. A hasty, restless priest or deacon or clerk in the service is a tool of the devil; nothing remains in his heart; all faith for him is a dead letter. It is a grave sin to rush during the Divine service, for how much do we work for the Lord - and even then we do not want to serve Him properly, with feeling, without haste? Tell me: why are you driving service? Don’t you have time to fuss around outside the church, won’t others have time to get caught up in vanity and sin outside the church? All diligence must be used in the church in order to serve the one Lord with all diligence. So, never rush, but calmly, with firmness of heart, complete your work of faith. Thinking about anything everyday during the Divine service, especially, as at any other time, outrages, overshadows, oppresses my heart. During Divine services, be calm, patient, not hasty out of man-pleasing or laziness and negligence, and cheerful in case of stumbling; have unshakable, unashamed faith; Neglect false fears of the devil. Love finding and being tired in the work of God: this makes the soul sober and good in faith. Do not desire very fine vestments in priestly service, lest your heart cleave to earthly splendor and be torn away from God. All the glory of the king's daughter is within (Ps. 44:14). Take into account that with the desire for earthly splendor Satan seduces us and darkens us, clouds the eye of our heart and draws us into anger and irritability and into disobedience, when serving in brilliant vestments depends not on us, but on the ruler in the church. – Let your inner life be pure and bright; To the gaze of God, the Most Pure Virgin Mother of God, holy Angels and holy men, imagine your soul as bright, free from filth or stain of sin. When your heart greedily desires some kind of reward, imagine that the reward of a Christian, especially a priest, is Christ: My reward is with Me, render to each one according to his work (Rev. 22:12). When I appear to the Chief Shepherd, you will receive an unfading crown of glory (1 Peter 5:4). Your reward is abundant in heaven (Matthew 5:12); that those who are rewarded here will receive their reward (Matthew 6:2, 5, 16). – When you impatiently wish for a scar on your head, imagine that the greatest Ascetic and Hero of God, Christ, wore on His head a crown of thorns with sharp needles for His unparalleled service to humanity; Note that it was not purple velvet that adorned His head, but His scarlet blood from His head pierced with thorns - and then your desire for skufia or other reward will cool down. Imagine also that your services to humanity are insignificant, that you serve more for yourself than for people, and that you receive sufficient reward for your labors. You want a velvet kamilavka: what kind of kamilavka did the Savior have? - Crown of thorns. What orders did the Apostles have? “Not golden orders, but steel swords, and these swords beheaded them.” Do you want a golden cross? What kind of cross did the Savior have? – Wooden: and on it He was crucified. Do you want to adorn yourself and be vain with a golden cross? What crosses did the Apostles have? - Wooden: and they were crucified on them for serving the salvation of people day and night. Oh! We are damned sinners! We are lazy in deeds of piety and self-sacrifice, but we want to be rewarded for our insignificant labors. Wouldn’t you like, brothers, to receive for your service, let’s say very conscientious and successful, a cross in the proper sense, that is, lies, deprivation, insults? – Wouldn’t you like to receive a great reward in heaven (Matthew 5:12) for the fact that you do not receive rewards here for your Godly and useful deeds to society? – Do not look for rewards here and let the Heavenly Righteous Judge, Whom you serve here in various ways, reward you. – Do not be jealous of those who are wicked; below, envy those who create lawlessness (Compare: Ps. 37:1) and those who reward themselves diligently: they will receive their reward (Matthew 6:2, 5, 16) here and lose it there. “My reward is with me,” says the Lord, “to reward everyone according to his deeds” (Rev. 22:12). What crosses did the martyrs have? If you do good and endure suffering, this is acceptable in the sight of God (cf. 1 Pet. 2:20). We do not look at what is visible, but what is invisible: what is visible is temporary, what is invisible is eternal (Cf.: 2 Cor. 4:18). According to Christian humility, we should not consider ourselves worthy of reward, but of censure, for do we always conscientiously serve God and society? – We serve the Lord unworthily and deserve His wrath through our sins. If I'm interested in awards, it means I'm ambitious. If I grieve when I am not rewarded, it means that I am proud, I think highly of myself and, therefore, I am selfish and want to receive good things in this age, without entrusting myself to the Righteous Giver of Rewards, who has to reward everyone according to his deeds and who says in the Revelation of St. John the Theologian: Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to reward everyone according to his deeds ( Rev.22:12). (Amen.) Restless impatience when we are not rewarded is the leaven of that pride, which in its highest degree cast down the Day of the proud from heaven. How do you, a sinner, serving God unworthily, and even if worthily at times, then only by His power, want a reward for your service? - What does this mean? Where is your humility, which first of all you must have in your soul, as a servant of the meek and humble Jesus, for the sake of us, who endured spitting and beating, and strangulation, and the cross, and death, instead of the honor set before Him (cf. Heb. 12:2)? You have received the Gaiter: a significant reward. This is how she was revered since ancient times in Greece and in Russia in ancient times. Proof of this is that it is learned, according to the tablet, by the oldest elders. What does it mean? – Its meaning is shown by the words that the priest says when putting on the loincloth. Let us read them: Gird Thy sword upon Thy thigh, O Mighty One, with Thy beauty and Thy kindness: and advance, and prosper, and reign for the sake of truth, and meekness, and righteousness: and Thy right hand will admirably guide Thee (Ps. 44:4, 5) (the Lord is my right hand) always, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Initially, these words refer to the Savior, who girded ourselves for our salvation with the sword of the flesh and His Cross, and with this sword or swords struck down the enemies of our salvation; He worked hard all his life, succeeded in the work of our salvation and reigned in the hearts of good and simple people for the sake of His truth and meekness and truth. Secondly, they refer to a priest who bears the image of Christ, a warrior in the feat of salvation for himself and his flock, a shepherd and a teacher, and signify his success, skill and strength in spiritual life, in the fight against the enemies of salvation; mean that the inside of his thigh, which the devil is trying hard to hurt, and precisely his right thigh, received security from the enemy with the help of Divine grace, which is the beauty and kindness of a Christian; that the priest is obliged to strain himself in the exploits of mental warfare with the mental enemies of salvation and to succeed in it with the help of the Mighty and Strong in battle (Ps. 23:8) and truth, meekness and righteousness must reign in his heart, that is, Christ Himself or His gracious Kingdom. Have you achieved all this? If you have achieved it: thank Christ the Lord - your Strength and wear your loincloth as a sign of your success in spiritual life and in the fight against the enemies of salvation; and let it serve as a constant reminder for you of your warfare in this life with your enemies and the enemies of your verbal sheep, of the need for you to stand in truth, meekness and righteousness. - And if not, you are wearing a loincloth in vain - only to expose your life, which is not in accordance with your rank, of your powerlessness against the enemies of salvation, of your negligence and inattention to the matter of salvation. Always carry in the depths of your heart the conviction that your heart and mind are corrupted to the core, and constantly cry out to the Lord for mercy and the restoration of your inner man; Yes, humble yourself firmly, like a true insignificance, badness and abomination. - How to be proud of pus? A nonentity? An abomination worth every trampling? Look at all passions as the dreams of the devil and do not be irritated when you see them in others, and if in yourself, do not be discouraged. Temptations are allowed by God to test our faith, hope and love for the Lord, to ignite, strengthen or cleanse them. – Therefore, fight courageously, knowing that temptations are sent according to your strength, and not against your strength (Compare: 1 Cor. 10:13) and that God looks at your struggle and is preparing crowns for you if you endure temptations courageously. When we perform the Sacraments, the enemy tries in every possible way to keep us in his hellish bonds - in darkness, fire and cramped conditions. Oh, what a fire! Oh, how cramped! Everything must be endured. You pray at home - there are no temptations; in church, in homes - temptations, and sometimes very, very strong, depending on the persons present at the service and the number of them. And I would like to serve without stumbling, with a free, peaceful spirit, but you cannot without extreme and prolonged effort, without prayer, without repentance and petition before public prayer and even without abstinence. That’s why when I pray at home, I don’t doubt the words of the akathist and I reverence and admire them; But in the church or among the laity – where does doubt and disrespect for words come from? What kind of double-mindedness is this? What kind of false shame is this? - About the enemy! O please the adulterous and sinful world! O betrayal of the truth of God! Oh, how powerful the enemy is and changes our hearts during the celebration of the Divine Liturgy and during the celebration of the Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, Repentance, Marriage and Blessing of Anointing. God! Behold, you see! It plunges you into some kind of cowardly fear, sometimes into contempt, anger, irritability, embitters you and plunges you into insensibility. Oh, how we must pay attention to ourselves and constantly call on the name of the Lord Jesus, so that we may have a heart free from the slightest attachment to earthly things - money, food, drink, flesh, clothing and others. For some reason, the disembodied enemy really likes to be in our right side and kindle in it like dry brushwood, iniquity (unbelief, opposition to all truth and all passions) and turn the heart away from every good thought, good desire and good deed. He especially really likes to do this during our prayer, also before touching sacred objects, sometimes before conversation and during conversation with people, especially before communion of the Holy Mysteries (so restless)! It’s clear that he doesn’t like any good thing. That's how it is. When you don’t do a good deed, you don’t strive for God: nothing; I began to strive with all my heart: and the war began, and bombs were swept away. The devil kindles in the heart blasphemy against holy things, especially before and on holidays: on the feasts of the Mother of God - against the Blessed Virgin; on the feasts of saints - on them. – The hellish dog barks out of spite when we praise the Mother of Light 38 and the children of God (cf. John 1:12) – the saints. When we stand for prayer, we often feel in our chest, in all our insides and throughout our whole body some kind of coldness, insensibility, numbness, as if petrified to prayer: you speak words without living faith, without strength, without feeling, in a way that is ungodly. What to do then? We must make an effort with living faith to depict the sign of the cross and then pray with raised hands - let men say prayers, it is said, lifting up the holy hands (1 Tim. 2:8). The devil, who strikes our soul with spiritual cold and petrified insensibility 39, flees from the sign of the cross and from the raising of hands depicting the crucifixion of Christ and the Divine Trinity (with the middle end and two diameters), not tolerating the power of the Cross and the sign of the Divine Trinity - and faith and fervor of the spirit return to us. The priest raising his hands depicts with this act the Most Holy Trinity: the Head is the Father, two hands are equal to the Head - the Son and the Holy Spirit. When we want to pray from the heart, then our prayer meets with the spirits of malice (Eph. 6:12) in our hearts, which prevent us from praying with all our hearts and induce doubt, lack of faith, blasphemous thoughts, crampedness, laziness, coldness, and deceit. We must fight with all our might, calling on the Lord Jesus for help, and not weaken in spirit. Let us not be cold and weakened in our souls (cf. Heb. 12:3). It is appropriate to always pray and not be cold. On great holidays, the Lord sends great crosses of patience, so that the remembrance of God’s great blessings to us sinners is combined with the bearing of the cross for us - internal or external. - The cross of patience is imposed on us by the enemy of God and man - the devil, for on great holidays he has the habit of forcing our soul into internal adultery with himself - either with malice, or pride and contempt, or blasphemy, impatience and grief, or lack of faith and unbelief, or love of money and stinginess, or petrified insensibility 40 and laziness. 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 we leave prayer, so do temptations and various embarrassments. O blessed time of prayer! Worthy, heartfelt, reverent service to the Lord with living faith in the church is a source of peace, joy and bliss for our soul. Thus, a reverent priest, performing services, the Sacraments, and prayers, actually finds for himself the greatest pleasure and bliss. Is it true that they say that no matter what bad a priest does, when he serves mass, all his sins are forgiven? - Is it true. The blood of Jesus Christ the Son of God cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7), says the Apostle, but with the necessary conditions for worthy communion. What conditions? If he brought true repentance to the Lord before the celebration of the Liturgy, and true repentance requires heartfelt contrition for sins and a decisive intention to leave those sins and addictions for which he repented, and if he received Holy Communion with every affirmation, without the slightest shadow of doubt, that he is partaking of the very Life-giving Body and the very Life-giving Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. But we know that not all priests bring true repentance to the Lord before receiving the Holy Mysteries, not all have heartfelt contrition, not all have a decisive intention to leave their addictions, but they fulfill only one rule - (without believing) approaching the Lord with their lips, but with their hearts far from Him (cf. Matt. 15:8), not putting the good beginning of a truly Christian life. – We know that many priests receive communion with a heart devoted to silver, envy, malice, satiety, drunkenness, adultery and other sins. Such people eat and drink judgment for themselves, not forgiveness of sins, and not eternal life, for they do not judge the Body of the Lord (Compare: 1 Cor. 11:29). Such people trample on the Son of God and will be rewarded with worse torment (cf. Heb. 10:29) than those who did not receive communion at all and lived lawlessly. Frequent communion of the Life-giving Mysteries must certainly be accompanied by holiness of life. – The royal robe of the soul must be carefully preserved. This garment is Christ, as it is said: you have put on Christ (cf. Gal. 3:27). You are a royal priesthood, a holy tongue, people of renewal (Wed: 1 Pet. 2:9). Alas! What do I see? Here is a priest who served the Divine Liturgy and received the Life-Giving Mysteries (I don’t know how) goes or goes to visit a feast, and this not once, not twice, but many times, almost constantly, and here he becomes satiated and drunk. Where is the Body and Blood of my Savior in it? Where is the attention of the unworthy servant of God to the Divine Visitor and Savior of our souls? Where is this merging with the Life-Giver? Where is the feeling of gratitude? Where is the desire to please the most loving Savior? Where is the memory of His living words: take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be burdened with gluttony and the sorrows of life (Luke 21:34)?.. My God! How do we not care about such an inscrutable gift of God! How we frivolously trample on the Blood of the Covenant (cf. Heb. 10:29)! Another begins to serve God, for example, in prayer, but his heart has long served silver or belly; and it turns out that it only seems that he serves God, but in fact, in truth, he does not serve Him; for you cannot, it is said, work for God and mammon. A man cannot work for two masters: either he will love one and hate the other (cf. Matthew 6:24). Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also (Matthew 6:21). Another brother comes to church, for example, for Matins, and, entering the altar, he immediately hurries to the book of fraternal incomes and with his eyes in advance devours the rubles written there, carefully calculating how much will be divided into his share. So great is our greed for money - despite the fact that the gifts of the Lord overflow in the treasury at home. As the word of the Lord is true: Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The heart of a man who loves money does not strive for God, no: what fellowship is there between pieces of silver and Christ, an idol and the true God (cf. 2 Cor. 6:14)? - and to money, to money: because they are his god. A heart weighed down with food and drink (cf. Luke 21:34) does not contain reason or spiritual understanding. Why is the priest reluctant to baptize a baby in church after mass? Because there is no table with food and drinks here, because even before the mass he was invited to the funeral service of the deceased and to dinner (where, however, they could easily have done without him), and baptism in the church became contrary to his desires, to his will. But we must say: may your will be done, Lord, not mine, and always do your direct work without thinking, that is, without a doubt, with a willingness not to think about feeding the body, but to prefer serving God to this; Also, one should always prefer the public good to one’s private one, and the spiritual to the physical. – When you take a good look at the indignation and rage of the flesh, you will see that it is always furious about food and drink and about money - and there are so many excuses for not doing our direct work: at the wrong time, and lack of time, and being unhealthy, etc. And when they call you to a rich person, or to a noble person, or to a place where you can expect a treat, we go there willingly, and leisure, and time and health. - O wicked flesh! Funerals should be turned into a means of strengthening hope, and not into a means of satiety and riotous joy and revelry of human passions. Woe to the priests who indulge in such feasts. Remember that by praying for the repose of the souls of departed Christians, you are fulfilling the Savior’s commandment to love your neighbors (See: Mark 12:31), for it is a great work of love to pray for the repose of Christian souls, and therefore pray sincerely; with your sincere prayer you will do for them a great benefit that cannot be bought with money and is infinitely higher than it. Remember this. The person praying must remember that if God did not spare His only begotten Son for us sinners, but gave Him up for us all, then how will He not give us everything with Him (cf. Rom. 8:32)? Every good thing we can think of? Because if an infinitely great good is given, then lesser blessings will not be given? In Christ, the Heavenly Father has given and continues to give us every good thing. All God's power has been given to us for life and godliness (Cf.: 2 Pet. 1:3). When praying, try in every possible way to feel in your heart the truth or power of the words of prayer, feed on them like incorruptible food, water your heart with them like dew, warm yourself like with blessed fire. Feel the power of words when you pray, and don’t just chatter words. When praying, listen firmly to the words of the prayer, feel them with your heart. Do not distract your mind from them with any thoughts. When praying during Divine services, the celebration of the Sacraments and prayers on various occasions, firmly rely with your heart on the very words of the 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 41 . Say: I am nothing, the Lord does everything. Again, say: I speak - God the Word speaks in me, I speak - and the Holy Spirit accomplishes everything. I have nothing to worry about. Cast all your sorrow, it is said, upon Him: for He cares for you (1 Peter 5:7). Reverence with all the powers of your soul before all the Sacraments and speak within yourself about each Sacrament, before performing or accepting it: this is the mystery of God. I am only an unworthy leader or participant in it. Otherwise, our proud mind wants to explore the mystery of God, and tries and intensifies to explore it, and if it cannot explore it, then it rejects it as not fitting the insignificant standard of its mind. When performing any service or Sacrament or prayer, believe that they were established and spoken by the Divine All-perfect Spirit Himself, that all their words are spirit and life (John 6:63). - Therefore, do not doubt a single word. When you pray to the saints, remember that you are morally insignificant before them. And let this remembrance be a reason for humility for you. When asking God for various blessings, believe that God is everything to everyone: if you ask Him for health, believe that He is your health; If you ask for faith, He is your faith; love - He is your love; peace and joy - He is your peace and joy; help against enemies visible and invisible - He is your omnipotent help. Whatever good you ask from Him, He is precisely this good, like any other, and if He finds it worthwhile to grant you this good, He will be this good for you. God will be all things in all (1 Cor. 15:28). You, the one praying, want to be sure that the Lord really hears and soon hears our prayers? Here is an example for you: the prudent thief, hanging with Him on the cross, only just said: remember me, Lord, when you come in Your Kingdom - and He immediately answered his prayer: Amen, Amen, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise (Luke 23:42, 43). So you also know for sure that the Lord immediately hears every word of your prayer. Unbelief exposes itself in that it is false and has nothing in common with the truth; the unbelieving heart is restless, vague, weak, unfounded; on the contrary, faith is calm, blissful, majestic, firm. When praying to the Lord, the Mother of God or the saints, always remember that the Lord gives according to your heart (the Lord will give you according to your heart (Ps. 19:5)): as is the heart, such is the gift - if you pray with faith sincerely, with all your heart, unfeignedly, then in accordance with your faith, the degree of fervor of your heart, a gift will be given to you from the Lord. The colder your heart, the more unfaithful and hypocritical it is, the more useless your prayer is; moreover, the more it angers the Lord, Who is the Spirit and seeks those who worship Himself in spirit and in truth (John 4:23, 24). Therefore, whether you call on the Lord, the Mother of God, Angels or saints, call with all your heart; Whether you are praying for someone living or dead, pray for them with all your heart, pronouncing their names with warmth of your heart; Whether you pray for the granting of any spiritual good to yourself or another, or for the deliverance of yourself or a neighbor from some calamity, or from sins and passions, bad habits, pray about this with all your heart, desiring with all your heart the good you ask for for yourself or another, having a firm intention to leave behind or desiring for another liberation from sins, passions and sinful habits - and you will be given from the Lord a gift according to your heart (Wed: Ps. 19:5). If you want it, ask, and it will be done for you (John 15:7). You see, we must definitely want what we ask for, only then will we receive it. – Pray for one another so that you may be healed (James 5:16). The Word is spirit and life in the mouths of some, but a dead letter in the mouths of others (for example, during prayer and preaching). The verbs that I spoke to you are spirit and life (John 6:63). This should truly be our words, for we are images of God the Word. Remember that if during prayer you do not talk idlely, but speak the words of prayer with feeling, then your words will not return to you empty (cf. Is. 55:11), without power (like a husk of bread without grain), but will certainly bring you the very fruits that are contained in the word, like fruit in a shell. - This is the most natural thing, just as the fruit and its shell are natural and ordinary in nature. But if you throw words in vain, without faith and without feeling their power, like a husk without a kernel, then they will return to you empty: you throw a husk - the husk will return to you, you throw a seed - a whole ear will bring you, and the better, the fatter the seed, the more abundant the ear; so it is with our prayers: the more sincerely and heartily you pronounce each word, the more fruit from prayer - each word, like a grain, will bring you spiritual fruit, like a ripe ear of grain. Who among those who pray has not experienced this? – It was not in vain that the Savior compared himself to the word, and human hearts to the earth (See: Matthew 13:19–23). The same must be said about the words of prayer. Also: who does not know that rain waters the earth and plants and gives them water: so the word of God, and even our word, spoken with faith, will not return to us without watering our souls or the souls of the obedient and believing. This is natural, just as it is natural for rain to water and nourish the earth and plants - and promote growth. The words of prayer are like rain or snow if spoken with faith and compassion: each of them contains its own strength and its own fruit; raindrops or snowflakes, falling in a continuous thread or flakes, water the earth, and it vegetates and bears fruit - so the words of prayer, this spiritual rain, each individually, water the soul: and it produces the fruits of virtues, assisted by the Holy Spirit 42; especially if there is still tear rain. A clear word drives away despondency, cowardice, and demonic temptation. How you stand before the king, how you speak to him, with what attention, with what reverence - so, at least, stand before God in prayer. The king does not see your heart, and yet you treat him with such reverence, but God sees your heart, all your thoughts and desires: and you carelessly stand and speak in prayer, you do not pronounce words with heartfelt attention to God, who knows everything! When we pray, we do not think about the power of words and not about the fulfillment of the prayer, but about how to read it as quickly as possible. If it were not for the Lord and the Lady, not the guardian angels, not the saints, the devil and his minions would have blocked the lips of all of us and would not have allowed us to glorify the name of the Lord; it would be true. How they strive to do this now and how sometimes they succeed at least somewhat in this! Who kicks priests during services? - Devil. The enemy, where he envisages more spiritual benefit from any spiritual feat, or physical and spiritual at the same time, there opposes greater hellish power - to prevent this feat. So, for example, at home prayer the enemy does not attack the priest (as well as the layman) as much as at public prayer - in church; it is easier at Vespers and Matins than at Liturgy; it is easier on weekdays than on holidays, with large gatherings of people; it is easier when there is no sermon than when there is; It’s easier not to fast than to fast; it is easier when there are no communicants than when there are; It is easier on all other holidays than on Holy Pascha, and on Pascha - this holiday of holidays, with its indescribable lightness and solemnity, leading the demonic hordes into extreme malice, envy and vexation. Try to do everything opposite to what the enemy forces you to do: strikes with despondency - try to be kind and cheerful; doubt and unbelief - believe; hate - try to love; envy and ill-will - be kind; stinginess - be generous; greed - abstain; disobedience and perseverance - be obedient; pride - humble yourself. During prayer or before we go to church for prayer, every trifle irritates us - why? Because the enemy sets fire. Is it possible to strictly judge those people who become irritated during prayer? It is forbidden. We must feel sorry for them and pray for them and, in a friendly conversation with them, show them all the ugliness of impatience and irritability, if anywhere, then especially in prayer, when we stand before the face of the God of peace Himself. – During prayer, as is well known, the enemy sets our heart on fire with various doubts about the truths of the faith, the Word of God and the universal Church established. – Don’t pay attention to anything like that. Standing up for prayer at home or coming to church for public prayer and standing during the Divine service, you feel lethargy and sinful relaxation, aversion from prayer, some kind of muddy and gloomy flood 43, the intrusiveness of unclean and nasty thoughts, condemnation, coldness towards God and people and disgust with them. This is a devilish obsession. With diligent prayer it goes away. You just need to force yourself harder to pray. For the Kingdom of Heaven is in need, and the needy women delight it (Matthew 11:12). During prayer, you often feel in your heart a painful, some kind of fiery resistance to what you are reading, contradiction, contradiction to almost every word. From their fruit, it is said, you will know them (Matthew 7:16). Therefore, it is easy to recognize the enemy of everything true and holy - the devil. Rather, humble yourself in the depths of your heart before the Lord and the holy matter of the Church, instructed and guided by the Holy Spirit! Sometimes the enemy strikes the heart with insensibility, and the mind with dullness, and the mind becomes blind, but the heart is like a stone: you don’t understand anything and don’t feel what you read. How many intrigues! One of the most powerful deceits of the devil is relaxation through laziness of the heart, and with it all spiritual and physical strength: faith, hope and love dry up in the heart, you become faithless, sad, insensitive to God and to people, you become like salt that has become overwhelmed, having lost its strength (cf. Matt. 5:13). (Do not believe your physical relaxation and do not think that it is from natural causes, it is from the relaxation of the heart and whole body by the devil, who is trying in every possible way to stop us in piety.) The nature of the devil's attacks is cunning, speed, resourcefulness: he did not win with one twist - he immediately dodges and uses another, the opposite one, and does this quickly, swiftly, so that we cannot come to our senses and, by the power of reasoning about the quality of the matter, repel the attack of evil. It happens that in a dream he sends an evil maiden to viciously scold you, and then, if her anger does not irritate you, he instantly turns to you with reconciliation, plunges her into your arms and often captivates her into sin with this cunning, quick and dexterous turn of affairs and thus, having failed in one way, conveniently laughs at you in another. How much intelligence, cunning, dexterity! And how come we, the servants of Christ, do not manage to fulfill the commandments of our Savior in the same way, why do we not use at least the same wisdom, dexterity, resourcefulness in the opposite direction that the enemy uses for our destruction? Be wise, said the Savior, like a serpent (Matthew 10:16). Not only this sensual snake, but this spiritual serpent who originally destroyed us. That serpent on which to step has given us the power of our Lord (See: Ps.90:13). – Why do we allow the sons of this age to be wiser in their generation than the sons of light (cf. Luke 16:8)? Why doesn’t the crown of the Kingdom of Heaven attract us as much as it should? – Why do we not strive to fight the good fight (Compare: 1 Tim. 6:12; 2 Tim. 4:7)? – We are lazy and inattentive. But let us never forget that the enemies of our salvation are vigilant, their attacks are skillful, their means of wounding our soul are countless; and for laziness and inattention to oneself, for negligence about the whole salvation (Cf.: Heb. 2:3), the Lord can leave us with His grace - at the very time when the pressure of the enemies will be seven times stronger than before, and when you cry for help, there will be no longer a Deliverer (Cf.: Ps. 7:3). Listen to yourself. Hear how dangerously you walk (Wed: Eph.5:15). During the Divine Service, the devil tries to scatter us with various dreams, malice, evil thoughts, nasty, blasphemous 44, doubtful, timidity of heart. “However, you have to do something—always maintain abstinence and chastity.” Do not be greedy for food and drink; always consider this a last resort. If I think well and do poorly, it is of little use. Let's do things: abstinence, meekness, humility, kindness! The enemy also acts in us as lethargy and relaxation of spirit and body. Therefore, we must shake off this lethargy and this relaxation in every possible way and try to have a vigorous, lively, strong spirit, especially in prayer and when encountering people. The devil often tempts those who pray internally with heaviness and severe drowsiness - and this is how he tends to make you sleepy. Words do not come from the mouth, the chariot of the tongue is tied up, like Pharaoh's chariots in the Red Sea (cf.: Ex. 14:25, 15:4). We must overcome ourselves. At first it can be incredibly difficult, but then it becomes easy. If you pray somewhat hastily and do not feel peace in your heart, but confusion and coldness, pretense - stop and pray slowly, thinking with your heart about every word and trusting in your heart the power of every word, cry about your wretchedness and poverty, and blindness, and nakedness (Compare: Rev. 3:17). During prayer, put away any attachment to things, regret about them, even under the pretext of legality: this is one pretext. During prayer, one must put aside the satanic pride of mind and heart, which philosophizes in its own way and does not wholeheartedly agree with what is said in prayers. You just need to reverence the content of the prayers - and not philosophize. In order to have unshakable confidence during prayer to receive from the Lord every spiritual good, believe that you, uniting in prayer with the Lord, become one spirit with Him (Cf.: 1 Cor. 6:17), and God is all-good, all-powerful, all-wise, He is the All-Perfect Perfection - which means that you, to the extent of your acceptability, to the extent of faith and love, will become a participant in His Divine perfections. In the union of your soul with God, do not consider anything inconceivable or impossible: for everything is possible with God (Mark 10:27); not only what you can think about or are thinking about, but what you cannot even think about or what you think about as impossible. – For God is an infinite Being and all His perfections are infinite. If you doubt that you will receive the benefits you ask from God, then remember how even you, being angry, stingy, not rich, and not omnipotent, give to those in need and those who ask you, or even before their request you give, knowing only their need. How much more will the Heavenly Father give good things to those who ask Him (Matthew 7:11) - the All-Good, the All-Rich, the Most Generous, the Almighty. If you do not have firm, unashamed faith in God, the All-Good and Almighty, do not hastily ask Him to bestow 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 sit up in advance, consider, according to the word of the Lord, your spiritual possessions, or weigh your faith - if you have immash, the essence is to be accomplished. Otherwise, the demons who see your stupidity will begin to laugh at you, saying: This man was created and cannot be finished (Luke 14:28-30). So, in advance of your prayer, consider the degree of your faith and, having found it sufficient, living, firm, unashamed, approach boldly the throne of grace, so that you may receive mercy and find grace in time of need (cf. Heb. 4:16). The more people you ask for blessings from the Lord and the higher these blessings, the stronger the devil opposes the praying priest, so that for his fervent, fervent prayer God does not give those blessings: for according to your faith, it is said, be unto you (Matthew 9:29), and if you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes (Mark 9:23). - However, where the wiles of the devil multiply, there the grace of God also abounds (cf. Rom. 5:20). If the Lord has given you the grace, according to the desire of your heart, to pray in church with all your soul, with fiery love for the people of the Lord, for the salvation of their souls, then expect from the devil and the envious fiery prayer a cruel attack for this feat of love - if not during the same, then another service, that is, if you pray during Matins, then he will attack you during the Liturgy and will hurt and weaken you as much as your prayer for the people of the Lord was fiery and strong. How can he hurt us so much during the service? Today he stunned me with a denial of the Divinity of the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity - the Spirit of God, the Life-Giving Spirit - by Whom we believe, and think, and are quickened, and strengthened in the service of God; when the enemy sows doubt in the heart regarding the Divinity of the Holy Spirit, then the foundation of all spiritual life, strength and strength will be destroyed: and we become lifeless, constrained, weakened, burned by internal fire. Но сомневаться в Божественности Духа Святого, особенно священнику, есть тяжкий грех, ибо священник больше других испытал на себе силу Духа Святого, как имеющий на себе благодать священства, дивные дела совершающую руками и устами его. Священник Духом Святым совершает все Таинства и так часто Тайны Животворящие Тела и Крови Господа, которых плоды он на себе так часто испытывал, тайны Крещения, Миропомазания, Покаяния, Брака, Елеосвящения; Духом Святым священник укрепляется в неосужденном и непостыдном совершении святых Таинств, всех служб; The Holy Spirit will help in teaching the people; Духом Святым чрез посредство крестного знамения часто прогоняет сопротивные силы из своего сердца и от других; Духом Святым укрепляется во всяком добром деле, Им осиявается, упокоевается, радуется, дышит и живет; without Him he does not have a moment of spiritual and righteous life. And it is so crazy for a priest to doubt the Divinity of the Holy Spirit for one minute; and if he doubts, due to the action of the evil spirit, he will suddenly lose all his spiritual treasures and strengths: faith, hope, love, truth, holiness, spiritual consolation and joy, and will become a victim of fierce heart torment; his face will be filled with dishonor (Cf.: Ps.82:17), shame, fear, there he will be afraid of fear, where there is no fear (Cf.: Ps.13:5). Here he learns from experience who the Holy Spirit is and how bitter it is to live without Him for even one minute; here he will taste what the torment of sinners will be like in hell, where there will be no Spirit of God. These are the types of temptations that exist. When you pray and pronounce the words of prayers or say them secretly in your soul, then do not be content with just reading them coldly, from memory, but remember that you have reason - and you must understand everything that is said in prayers; further, there is a feeling, or heart - and you must feel what is said in them, the truth and power of the words of prayer; further, you have free will - and you must have the desire to fulfill in practice what you say or what you ask from God, for example, a life pleasing to God, or what you promise to God to do, or what God requires of you. In man there are three forces that make up the single and inseparable being of the soul: reason, heart and will, and they must act and develop together in the spiritual life of man, also in the upbringing of youth, so that all three will be one, and the people of God, so raised and educated, will be one (cf. John 17:11, 21, 22, 23), to the glory of the Triune God. – May it not happen that we only approach God with our lips and honor Him with our lips, but our hearts are far from God (cf. Is. 29:13), or that we speak and do not do, or feel our sins, but do not move forward in correcting our hearts and wills. When you feel in your heart the languid whims of your heart regarding any subject of faith, then know that the enemy is in your heart and is laughing at your ignorance, your weakness and inconstancy in faith, and now sincerely condemn your recklessness, your blindness, your sinful inconstancy in faith and your ingratitude to God for the former light of your heart and for the former benefits to your soul from that subject faith, which your heart, out of blind stubbornness, rejects or does not believe in as it previously believed - and the Lord will have mercy: the languor will pass, and it will become easy. O enemy! He wants everything in faith to be according to his lies. When you ask the Lord for anything, immediately contemplate the gracious and wise right hand of God who gives you His gifts, Who from the abundance of God has given and continues to give everything to everyone, and to doubt whether you will receive what you ask for or not, consider it madness, similar to that in which someone said in his heart: there is no God (Compare: Ps. 13:1). - So, asking for the help of some kind and generous person, we imagine his giving hand in advance, for earthly benefactors, in the likeness of their All-Good Father, are good and generous and give what we ask, immediately after our request, as it is said: who is a man from you, whose son asks for bread, food stone (gives him)... food for the serpent... if (for you... know how to give) Give good things to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him (Matthew 7:9-11). Deeply respect the rank of episcopate, in every bishop see as it were the Eternally Living One Himself, the Great Bishop, the Son of God (Thou art our Bishop 45). Remember that from Him you received the grace of the priesthood through sacred ordination. The bishop is the father of fathers, that is, priests, through him you have the happiness of standing before the throne of the Lord of all, performing the Terrible Mysteries, beholding the Face of the Holy Ascension, at which even the Angels gaze with fear, so often partaking of the Life-giving Mysteries, performing other most sacred and all-saving Mysteries, teaching the people, shepherding the Church of the Lord God, having acquired His Blood ( Acts 20:28) - and enjoy such honor as the Lord did not give to the angels. Deeply respect every bishop, no matter what his character in life, and the Great Bishop and Chief Shepherd Himself (Compare: 1 Pet. 5:4) will honor you on that Terrible Day for the respect shown to Him in the person of earthly bishops. In one priest of a single parish church, contemplate the One who became a priest for us according to the order of Melchizedek (Ps. 109:4). In the archpriest of each church, contemplate the image of the One Head of the one Church in the universe - Christ (Wed: Eph. 5:23); in the bishop of the diocese (in the bishop) contemplate primarily the image of the Head of the Church - Christ, and finally - even more so - in the Synod - the image of the same Head - Christ, and in accordance with such a view of them, honor them and obey them as Christ. Obey the superior unquestioningly in everything that is not contrary to the commandments of God and the statutes of the Church, although his order is apparently unusual and petty; it is not petty when it can arouse contradiction and resistance in you. Apparently the commandment of God in paradise was of little importance - not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but disobedience to it killed the entire human race through sin and bodily death. Let the will of the abbot, as the will of God, be sacred to you and obey it willingly - otherwise, know that the spirit of pride, self-indulgence and arbitrariness is hovering in you - and if you violate or want to violate the will of the abbot for the sake of your decoration and splendor in service - then the spirit of vanity and vanity. – Remember that the wedding garment of the soul is obedience and humility, and the stinking rags of the soul are pride, disobedience and self-government. Strange thing! I myself reluctantly obey the abbot, but I myself want the lower brethren to carry out my will unquestioningly, and I think that this should be so. If the archpriest is the superior of the brethren, then he must be obeyed in many different cases. Remember the rebellion of Korah, Dathan and Abiron (See: Numbers 16:1–35). If the archpriest asks you to serve mass or matins as soon as possible, do not hesitate and do not resist in your heart or in words to fulfill his request and show obedience. Mentally, you can soon celebrate Matins and Liturgy. Behold, obedience is better than sacrifice (1 Samuel 15:22). If you feel a vague, anxious rebellion in your heart during the service or outside the service, know that it is from the devil, and do not listen to him. Look again: is there in your heart hatred and contempt for the boss who ordered you; if there is one, then know that it is a thorn and immediately pluck it out. Look again: is it not because of money, is it not because of your own selfishness that you have heartfelt disobedience to your boss. Know that this too is from the devil. Avoid in every possible way the devil's opposition to your boss, so that you will not be condemned together with the devil, the enemy of God. And put all pride aside before those in charge. Humbly submit to him in everything that is not contrary to the direct commandment of God and the definition of the Church. - Avoid every shadow of malice against him, every evil thought and desire. Be simple in everything, for your Lord is a Simple Being and calls everyone into the unity of His Being. A little leaven of sin leaves the whole mixture leavened (1 Cor. 5:6). – Do not let mental sin remain in your heart, but immediately pluck it out as the root of future weeds of sin. Otherwise, even a small mental sin will turn into a great one, occupying your entire heart and thoughts, disturbing your peace and preventing you from doing your job calmly. Take your time: say and do everything peacefully. You'll have time. The enemy hurries and confuses, because vague haste is of no use. The priest, deacon and reader need to pronounce words or sing them in such a way, as well as act during the sacred service or correction, so that the peaceful, meek and humble disposition of their soul is clearly visible from their voice and from their actions; This is how, and not otherwise, one must behave when serving the God of the world. And this is unanimously demanded by all those present in the church or anywhere in the house during the priestly service. The commander with his voice, and the priest with prayer, puts the Lord’s armies in order and arms himself with the Cross against the spiritual enemy instead of the sword. The Kingdom of Heaven, it is said, is in need, and the needy delights it (Matthew 11:12). So, you need to constantly force yourself to truth and goodness; Thus, in prayer, you must at every moment force yourself to pronounce every word with strength, truly, from the heart; in the event of a mistake, inattention to one’s heart, or forcing oneself to be sincere, the prayer will be hypocritical, false, and ungodly. You need to speak the words of prayer convincingly to yourself; when the prayer words are convincing for you, then they will be convincing for God, and without convincing yourself, do not think of convincing God with your prayer to grant you any good. God gives according to our hearts: the more sincerity and heartfelt fervor in prayer, the more generous the gift. When, during the prayer of the Mother of God, you do not find in your heart the appropriate reverence for Her, but feel evil and blasphemous thoughts 46, then exclaim in your heart the following words of praise, appropriately applicable to Her: all You, Lady, are Light, all are Shrine, all are Goodness, all are Wisdom; You can do everything, as the Mother of the Almighty; You are always One and also All-Perfect, as the Mother of the All-Perfect King of Glory (Ps. 23:7-10). When you pray to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit - our One God in the Trinity, do not look for Him outside yourself, but contemplate Him in yourself as living in you and completely penetrating and knowing you. Do you not know that you are the church of God (God in the Trinity), and the Spirit of God lives in you (1 Cor. 3:16)? – I will dwell in them and walk (and walk with them): and I will be their Father (2 Cor. 6:16; Lev. 26:12). God! You penetrate me and know, says David in Psalm 139 (Cf. Ps. 139:1-5). Be so sure of the Lord’s closeness to you that you feel that when you pray to God, you are touching Him not only with your thoughts and heart, but also with your lips and tongue. The word is near, in your mouth and in your heart, that is, God (Deut. 30:14; Rom. 10:8). 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 (Rom. 12:5; 1 Cor. 10:17), and one by one as members of the body of Christ (Cf.: 1 Cor. 6:15; 12:27) and as your own members, who are a delight to each other (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 common All-Good Father (Compare: Eph.4:6), with Him there is no partiality (Rom.2:11; Eph.6:9), not a shadow of change. (James 1:17), this Love, which has no limits, embraces and preserves all creatures. In prayer, the main thing that you need to take care of first of all is a living, clairvoyant faith in the Lord: imagine Him vividly before you and in yourself - and then, whatever you want, ask for Christ Jesus in the Holy Spirit: and it will be done for you (cf. John 15:7). Ask simply, without hesitation (cf. James 1:6): and then your God will be everything to you, performing great and wonderful things in an instant, just as the sign of the cross accomplishes great powers. Ask not for yourself alone, but for all the faithful, for the entire body of the Church, spiritual and material blessings, not separating yourself from other believers, but being in spiritual unity with them as a member of the one great body of the Church of Christ (Compare: 1 Cor. 12:12): and loving everyone as his children in Christ, the Heavenly Father will fill you with great peace and boldness. During the Divine Service, during the performance of all the Sacraments and prayers, be like a child, trusting, guided by your parents. Remember what great fathers, what luminaries of the universe, illuminated by the Holy Spirit, guide you! - Like a child, like a child, be simple, trusting, undoubting in the work of God. - Cast all your sorrow on the Lord (cf. 1 Pet. 5:7), and be completely carefree. – Do not worry about how or what you say, or what you say: for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you (Matthew 10:19-20). Long ago the Lord took away from us this concern, this sadness, teaching our God-bearing fathers by His Spirit what to say to the Lord during Divine services and in various cases and circumstances of human life that require prayer, bringing down the blessing from above. We are reluctant to pray. - The enemy is getting cold. But what is his constriction, if our heart is established in the Lord (Compare: 1 Samuel 2:1)! 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 matter of Divine services, celebration and Communion of the Holy Mysteries, the devil will strongly hinder us. Well, he will cleverly teach someone of little faith or who is arrogant in his mind, or who is partial to something earthly and carnal. It will exhaust you, exhaust you - so much so that you can barely bring your legs home. When the devil confuses you with unbelief in the Mysteries, saying: it is impossible for bread and wine to be the Body and Blood of Christ, tell him: yes, for you and for me this is impossible, you are telling the truth, but not for God: everything is possible with God (Mark 10:27). – The very thought of God is deed, the word of God is deed: Speech and action (Ps. 33:9; 149:5). He says: it happens. Brief and clear. And all the worlds stand by the word of God. - Carry all things with the verb of your strength (cf. Heb. 1:3). When you doubt the presence of the Lord in the Mysteries, say to yourself on behalf of the Lord the words: Am I not king everywhere? Am I not the ONE ( Ex. 3:14 )? “And your consciousness will say that He definitely reigns everywhere, He is everywhere, especially in the Life-giving Mysteries.” – It is even in every word, and in general it is essentially all there. Firmly remember the words of the Church: the Lamb of God is fragmented, crushed and not divided, always poisoned and never consumed, 48 that is, that the Lamb of God, no matter how many and no matter how small parts it is fragmented, He is never divided, but remains all and one and the same in every smallest particle. And if a stupid and devilish (false) thought came into someone’s head that the Lord is not all or He is not in some particle, then He would falsely assume that the Divinity, not limited by anything, is limited by matter or that He cannot be all everywhere. Remember that the performance of the Life-giving Mysteries is the unchangeable will of the Life-giving Trinity, predetermined from the foundation of the world (cf.: Matt. 25:34), and it cannot be - and when you perform the Mysteries, then God the Father Himself, by His Holy Spirit, transforms bread and wine into the Body and Blood of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ. You are only a tool. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit Himself in you performs the Liturgy, its power and performs the Gifts. You are, offer and offer, - they say, - Christ our God 49. – Remember God’s immutability and faithfulness in all His words (Wed: Ps. 145:13). Having called on the Holy Spirit to the Gifts presented on the throne and sanctified them through the prayer of transposition 50, remember that heaven and earth pass by - but the words of the Lord do not pass by (Matthew 24:35) - and that bread and wine are certainly transformed into the Body and Blood of the Lord according to the will of the Lord Himself and according to the action of the Holy Spirit. When receiving communion, look at the Terrible Sacrifice as if there were only one and you, and everything else did not exist. You and He (Exodus 3:14) - who created you and contains you. Think of nothing earthly in yourself, 51 not even heavenly things, except the Lord. Especially imagine the dreamer-devil with all his dreamy intrigues or seductions as if he did not exist. It is precisely the negation of spiritual existence and the pure negation of truth. - Amen. Know who is working against you in the Sacrament of Communion and lying about the Mysteries, sowing darkness and painful doubt in you. This is the devil. In spite of him, the tormentor, imagine with clarity or with living faith that the Mysteries are Christ God Himself: and your heart, tormented by the enemy, will come to life, rest and rejoice. Know also who is tormenting you with the sting of corruptible poison 52: again this is the same enemy - count the corruptible poison as nothing, be completely indifferent to it and you will see how your heart will immediately calm down. Teach the Holy Mysteries to infants with extreme caution, in moderation, so that the Most Pure Blood of God does not spill on a shirt or anything else. The deacon must carefully wipe away the Blood pouring out of the baby’s mouth with a handkerchief. (Very necessary.) Read prayers and say exclamations and litanies with all your heart, wide open, simply. When you perform incense, be all mentally in God, fixing your mind and heart on Him, forget about yourself, offer all of yourself to God as a sacrifice on the altar of burnt offering, forget about human opinion, do not mentally descend into the unity of this world, but be all in the heavenly - and you will be exalted, important without pride, calm, majestic. But if you think even for a moment about your own glory, about gaining people’s opinion for yourself, you will immediately lose your sublimity and peace of mind. Conduct yourself in this way in all your service to the Most High God: think about His one glory, fix your mind and heart on Him alone, and do not think about people, do not worry about pleasing them and do not think about how to earn their glory - and you will always be exalted, calm, majestic. Away with all internal self-pleasure, self-praise and self-satisfaction and placing oneself above others. We must avoid proud, Pharisaic boasting of ourselves in our hearts during prayer and exalting ourselves over others. To enliven and sincerity of prayer, it is good to constantly strike in the middle of the womb (on the navel), in which the heart is located, and not just strike, but fold your fingers the way we fold them for prayer. It feels light and sweet in the insides with such an emphasis on the spiritual heart. The enemy flees from the sign of the Holy Trinity. The stress awakens it from the sleep to which it is so prone. That prayer that is performed with pity on the flesh, with tenderness, is an abomination to the Lord. – During prayer, crucify your flesh with its passions and lusts (Gal.5:24). If you want to make a sacrifice pleasing to the Lord, deny yourself for His sake sleep for a few minutes at midnight - and flow to Him with prayer for yourself and for His people. Midnight prayer is especially easy, pure, sincere and successful. Equally, if you want to please the Lord, deny yourself the delicious food - may the Lord and His spiritual food - His Body and Blood (the essence of the spirit and the life are the essence (John 6:63)), His holy word and church services - delight you completely. – Do not satisfy the completely sinful flesh that resists God (cf. Gal. 5:17), even in its natural needs, lest it prevail over your spirit, but oppress it wisely in everything: in food, in drink, and in sleep, even with somewhat unclean and fetid air, cramped housing, and denial of the things it loves. – A pleasant and long sleep, delicious food, a spacious, richly decorated home, elegant clothes, various pleasant whims - the same as pleasant shackles, the pleasantness of which leads to destruction. They are like Christ, having crucified the flesh with passions and lusts in every way (Gal.5:24). You begin the work of God or are already engaged in the work of prayer, perform the Sacrament, and the enemy puts something else into your mind and heart, sometimes bad and blasphemous, or doubt, or an unaccountable, absurd fear, or anger, contempt for someone, condemnation of someone, and you do not pay attention to anything extraneous and say to yourself: here, my soul, is your subject, to which you must now completely surrender, with all your thoughts and with all your heart - let everything else be for you now as if it did not exist. Or say: I am in God and now I do not want to think about any creature or any of its accessories. (This is what I did during temptation at Father John Tsvetkov’s funeral service for my mother-in-law - and the Lord blessed me.) Regarding the fulfillment of what you ask from God in prayer, believe that just as it is convenient for you to pronounce words, so it is convenient and incomparably more convenient for the Lord to fulfill every word of yours, and if there is a word, then there is also a deed, for with the Lord there is no word without deed; the verb “thin” does not return to Him (cf. Is. 55:11), according to His word. – Remember constantly in prayer that God exists (Ex. 3:14) - everything comes from Him: a thought about something, a word about something, a deed, and everything, everything; that He is all-wise, all-powerful, all-good. Believe firmly that you think, feel, speak, move and act always in God, so to speak, in His very bosom: He abides in Me, and I in him (John 6:56). From all sides He has enclosed you in Himself, penetrates you and knows you: behind and in front, says the holy prophet and king David, “You have enclosed me and placed Your hand on me (cf. Ps. 139:1-5). In God is the Mother of God, all the holy Angels and all the saints. What's closer? Who could be more easily communicated with Christian believers than holy Angels and men? – Call with faith, hope and love both the Lord of all and His saints, asking for their intercession for yourself before God. Just as you ask the living for something for yourself, standing face to face with them, so ask the Angels and saints to pray to God for you, firmly believing that they are face to face to your heart. Believe firmly that at all times the Lord is everything for you: during prayer He is for you the strength and fulfillment in the Holy Spirit of every word you say, your light, peace and delight of your heart; during pious conversation He is your living water, the fiery stream of your words; at all times - He is every good thing for you. – Be carefree with your Lord: He has enclosed you in Himself on all sides, He penetrates you all and knows all your thoughts (Cf.: Ps. 139:1-5), the needs and dispositions of your heart, and if you stand in Him by faith and love, then no evil will come to you (Ps. 90:10). - The Lord is near. Worry about nothing (Phil.4:5-6). Believe firmly in the perfection of every word, especially 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. Treat your 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, the Father participates in His omnipresence, the Father as the Supreme Mind, His Creative Word and the Perfector of the Holy Spirit. 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 (See: Matthew 12:36–37). 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. Just feel sincerely the need for what you pray for, and sincerely believe that every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from God (cf.: James 1:17), and not from people, not from chance, not from circumstances, not from fate, and that the Master sees and hears your every need, every movement of your heart and your thought, that He is all-good, omnipotent and wise and everything is convenient in an instant, with a single movement of thought He, through the Son in His Holy Spirit, can do what is necessary for you: and you will receive everything. Just don’t attribute labor to God in anything, in any task, no matter how great and apparently impossible it may be. For although many things are impossible with man, they are not with God: for all things are possible with God (Mark 10:27). See God firmly with the eyes of your heart and during this time of His contemplation ask what you want in the name of Jesus Christ: and it will be done for you (cf. John 15:7). 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 everything for you that you need to save you and your neighbor, and for that time you will be God yourself through sincere communication (Cf. Heb. 2:14) with Him: Az reh: you are God (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 the fulfillment itself; you will say: and immediately it will be accomplished, as God said, and it was: He commanded, and it was created (Ps. 33:9, 149:5). – This applies both to the Sacraments and to spiritual prayer in general. However, in the Sacraments everything is accomplished for the sake of the grace of the priesthood, with which the priest is invested, for the sake of the Supreme High Priest Christ Himself, Whose image the priest bears on himself: therefore, although he bears the dignity unworthily, although there are weaknesses in him, although he is suspicious, unfaithful or distrustful, nevertheless the Mystery of God will be accomplished soon, in the twinkling of an eye. Reflect and contemplate with your heart, when you pray, about what you pray for and what you pray for. And it would be good to contemplate all the prayers. When you stand for prayer, burdened with many sins and overcome with despair, begin to pray with hope, a burning spirit, and remember that the Spirit of God Himself helps us in our weaknesses, interceding for us with groanings that cannot be uttered (cf. Rom. 8:26). 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 (Rom. 14:17), you will cry out with the voice of your heart: Abba Father (Mark 14:36)! During the celebration of the Liturgy and the Sacrament of Body and Blood, as well as during the celebration of other Sacraments, and in general - prayer at home or in church, pay close attention to yourself so that the thought of some pleasant thing for you or a pleasant person for you or an unpleasant face and an unpleasant thing does not sink into your heart and your heart does not become attached to them with partiality or does not feel annoyance or embarrassment from the memory of them. - Then your heart will leave the Lord and the Lord will leave you as an idolater, as a foolish person who, during the very service of his service, preferred His creation to His Creator, preferred dust to the Creator, corruptible to the incorruptible, broken treasures to the Source of living water, which cannot contain water (Jer. 2:13), or to the Existing God - himself, his passions; will be indignant, as if he were a mad man who, during his conversation with the king, frivolously and boldly leaves him and talks with his slaves - with his cooks, stokers, sex workers, or turns from the majestic face of the king, breathing love and goodwill, to rattle toys - he loves them, enjoys them, and neglects the king, who has them and for whom they are nothing more than rubbish. Do not miss opportunities to pray for a person at his request or at the request of his relatives, friends, admirers or acquaintances. The Lord looks with reverence at the prayer of our love and at our boldness before Him. In addition, prayer for others is very useful for the person praying for others: it cleanses the heart and confirms faith and hope in God and kindles love for God and neighbor. – When praying, say: Lord! There is no difficulty for You to do this or that to Your servant; do this and that to him. For Your name is the Good Lover of Mankind and the Almighty. If we, the wicked being, know how to give good gifts not only to our children, but also to strangers, how much more do You give every possible good to those who ask You (cf. Luke 11:13). Be extremely careful not to offend a woman in labor with a baby by refusing her prayer or otherwise: you will greatly offend Christ Himself, who deigned to give birth to us for the sake of His infancy, and His Immaculate Mother; Don’t be lazy to do everything for the mother in labor and for the helpless baby. 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 words are true: they are taken from experience. – We usually do not pray for others very willingly, more out of need or habit; without the full participation of the heart, without the burning of the spirit; 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 Greatly Gifted God. [Let him ask, it is said, by faith, without doubting anything: doubt for you are like the turbulence of the sea, tossed and tossed by the winds (James 1:6).] The Lord, this common Father of all (Cf.: Eph. 4:6), is pleased when we willingly, with faith and love pray for each other, for He is Love (Cf.: 1 John 4: 8, 16), 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). “You see how pleasing to God and how effective prayer for each other is.” Here is a human illness: for example, my brother asks me to replace him in the service; I answer: okay, I’ll replace it, but then, having left him, out of hostility towards him and suspicion of him, I repent of my word and look for plausible excuses to refuse to replace him. And thus it turns out that what happened to the servant whom the Savior cited in the parable as an example of failure to fulfill the will of God. The Lord said: go this day and work in My vineyard (Matthew 21:28); and he said: I, Lord, am coming; and did not go (Matthew 21:30). Or what happened to Pharaoh, who was embittered in anger and pride: he said after each of God’s executions: I will let the Jewish people go, and when the execution was over, he repented of his promise and did not let him go from his land; and then, when he actually let him go, forced by the destruction of the firstborn in his land, he repented again and chased after them in order to satiate his anger with cruelty against them (See: Ex. 7:14–14:8). How great is the malice in us! Rejoice and thank God when He sends you occasions for the suffering of your flesh (for example, in special labors in the service) and your sinful heart: because this is the great mercy of God, similar to those mercies that He showed to the martyrs, subjecting them to suffering for the faith; the monks, who, by His grace, exhausted their bodies on earth by lying down, fasting and almost constant vigil and prayer 53 . It’s bad when our flesh does not suffer, but lives in contentment and bliss: then it takes its will and captures us in its hands, making our soul its slave. Suffering or intense work in the sweat of the brow is unpleasant (Gen. 3:19), but there is nothing to do - this is of great benefit to the soul: sins are squeezed out of it by these sufferings or these works in the sweat of the brow. By the sweat of your brow you shall bear your bread (Gen. 3:19). Oh, if only you could exhaust the full depth of these words, comprehend their whole truth - and what kindness together with justice, what wise purposefulness with the condition of the sinner was expressed in them! In these words, God, like a wise doctor, pointed out to sinful people the best, most effective medicine against the disease of sin, a strong antidote to the poison of sin: in them mercy and truth are found (Ps. 84:11). Labor by the sweat of the brow is the first cross for sin. And look what experience says: aren’t hardworking Christian people the best people and the best Christians? Just as tears cleanse the impurities of our hearts, so the sweat of labor also cleanses the impurities of the soul. But what pure souls you will meet among well-meaning free workers! – So, rejoice, Christian, and thank God when you have to endure special labors or other sufferings of the flesh. Drive away from your heart the sinful reluctance to take up any task whatsoever. Go against your lazy flesh, against your heart that does not love work; always try to overcome yourself - force yourself, do the work reluctantly, convince, beg yourself and finally you will do it willingly; get used to it - fall in love. If you yourself do not listen to your prayer and do not hear it with your heart, then how can you think that the Master is listening to it and hearing it? Here you are praying: your prayer is being completed successfully; you have inner evidence that the Lord hears her and is pleased with her: you have peace of thoughts, 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 boils and relaxes the heart, and you feel the extreme heaviness of prayer and aversion to it instead of the previous ease 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 previous ones lost their labors in a holy cause. Learn from this in advance not to quench your spirit (Cf.: 1 Thess. 5:19) for a minute during the continuation of prayer, to pray in spirit and truth (Cf.: John 4:23, 24) unremittingly and not to flatter the Lord with a single word in prayer, that is, feignedly, hypocritically not to utter even one word: let all your prayer be one expression of the truth, the trumpet of the Holy One Spirit, and not a single word serves as a lie to the enemy, and will not be an 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, admitting before Him from the heart your guilt - hypocrisy while saying the prayer, and you will receive relief and peace. When you pray to God for forgiveness of your sins and for deliverance from passions, then see that your heart sincerely desires this and does not secretly stretch out your hands to them, do not give them a friendly kiss; Likewise, when you ask the Lord for any spiritual gift, wish to sincerely receive this gift, and be careful not to allow your heart to secretly reject it or turn away from it. - What happens? They ask for deliverance from sins and passions, and they themselves caress them; They ask for God’s grace to help themselves, but they themselves push it away internally, and sometimes even with their deeds. When you begin to pray at home or in public, or to compose sermons, then love your work with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind (Cf.: Luke 10:27), as the work of God: for only by loving it with all your heart can you do it in spirit and truth (John 4:24). But with a double heart, it is a great sin to serve the God of our hearts, who is worthy of complete love and who sees all the secrets of our hearts. Thou shalt not steal (Ex. 20:15). This commandment, by the way, means: do not steal the glory of God in church or in Christian homes during the celebration of Divine services and the Sacraments with your sluggish, heartless service, concealing words, and outside of Divine services with your passionate thoughts, rotten words (cf. Eph. 4:29) and sinful deeds. Also, do not steal the glory of God when teaching the Law of God to your pupils. The first thief of the glory of God is the devil, who wanted to be compared with God and now reigns in the world with ungodly deeds in the sons of this age (cf. Luke 16:8); then - the adulterous and sinful world (cf.: Mark 8:38), stealing glory from the God of glory in all its ungodly life and its manifestations: in the sciences, in the arts, in trade, in industry, in food and drink, in mutual communication with each other, in household and social affairs, in conversations, in their thoughts. Because the devil and people have appropriated the glory of God for themselves through false, ungodly deeds, we say in the Lord’s Prayer: Hallowed be thy name: thy kingdom come (Matthew 6:9–10). Always serve with a contrite and humble heart (Compare: Ps. 50:19) in the full meaning of these words, living and active. When praying to God in church or at home, or anywhere else, remember that you are praying to the Faithful and True One, who is ready to fulfill for those who pray to Him in spirit and truth (John 4:23, 24) everything that He promised with His unfaithful lips, therefore pray to the Lord with perfect faith, not allowing a shadow of doubt; say to yourself: The Faithful and True stands at my right hand (Cf.: Ps. 15:8) and expects from me that in conversation with Him I also be faithful and not unfaithful (Cf.: John 20:27), true and not false. When, at the sight of a rich deceased person and when praying for him, your heart rejoices and condemns him for his love of money and stinginess and does not sincerely pray for him, immediately turn the same condemnation on yourself and say: I too am subject to the same flattery of wealth (Matthew 13:22) and stinginess; and pray for him as for yourself: we all live captivated by the enemy’s flattery in this life, we all walk among snares, from which may the Lover of Mankind deliver us all. When, while praying at home or in church, you become carried away by thoughts and worries about something everyday, immediately stop their flow and say internally the words of the Savior: seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you (Matthew 6:33). When your heart becomes embittered towards your brother and condemns him for his love of money and seeking, calm him down by sincerely condemning yourself in the same thing, remind yourself of the bitch and the beam (See: Matt. 7:3-5), and condemn better without mercy, hate yourself better. If your brother does something during the service incorrectly or somewhat carelessly, do not be irritated either internally or externally against him, but generously condescend to his error, remembering that you yourself make many, many errors in life, that you yourself are a man with all your infirmities; that God is long-suffering and abundantly merciful (cf. Ps. 102:8) and forgives you and all of us our iniquities without number. Remember the words from the Lord's Prayer: forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors (Matthew 6:12). 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 mistakes of our brethren, who are weak like us; so that, just as we do not judge ourselves strictly, we should not judge others strictly, for the brethren are our members, as if we were ourselves (cf. Eph. 4:25). Irritability of character comes from lack of self-knowledge, and from pride, and also because we do not reflect on the severe damage to our nature and have little known the Meek and Humble Jesus. Anyone who has sinned in anything, either subordinate or non-subordinate, must be corrected with a spirit of meekness (cf. Gal. 6:1), and not with ferocity; We all tend to make mistakes. Look at yourself: weren’t you yourself the cause of your brother’s mistake; Was it not your oversight or haste to peace that caused your brother to make a mistake? If so, then there is no point in being angry, annoyed, irritated, or angry with him, even if he says something rude to your comments, even if he doesn’t listen to you. Blame yourself and be careful in your actions in future. And during the Holy Mysteries, be afraid to raise your voice or shout at a subordinate. In view of them, or the King of glory Himself (Cf.: Ps. 23:7-10), Meek and Humble, one should be in a reverent mood of spirit, in meekness and humility, in goodness, self-control (Cf.: Gal. 5:22, 23), chastity and righteousness. Think of nothing earthly in yourself 54 when you carry with you the King of kings (1 Tim. 6:15), the Lord of heaven and earth - the Lord of life 55 and death. Do not suspect your brother, known to you from an unfavorable side, but outwardly doing the work of God correctly, of hypocrisy; you can easily be deceived in this case and fall into hatred and malice towards him and get entangled in the devil’s net. Tell yourself: our hearts are known to God alone, and if someone outwardly does the work of faith and piety well, then this is enough for us people, but we will leave the inside of a person to the judgment of the One who continually tests our hearts and bellies (Cf.: Ps. 7:10; Jer. 11:20; Rev. 2:23). Look at the actions of the deacon serving with you as if they were your own, say: what my brother does, I do (it makes no difference). Me and him are one. Reason with yourself this way, for example, when he distributes prosphora. Rely on him in this matter completely and do not intervene in it yourself. Serving meals is the job of the deacons, and your job is to remain in prayer, the ministry of the word (Cf.: Acts 6:2, 4) and the worthy performance of the Sacraments and the communion of the Holy Mysteries of the Body and Blood of the Lord. It is extremely sinful to be indignant at the deacon for distributing prosphora without your knowledge, especially during the sacred service and Communion. – Remember the words of the Savior: do (take care) not what is evil that perishes, but what is evil which remains in the eternal life, which the Son of Man will reward (cf. John 6:27). Reh, the Lord again says, do not pay attention to the bread, but to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matthew 16:11, 6) (that is, hypocrisy in prayer and in all life). When a stranger comes to the altar during the Liturgy - stand in the altar, do not be indignant at him in your heart, do not judge him and do not say to yourself: why did he come here? Is there no place for him in the church - along with other believers? He is not worthy to be here, but judge yourself sincerely and say: I am more unworthy than him, due to my sins, but the Lord allows me to stand at His very throne. And you will do what is right. Your heart will calm down from confusion, and the Lord will give you a testimony in your heart that you have done a deed pleasing to Him, having sincerely condemned yourself (...) When the Lord tells you to be an archpriest, gather together His scattered 56 children, protect them all with the stronghold of God’s commandments; give them all food - the Gospel words and lives and the words of the saints; pluck out from them, by the grace of God, the tares of many different sins - idleness, absent-mindedness, laziness, idle talk, carelessness about one's salvation, covetousness and others. – Try to raise the children of God for eternal bliss in the abodes of the Heavenly Father. – Instill in parents that they must form children of light (cf.: Luke 16:8) not so much for the light, for the adulterous and sinful world (cf.: Mark 8:38), which lies entirely in evil (1 John 5:19), which is passing away, - but for the Heavenly Father; so that, first of all, they themselves know and teach their children to know the Gospel, this highest and at the same time simplest Christian science, so that they care and talk not about many things, but about the one thing that is needed (cf.: Luke 10:41, 42), so that they try to make their children not only happy here, but, what is most necessary, blessed in eternity; so that the Christian foundation is laid stronger in the hearts: love for God and neighbor; faith in Jesus Christ; the hope of the resurrection of the dead 57, the universal Judgment and the fear of an eternal and most unfortunate fate in hell along with the devils. – And yourself, leave behind relaxation and lethargy of spirit – and try to bring everyone out of this disastrous state (...) Application. Power and Glory of the Priesthood To Jesus Christ, who loved us and washed us from our sins with His blood and made us kings and priests to His God and Father, be glory and dominion forever and ever, amen (Rev. 1:5, 6). The highest titles of all the titles on earth, with which the goodness of God has endowed people, are the title of royal and priestly: he was given complete, highest power on earth, and this was given heavenly power - to open and close heaven, to decide and bind the sins of men (See: Matt. 18:18); to revive into new life - from corruptible to incorruptible, from unclean to pure, to transfer from temporary to eternal, to sanctify and deify. Speaking before you, fathers, brothers and sisters, with my humble and simple word on the significant day for me of the forty-fifth anniversary of my priestly service to God and people, His Creator and creation, I first of all consider it a sacred duty to give glory and thanksgiving, honor and worship to the Almighty Trinity, which chose me, unworthy, for this great pastoral, intercessory and sacred service; for for everything that was good and edifying in me during this time, I owe to Him, my Trinitarian God, His grace, which was accomplished in my weaknesses (Compare: 2 Cor. 12:9), but mine were only weaknesses and stumblings, which He mercifully covered with His grace for my repentance; secondly, I must give an account of what I did during the continuation of my priesthood in the life of the church and public. I do not want to praise myself from this holy place, as it is customary in the world to praise and only praise leaders in various fields of public service, not to flatter myself or anyone, but to speak the pure truth - to speak about my weaknesses and struggles, for the Apostle Paul, the mysterious celestial one, caught up to the third heaven, boasted not of his virtues, but of his weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in him (Cf.: 2 Corinthians 12:2–9). So, I give myself and you an account: what did I do when I became a priest, and what did I do in this rank? Ordained as a priest and shepherd 58, I soon learned from experience with whom I was entering into a struggle in my spiritual field, namely, with the strong, cunning, never-slumbering and breathing wickedness and destruction and the hellish fire of Gehenna, the prince of this world (John 12:31) and with the spirits of wickedness in high places, as the Apostle says: our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in high places (Eph. 6:12); temptations began, the dirty tricks of the enemy, weaknesses, wounds, stumblings were revealed: enemies, like thieves, began to pursue me in my spiritual journey and in the service of my God. This meant that the Lord, the Good Shepherd (John 10:11, 14), introduced me to the test and into experimental spiritual training, so that I would know what enemies I am dealing with, having taken upon myself the yoke of Christ’s priesthood, with whom I must fight, from whom to keep the verbal sheep, how to protect them from the serpent of the whole deep, from the lion who roars and seeks every day whom to devour ( 1 Peter 5:8) and cast down into hell, how to arm yourself against him and defeat him with the help of the one Christ God, who Himself defeated him for us and for us by His Cross and His death, breaking his power and giving us the saving sign of the Cross as a weapon. This struggle with a strong and cunning invisible enemy showed me with my own eyes how many infirmities, weaknesses and sinful passions there are in me, how much the prince of this age has in me, and how I must fight with myself, with my sinful inclinations and habits, defeat them in order to be, if possible, invulnerable from the arrows of the enemy. Spiritual warfare began: self-observation, sophistication of spiritual vision, teaching myself unceasing secret prayer and invoking the all-saving name of Christ: like the psalmist King-Prophet David, I constantly began to raise my heart’s eyes to the mountains, to heaven, from where clear, speedy, sovereign help came to me (cf. Ps. 121:1, 2), and my strong enemies turned to escape, and I received freedom and peace of mind... This battle continues in me to this day; and a long time of spiritual warfare taught me a lot and especially experienced knowledge of all the subtleties of spiritual warfare, all the countless intrigues of invisible enemies and a firm, always confident invocation of the name of the Lord Jesus, before Whom they cannot stand; in this invisible, constant battle, I recognized the ever-present closeness of the Lord to me, His immeasurable goodness, quick obedience, His infinite truth and mercy, the infinite holiness of His being, for which one unrighteous thought is disgusting and vile ( Prov. 15:26 ) and one instant will to sin or the pleasure of sin, - which irrevocably, immutably seeks and demands from all of us holiness in thoughts, holy fervor in feelings, holiness in all movements of our will, in words and deeds. In this spiritual battle, I learned the abyss of God’s long-suffering towards us; for He alone knows all the weakness of our fallen nature, which He mercifully took upon Himself, except for sin (See: Is. 53:9; 1 Pet. 2:22; 1 John 3:5, 4:10), and therefore commanded seventy times to forgive sins (Wed: Matt. 18:21, 22) those who fall into them; and He surrounded and surrounds me every day with the joys of deliverance from them and with peace and space of heart. The immeasurable mercy of God that I have experienced and the ever-present closeness of the Lord to me assures me of the hope of my eternal salvation and of all who are guided and listen to me for salvation, according to the word of Scripture: Behold, I and the children whom God has given Me (Heb. 2:13; Is. 8:18). What else was my work after I received the priesthood? In the performance of Divine services, the saving Sacraments and in the preaching of the Word of God... While performing the Sacraments, I often thought about the dignity in which man was created by God in the beginning, and how frivolously and ungratefully he lost it, and to what terrible disasters he exposed himself and all posterity; how kindly, wisely, and thoughtfully man was protected by the Creator from falling and how easy it was to save himself and the whole race from destruction; how lovingly the Lord seeks with his free will the fallen human race; what a marvelous humane means he invented for salvation, having himself become an Intercessor before God the Father and creating on earth for common salvation His one Church, under His personal leadership and leadership, with the wonderful saving Mysteries of rebirth, purification, sanctification, renewal, adoption and the very communion with the Divine nature in the Mystery of Communion of the Most Pure Body and Blood of the Son of God, with constant preaching the Word of God and the leadership of shepherds sanctified by the Holy Spirit and empowered by grace. Serving in full armor of grace the Divine wondrous services, I was often amazed at the ineffable mercy of God, which clothed a weak, mortal man with the grace of the priesthood and gave him the power and authority to offer prayers to the Creator for the whole world, for all people, for all ranks and classes, for the king and for all those in power, for the Holy Synod and for the Consecrated Council, for all people, and to intercede before Nim is about the bestowal of all the blessings of heaven and earth. Celebrating the Divine Liturgy almost every day, I was moved every time and often shed tears, remembering the immeasurably great condescension of God towards us, His incarnation, God’s life on earth with man, His meekness, humility, countless miracles to people, travels through cities and villages, the envy and hatred of the people whom He came to save and reconcile with the Father. Heavenly, about His Suffering and Death at the slander of His enemies, about the glorious Resurrection, about the Ascension into heaven and sitting at the right hand of God the Father and, finally, about His Second glorious and terrible coming to earth. Performing daily the Terrible and Life-giving Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ, for us and for the whole world, painfully sacrificed to God and His Father, I was amazed at the greatness of God’s goodness towards us, condescension, exhaustion of Christ, mercy, long-suffering, truth and wisdom of God, manifested in this Universal and Supreme Sacrifice. Communicating daily this Most Holy and Life-giving Sacrament and always feeling within myself its life-giving power for soul and body, its victory in me over sin and death, justification, peace, freedom and boldness of my spirit, I was filled with joy and gratitude to God for communion of such a Great Saving Mystery. Seeing before me with the eyes of my heart God in the flesh, I was filled with boldness to pray to God for the whole world, for the Holy Church in all ends of the earth and in all peoples and tribes, for its pacification, spread and protection, for the king and the reigning house, for all spiritual and civil authorities, for all classes of the state. Seeing before me in the Holy Mysteries the Hidden Lord Himself, the Creator and Almighty, I thought: this is the holy Seed by which the whole world is held together. His seed is holy (Isaiah 6:13). Here is He who is before all and in Whom everything, the whole universe, stands: He is before all, and all things are found in Him (Col. 1:17). But enough words. I thank the Lord, who has deigned me to see this day of my forty-five years of service as a priest - the day on which the Holy Church celebrates the memory of St. Spyridon of Trimifunt, a contemporary of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, who also attended the First Ecumenical Council and was also glorified by miracles. From this day on, the sun turns to the east - the light begins to increase and the day increases, and darkness and nights decrease. I wish with all my heart and pray to the Lord that in me and in all my spiritual children and in all people the darkness of sins diminishes and completely disappears, and that the light of faith and good deeds shines in all hearts, so that I can say with the Apostle: darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining (1 John 2:8). Amen 59. Published in abbreviation according to: Word of St. right John of Kronstadt, pronounced on the day of remembrance of our reverend father John of Rila on October 19 (Old Art.), 1899 // Holy Rights. John of Kronstadt. Memoirs of self-witnesses. M.: Father's House, 2005. pp. 26–27. Compare: Eucharistic canon, exclamation of the priest “Give us one mouth...” from the sequence of the Divine Liturgy. Prayer “Lord my God...” from following Holy Communion. Prayer of the Faithful 2nd from the Divine Liturgy. Litany for the Communion of the Holy Gifts “Forgive me, I have received...” from the Divine Liturgy. Wed: Common Troparion to the Reverend (Noah), ch. 8th “In you, father (mother), it is known that I have been saved...” Wed: Prayer of St. Basil the Great “Much merciful, imperishable, impeccable...” from the rule against desecration. The prayer “Lord, do not deprive me...” from prayers for the future to sleep. Wed: Hymn of the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts. Prayer “We know, Lord...” from the follow-up to Holy Communion. Wed: Troparion, ch. 8th, sung on Holy and Great Thursday, at Matins. Compare: Prayer “I believe, Lord, and I confess...” from following Holy Communion. Wed: Irmos of the 5th canon, Sunday canon, ch. 8th. Petition for a special litany. Prayer “Lord, Lover of Mankind...” from prayers for the future to sleep. Cherubic Hymn from the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. Wed: Prayer to the Holy Spirit. Stichera on the verse, on Tuesday Vespers of the 2nd week of Easter, ch. 1st. The exclamation of the priest after the litany of petition at Matins. Wed: Troparion of Great Compline “The ethereal nature of the Cherubim...” Wed: Prayer “My Most Holy Lady Theotokos...” from morning prayers. Compare: Troparion 2, canto 4, canon of Easter. Compare: Kontakion 5, Akathist to the Sweetest Jesus. Troparion 3, canto 8, canon of St. John the Baptist, ch. 2nd. Secret Eucharistic Prayer of the Priest from the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. Wed: Prayer “Lord, the Lover of Mankind...” from prayers for the future to sleep. Prayer to St. Ephraim the Syrian. Prayer “From bad lips...” from the follow-up to Holy Communion. Exclamation to the song of the Most Holy Theotokos “Theotokos and Mother of Light...”. The prayer “Lord, do not deprive me...” from prayers for the future to sleep. Compare: The prayer “I co-operate with God...”, read at the consecration of a bishop and from the rite of tonsure into the small and great schema. Troparion 4, canto 1, canon to the Guardian Angel, ch. 8th (Canon). Wed: Prayer to the Most Holy Theotokos “My Most Holy Lady Theotokos” from morning prayers. Wed: Prayer during the Cherubic song “No one is worthy...” from the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. Spolagorya - easily, freely, carefree (colloquially). Prayer for the fragmentation of the Holy Lamb from the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. Prayer during the Cherubic song “No one is worthy...” from the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. Secret Eucharistic Prayer of the Priest, from the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. Troparion of Great Saturday, ch. 8th “Let all human flesh be silent...”, sung instead of the Cherubic song. Compare: Irmos of the 9th canto, touching canon to the Lord Jesus Christ, ch. 2nd. Wed: Troparion of St. Varlaam Khutynsky, ch. 3rd “Lying on the ground, exhausting your body with fasting and vigil...”. Troparion of Great Saturday, ch. 8th “Let all human flesh be silent...”, sung instead of the Cherubic song. Wed: Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian. Wed: Irmos of the 9th canon, Sunday canon, ch. 2nd. This was on December 12, 1855, and on December 10 of the same year he was ordained to the rank of deacon by Bishop Christopher in the St. Petersburg Fortress in the Peter and Paul Cathedral. Word on the day of the forty-fifth anniversary of the priestly service of Archpriest of the Kronstadt Cathedral Ioann Sergiev, December 12, 1900. Published from: Yaroslavl Diocesan Gazette. 1901. No. 11, March 18. Some unofficial pp. 165–169.