Июнь 1878 года

June 2. I thank the Lord, who has vouchsafed me to perform early mass today, Friday, without stumbling, although with great compulsion, but not without tenderness: every good change is from the Lord. Two and a half hours. I thank the Lord, who changed my heart and my thoughts for good, breathing with anger and bitterness towards my wife, who innocently scolded me in anger because I tore off the rope at the door in the garden, with which they tied the door so that strangers would not walk in; Yes, they didn’t even go, but meanwhile I had to go into the garden and wait for them to come and untie me. June 2. I thank the Lord, who taught me repentance and sincere self-condemnation with trampling on my pride and self-pity and self-conceit of my neighbor, who caused me grief by cursing and disobedience, self-will. Great is Thy mercy, O Lord, upon me, that by Thy grace I have overcome myself, my old man, overwhelmed by anger and vengeance, that Thou, O Lord, the best and most merciful, has exchanged my malice for kindness, meekness and humility. So I tasted heavenly peace after a storm of passions, peace after mental and physical torment. Grant me to always conquer all soul-crushing passions in myself and be adorned with all the virtues, so that I may be a worthy member of Your body, which is the Church. June 3. Whoever says often and from the heart, Lord, have mercy, means he is alive and healthy in spirit, and whoever does not say or is ashamed to say this short prayer is dead or terminally ill. This prayer is great and extremely necessary for a sinner. That is why it is often said in church. She is the ministry of repentance. Whoever treats someone often is like that person. I wish this for myself and for everyone who visits the church and converses with God, that they may be like Him or His shrine. After early mass. I have now gravely sinned with bitterness and anger and reproach against the father rector for his greed, insult, and untruth regarding the parishioner of the girl whose father I performed the funeral service in the Church of the Epiphany. The rector did not sign the death and burial certificate of her father, although all of our clergy did. Why, he says, weren’t the funeral services held in our church? But doesn’t he want to believe me that I performed his funeral service? Otherwise, why doesn’t he sign the certificate of the deceased in a brotherly manner and delay the matter? Do not the churches have the same grace? God! Remember the tendency to division and disagreement and the extreme love of primacy, combined with the violence and impudence of our abbot, who many times quarreled over primacy in public, and humble, humble him, for the time has come to humble the exalted pride. But I sinned - I fell away from love, kindness, meekness, kindness, obedience, respect for eldership, forgetting the common weakness, due to which we are all prone to sin and therefore must be lenient towards the mistakes of others and not mock them with anger and abuse in absentia, but soften their hearts with the prayer of meekness and love. I wished that the Father Superior’s silver would go with him to destruction, for, indeed, he loved silver infinitely and, because of his passion for it, offends many. But am I myself free from this passion? No, and besides, from gluttony, greed and wine drinking and internal fornication, pride, disobedience, wickedness, laziness, vanity, cowardice, man-pleasing, fear of man. 3 hours. Saturday. I thank You, Lord, God of miracles and mercy, for You have had mercy on me this day with great mercy, granting me the grace of transformation from a sinner into a righteous person by Your righteousness and Your Divine Blood through my repentance and the communion of Your Life-giving Mysteries, which You have granted me today during the Liturgy. It’s wonderful that you revived me with them. I praise You, inexhaustible Source of mercy, purification, sanctification, renewal, revitalization. I thank You, Lord, for You accepted my repentance for my extreme anger at the unrighteous rector, Father Pavel Trachevsky, who, for selfish reasons, tormented an orphan, who did not want to give her a certificate of the death of her father, whom I buried together with the rector of the Church of the Epiphany, Porfiry. Without correcting the belly and its pleasures, you will not be able to despise elegant clothes, but you will be seduced by them and, on occasion, be at enmity because of them against the one who prevents them from being used. So, first of all, blame the root of all sin - the pleasure of the belly, and languish it in fasting, in dry eating, on bread and water. Drink tea rarely, eat rolls, pies, sweets of all kinds less often, and generally give up your addiction to substances. Leave what is on earth to the earth, and what is [the ashen] dust give way, and philosophize on what is above, put on truth, peace, love, meekness, humility, kindness, mercy, kindness, abstinence, purity and chastity, dispassion, unquestioning obedience. Because of the belly and because of carnal knowledge, all our passions, our iniquities. You once contradicted the father rector in his desire to walk with a cross in the parish on high holidays for two groups of brethren, did not sign his note, and now he contradicts you, or contradicted you without signing the certificate. Blame yourself, but don't be angry with him. And in general, never be angry, even if he really was wrong, for to be angry with your neighbor, even if he is guilty, means not to have love for your neighbor, for the commandment commands us to love our enemies. What excuse do we have if we hate enemies, real or apparent? Today I had a more satisfying lunch than usual, having extra changes in the table (eggs, semolina porridge, cabbage soup with meat and roast meat, sprat), and therefore my heart became extremely weak and passionate and my body weak and painful. I sinned before God and before people, and before myself. After the all-night vigil on Trinity. I thank the Lord, the Trinitarian Power, who has given me the grace of the warmest and most sincere praise of Him according to the akathist with the canon of the Most Holy Trinity; I thank you for the warm, heartfelt tears of tenderness, I thank you for perceiving with your mind and heart all the words of the canon and akathist. I thank the Lord for the fact that in modern times I raised such a great theologian and hymnist, equal to Joseph, John of Damascus and Kozma of Mayum or Andrew of Crete, Anatoly and others, in the pure, beautiful, clear, flowing New Slavonic dialect. God! What are you saying about the fate of Your Church, planted especially in Russia, championed and embittered by all the tribes of Europe? Will you still glorify the right weapon? Will you put to shame those who unrighteously rise up against us and deceive us so boldly, so treacherously, so violently? God! When will you put an end to the confusion of the [kingdoms] of the earth? When will we see Your righteousness, the power of Your almighty power and rejoice in Your righteousness and Your truth and in Your invincible power? Grant that we may soon see Your miracles upon us! We, the sons of Russia, have all sinned and are lawless, and we are worthy of Your extreme disgust, but do not submit us to the ridicule of our enemies for the sake of Your name, for the sake of Your holy ark, Your Church, glorifying You more than all the churches or individual societies that have treacherously separated from Your house, and preserving Your truth unharmed. In Thee and again, O Lord, let us trust, that we may not be ashamed forever [Ps.24:1]. Scatter like dust the countless hordes of our enemies, who are preparing for battle and who want to snatch from us the fruits of our victories and put back the shackles of slavery on Your martyred peoples! June 4. Holy Trinity Day. Having lived in the world for so many years (48) and served as a priest for so many years (22), I have not yet entered, cursed, on the path of virtue, meekness, humility, kindness, simplicity, impartiality towards earthly persons and things, abstinence, purity and chastity, goodness and mercy, patience, [moderateness], peace, self-control and firmness, boldness and courage. But often and very often I indulge in anger and bitterness, pride, partiality, deceit, material addiction, intemperance, I have an unclean, impatient heart that does not always observe regularity in everything: in thoughts, in feelings, in words and deeds, often indignant, prone to every sin, doubtful, fearful, weak. Sin is an extremely active, evil, destructive force, constantly acting (especially in the heart and thoughts of a person) in a compelling, acute, painful, deadly way. We must always stand guard over our hearts and resist in the strongest possible way the machinations of sin, so that it does not overcome us from any side, for the hydra of sin has many heads and each of them has a deadly sting. This morning I felt an abyss of sins in myself: envy (deacon Zrelov, that he is given rubles separately for prayer services), greed, ill will, greed, voluptuousness, lustful sensations (from very sweet tea and oranges, and more from meat, eggs, sweet milk semolina porridge). I barely, barely, through the prayer of repentance, got rid of the invisible enemies who had killed my poor soul, so that I could barely serve prayers and a memorial service for the dead girl. (Don’t stand in the cramped room where her body lies; it makes you feel sick, your eyes are blinded by the heat, some kind of net is being thrown over you, thousands of stars twinkle in your eyes, probably from weakness of the nerves.) After Vespers on Trinity Day. During mass today I felt grief and pure misfortune because of the small (smaller than usual) prosphora proskomedia; because of such a trifle, the disembodied enemy stung me so terribly, killed my spirit so much that I did not see the light of God; Only by repentance and falling to the life-giving throne in the Peter and Paul chapel did I lighten my soul, revive it with the grace of Christ and could see the light and serve without stumbling. This is how the incorporeal enemy fights against my soul over bread. And should I pay attention to bread during the liturgy, this heavenly, spiritual, divine service? Man will not live only on bread, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God [Matthew 4:4], and especially on the Body and Blood of Christ. Is it not the belly, is it not satiety, is it not delicacies and drinks that destroy my soul? Was it not the womb that destroyed the abyss of people? Was it because of the womb that Esau lost his birthright and the blessing of God? Didn't Judas betray the Lord because of his womb? Gluttony kills love for God and neighbor, all sublime thoughts and feelings, encloses the human soul in the narrow, suffocating framework of pride and petty interests or worldly calculations; kills the spirit of prayer, praise, thanksgiving, repentance, tenderness. The service of a priest is an angelic service, he stands before the throne of God in the altar, this earthly heaven, he must be entirely illuminated by the light of heaven, must be above earthly corruption, worldly addictions to food, clothing, money, to earthly splendor, to vain distinctions before the rest of the brethren, he must be entirely clothed in Christ, in His truth, righteousness, love, meekness, humility, goodness, mercy, incorruptibility; his thoughts and feelings should soar in that imperishable age, his heart should burn with the desire for that bliss and ardently wish this bliss to everyone. Earthly passions do not allow a person to sincerely pray during divine services with those beautiful prayers that the Holy Spirit puts into his mouth and mind, for his thoughts and desires are chained to the earth and the devil possesses his heart, confuses, oppresses and darkens him, tying him like a prisoner with internal bonds. And what wonderful prayers! What a heavenly spirit, what a spirit of salvation moves within them! What a fiery, broad love of the Mother of the Church for all her members! What hope in the mercy of God, what devotion to the Lord! How church prayers elevate and purify the soul of a believer devoted to God! What consolations they pour into her, they teach her to live on earth as in heaven! They unite us as one with the Angels and saints. This is how the Lord exalted us, having united us to His holy and chosen flock, and this is how our earthly passions humiliate and destroy us! The priest, as the shepherd of the verbal flock, must be, like an eagle, above all earthly passions, completely dedicating himself to the Lord, Who will never abandon His servant in all that is needed. People-pleasing is the cause of anxiety, embarrassment and cramped conditions at the sight of small, immeasurable prosphyras, envy of the prosphyra itself, which makes a lot of money by running its business profitably for itself; I personally want to please the benefactors of the church [or ours] with a decent prosphora, but it is very small, does not correspond to my desire - that’s the trouble, and I am angry with the prosphora, and the poison of hostility sinks into the soul, and the devil takes possession of the soul, and the Holy Spirit withdraws from the soul that is low, sensual, passionate, unloving, hostile. Is the Church really a tavern or a bakery so that we can gorge ourselves on its baked goods? Do we not have houses to eat and drink [1.11:22]? Are we hungry? Hasn’t the Lord provided us with all the good things? So we become satiated with our bodies, but leave our souls in hunger and thirst; so she is smooth without grace, she thirsts for grace, which she does not have. O priest! You especially feed your soul unceasingly with grace, an immortal soul, and despise the body that you have hitherto pleased and nourished, because it will soon decay; enlighten and beautify the soul that has been darkened and disfigured by passions, restore in it the fallen image of God, ascend as much as possible to the likeness of God, fast, pray, humble yourself, cry, have mercy, have compassion for all sinners like you, the poor, the sick, the sad, the unfortunate, treasure for yourself the mercy of God with alms, so that you will not be ashamed on the day of judgment. Amen. My foolish heart, which should be meaningful, wise and the temple of the Holy Spirit, why do you follow the passionate movements of the flesh and an insatiable womb and indulge them and at the same time go crazy with them? Why are you addicted to bread and so jealously hungry for large prosphoras? Do you need bread? After all, you need the grace of God, strengthening and reviving, enlightening and sanctifying hearts, and not bread! How much bread do you need for your body? A few chews of gum and it’s full. So, be zealous for grace, not for bread. It is good to strengthen hearts with grace, and not with food, from which those who engage in them do not benefit [Heb. 13:9]. Away with the stupid, senseless womb! This morning my flesh began to go wild, precisely after the prayer service at Turkin’s. Turkin gave specially to sexton Zrelov a ruble, to me for the whole brethren - two rubles: the poison of envy and hostility towards the sexton, who, as if stealthily, took the ruble and quickly dashed forward, penetrated into my soul; I was embarrassed, hurt, but soon began to repent and ask the Lord for mercy, for I found the behavior of my heart absurd, absurd, especially since I was endowed with everything from the Lord, with all sorts of blessings; Should I alone have everything I need in abundance, and the other not have it and suffer need? I thank the Lord, who even now surprised me with the miracle of His mercy and His life-giving power through the communion of His Divine, most pure, life-giving and terrible Mysteries: they were for me like fire and like light, scorching the sinful substance, burning the thorns of passions and enlightening me all 133. Glory to the Lord! Do not feel sorry for the vile, stinking prison of your body - let it be crushed or burned, suffer: the more it suffers, the better, cleaner, brighter your soul will be. The body must collapse and become food for worms, and perhaps food for fire. June 5. Monday. Whit Monday. I thank the Lord, who saved me many times from the demonic machinations during the carrying out and seeing off the deceased maiden Alexandra and when the sexton said that he had been given two rubles (I was given three), and when I was overcome with envy and annoyance at that. In church, I fell with my heart and lips to the throne (at the Intercession) with repentance for my sins: greed, envy, ill will - and the Lord extinguished the scorching, destructive, tormenting fire of hell in me. I remembered the words of the Lord in the parable: or is your eye envious because I am kind?.. I want to give this last one the same as I give you; Don't I have the power to do what I want? Matthew, chapter 20, 14 and 15. Then, at the beginning of the mass, the evil one kindled a hellish fire in me with the seventh week because of the small prosphoras; I was annoyed with the prosphora for her slyness and miserliness; I did not know where to go from the scorching fire, I went and venerated the throne of God in repentance of my madness, greed and malice and that I angered the Holy Spirit, the life-giving Lord, who gives life to every creature, especially rational, verbal, hoping for corruptible bread, and not for the grace of the Comforter and not for the heavenly bread - the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And again the Lord had mercy on me, although he did not completely free me from the evil one, for my repentance was not perfect, not as deep as it should have been. I thank the Lord, who miraculously revived me through the communion of the Holy Mysteries with Divine streams. During Vespers and before the wedding, there were again fiery temptations regarding the sexton’s collection of excess income from the bride and groom (in assumption); I fell to the throne in repentance, went out into the fresh air, and finally the Lord again had mercy on me, extinguishing the hellish fire in me, and I unfalteringly and boldly celebrated the wedding. Glory to the Lord who exists, who has mercy and delivers! And how close are my ethereal enemies to me and how fierce are they! How they rush at me, like evil dogs, like fierce snakes! They gnaw and sting unbearably! But I will lift up my eyes to the Lord [Ps.24:15]! The Lord appears to me every day as a Savior, Life-Giver and God. Glory, glory, glory to God! The Psalter of David and the divine service of our Church answer and fully satisfy all the urgent needs of the human Christian soul: they cleanse sins, enlighten and console souls, heal sorrows and sorrows, teach them to glorify and thank God, instruct them in repentance, help them in temptations, teach them faith and trust in God, inflame love for God, teach them to do good deeds, and instruct us to hope for an eternal life. Earthly aphids: food, clothing, material things - they corrupt the soul and body terribly when a person becomes addicted to them. What do we bring with us to the church and to the innermost sanctuary - the altar depicting heaven and heaven? Heart impurity and rudeness (dumbness), worldly addictions, malice, envy, greed, love of money, negligence, absent-mindedness, drowsiness or unbelief, blasphemy, lustful thoughts, partiality, man-pleasing! Oh, damnation! Oh my goodness! What do Thy eyes see daily, in darkness the brighter suns, in the hearts of men, in Thy children by grace, in those born in the washing of rebirth, in those sealed with the seal of the Holy Spirit, in the partakers of the Body and Blood of Thy Son, in those deified by Thy, in Thy churches? Are these children of God? Are these the deified? No - they are not Yours, we are all often not Yours, for we do not have Your virtues, but only evil exists or exists. The worship of our Church (and the entire furnishings of our churches) is so arranged, wisely, and divinely, that the divinity of our faith and its saving power becomes clear to every believer and even non-believer, which was clearly revealed once upon the ambassadors of Vladimir Equal-to-the-Apostles. Here in the main is the entire economy of God for our salvation, all the main destinies of fallen and believing humanity in the Old and New Testaments, here is the combination of the Old and New Testaments, the confirmation of one by the other, the fulfillment of ancient prophecies in the New Testament; here are wonderful rivers of living water, flowing incessantly and watering thirsty souls scorched by the sinful heat; there is all sorts of spiritual consolation, reinforcement, insight. Here is a wonderful logic of faith, wonderful Divine Wisdom! Exact agreement of types and prophecies with fulfilled events, shadows with truth! I must offer daily as a gift to God a pure heart, sincere, firm faith, undoubted hope and sincere, unfeigned love for God and neighbor, pure, sublime thoughts, zeal for the glory of God and for the sanctification and salvation of people, a soul exalted above all worldly goods, lures, passions. What am I bringing? Relaxation of the heart is the fruit of a worldly, distracted life, worldly pleasures, and addictions. Alas for me! And the end is at the door. The court is ready. June 6. Tuesday, after Matins. I thank the Lord, who has repeatedly healed my soul this morning during and after Matins from an addiction to clothes (why don’t decent archpriests give robes) and especially from an acute, fatal illness of the soul - from envy (the sexton: why do they give him separately everywhere for his needs; so on the tower near Neustroev on the Goat Swamp). For my repentance and sincere condemnation of myself, the Lord had mercy on me, cleansed me, healed my soul, cut off the sore of envy and suffering from my soul with a knife, took away death and gave me life, peace, space, freedom. Glory to the wonderful God! Do you understand, man, how great a blessing God has given you - to forgive you your sin, for example, envy, anger and others, to heal and revive your soul, killed by sin? By committing a sin, for example by envying, you become like the devil, become a disciple, his son, or, simply put, the devil, and together with him you are subject to the fiery torment prepared for him. How great is your sin! How terrible is the punishment for him! Already here on earth, in your soul, you receive punishment for sin - fire burning inside your soul, as an indication of eternal fire. Therefore, the Lord’s goodness to your soul is extremely great when He grants you repentance and, for sincere repentance, delivers you from punitive fire, sorrow and oppression, delivers you from Satanism, accepts you again into fellowship with Himself, clothing you in truth, peace, freedom, boldness, of which you were previously deprived. So, earnestly thank God who saves you, and do not return to your former sins, but keep yourself in holiness, righteousness and truth. June 6. After mass. I thank the Lord, who deigned me to perform the Divine Liturgy without stumbling and to partake of the Divine Mysteries without condemnation. Woe to me, that I love myself and my neighbors in the flesh, and not in the spirit! Alas for me that I do not love many of my neighbors even in the flesh, not only in the spirit (Pavel Nikolaevich Slavinsky told me that Father Vladimir Krasnopolsky lives beautifully at his dacha in the barracks, and I was stung with envy internally, just as outwardly I expressed my desire for complete health for him). You must love yourself in your neighbors, and not in yourself and only for yourself: self-love is perverted love. We are all one body, and not independent, independent individuals. We are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones [Eph.5:30]. Love only for oneself is death, devilry, but love for one’s neighbors as oneself is life and holiness, truly. Learn, Christian, true love, come out of the nest of self-love and expand in love for everyone. You are not cramped in us, says the Apostle, but in your hearts it is cramped. In equal retribution, I say... you too will spread [2.6:12–13]. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the demonic poison of envy and self-love and gave me breadth and peace of heart. June 7. Yesterday I unnecessarily ate kiln and buckwheat porridge with quick butter at night, drank a glass of vodka, a few cream, and from such a mess I did not feel very good, burdensome, and in the morning I felt that for intemperance I was possessed by an enemy, whom, however, I crushed and drove away by the grace of Christ. The science is for me not to eat at night, and during the day to avoid meat and everything rough, animal, and raw. I thank the Lord for the great help and for the great spiritual pleasure of prayer, praise and thanksgiving to Him during Matins, which I sang and read as usual. After the liturgy. I thank the Lord, who has made me worthy to perform the Divine Liturgy without stumbling and to partake, without condemnation, of the life-giving Divine, wonderful, heavenly Mysteries. At the beginning of the liturgy and before the Great Entry, the devil bothered me with his abominations, dropped, weakened my spirit, but by the grace of God I rose up, overcame him and became strengthened and calmed down. I thank the Lord. The Apostle read to the Romans about unnatural sins. Against every sin there is grace-filled power and help that can overcome it. God! Teach us to despise every sin as madness, as absurdity, abomination, stench, as lawlessness, as death, as hell, as the sum of all evils. For, under the pretext of sweetness, what absurdities and outrages sin has taught people! How he distorted our nature and turned our whole life upside down, teaching us to prefer the body to the soul in everything, the worst to the best, and often the very untruth to the truth. Look: everywhere our body comes first, not our soul: what do we nourish in abundance? – the body, while the soul is hungry; What are we decorating? - the body, but the soul is naked, naked from good deeds. What are we decorating? – the body, and the soul is relaxed. What pleasures do we prefer? - carnal, but we neglect spiritual things, for example, the enjoyment of thinking about God, prayer, reading spiritually edifying books, spiritual conversations, spiritual singing. June 8. I thank the Lord for the great and rich mercy shown to me in the communion of the life-giving Mysteries and in the wonderful revitalization and renewal of my soul, in strengthening, pacification, dissemination, enlightenment. In the evening. I thank and extol the Lord for quickly delivering me from the spiritual misfortune that invisible enemies brought upon me for my sins: just before mass, I was overcome with spiritual melancholy and annoyance with secret anger at my sister Anna K. because, having gone to St. Petersburg, she came again on the same day with the children, while I believed that she would remain there! I fell away from love and fell into hostility, damned, all for the sake of my greed. But when, internally oppressed 134 by sin and invisible enemies, I repented, condemned myself for madness and malice, greed and realized that I was a stranger and a stranger here, that I should live with my mind and heart in heaven and consider everything earthly to be smoke and with all my heart hold on to love, which is the only thing needed, and in such a disposition I fell to the throne of God before mass - melancholy and sorrow They immediately left me and I became peaceful and completely free and served mass without stumbling (except: grant them to Thy Saints...). Glory to God the Deliverer! Glory to His mercy and His quick obedience! I lost my hearing due to intemperance in food and drink (meat-eating, wine-drinking, potatoes, porridge). We must abstain from everything. Have mercy, Lord! Heal, Lord! June 9th. Grace powerfully and life-giving cuts within, in our hearts, our passions that kill us, and it does this for faith and our sincere repentance and humble prayer many times every day. Glory to the all-powerful, all-good power! After mass. I thank the Lord, who saves me continually and accepts unceasing repentance for my unceasing sins. So, during the communion of infants, the pockmarked wife of the altar guard Procopius brought her child to communion with the others, and inwardly I, the damned one, neglected her, although we are all members of the one body of the Church and Christ Himself, but I immediately repented and received forgiveness - the shame and oppression passed away. Then she served a prayer service, and others served together - I again inwardly despised her as homely and poor (oh, hypocrisy! [oh, views]! oh, servility before the rich!), and again I was wounded in my soul and put to shame, but soon repented sincerely and received the mercy of the world from the Lord. Then, at the end of the memorial service, it was necessary to give two prosphora: to the more respected Grechukhina and to the less respected [Chernetskaya] - Grechukhina planned a large prosphora, and to her a small one, not a proskomedia one, and my conscience convicted and embarrassed me for showing partiality. I didn’t say enough about the funeral service; then he repented before the Holy Gifts of the Lord and received forgiveness and peace. Glory to the Lord! Received life-giving communion. While walking at three o'clock in the afternoon, I saw a neighbor girl, beautiful, and looked up with some lust: sin, under the lure of sweetness, began to penetrate into the heart and weaken it; I immediately turned to God with a prayer of repentance, remembering that He is imperishable, infinite beauty and endless sweetness, and it is good to cleave to Him, only to Him, and not to corruptible, ephemeral, deceptive, murderous beauty, and the Lord delivered me from the weakness of the heart and from the shame of sin. I thank the Lord, who reveals to me every sin from its seductive appearance and shows it for what it is: madness, absurdity, abomination, destruction of soul and body. Oh, if the Lord would grant me the grace to completely hate him in all his forms and defeat him, and to love incorruptible, unfading, eternal virtue and the source of all good - God! To do this, hate your flesh, in which is the nest of sin, and not please it in lust, crucifying it with passions and lusts. June 10. Take, eat... Drink from it all... Who will comprehend the greatness of the blessing given to us by our Lord Jesus Christ in the Mystery of the Eucharist, or communion? Completely - no one, not even the mind of an angel, for this good deed is boundless and immense, like God Himself, His goodness, wisdom and omnipotence. What love for us sinners is expressed daily in the liturgy! How close God is to us! Here He is here, on the throne, daily, essentially, by all Divinity and humanity, offered and eaten by the faithful, or brought by the priest into the homes of the faithful and offered to the sick! What a wonderful communication, dissolution - dissolution of the Divine with our fallen, weak, sinful humanity! What happiness, bliss of our nature, accepting the Divinity and humanity of Christ God and uniting with Him. In this acceptance with faith within ourselves is purification, sanctification, our deliverance from sins and our enemies, our renewal, our strength, the confirmation of our heart, our peace, our freedom, our glory, our life and immortality! Oh, how many blessings are given to us from God through the liturgy! How do Christians feel about it? - With ordinary coldness, inattention, indifference! They receive Holy Communion very rarely, as if out of necessity and established habit - once a year. What are they depriving themselves of? What priceless Divine treasure, [what] immortal, life-giving gift of God? What help from God? This is why there is no true life in Orthodox Christians, life according to the spirit of Christ! This is why vices and disasters have multiplied! That is why all creation has armed itself against us [in revenge] as the enemy of God, all the elements - water, fire, air, and death in all forms. I praise and extol Thee, O Lord my God, for having astonished Thy mercies and the miracles of Thy healings of soul and body on Thy people who believe in Thee, through my unworthy service to Thy saints of the Divine, immortal and life-giving Mysteries, always giving me communion to the sick and ailing. Oh, all-destructive carnal wisdom! The flesh is too lazy to begin prayer and force itself to pray and praise and give thanks, while man constantly enjoys the benefits of God and while fervent prayer revives, inspires a person, enlightens and strengthens him, soul and body! So she is jealous and greedy, while she has a lot of her own and she is fed up! God! In this glorify Your holy and philanthropic name, to save me, the greatest, most stingy, most abominable sinner; in this show Thy power, Thy mercy, Thy wisdom, Thy wonder; It is easy for You to save everyone else, just like the whole world, for I am the most sinful of all in Your world. From all eternity no one has sinned as I have sinned. In this, show that God is omnipotent and merciful and there is no sin, conquering Your love for mankind, as the devil will not overcome You, the omnipotent and all-good God, by any evil, by any of his abominations, which are all in us, which is absurd to even think about. Save all sinners like me, who believe in You and trust in You. Do you want God's all-powerful help in real confusion? - Order the closure of prodigal houses, theaters, all disorderly establishments, lay the finger of prohibition and silence on immoral matters in the periodical press, open all churches, call the people to prayer, proclaim a deliberate fast - and all our affairs will be settled. For our sins serve as a terrible brake in current political affairs. A Christian without the Church, like a fish without water, cannot live a true life - the Church is his element. There is always a local icon of the Mother of God at the royal gates because She, with Her prayers to Her Son and God, opens the gates of the Kingdom to the Christian race, Her blessed one. Lord Jesus Christ, our God, our Almighty Head, arise quickly to help us, Russians, as our political enemies have tormented us. Wake up, wake up, wake up! Most Holy Lady Theotokos, Head of us, the mental creation of the church 135, You arise, as the all-merciful and all-powerful Queen and Governor, to help us, for our political enemies have tormented us with their treachery, delaying affairs, and intimidation. Wake up, wake up, wake up! Do not abandon Your heritage! June 11. Worship with all its composition and structure has the goal, among other things, to inspire a person: look what your nature is, how it was created from the beginning, with what divine gifts it is adorned, how heavenly, holy, divine, venerable it is, how you should respect it in yourself and in others, not thinking about it anything low, nasty, unworthy, but keeping it in shrine and virtue, for which it is created, and striving for the honor of a high calling, for an incorruptible, unfading inheritance prepared for us in heaven. In fact, looking at the icons and seeing depicted on them God Himself in the flesh in human form and His Most Pure Mother, the Highest of heaven, the holy Angels of the Lord in human form, the holy saints of God who shone in the world with the greatest deeds of virtue and holiness - how could you not be imbued with the greatest respect for human nature, created in the image and likeness of God, how could you not be disgusted, will you hate sin, which so humiliates, disfigures, distorts, plunges human nature into corruption and terrible eternal torment, separating it forever from the face of God? And seeing the heavenly worship on earth, seeing the images of the incarnation of God in the service (especially the liturgy), how God Himself lived among people, serving them, hearing about His life, miracles, suffering, killing sinners for us, resurrection and ascension into heaven - how can you not love the Lord with all your heart, how can you not desire a heavenly life on earth, incorruptible, non-vain, in order to please your Lord, who cares so much about our salvation? How, again, can you not hate and loathe sin, for which such a sacrifice was made by the Son of God Himself in order to save us from sin and from eternal torment for sins? And hearing about the greatest deeds of love of the holy saints of God, with which they pleased God and achieved holiness and incorruptibility and eternal life, how can you not be imbued with love and reverence for them, how can you not imitate them, according to your strength, in order to achieve the same lot that they achieved by the grace of God? The worship of the Orthodox Church is so edifying! It's so beautifully designed! So high is his goal! It wants to make man heavenly while still on earth, and has made many, many such. June 11. After early mass. I thank the Lord, who accepted my repentance of love of money, stinginess and hard-heartedness towards a beggar who asked me for money for a ship (I provided for him along with others in the fall, winter and spring) and, when I gave him twenty kopecks, who asked for more. I got angry with him for always begging and called the policeman to drive him away from me, although the policeman was not there. After this I was very hurt; sorrow and oppression and deadness of spirit overwhelmed me, and I began to strongly repent of my sins, walking along the road to the Assumption Church; in the church itself, I fell with living faith and repentance at the throne of grace and finally felt in my soul the sweet, most peaceful, powerful, sovereign resolution of sins from Him who has the power to resolve sins. I praise the Lord. He celebrated mass with a weak voice, but without stumbling, he received life-giving communion. I thank the Lord. We offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving for the Most Holy Theotokos and for all the saints every liturgy, and they intercede for us before the Lord and ask us for forgiveness of sins and great mercy. Woe is our hearts, the priest calls out during the liturgy before performing the Gifts; the people answer his call: Imams to the Lord. Are we being sincere? No, or very, very few, because the hearts of most people are chained to the earth by various worldly passions. It is not easy and not suddenly that you lift your heart to heaven, to the Lord; In order to sincerely ascend with one’s heart to God, a Christian must constantly live in God, love Him, reflect deeply on the works of His providence, give them their true, saving value, assimilate them with soul and heart and be a heavenly citizen on earth. And we come to the church with dispersion, with various worldly passions and lusts, nailed to the ground. Where is the grief of the heart? But woe to us if we do not have grief in our hearts at such moments of the greatest miracles of God’s mercy to us. This means we are insensitive and senseless. June 12. Petrov post. First day. I need to feed myself on bread and water: I ate a lot and drank wine and all sorts of drinks; The prodigal flesh has become too strong in the spirit, it lusts and desires greatly, although I curb it with my will. I angered the Lord and annoyed the vessel of my flesh: the previously healthy hearing of the left ear was greatly dulled due to the excessive increase in blood and juices, in general, unnecessary matter, and now I hear poorly, and only one ear was healthy. Lord have mercy on me, for I am weak. I thank the Lord for the first day of fasting. He fasted a little - he did not eat modest food, and received great grace from the Lord: lightness of heart and whole being, great boldness in prayer. But this evening I broke my fast at Onufriy Lukin’s name day and drank quite a bit of porter and wine. Forgive me, long-suffering Lord! I listened to songs and music, looked at the giants spinning in the air [...], there were high school students there; laughed with those laughing. Why don’t I cry with those who cry? He sniffed tobacco, which means he was enslaved to sensuality, working with sin with all his senses. My head hurts. On Friday, a prayer service outside the city to Vasily Danilovich Ivanov near Lukin (at twelve o’clock). Then on Saturday the christening [...]. June 14. Perfect devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ and His Most Pure Mother, complete trust (faith), complete trust in all circumstances of life, in all petitions, thanksgivings, praises, with a pure heart, hatred of sin in all its various forms and ardent love for truth in all its manifestations. Let it be, Lord! Every gift comes from You. 17. Saturday. I thank the Lord for the miracle of reviving me, who was killed by sins during the week, when I remained without liturgy and without communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ. Today I performed the funeral liturgy for the servant of God Timothy Alexandrovich Moses, and the Lord performed the greatest miracle on my soul, reviving it, dead in sins, strengthening it, weakened, enlightening the darkened one, healing the weak soul and weak body, abundantly comforting the one cast into despondency. Glory to the Lord! A priest serving even outside of ministry must have the love of Moses and Paul for the people over whom he is placed as a shepherd, for whom he must offer prayers and sacrifices to God, and even more so the love of Christ, for both Moses and Paul and other zealots of the glory of God and the salvation of man had within them the Christ of God who spoke and acted in them. 17. Today, during mass, I was extremely weak in spirit and body after a week of distraction and failure to celebrate the liturgy, until I finally received Holy Communion and was revived. How I suddenly became healthier in spirit and body! How he rose as if from death! How light, wide, cheerful, light, strong it became in the soul and in the body! After the all-night vigil. I thank the Lord, who illuminated my mind with heavenly light during the service and showed me clearly His entire view of the human race, especially in the incarnation of His Only Begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. When I burned incense on the throne, the royal doors and all the holy icons, then I was especially illuminated by the thought expressed by the Church on the royal doors in the icons of the good news of the Archangel Gabriel and the Most Pure Virgin receiving the gospel. How instructive, edifying, touching, majestic, comforting this is! The Archangel preaches to the Virgin about the incarnation of the Son of God from Her and, therefore, about the sincere 136 union of God with people, about the salvation of humanity from sin, curse and death, about his sanctification and deification, about his seating on the throne of the Divine! The greatest, endless honor beyond all expectation! For its sins, humanity should have expected rejection from the face of God, curse and punishment, eternal shame and eternal destruction - and now it has been pardoned, forgiven, cleansed from the pernicious, stinking infection of sin, delivered from curse and death, sanctified, blessed, exalted beyond all measure! Oh, the depth of God's mercy! Christian! Look at the icon of the Annunciation and cry with tenderness and grateful love for God, who loved you so wonderfully, and try to correspond with all the forces of God’s love, doing His righteous, holy, pleasing, perfect will. And the evangelists on the royal doors, who divinely described the life, teaching, miracles, suffering, death, burial, resurrection and ascension into heaven of the Lord, how beautifully and appropriately they are placed here - above and below the royal doors! For with their gospel they turned the whole world to Christ and opened the gates of heaven to a multitude of believers: they themselves entered and brought others in and to this day they preach the gospel about the Kingdom of Heaven and the path leading to it. And the icons of the twelve holidays - how many things represent instructive, edifying, deeply comforting things! What beautiful, sublime thoughts and feelings they will inspire a devoutly reflective Christian! How they elevate the Christian spirit! Here is the icon of the Nativity of Christ: the eternal God and the Child Man! What a mystery of God's love! How exalted is man by this mystery of the incarnation of God the Word! God became man in order to make man god! 137 How can you not respect yourself, man! How not to be disgusted by the sin that humiliates you to a dumb animal and destroys you! How can one not love the sacred, the truth, and God! How can one not put on Christ! And look at the icon of Baptism, or Epiphany! Look, for whom does God become man stand in the streams of the Jordan? For you, man! Whose filth does He cleanse in the Jordan? Yours. Oh, what condescension! Oh, what a marvelous industry you are! And you don’t want to take a little care of your salvation! You don't care about him! Be ashamed of the icon, be ashamed of the sacrament of God’s immeasurable condescension for you and live for God. And the icon of the Meeting of the Lord in the church by Simeon teaches us so much! The exact fulfillment of the law, assures in the afterlife, in the faithfulness of all the promises of God! And look at the icon of the Transfiguration of the Lord! See how your human nature has been enlightened in the face of Jesus Christ! What glory! What an impressive sight! The face of Christ became as bright as the sun, and his clothes became white as snow. But the Lord Himself assures us that the righteous will also be enlightened like the sun in the Kingdom of Heaven [Matthew 13:43]. Live heavenly on earth and leave your addiction to earthly goods! So every holiday provides its own consolation, very comforting. And how all these reflections elevate and [comfort] a person’s spirit, protect him from sin, and confirm him in virtue! Every icon in the church silently teaches, without words speaks clearly to the heart of a Christian (both learned and unlearned, illiterate), to the spiritual mind and knowledge and salvation. Thus, the icon of every saint teaches that we, too, can become saints by the grace of God if we have faith and good deeds, if we constantly struggle against sin and eradicate it in ourselves; the icon of the saint says that he became a friend of God because he hated sin - and you will be a friend of God if you overcome sin; that the saints were worthy of deification from God - and you can achieve the same forever, only by infusing God into yourself. Let us move the heavenly Church of God to pray for us sinners, so that by her intercession before God she will subdue our enemies, visible and invisible (visible - Turks, British, Austro-Hungarians, Romanians and others) under our feet. The Church possesses immeasurable, reliable power - the power of Jesus Christ, who promised to be with her until the end of the age. 18. Resurrection. Yesterday afternoon I slept fairly well and therefore slept very badly at night, tossing and turning from side to side. Also, perhaps, because at night I ate salted fish (fish) and then bread and butter and drank strong tea. The fish made my mouth feel bad. Maybe because the window in the living room was open and I caught a cold, and also because I walked in the Engineering Garden for a long time in very light clothes in a fresh, cool wind. In all likelihood, I caught a cold. There has been no perspiration for a long time, this is bad. During the service, look independently of people and invisible enemies, for you depend on the one God and you will give an answer to Him alone, and if the enemy inflicts any sinful memories and begins to confuse them, tell him: to Him alone have I sinned and to Him alone do I repent and repent, and now is not the time to be embarrassed and cowardly, for confusion and cowardice or despair is a new grave sin. As His sincere friend, the Lord instructed the priest to perform His heavenly, saving Mysteries: Baptism, Sealing 138, Repentance, Eucharist, Marriage and Blessing of Anointing! What trust the Creator has in creation! What love! And you, priest, try every day to become worthy of such Divine trust. I thank the Lord, who accepted my repentance in my internal, mental fall three days ago, when I was riding by car from Rambov to St. Petersburg, and who gave me peace. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the attack of the devil’s malice yesterday during the all-night vigil (on the rich and proud, as I thought, Ekaterina Grigorievna Stepanova) and who showed its absurdity. 18. Evening. I thank the Lord, who was gloriously glorified in me during this Sunday’s liturgy. I was sick throughout my whole being, weak, dead even during the liturgy; after various struggles, he came to life by the grace of God, was healed, strengthened, pacified, and received freedom of spirit, especially after receiving the life-giving Mysteries. I was resurrected spiritually and physically, I spoke with animation the words of Archbishop Gregory of Kazan 139 (later Metropolitan of Novgorod and St. Petersburg), I performed the entire mass without stumbling by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. I praise Him and exalt Him for His salvation. I thank the Lord, who, after many spiritual struggles with invisible enemies before and during funeral services, gave me victory over them, accomplished in the hospital church at the memorial service for the servant of God Vera (hieromonk Israel concelebrating). 19. Morning. From drinking sour milk with sour cream last night, last night I was almost completely overcome by prodigal inflammation in my sleep; I woke up immediately and began to pray for repentance. Avoid dairy foods during Lent and sweets in general. Eleven and a half o'clock in the evening. I thank You, Most-merciful Lord, for the miracles of Your mercy in me this day, for You have given me the grace to perform without stumbling (except for the cry of God with prayers ... before the Gospel) the entire liturgy and funeral service, except for a few words in the funeral Gospel, in the hospital church (for the servant of God Vera, sister of mercy, also a memorial service for the servant of God Mikhail Semgina) - without stumbling. Oh, grant me, Lord, the grace to always, with a sincere heart, perform every service, large or small, for the living and the dead; grant me to always love ardently humanity, which You loved ineffably. Let the censer, blazing with fire, be the image of a heart blazing with fiery prayer, as well as a blazing candle! Fools for Christ's sake were the great Christian sages who, under the guise of madness, laughed at the godless wisdom of the hellish serpent, the vanity of this world and the wisdom of our many-passionate flesh. We all almost act like fools every day, but not according to Christ, but according to the spirit of the world [Col.2:8], i.e. we are absolute fools in Christ, not knowing the Christian alphabet, but wise for the world, wise for all evil. Oh, if only we were fools for Christ's sake! 20. We thank the Lord for a wonderful, fruitful summer, a warm, prosperous summer; for the joy and happiness of all creatures that walk, fly, swim, crawl, rejoice and play in our eyes. But put an end, O Lord, to the murderous, devastating and flawed war that consumes all Your gifts. Satan laughs at the words of God, not allowing me to pronounce the words before reading the Gospel. God through the prayers of the holy ... apostle and evangelist will give you the word ... I will stand with all my heart against the blasphemer and the scoundrel ... Yes, I have faith in myself, in my God-given dignity, in the grace of the priesthood, which to despise willy-nilly or not is a grave sin and which must be glorified in every possible way in word and deed and actions or rituals liturgical. Evening, eleven o'clock. I thank the Lord for his help during my funeral mass in the cemetery church for Mikhail Ekimovich Semgina; there was a lot of crowding and sorrow from invisible enemies, but grace destroyed the crowding and sorrow, especially after communion of the wonderful, life-giving Mysteries. God, through the prayers of the holy, glorious and all-validated apostle and evangelist... spoke boldly, completely, expressively, loudly and performed the entire mass without stumbling. After communion of the Holy Mysteries, I, a dead man, was truly resurrected, renewed, received strength, energy, peace, freedom, space. 21. Today I serve the early liturgy unworthily, as if I were satiated yesterday with many dishes: I plunge myself into the abyss of Your mercy, Lord! Have mercy and satisfy 140 me, worthy to perform your most heavenly and terrible Mysteries. May I never forget that I have an abyss of sins, shortcomings, infirmities, weaknesses, and, remembering my sins, may I not judge my neighbors, especially my colleagues, may I not consider myself better than them, may I not neglect them for the shortcomings, passions and weaknesses noticed in them, and may I try to see their good sides, for everyone has been given their own talents by God. December 17, 1878. Lustfully, boldly and erroneously we criticize the faces of people: babies, young men and women, boys and girls, adults and old people - adapting to our sinful, carnal taste; this one or that one, we say within ourselves, is good or good, not bad or not bad, but this one is not good, bad. Such a judgment is a sin, for it comes from a corrupt mind and heart: since everyone is in the image of God, then everyone is good, especially those who have a good soul and good morals. And even with an unattractive face, a beautiful soul often shines within it, imparting a pleasant expression to the face. Have faith in Jesus Christ our Lord of glory, regardless of persons [James 2:1], otherwise you will offend many individuals who are completely innocent in your soul, act wrongly, and even anger God, our Creator, who created everyone equally as men in His image and likeness. I, the accursed one, have done deeds worthy of the eternal fire. God! Seek the lost, seek me, the repentant, cleanse, sanctify and save. 21. Today, by the grace of God, I served an early liturgy for Serebrennikov; before and during the celebration of the proskomedia, and after, he experienced a strong attack from enemies because of his addiction to clean vestments, which the archpriest did not give for serving the liturgy (he was at the dacha), and because of hostility towards him on this occasion. Confusion, cramped conditions and hellfire; he repented to the Lord fervently, condemning himself for attachment to corruption and serving two masters; I prayed to the Lord to enlighten my heart's eyes, that I might see the absurdity and madness of the addiction to corruption, and that I might prefer the blessings of the whole world to the grace of Christ, which dwells in the heart, like an incorruptible, incorruptible, eternally abiding treasure, and that I value above all things truth, love, peace, meekness, and gentleness. For this repentance and sincere self-condemnation, the Lord soon visited me with a wondrous salvation, transforming fire into dew of grace, storm into silence, crowded space into space, darkness into light, weakness into strength, shame into boldness, death into life, sorrow into joy. I saw the wondrous salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ, and tears of tenderness and gratitude flowed from my eyes. For this, I served the Liturgy with strength and boldness and received life-giving communion of the Holy Mysteries. Let me not for a moment think evil about the abbot or anyone else, but let all love be with me, so that I can overcome evil with good [1.16:14; Rom.12:21]. Our priestly service is a heavenly service, a service of incorruptibility and immortality, eternal life, a service of truth and holiness, a service by which human souls are reborn, purified, sanctified, renewed, raised to the perfection possible for man with the help of God, and adored. What a priest should be like! How one must be removed from all attachment to earthly things, how one must be heavenly, meek, humble, self-controlled, chaste! 22. I condemn myself for the fact that yesterday I went to Father Alexander and looked at those playing cards with him and at him also playing, and drank a glass of wine at the wrong time, and sniffed tobacco, pleasing the flesh in lust [Rom. 13:14]. We can always pray to our benevolent and benevolent God for everything truly necessary and useful for us. Holy prophets, apostles, martyrs, hierarchs, saints and all saints - treasures of shrines and all virtues, villages of God, the fragrance of the Holy Spirit, pure images of God, gods by grace. How different is our life from the life of the saints? They unceasingly served God (some of them all their lives), mortifying their flesh with passions and lusts, while we all our lives please the multi-passionate and multi-lustful flesh; True, we serve God, but how imperfectly, because not with all zeal, not with all our hearts, not with a burning spirit! Oh, the love of the Lord! There is an abyss of mercy with You: I draw it daily and many times, and I will never exhaust it, and no one on earth will exhaust it. You have had mercy on me without number, especially when I truly repented; you have mercy on me many times every day; I know that you will still have mercy and have mercy on me forever, to the end: for it is yours to have mercy and save. A Christian man and woman are holy to the Lord in all parts of their being; all members are holy, for they are members of Christ. The strength of Orthodox Christians is common prayer, the prayer of the entire Church. Raise the horn of Orthodox Christians, Lord, with the prayers of the Most Pure Mother of God, by the power of the honorable and life-giving Cross, by the intercession of the honorable, disembodied Heavenly Powers, the holy glorious apostles... martyrs... hierarchs... saints... the righteous... and all the saints 141. Grace is the power of God, reviving our being, which is killed by constant sins, cleansing, sanctifying, enlightening, affirming, girding with Divine power. There is One Just One, and we are crooked judges. Our heart is earthly, passionate, vague, it does not accept what is from the Spirit of God [1.2:14], until a person sincerely repents, and the devil kindles it like a furnace. Oh, how low we all are, earthlings, sinners, unclean, rude! And how the dignity of man is exalted by God through the incarnation of the Son of God! Why are we neglecting our correction? Crazy heart! He will once hate a person because of nothing, and he himself will suffer from his hatred according to the immutable law: by what someone sins, he is punished [Wis. 11:17]. Whoever possesses the Lord through faith and love, can he envy anyone or anything in earthly things? - To no one and nothing; This means that if someone is consumed by envy of his neighbors because of their earthly well-being, then he is consumed because he does not possess the Lord, the vital, priceless, all-perfect Treasure, does not have living faith, hope and love. That’s how I am, damned one! To you, O priests! The Lord has entrusted humanity, sick with corruption (sin), with this terrible disease that can destroy souls and bodies forever, - and you have been given extra grace in the Sacrament of the Priesthood, in the celebration of the Liturgy and in the frequent communion of the Holy Mysteries, to heal yourself and others with the word of grace and the Sacraments of Repentance, Communion and Blessing of Anointing. You must heal yourself and your spiritual children day and night, make sacrifices for yourself and for human sins sincerely and truly. The heart of a priest should be heaven for the sake of the often life-giving Mysteries of Christ, the throne of God, a fiery, bright eye. I am in the church - in the world of God's miracles, in the Kingdom of God's goodness, [truth] and holiness, in the world of incorruptibility, in the world of Angels and saints written in heaven, I am here with God, with the Mother of God, with the Angels and all the saints. What an honor! But how do I correspond to it and do I correspond? How do I stand in this earthly heaven when I serve the Lord? In the Old Testament, what is especially striking is the miracle of the creation of the world by the one Word of God, in the New Testament - the miracle of the Incarnation of God. God became man without ceasing to be God—what a miracle of miracles! God suffered, died according to His humanity and rose again for the redemption of man! Condemn yourself, correct and manage yourself, but God judges others. Streams of grace flow more abundantly in the church during public worship and water the souls of all the faithful. To fight together is better, stronger, more skillful against invisible enemies and against sins that consume and destroy. Christ my God was gloriously glorified in me by His mercy: He revived me, the dead, had mercy on the sinner, cleansed the unclean, gave strength to the weak, joy to the sad, peace to the troubled, light to the darkened, boldness to the darkened for sincere repentance in bitterness, in envy, in falling away from love. I belong to the Church of God and am a member of it, a member of the body of Christ and the temple of the Holy Spirit! Oh, the highest honor! Oh, unspeakable bliss! Teach me, Lord, to be a worthy member of Your Body, worthy of such a most heavenly, venerable joint! Teach me to live holy! My sins are great, grave, countless, but my Physician, my Savior is an infinite God, not an Angel, not a man who has finite power. God! I thank You for Your immeasurable goodness, which was shown to me at the hour of the Liturgy (June 21) in taking away immeasurable evils from my heart: hostility, voluptuousness, love of clothing (because of vestments), from the evil [corruption] that pursued and oppressed me! During Matins, the blasphemous serpent cooled my heart towards the holy saint Nil Stolbensky and instilled in him disrespect and contempt against my desire - because of what? Because of his appearance, which is not a handsome face, he is portrayed as a saint. But what if he really was disgraceful? The face is a temporary shell of the human soul, and the goodness or ugliness of this temporary shell does not depend on the will of a person, but on nature (from God, that is), cannot be imputed to a person as a sin and serve as a reason for dislike for him. But, however, the flesh of saints is pure and fragrant and spiritually beautiful (not carnal), incorruptible from their God-bearing soul. Let the blasphemous adversary flee from me, blaspheming the name of God and His habitation and those who live in heaven, as it is said in the Revelation of St. John the Theologian. He blasphemes both Saint Alexander Nevsky and Saint Joseph the Songwriter, often not allowing me to pronounce their names during services. The Lord sovereignly saved me, delivering me from the blasphemy of the demon and giving me peace. Glory to the Lord! On every day, every service, maintain the character of the holiday, do not rush. We recognize all the properties of God in ourselves: holiness, justice, omniscience, all-goodness, omnipotence, beauty, all-satisfaction, all-bliss, we know especially with the heart, for God works in you both to will and to act according to His good pleasure [ Phil. 2:13 ]; God lives in a righteous person, as in His house, a church. Do you not know that you are the church of God and the Spirit of God lives in you? [1.3:16]. I always lower the eye of my heart to You 142. Your eye, O Lord, always sees my heart and my whole life. Take care of the image of God within yourself with all care and preserve your soul from all sin, adorn it with all virtue. This is your first responsibility. So people quarrel, scold, envy, are ambitious, fornicate, get drunk, love money, deceive, wage bloody wars, torment themselves in every possible way, encroach on their lives - and often do not realize that such an unkind thing is being done to them (in order to somehow get rid of such evil), what is it that is wielding our hearts, our souls so disastrously? And this fiend of Satan is at work - an all-destroying sin, an all-absurd sin, against which we must fight day and night - we were born to fight. So, fight. It is not the destiny of this absurd, charming, sinful age to be all young, beautiful, rich, glorious, strong and powerful, carefree, wise, healthy. But very, very many, due to the weakness and sinfulness of nature, due to countless everyday circumstances and vicissitudes, misfortunes, misfortunes, not without the will, however, and the permission of God, have to be unattractive and ugly, one-eyed or eyeless or noseless, or deaf or with a cut mouth, or with various growths on the face, or lame and armless, or burry and stuttering, or poor, inglorious, sick and frail, much sad, or ignorant, requiring the help of others in everything. In that future century, everyone will be like Angels - everyone is beautiful, everyone is glorious, holy, contented, blooming, bright, fragrant, strong, joyful. The inequality and imperfection of people in the present age point to a future perfect age, imperishable, where everyone will be equalized, everyone will be glorified, that is, the righteous; there many who were first here will be last, and those who were last here will be first [Matthew 20:16], those who were ugly here will be beautiful, the poor will be immeasurably rich in God, the inglorious will be glorious, the powerless will be strong. Woe to me, that I love myself and my neighbors in the flesh, and not in the spirit; Alas for me that I do not love many of my neighbors even in the flesh, not only in spirit. 24. Why, I thought, my left ear, which heard well, was damaged, and I didn’t know the real reason, but this morning, while washing, I remembered that it happened from the blow of the midday cannon, which was suddenly blown by the wind when I was walking in Petrovsky Park; I was very frightened then, and the blow was so strong and deafening that it began to hurt in my ear. But what the blow of the cannon did, correct it, O most merciful and all-powerful Lord! I thank the Lord, who through my prayer delivered me from the movement in my heart of obscene and inappropriate sweetness at the dacha in the apartment of engineer Adamovich, where I was visiting and watching children playing. I sincerely condemned within myself, with all my soul, the all-absurd sin. The beginning of Christian wisdom is mortification of the flesh (especially fasting), for by giving excess life to the flesh through gluttony, drunkenness and various whims, we strengthen in ourselves all passions and lusts, all sins, giving the devil a strong weapon against ourselves. You appeared, man, in a ready-made world, adorned and enriched with everything; The Lord has prepared for you both false mother and sweet breasts, and the father’s seed - and what is more playful than this seed, what is more arbitrary and more prone to waste through human abuse? But the Lord curbed this seed and gave it real direction through the law of marriage, and from it came you, man. Thank God that you were not reduced to nothing when you were in your father's loins. When approaching God, the Mother of God in prayer, remember that just as heaven is separated from the earth, so you, through your sins, are separated from God and the Mother of God, and what is the difference between light and darkness, such a difference between you and God and His saints, especially His Most Pure Matter, the Holiest of all heavenly and most pure Powers, and be humble and reverent always in prayer, not giving room for a moment no dreams. By your excessive, insane, senseless haste in reading and singing prayers, psalms, and hymns, you turn the greatest work of prayer into zero, depriving those praying of all edification. This is how lay people often complain about you. 24. Before the blessing of the waters and early mass I was very excited today: before the blessing of the waters because of the non-arrival of sexton Nikitin (the watchman Nikolai and I sang with the deacon); before mass because of anger at the archpriest, who delayed the sexton by copying the paper (he found the time and found a sexton, who should not have been with him, but should have been a free sexton). The disembodied enemy was glad of the opportunity and kindled anger in me - I am a damned man! There is still a lot of evil in me - it squeezed me like a vice, darkened me, shamed me; I turned to sincere repentance, accused, condemned myself, calling my anger madness, the devil, accusing myself of falling away from love, of destroying the entire law of God, of impatience, of pride, disrespect, disobedience, of suspiciousness, of envy. And when I sincerely condemned myself, plunged myself into the abyss of God’s love for mankind with all my sins, asking for deliverance and salvation, the Lord bowed to my mercy; but for my gluttony he did not completely deliver me from the enemies who still nested within me and somewhat oppressed me; at the great entrance they stopped me, confusing me and squeezing my heart: I did not reprimand the princess and my son; then, after the completion of the Sacrament, I did not utter the words: grant them to Thy Holy Churches in the world, whole, honest, healthy, long-living... But after communion of the Holy Mysteries, the Lord revived, consoled, and made me glad with His wondrous salvation, His most pure Body and His life-giving Blood - I was renewed and strengthened. Then the concern about distributing prosphira amused and confused me (there is no need to distribute prosphira during mass and please people). I thank the Lord, who gave me abundant tears of spiritual tenderness during the all-night vigil on Sunday while reading the akathists. The Lord gave me a river of grace. I thank You, Lord, for You subdued my wife to me when she resisted me by watering the greens in flower pots excessively at night, and I, who was angry with her, had mercy and pacified me through the prayer of repentance. Grant us harmony and sincere love for each other. Why do I get irritated and fall away from love when my wife does something in spite of me, [but does not] fall into error? You must have calm, prudence, self-control. This is where I have a big disadvantage. Is it worth getting irritated over things? Not worth it. The soul is greater than them all. How do we work every day for two masters? Double-mindedness is bad. Either God, or mammon, or someone else. - Of course to God. If you maintain peace and love with everyone, regardless of human faults, then you will work for God. June 25. After early Sunday mass. After all the troubles that Satan brought upon me during the Liturgy with his cunning for my sins (gluttony and satiety), the Lord mercifully and sovereignly delivered me through communion in faith and repentance of the most pure and life-giving Mysteries, and after the greatest confusion, sorrow and cramped conditions, He granted me wondrous peace, joy and space with boldness. The temptation was due to two singers from the choir, who sang extremely badly, awkwardly, absurdly, hastily, and decidedly like a goat. This upset me, and I could not serve calmly, although I should not have been indignant and thought evil of them. Now I confess my great mistake: last night I needlessly ate a slice of black bread and drank a glass and a half of sweet tea, and this excess had a very bad effect on me during mass: because of it, my heart became dead, hardened, became like a lifeless mass of earth, insensitive and incapable of heavenly feelings and very sensitive and capable of perceiving all evil, despondency, irritability, impatience, anger, envy and other things that happened. It was precisely because of satiation and delicacy that my heart was like a leaf blown by the wind: I didn’t tell the entire royal family, my vacation was extremely shortened, I wasn’t myself. The Lord miraculously had mercy on me after the first and second, or final, communion of the Holy Mysteries: the mortal chains fell apart, all the temptations of the enemy [passed away] and I suddenly received from the Lord new life, peace, space, joy, strength, boldness. Glory to the miraculous Lord! Glory to His incarnation! Glory to His atoning sacrifice! Twelve and a half o'clock in the afternoon. I thank the Lord, who had mercy on me with great mercy at this hour and delivered me from the devil’s anger towards the poor, a girl and a boy of about twelve years old (who had often asked for alms from me for several years), who looked out the window while I was serving a prayer service in the Lower Broad Street in Yankovsky’s house. This anger of mine was accompanied by grief and tightness for about half an hour. It was hard for me because the demon entered my heart like a wedge and tormented me. But in repentance I prayed to the Lord and was saved. Glory to the benevolent and most merciful Lord! I looked slyly with a passionate eye at these beggars and therefore was deservedly punished. Today we read the Gospel: if your eye is simple, your whole body will be light; if your eye is evil, your whole body will be dark [Matthew 6:22–23]. If, during the prayer service, I had simply looked at the beggars looking out the window from a good heart, then I would not have been embittered at them, I would have excused them as people incited to look in by their need and accustomed to it, but I looked at them slyly, from an evil heart, partial to the blessings of the world, and now, in retribution for evil, the eye of my heart became darkened and my whole body, my whole being became dark. How often, daily, is this Gospel truth repeated! How much we suffer because we look at many people, at many things, at many phenomena, at the actions of others slyly, suspiciously, with an evil heart, and all this appears to us in a gloomy form and we ourselves become gloomy; whereas if we simply looked at everyone and everything with a simple, kind and trusting heart, everything would seem clear, rosy, peaceful, kind, and our souls would be peaceful and clear. A person’s view of his surroundings means so much! How happy are people with simple and kind hearts. They have heaven in their hearts! The saints were especially like this. They looked at their enemies and persecutors kindly, from the fullness of their kind, kindly heart, and at everything unpleasant that happened to them, they looked simply (albeit wisely), from their good heart, and therefore they easily defeated everything evil, all temptations. Great truth: overcome evil with good [Rom.12:21]. It’s worth learning it and actively practicing it every day, because there is a lot of evil in the world and we have to fight it every day. Four o'clock in the afternoon. At lunch I ate everything lean, but in the end I was tempted by sour milk with sour cream and ate it, and it became heavy. I sinned because of my belly. Have mercy, Lord! After the all-night vigil on Tikhvinskaya. Morning of June 26th. I thank the Lord who worked miracles in me during this service: my heart was heavy at the beginning from burdening myself with food during lunch (especially from green salad), and I sinned - curdled milk, and I was incapable of glorifying the Mother of God well, but then I fell to the holy throne, plunged myself with all my sins into the abyss of God's mercy and asking for mercy and peace for my poor heart, and immediately the bonds of sin dissolved, streams of grace revived my dead being, and I zealously glorified our Lady by singing stichera and reading and singing the canon. Then, at Nikolai Mikhailovich Semenov’s, I sang with zeal another, small all-night vigil, and after that, with the clergy, I ate at the host’s and drank wine and tea. The Queen of heaven and earth rewarded us for singing with deep peace of mind and health of the body. I slept well that night and woke up healthy and completely calm. Glory to the Lord and the Mother of God for this! At Nikolai Semenov’s he ate sardines with Provençal butter, smoked whitefish and caviar, washed down with wine and tea, and spiritually he did something bad: at night there was a strong voluptuous temptation, which he destroyed only with the cross. By being voluptuous or luxuriously feeding ourselves, we give the body a strong reason for fornication. God, have mercy and deliver us from gluttony in the future, but teach and grant us to maintain abstinence. Send money and tea to the sisters. To [...] go, poor thing. Go to Vasily Ivanovich Petrov tomorrow. Notify Evdokim Vasilievich. I thank the Lord, who had mercy on me today when, having fallen into the sin of envying the sexton after a prayer service at Serebrennikov’s, I repented of it, sincerely condemning myself for falling away from love, for being addicted to the world, for being ill-willed. Serebrennikov gave the sexton a ruble in his hands, and three rubles in my mug. Oh, passionate heart, earthly, not heavenly, carnal, not spiritual, unclean and sinful, and not righteous! Am I, enriched by the riches of the Divine in the priesthood and the Holy Mysteries, envious in the flesh of a younger brother who is ten times poorer than me! I thank the Lord, who turned me from the evil path of death to the right path of life, soon, on my way to the prayer service in the house of Yakov Murashev on the mountain. I thank the Lord, who saved me from partiality and partiality at the prayer service of Andrei Ivanovich Mogilev and Pupagin. Modest food, consumed especially during Lent, immediately causes a change in the heart that is not for the better: cooling towards God and His commandments, towards prayer, contemplation of God, teaching in His word, wickedness, laziness, negligence, fornication, malice, envy, quick irritation, hardness of heart, aversion to the poor. If modest food is an unimportant matter, then are these sins, which stem most from gluttony, unimportant? Who dares to say that they are unimportant? They can lead a person to Gehenna. 27. Morning. Seven and a half hours. I thank the Lord for the priceless gift of His love for mankind, for giving me, who died in sins, life, peace, health, strength through the communion of the Divine, most pure and life-giving Mysteries during the early liturgy in the Assumption Church (mass from the Neustroevs). And during mass, the Lord gave me tenderness according to His great mercy. Before mass, I felt extremely weak, sick from yesterday's satiety (radish with sour cream, meat soup, buckwheat porridge with quick butter) and indigestion. Today I feel great. 28. I thank the Lord, who renewed His great mercies towards me even today, for the Lord soon accepted my repentance in severity towards the poor, who followed me early when I went to matins, and took away from my soul the scorching fire, sorrow and oppression, and then gave me the sweetness with spiritual zeal and triumph of the spirit to read the canon of the Cross, the Mother of God, the holy martyrs, the unmercenary wonderworkers Cyrus and John. I thank the Lord, who extinguished the demonic flame that arose in me as a result of the thought of collecting for the benefit of the poor: the enemy hates all good, but the Lord rewards and will reward us purely, generously, wonderfully for these classes, delighted in the field of our parish. Only so that we remember the poor, which is what I tried to do exactly [Gal.2:10]. I thank the Lord, who performed a miracle of salvation in me now in my dwelling, when I prayed in repentance to the Lord, condemning myself in new severity, in stinginess and bitterness towards the beggar, who again asked for alms from me. I sinned before the Lord because I grieved over the unpaid labor - going to funeral services and carrying the poor woman out of Tsyplenkov’s house: the farewell was to the gate in heavy rain, and for all our labor they did not give us a penny, while we were waiting for at least one ruble - such love of money! What a sinful principle! But out of Christian love, is it a sin to work for nothing - to pray for a poor dead person? Oh, what poverty of Christian love! What a depletion! What love for the world, for the flesh and for everything that feeds its passions and lusts! Oh, idolatry in Christianity! And just recently, the Lord gave me several tens of rubles as a gift for clothes! Have I forgotten it? Today, in Ptashkin’s house opposite the Church of the Vladimir Mother of God, a cigarette almost started a strong fire, they managed to put it out in time [(woman Martha)]. Grumpy and stubborn like me. Your will is sinful, whimsical, reckless, harmful and even disastrous. Do not be angry that much, much is not done according to your will, but thank the Lord and good people heartily and humbly, that He, the Lord, often resists you, and people do not listen to you. Learn to submit to the will of God. (Concerning my wife’s disobedience to me.) Learn to prudently yield to people. He sinned against the Lord - he gave little to the poor and indignantly rejected the request of the collector for the Church of God to write down the names of willing donors, saying that there was no time, and that he should turn to someone else for this. But there was time. Send twenty-five rubles to the head of the Diocesan Women's School, the rest after, or send thirty rubles, and ask in advance to use part of the money sent to my nieces. After the all-night vigil for the feast of Saints Peter and Paul the Apostles. The grace of God and the authorities adorned me with the order. But what does external decoration mean without internal decoration? Nothing. If passions still reign in my soul - malice, envy, hard-heartedness and unmercifulness, greed, partiality, man-pleasing, injustice, lies, deceit, hypocrisy, fornication, impatience, anger, cowardice, timidity, laziness, negligence, idleness, vanity, vanity, ill will, self-love, gloating, gluttony, drunkenness, waywardness, disobedience, etc., etc.—does external decoration suit me? Tears of repentance suit me. Thus, a Christian is decorated with simplicity, meekness and humility with kindness, mercy, purity, abstinence, non-covetousness, self-sacrifice, justice, patience, courage, hard work, sincere goodwill to all, obedience, etc. These are the true differences of a Christian. Here are his orders! They are inalienable and will go to the grave with him. These orders are pleasing to the Angels and the Lord of Angels! This is the Order of the Holy Spirit! 29. The words of the Lord's prayer: hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done... and then one must always speak with zeal and zeal, burning with the desire to fulfill what is asked. Child, your sins are forgiven you... arise, take up your bed, and walk... [Mark 2:5–11]. God! Having healed in one moment the soul and body of the paralytic, heal both my soul, weakened by sins, and my body, afflicted by dullness of hearing: sharpen, correct, heal my broken hearing, Lord, Lord! After mass. During early mass, I was extremely distressed by the machinations of the enemy (crowded conditions, grief, strong incitement to anger against the deacon, who seemed angry with me) because of yesterday’s eating of fish and drinking tea in the evening, after the all-night vigil without need; but after receiving the Holy Mysteries he miraculously revived; Glory to the splendor of the Body and Blood of the Lord! He said a word according to the “Christian Reading” of 1822 at the prayer behind the pulpit; During the prayer behind the pulpit, the enemy terribly pressed and confused and confused. Before the prayer service in Shchegolev’s house at Mr. Malinovsky’s at twelve o’clock, I prayed with faith to the Lord, and a wonderful space appeared in my soul and body. Glory to the Lord who works miracles in me! June 30. After early mass. [...]. During early mass there was a strong struggle, a difficult struggle with the evil forces that easily won a nest in me as a result of yesterday's delicacy and wine drinking at the elder's dinner and fussiness upon arrival with insincere, hasty praise; The enemy was especially tormented by the knowledge that I had set aside for the poor some of the famous money, those that were received from persons to whom the brethren never go on this day (two rubles in the police, from Zakhar, from Pavel Ivanovich in Korovnikov’s house, from two [kvasovars], from Stefan Avvakumovich, from Kovrigin, from the clerk of the English office, from Ivan Matsygin, from Postnikova). But it was the envy of the enemy that I separated to the poor the delighted ears of corn left by the rich brethren. At the great entrance, resisting the ethereal enemies, he broke their tenacity and audacity, although they greatly instilled fear, despondency, and relaxation. Upon communion, the Lord revealed wondrous, life-giving powers in me. I was renewed, cleansed, strengthened, peaceful, rejoiced, and confident. I thank the Lord, who consoled me with His salvation in the apartment of Markov, a trading peasant. With a sly, partial eye I looked at baby Nikolai, stained with mush and with a somewhat flattened nose by nature, and I did not like him because, although he was a kind boy and was affectionate towards me and kissed the cross many times; and I felt cramped, sad and ashamed for my sin, that I had despised the innocent baby created in the image and likeness of God in my heart, and I, unworthy, turned to the Lord with sincere repentance in my heart right there, and the Lord looked upon my repentance and forgave me the guilt of my heart, and I calmed down, reconciled with God. So we often look at people with an evil eye and measure their faces according to our tastes: we are quickly seduced by beautiful faces and just as quickly turn our hearts away from ugly faces, especially ugly ones, forgetting that it is not their fault that they are beautiful or not and that the souls of all are equally in the image of God, that they are all the same children of God, members of Christ, if they are Orthodox Christians. If your eye is simple [Russian: pure], your whole body will be bright; If your eye be evil, your whole body will be dark [Matthew 6:22–23]. Follow-up to Holy Communion. Canon, canto 9. I’m getting discouraged - I’m dejected, I’m languishing, I’m melting away. Sincerely (church glory) - similarly, equally, equally. This idea was expressed by the ancient fathers of the Church - Hieromartyr Irenaeus of Lyons and Saint Athanasius the Great and a number of subsequent fathers who defended the dogma of the Church about the true Divinity of Jesus Christ. I satisfy (church glory) - I make one sufficient or capable of something. Elevate (church-glorified) – lift up.