Май 1880 г.

I thank the Lord, who now (eight o’clock in the morning) has delivered me from the cramped conditions and sorrow that befell me for the movement of anger and irritation towards the woman Theoktista, who stood at the gate waiting for me and often followed me along the street and into my apartment, and for the grief at the newly arriving beggars and the reluctant, with annoyance and displeasure, giving alms to them. When I heartily, with tears, repented before the Lord at home, in my prayer room, the Lord immediately poured out His great and rich mercy on me, giving me peace, boldness, freedom, and space. Eleven o'clock in the afternoon. After mass celebrated by Trachevsky. Now I have fallen into a grave sin: in front of the people, I pulled a beggar by the hair near Nikitin’s house, where the newspaper is printed, because he often asks and begs for money, but does not buy what I give him, saying that he does not want to wear better clothes and shoes, lest they stop giving him alms. I was very angry with him and lost my temper, giving him another twenty kopecks to the ten previously given. I sinned gravely with anger, self-love, hard-heartedness, severity, pride, love of money, voluptuousness, vanity, uncorrected, negligence of virtue (meekness, gentleness, patience, abstinence, mercy, generosity, hard work, chastity, love, goodwill, impartiality, compassion, respect), stinginess, laziness; I grieved the most humane womb of the Lord, offended, depressed the Lord Himself in the person of the beggar, despised the Lord Himself, grieved the Holy Spirit of the Comforter, sinned before God, before the Lady Theotokos, before all the holy Angels, before the faces of the forefathers, prophets, apostles, saints, martyrs and martyrs, the venerable and righteous and all the saints, before everyone people - for I have insulted the member of Christ, the rod of Christ, for Christ is the vine, and those who believe in Him are the branches [John 15:5]; and all because of the belly, because of money, because of love for the multi-passionate flesh, for the world lying in evil. Forgive, O Love for Mankind, my great sin, for there is no sin, defeating Thy love for mankind, and heal the wounds of my heart, pacify my soul, troubled by sins, give me space in cramped conditions; stop the temptation I made to people who saw how I tormented a beggar by the hair. Grant me Your quietness and meekness, Your kindness, Your moderation, Your patience and long-suffering and sincere, unfeigned love for God and neighbor. Reconcile this beggar for me, so that he does not cry out to You against me, and punish me, and reconcile me completely to him. For he is innocent in his need and his poverty, and if he is guilty, I forgive him with all my heart, for You have forgiven me without number and forgive my iniquities. Wake up! Amen, amen, amen. I have been a priest for almost twenty-five years. But what kind of priest am I that I have not yet learned to overcome the passions: pride, anger, lust, gluttony, love of money, love of fame, love of things, partiality, carnality? When did you not learn to despise the flesh and everything with which the flesh delights, pleases, and is cherished? When did I not learn to love God and neighbor, to bear grief and despise longer? What kind of priest am I? When do I not sacrifice myself, when do I not put to death my dumb passions like bulls, oxen and dumb goats, when I am not resurrected in spirit and become a new man, a new creature? The slyness, greed, envy, arrogance, resentment, and litigiousness of the merchant Nikolai Turkin, who extremely offends his supplier, the peasant shopkeeper Nikolai Vasilyev, are remarkable. Hey, merchants of Kronstadt! What are they capable of? Speak against their covetousness and the wickedness of their preaching! All money, money, money - love for the transitory world, for a vain, temporary life and disbelief in the future life, carelessness about the soul, about truth, sanctification, about grace-filled appropriation to God, about closeness to Him, the absence of fear of God. We have not all put on Christ, His truth, His holiness, His quietness, meekness, His gentleness, His light, His strength, His grace, His heavenlyness, His dispassion. We are all the same sinful rags - we have the same passions as in the pagans, Jews, and Mohammedans. Oh, righteous God! What will we bring before You? Where are the talents given to us for return and multiplication, grace-filled and natural talents? They buried it in the ground. Five and a half o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord, who with indescribable grace granted me deliverance from my spiritual trouble and peace in space, shortly after my repentant, lengthy prayer at twelve o’clock in the afternoon, when I left and was on my way to the gymnasium. Glory to God our Savior! On the Sunday of the blessed Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus and the myrrh-bearing women. How much fragrant peace of Christian love and good deeds was brought to Jesus Christ on the occasion of the successful five-fold deliverance of the sovereign emperor from the danger of life! How many grateful tears and grateful feelings the sovereign himself brought to the Lord of the precious world regarding his miraculous deliverance from the threatening disaster! Wonderful thing! What amazing events, allowed by a cheerful and wise Providence, awaken people, immersed in sinful slumber, to good deeds! Without these menacing, terrible events, there would not have been those countless benefits that the Russian people have done to various unfortunates, the poor, the elderly, orphans and widows. Having begun to work for the Lord, do not look back, but look forward, oh, to God, that is, do not think about earthly things: about flesh and blood, about earthly treasures, about food and drink, about money, clothes, various decorations, distinctions - but about God and His love, holiness, His truth, wisdom, omnipotence, about His wonderful providence, about His works in nature and in The kingdom of grace, about the quality and purpose of the human soul, about its heavenly nature, about its talents or gifts, about its fall and restoration, sanctification, renewal, deification, about the virtues required of us: prudence, meekness, moderation, humility, kindness, temperance and chastity, benevolence, mercy, compassion, love of truth, straightforwardness, patience, impartiality, unselfishness, etc. After early mass. I thank the Lord, who has given me the grace to celebrate the Liturgy and the Sacrament of Baptism after it. I thank the Lord for reviving me with the most pure Mysteries; before communion, I was spiritually dead for the sake of gluttony, and at the great entrance I could not [cope] with the incorporeal enemy who had suppressed my weakness, according to custom, which was extremely unpleasant, annoying for myself and for the enemy who was constantly fighting me. I thank the Lord, who delivered me last year at this time from a serious illness and from death, which was so close to me that many said that I had died. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from all the disastrous incidents that happened in my past life on land and at sea, and on rivers, when a horse ran over me and hit me in the face with its shafts, when we walked by sea from the village of Raivolovo on a fishing boat in strong winds and waves and we almost drowned; when, long ago, on the Northern Dvina, my mother and other companions almost drowned in a storm on a Belozerka boat, when the Lord delivered me from many illnesses in my young and mature years. I thank my Lord God, who continues my life through His great mercy and who is still long-suffering to me. This, instead of peace, I offer to Him, instead of any sacrifice, and also repentance with tears, and zealous and humble alms, and a prayer of glorification with faith and love. Evening. First hour of the night. I thank the Lord, who resurrected my soul from death, which was killed by the disembodied enemy, who occupied my heart and tongue while saying the prayer at the first hour of the All-Night Vigil for Christ, the True Light. In repentance, I fell with my heart and lips to the holy altar in the Intercession chapel at the end of the service and soon felt the resurrection of the soul, the mortification of death, the power of life, the health of the heart, peace, freedom, space, boldness. Then he performed the christening in Grigorieva’s house on Kupecheskaya Street with great ease and boldness. God bless! I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the flattery of the enemy, from his snare, from unclean poison when I performed the rule at the first hour of the night through the prayer of repentance. O Blessed One! O speedy Savior! O my eternal Belly! Glory to You! In the light of the sun, on a cloudless day, when the rays of the sun hit the windows of the room, the smallest specks of dust are visible in the air, many of them, and when, due to the cloudy sky, the rays of the sun do not hit the inside of the room, then no dust is visible in it, as if it were not there at all, although we breathe it; this is what happens to our soul. When the Sun of Truth - Christ illuminates the miraculous church of our soul, then in it we notice many different sins and errors and lament over them (grant me to see my sins 119) and when, due to our inattention, ignorance, negligence or unbelief, Christ is not in us, then it seems that we have no sins, although there is an abyss of them, like dust in a room. I have enumerated this multitude of sins many times and I do not find it necessary to repeat them here. Let those who are attentive to themselves take the trouble to list this multitude of sins by type and type. Evening. Ten o'clock. This morning, when meeting with brother priest Peter Alex. Klepachevsky, I felt hostility towards him, and the poison of the serpent, the poison of death, poured through my insides; I came to church for mass and could not bear this hellish poison: in repentance I fell to the throne of grace and began to beg the Lord for mercy, mercilessly and sincerely condemning myself for self-love, envy, love of money, lust, greed, pride, dissatisfaction with my condition, dislike and contempt for my neighbor. Having condemned myself, I prayed to the Lord to grant me the spirit of love, unanimity, goodwill, dispassion, kindness, patience, peace, boldness, freedom, and suddenly I seemed to rise from the dead, came to life, confusion and oppression passed, my death was sacrificed in victory, I became a new person. Glory to the Lord, who works miracles in me! Then, during mass, the mortifier tried to kill me, pressed me, especially at the great entrance, after which I, mortified, shifted extremely from the cramped space and prayed - and the Lord again delivered me from the cramped space. During the liturgy, I vividly felt that the extreme heaviness and tightness of my heart was in close connection with my gluttony, delicacy and gluttony (however, much is only relative: others do not have enough of what I eat, for my nature is meager, lean). I should drink less sweet tea, especially with cream, and not eat meat or fish, but be content with cabbage soup and soups, and plant foods. Yes, my heart became coarse from food and drink, grew cold in love for God and neighbor, as if it had died to love. Woe to me, wretched one! I thank the Lord, who quickly delivered me from carnal movements in the barracks, before the prayer service and after the prayer service (at the Turchanskys). Monday. (Sunday of the Holy Myrrh-Bearing Women.) I thank the Lord, who delivered me just before Matins from sinful sorrow and oppression and gave me peace and freedom. He served the entire Matins without stumbling, peacefully, solemnly, with great boldness. Matins lasted until seven and a half hours, without the Midnight Office. Three and a half o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord, who mercifully delivered me from the hellish cramped conditions in the church before the liturgy itself and then repeatedly during the liturgy itself, when I fell in repentance to the holy throne. I thank the Lord for the wonderful revival of my being after communion of the Holy Mysteries and for the repeated victory over the machinations of invisible enemies. Five and a half o'clock in the evening. I sinned before the Lord, the Mother of God, before the holy Angels and all the saints and all people in that I was angry with a beggar who asked for alms - money for boots; I gave him thirty kopecks, but when he, dissatisfied, began to ask for more, in my anger I tore his hair out and was wounded myself, deeply embarrassed. Having arrived home, he began to repent before the Lord, and - about the gentle and long-suffering Lord! You immediately forgave me my malice, granting me quietness, meekness and justification, cleansing, revitalization, peace, boldness! Glory to Your invincible mercy! Tuesday. I thank the Lord, who, through the prayer of my repentance, delivered me from the most stubborn and severe cramped conditions that followed as a result of zeal and envy of the younger priest Peter Klepachevsky, who does almost nothing except perform regular services and receives, like me, a very good salary, income almost for nothing, when like me I have to work harder than anyone else. But I realized, by God’s punishment, my ingratitude, greed, envy, love of money, for what did I not have, I said within myself, what was some kind of lack? Nothing. What else do I want? Is it so that the income is less? God forbid! So that my brother gets less than me, like the younger one? But this is impossible, and I, being the youngest, received the same amount. And I said to myself: do not envy the idle and the rich - their souls are in great trouble and danger from idleness, contentment, and wealth. It is difficult for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven [Matthew 19:23]; their soul weakens, smolders in contentment and wealth, and is dead. We must feel sorry for them and pray fervently, so that they will feel the need for grace, which they neglect. The same goes for Father Pavel Trachevsky, Father Alexander Taratin, and Deacon Vladimir Poletaev - let them have thousands of rubles lying around, tens of thousands - this is decay and will not redeem their immortal soul. And my thousands are predestined in heaven for Christ. When I realized this and repented, the Lord delivered me from cramped conditions, and I served the Liturgy in peace, although not without temptations from invisible enemies. Before communion, it was very difficult for me because of the rapid singing of Father Deacon Dobronravin in the choir (runs in) and the quiet singing of the sexton (hard of hearing). But grace defeated demonic power - the Holy Mysteries redeemed me. It was very hard in class: it hurt my stomach. After class, I went to Fyodor Alekseevich Loshkin’s for a housewarming party (the shop was open again) and drank port wine, ate enough oranges to relieve stomach constipation, and the goal was achieved; then in another place I was a guest - I had a little snack, drank a glass of port, and this wine had an effect on me: my heart began to be embarrassed, my tongue began to falter, and during the service of Vespers, the litany of the great, petitionary and especially complete litany did not speak, but sang the stichera loudly in the choir. He said the small litany secretly, at the altar, and crumpled up the absolution from the fear of demons that had gripped his heart. At Compline I fell with faith and repentance at the throne of grace and received wondrous mercy, wondrous, omnipotent deliverance: grace conquered in me all my sins, stumblings, the fog of my heart and head, all the machinations of the enemy, and at Compline I said a complete dismissal, with the usual forgiveness and litany. Glory to God, my Victor and Savior! The farewell prayer service after Vespers served well. God bless! Your eyes, Lady, are Divine eyes, Your ears are Divine ears, Your vision is Divine, Your face is Divine, for in You rests the fullness of the Divine; Your mind is the Divine mind, Your heart is the Divine heart, Your will is the Divine will, Your thoughts are Divine thoughts, Your feelings are Divine feelings, Your intentions and plans are Divine intentions and plans; everything in You is Divine, heavenly, holy, most pure, most loving, wise. You are perfect fusion with the Divine: looking at Your face is consolation, joy and joy for believers and those who love God and You, Mother of God. Have mercy on me, Lord: not with love, not with humility, not willingly, not with peace, but with enmity, reluctance, with spiritual confusion, I accepted the order from the rector to take under my supervision and care the young man Travlinsky, who serves in the post office and attempted suicide. This means that I have no love for God and my neighbor, but there is self-love, self-indulgence, self-will, laziness, pride, disobedience, rebellion against the authorities, as when commemorating the powers that be and the first authorities in church, for once I condemned them with annoyance and pleasure, and therefore the reverence due to them has disappeared from me and I cannot sincerely and calmly remember them at the liturgy at the great entrance and then after the consecration of the Holy Gifts. This is what is revealed in me as a result of temptations, or this is what weaknesses and temptations reveal in me! I have sinned before the Lord and people! Have mercy on me, O God, and restore to me sincere, willing, zealous obedience to the authorities, for there is no authority except from God [Rom. 13:1]. I repent of gluttony and delicacy (a form of self-love), of violating fasting and Thy holy will, for You instituted fasting, but I do not keep it as I should, and thereby I revive my multi-passionate flesh, I give food and strength to my passions. I thank the Lord, who showed me great and immediate help and His salvation during the all-night vigil, repeatedly through my prayer of repentance, and especially before and during the reading of the Gospel, when at the wrong time (during the service) I read the decree sent by the rector about Travlinsky’s penance (with instructions for me to take him into my care), and then before reading the prayer to Christ, the true Light... Is your prayer a free, conscious, heartfelt, united outpouring of your soul with faith, hope and love in feelings of thanksgiving, reverence for the Lord God, by whom you live, move and exist [Acts 17:28]? Do you completely sacrifice yourself to God, do you completely surrender to God with your mind, heart and will and your body itself, which are the essence of God? Is the mind working, is the heart burning, is the will focused on one good thing, on fulfilling the commandments of God? Is your mind slumbering, is your heart cold, is your will sluggish and ineffective for good? Are thoughts wandering randomly in your head, bad feelings and lusts in your soul? Isn’t it nourishing, isn’t it enjoying, isn’t the soul carried away by the objects of its passions? What infinite splendor in which our Creator and Creator clothed himself and in which He clothed all the works of His hands! How magnificent is the sky with all its luminaries, air, and all its phenomena! How magnificent is the earth with its meadows, forests, gardens, countless fruits, with its seas, rivers, streams, with its endless species of animals, terrestrial and aquatic, with breeds of fish, sea monsters, reptiles, with animals, breeds of domestic animals, birds, insects, with its metals and minerals, precious stones! And all this serves man, the most magnificent of God’s creations, in the image and likeness of God. He has subdued everything under his tray [Ps.8:7]! Oh, how beautiful You are, lover, all-good, omnipotent, wise, our Creator, our Master, our Lord, our Savior! And for our salvation from sin, from this ugliness, from this darkness, from this eternal death, You yourself came to earth, clothed in me - oh, miracle of miracles! to teach me to do Your will, to know You again after many years of ignorance and wandering without You, to show the wondrous miracles of Your goodness and omnipotence, to suffer for me, to die the most severe and blasphemous death and to redeem me from the horrors of sin and eternal death, to resurrect me from the dead, to give us Yourself as food and drink, to cleanse, sanctify, deify, immortalize, eternally glorify and bless us! Oh, the wonders of Creative love for man! All the Angels marvel at the wonderful love of God! And we, ungrateful and malicious, often reject both the Savior and our salvation! See what we're doing? What kind of things are we doing? Where is the mind? Where is the faith? Where are the rich talents given to us by God? Where is the power of the Sacraments? Because of our negligence, everything is lost or muffled, suppressed, darkened, buried! Today it was extremely difficult for me to serve late mass due to yesterday’s intemperance and failure to fast and drink port wine. I felt extreme tightness in my heart precisely from intemperance. And how evil, hellishly and murderously the disembodied enemy oppressed me, but I had no weapon against him, namely fasting, and was brazenly overcome and oppressed by him! I took communion, thanking God, in a life-giving way, but how difficult it was to retain the peace of God within myself due to the coarsness and callousness of my heart! As after, the enemy pressed me, especially because of the income from joining the Lutherans! (I kept part of it for myself, because some priestly brethren do not record this income, others do not want to join non-believers to the Church.) The archpriest only wrote down a ruble once (as if he had only received one ruble) in 1878 on September 2 (inquire about recipients), and he added it often. Today I saw a four-year-old child (Vasilisa), who had been suffering terribly from birth and smallpox for the fourteenth day; the darling, they think, because the men laughed at her and put the evil eye on her [the gaze of their eyes], for from that day, when they especially laughed at her, the darling began to shake her. Smallpox covered She was completely disfigured and severely disfigured: the unfortunate woman was broken and convulsed with convulsions. If this happens to a green tree (an innocent, a child), what will happen to a dry tree (to a sinner) [Luke 23:31]? Oh, damn me! After the all-night vigil. I thank the Lord, who has given me the grace to perform the entire all-night vigil without stumbling. And since the enemy embarrassed me before reading the prayer to Christ, the True Light, I sang it and did not read it. I thank You, Lord, for preserving my left eye, which I almost seriously damaged while hastily washing myself in the morning, when the tailor Rozanov came from my care to try on my basted cassock. Don't rush crazy. Yesterday I ate a lot (at N. Sidorov and Yak. Markov). Evening. I thank the Lord for His wondrous, speedy, glorious salvation of my unworthiness in the morning at litia and during the removal and escort of the body of Akulina (the wife of the collegiate assessor) from Uvarova’s house, when I, upset and embittered at the sexton Mikhail Alekseev for being late for the take-out, was in embarrassment and cramped conditions and hellish fire; Walking in such a state, very difficult, I fervently repented and prayed to the Lord to have mercy on me, and I had mercy - the confusion passed, silence came, crowding and fire passed, their place was replaced by space and the dew of grace, the death of the spirit was replaced by life. God bless! He served Mass calmly by the grace of God, and conquered temptations with grace; the temptations were extremely annoying, brazenly captivating my passionate soul - only the power of grace could overcome them. He received life-giving communion and gave communion to women. A grave temptation befell me at the entrance to the church of the rector Pavel Trachevsky from a feeling of dissatisfaction with him and grief, but through tearful repentance I got rid of the bitterness of temptation, from death. How long will I, even during the celebration of the Liturgy, be partial to the creature and not love the Creator above all, and cleave with all my heart to Him alone, exchanging all the blessings of the earth for rubbish, for droppings? What is the comparison between the creature and the Creator? The Creator is infinitely better, more perfect, more precious than the creature! What is more beautiful, sweeter, kinder, more unchanging than the Creator? During the liturgy at the great entrance, with God’s help, I pronounced all the names of the royal family, and after the consecration of the Holy Gifts - the Holy Synod and the Most Reverend Isidore with all the titles. Grant, Lord, that I always say firmly everything, everything... Sunday. The Lord send a rod of strength from Zion, and rule in the midst of Your enemies [Ps. 109:2]. Grant me this rod, O Lord: this rod of strength is You. He served early mass in the Assumption Church with a somewhat hoarse voice, with great difficulty, under grave temptations from invisible enemies. At the great entrance, I did not pronounce the names of the royal family because of the devilish fear and relaxation that suddenly seized me; he did the invocation of the Holy Spirit with difficulty and vaguely; The Holy Synod stole the metropolitan’s name and title out of fear of the devil and did not pronounce it, but after communion I was strengthened in spirit, the fear disappeared, and I finished the service solemnly, in peace. Glory to the Lord, who strengthened me with the Holy Mysteries! He served prayers well everywhere, especially with Yakov Apollonovich Hiltebrandt, and [later] with Stefanida Avvakumovna. I sinned: I revealed and did not cover up the weaknesses of Father Peter Klepachevsky’s comrade in a meeting in one house. I thank the Lord, for even this day has surpassed my countless and cruel iniquities with His immeasurable goodness, and He graciously had mercy on me. After Matins, one beggar persistently pestered me (other beggars, having received alms, left), asking me for much more than what I wanted to give, taking into account his behavior, young years and healthy condition (meaning able to work); I was stubborn and did not want to give him (by the way, due to stinginess, satiety, insensibility and hardness of heart, due to pride and pride) the required amount; he pestered me - I got angry, cursed, crossed to the other side of the street or poked him in the stomach with an umbrella, finally swung the umbrella at him and almost hit him. At the same time, I became completely upset, lost peace, tranquility, freedom, boldness, fell into sorrow, oppression, shame, into spiritual death, deprived of God’s favor. But he immediately began to repent, condemn himself, ran to the church (early mass was in progress) in the Peter and Paul chapel and, falling to the holy throne, with all faith, with all zeal, with the fervor of his soul, he begged the mercy of God to forgive me my wickedness and lawlessness, for the sake of the blood of the Son of God poured out for the sinful world and for me, all sinners, and the Lord performed a true miracle of mercy on me His own, reviving me, killed by my sins, and giving me peace, space, boldness. Glory to God, our Savior! Then, when I was in the gymnasium, I was sad, painful, painful, Belial crushed me; At the end of sitting in the gymnasium at the council, I went for a walk in the fresh air, earnestly praying to the Lord for deliverance, and again the Lord had mercy on me, saving me from the oppressive melancholy and granting me peace. God bless! So much power of God in [the name of the Lord]! So much salvation! What will I bring to You or what will I repay You, O most gifted, immortal King?! But You do not demand my good things [Ps. 15:2], You yourself give to everyone life and breath, and everything [Acts 17:25]. Grant me to love You with all my heart and keep Your commandments. I thought evilly about Kamenogradsky in the morning upon his arrival at the cathedral, but he was innocent, having come only for early mass. How wrong am I, according to the demonic suggestion, about the brethren! May I not think evil, but may I think good for everyone! Eleven o'clock in the evening. I thank and praise the Lord for a new deliverance from the secret, perfect iniquity of my heart: looking with lust at a girl, which plunged me into sorrow, oppression and shame and changed my very face; this happened just before the arrival of the sexton Kutuzov’s wife with my godson, her son, in whose presence I was very unfree and restless, and before the arrival of Pavel Stepanovich Burachok. I felt so embarrassed and cramped in my soul that I went to my prayer room and prayed and repented to the Lord several times, and when for the last time, when Burachok and Kutuzova were with me, I prayed to the Lord with special zeal, the bonds of sin were destroyed, peace, silence, space, boldness, clarity and calmness of face, truth and holiness reigned in me. Glory to the good-will, benevolence and benevolence of my Lord Jesus Christ! But for my inclinations I am ashamed of my face! And I myself reinforce these desires with delicacies and satiety every day. O idolatry! Oh, madness! When will I trample on the belly that tramples my soul, rebelling against God and my neighbor? Tuesday. I thank the Lord, who performed a miracle of mercy on me at the end of the first matins (for which the watchman Procopius did not wake me up) before the second, which I served for myself. I became angry and cursed at Procopius at the altar (my insolence, intemperance, anger, irritability) and lost peace of mind and boldness before God, and died in soul. After this, I ran to God with strong repentance and faith, and the Lord raised me from the dead, giving me life again, salvation again! Glory to the Lord! During the service of mass in the Assumption Church at eight and a half o'clock in the morning, there was an extreme temptation from the spirits of malice and wickedness, who incited me to the sexton Mikhail Alekseev, who sings very low and muffled (this is his weakness, and not disobedience or reluctance!); I could barely, with God’s help, overcome hostility and anger towards him and take communion calmly and with boldness - it just drowns and drowns my soul into sin! But glory to His mercy and all-conquering power! And I feel shame on my face! How many passions I have! May I inscribe deep in my heart the words of the Apostle about love, about its properties: love is long-suffering, merciful... and so on [1 Cor. 13:1-8]. You seek earthly, carnal, rough, unclean pleasures and, enjoying, after pleasures, sometimes momentary, you encounter bitterness, crampedness, sorrow. By this the Lord admonishes you not to get carried away, not to be captivated by them, but to seek incorruptible, spiritual, higher pleasures, characteristic of the immortal human spirit. God is jealous of you with paternal zeal, so that you will enjoy, enjoy forever the sweets of the heavenly, eternal Kingdom, the sweets of communion with God, so that you will enjoy the sight of the infinite beauty of God and not be seduced by earthly, corruptible beauty, often unclean, separating you from the uncreated eternal beauty. We must have extreme reverence for the entire structure of the human body, as the work of the all-wise, all-holy and all-good and all-powerful artist of God, who created man in His image and likeness; reverence, I say, precisely for the church of the immortal spirit, as for the church of God Himself: Don’t you know that you are the church of God, and the Spirit of God lives in you? [ 1 Corinthians 3:16 ]. And about carnal lust, when it is not sanctified by law and need (in marriage), forget and think and, when it comes, drive away immediately, as unclean and stifling. Do not eat anything until evening today; to lay the foundation for saving and God-unifying abstinence. Hitherto I have sought, foolishly, corruption; henceforth, I seek incorruption, and reject the charming corruption that imposes itself on my attachment to him in the form of food and drinks, beautiful clothes, distinctions, various things used and not used in everyday life, but simply acquired for the sake of appearance, for the pleasure of the eye. To take advantage of the greatest benefits and advantages of the priestly service (especially in Kronstadt Tarovite) and not want to perform the service itself, neglig 121 them, send it extremely abbreviated according to one’s own arbitrariness and hastily, in no way in accordance with anything - neither with the holiness and greatness and salvific value of the divine service, nor with our own personal benefit and the spiritual benefit of the parishioners of the church, who, with such Careless, hasty performance of the service does not find in it what they want, and they leave the church dissatisfied or even stop going to it altogether. But we need this, that the sheep come out hungry from the pasture of the Church, from pasture so rich and nourishing by the grace of the Holy Spirit living in the Church! Some priests plucked, beheaded, and interrupted the service to such an extent that the parishioners barely had time to arrive at the church when they almost immediately had to leave. In what institutions, besides our Church, are there such negligences? And this is in the church of the Living God, in the school of faith and piety, in the sanctuary of God, in the earthly sky, in the place of the celebration of the heavenly Mysteries of Christ our God, in the laudatory of the Holy Trinity! Weak, unclean, selfish, hypocritical is our love for God and neighbor; our faith and hope are weak; weak patience; cold, weak prayer. Christ is the girdle of strength for the weak, infirm human nature (on the Week of the Paralytic), paralyzed by sins. The saints knew this. We too are constantly learning, I know. We know that without Him we can do nothing [John 15:5] and we can do everything through the strengthening Jesus Christ [Phil.4:13]! How much I have relaxed myself with sins and always relax! – He will gird me with strength every day [Ps. 17:33]. How relaxed everything is now: morals, good customs, faith, love, everything good! The moral ties between children and parents and often between parents and children are weak! Weak and unstable are the connections of friends with friends, comrades with comrades, colleagues with colleagues, social activists with social activists, citizens with citizens, classes with classes, warriors of different weapons with each other! Loyalty and honesty in trade, in public service, in financial matters have weakened; slander, gossip, ridicule, curses, blasphemy, blasphemy, foul language, mockery of the rich over the poor, the strong over the weak, the dishonest over the honest dominate everywhere! And, despite all this, these pitiful people do not realize that they are mortally weakened, that they need to resort to spiritual healing, to the almighty Doctor! When relaxed, they are still proud, impudent, unfaithful! On the Sunday of the Samaritan Woman. The storehouse of living water is the Church. The storehouse of the dead water of sin is the world. Thursday. I thank the Lord, who allowed me today for the first time to enjoy the fragrance of the blossoming and greening leaves of trees: until this day it was all cold! So, again, miracles of God on earth, miracles of His goodness, omnipotence, wisdom, immeasurable beauty, unspeakable fragrance! Oh, may our souls and bodies be fragrant and fragrant with the grace of Your Holy Spirit, may the stench and ugliness of sin be completely eliminated. Amen. I thank the Lord for the alms sent to me by an unknown benefactor-officer (ten rubles) in the name of St. Nicholas in favor of widows and orphans. Friday and Saturday. I thank the Lord, who delivered me through the prayer of my repentance yesterday and today from the dead water in my heart - from my passions: anger and grief towards the poor, bitterness, stinginess, love of money, hard-heartedness and from the righteous punishment for them - sorrow and crampedness and shame on the face, darkness and hardship. And not only did the Lord deliver me, but also gave me again peace, space, boldness, rightness of spirit, renewal, strength, sanctification, salvation again. But woe to me that I am still the same or even worse sinner than before, that the same and other sins remain and live and intensify in me, but there is no correction, there is no striving for perfection, not only perfection itself, according to what was spoken from the Lord: be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect [Matthew 5:48]. I thank the Lord, who visited me yesterday during the all-night vigil with His mercy, His merciful and life-giving grace, when I cried out in repentance and sorrow of heart about my negligence, lack of correction, gluttony, satiety, and hardening of the heart. I felt, I felt how the life-giving streams of Your grace penetrated my entire being, warmed my heart, touched me, revived me, cleansed me from my untruths, reconciled me with You, Lord, and with my conscience. But while reading the Gospel and Christ, the Light, the true devil brazenly tore some words from my heart and lips because of my satiety, for my heart had become dead. (I got carried away yesterday during lunch, eating a lot of veal jelly with horseradish, corned beef, roast with salad, even a little milk porridge. In the evening after the all-night vigil, which was held in the house of Tsepov at Evgeniy Nikanorovich and Vassa Mikhailovna and Evdokia Egorovna, I ate cheesecake with pleasure, drank white kvass - again too much. This morning, upon waking up, I felt heaviness and some soreness in the body due to satiety.) The Most Holy Lady Theotokos loves us, Christians, with the love of Christ, the holiest, most tender, the strongest, if we hate sins and are zealous for virtue. Therefore, with great faith and hope one must flow to Her. So I was overcome by an absurd grief and sadness that Father Alexander, a rich man, took my income by going in my place to the maternity woman, the wife of officer Slavinsky, when I was not at home and they invited me. Oh, the flattery of the love of money! But the essence is satisfied, O Lord, which you have given to me. Resurrection. I thank the Lord, who delivered me many times during mass and after it from the violence and torment of the devil and made me worthy to receive life-giving communion of His most pure and life-giving Mysteries. During the service of the prayer service at the foundation stone of Dmitrieva’s house, there was terrible violence of the devil: with a hellish fear of I don’t know who or what, he paralyzed me, did not allow me to be sincere, calm, brave, cheeky, but forcibly introduced into me slyness, insincerity, coldness, timidity, sluggishness and crampedness, even if you give up everything. Gospel: Come to Me, all you who labor... did not finish reading the words: for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you will find rest for your souls [Matthew 11:28–30]... The holy of waters too; in the prayer for the blessing of water, I also did not utter several expressions... The presence of Deacon Poletaev embarrasses me... he is an unhearted person... Have mercy on us, God... I thank the Lord, who delivered me from dead water - uncleanness and from the wickedness and impurity of my heart. Tuesday. I thank the Lord, who pacified my soul during Matins, when I fell in repentance at the throne of His grace; I thank the Lord, who fulfilled my prayer for the reader Demetrius, for the softening of his heart, for the unanimity of all the brothers of the church serving in it. I thank the Lord, who, after matins in my kindergarten, drove away the fornication that was with me before an elderly woman, the mother-in-law of one innkeeper Utkin, came and told about his fornication, drunkenness and fist-fighting adventures. I went and instructed the sinner, he accepted my instruction with humility. God bless! Correct him, Master! Correct me too, Most Merciful! Two things loudly preach to me about the greatness and perfection of God: the visible world and the Holy Church. The Divine Majesty delights and amazes me; I am amazed and amazed by the perfections of God: goodness, truth, wisdom, omnipotence, indescribable beauty, eternity and ever-present, omniscience, omnipresence, unapproachable light, immutability, all-contentment, all-bliss. The visible world is beautiful - how beautiful must be the invisible, angelic world, the world of holy people, whom grace made whiter than snow and moved to heaven! How immeasurably more beautiful is God Himself, the Creator of the invisible and visible worlds! Mortal people, created in the image and likeness of God with a bright mind, capable of cognizing, understanding, understanding, judging and concluding everything about everything, with a heart that can passionately love everything that is good, beautiful, true, with free strength that can strive for what is desired, loved, perfect, good and beautiful and achieve the object of our aspirations with God’s help - why do we not strive with all our might to avoiding the ugliness and torment of sin and restoring in oneself the purity and holiness of the image of God in which we were created; Why don’t we strive to unite with the Prototype - God, for Whom we were created and from Whom we have fallen and continue to fall away through absurd, ugly, insane, deadly sin? God! Descended to us from heaven and imagined into our nature without change 122 and confusion or division. Enlighten, purify, transform us, imagine yourself in us, complete 123 us, imagine yourself in us, draw us to Yourself, defeat the sin that lives in us and, as it were, has become natural and inevitable in us! Everything is possible for you! Let the adversary who has overcome us not boast with his all-unclean, all-evil, all-destructive breath! Amen! Through deception and violence, it acts disastrously in us: consume the deception of sin, Lord! Grant to everyone to know the charm, darkness, madness, absurdity and destruction of sin. The more I receive and have the means for earthly life, the more I desire and hunger for them, the more I grieve over their small deprivation, oh - wicked, absurd, insane flesh, absurd heart, lost heart, blind! The more I enjoy food and drink, the more greedy and greedy I become, although the very flesh cries out for the harm of excess and the very soul is burdened and suppressed by satiety and drinks! This is how crazy a person becomes when he does not look for the one thing he needs and leaves the Source of living waters - the Lord, when he does not strive for grief with his mind, heart and will, but seeks bliss and happiness down on earth. God! You are the life of my heart, You are my breath, You are my bliss, You are my all-contentment. Looking for You, Having You, I will never lack in anything, Loving You and my neighbor as myself, I will not be lacking in anything, according to Your word: Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all this will be added to you [Matthew 6:33]. Have a non-money-loving disposition, being content with what you have. For He Himself said: I will never leave you nor forsake you [Heb.13:5]. Oh! Until now I have an earthly, creeping heart, instead of one that is above me; I still do not have sincere love for God and my neighbor, which is the greatest loss and misfortune for my immortal soul; I am still embarrassed by the loss of earthly ephemeral blessings, which are nothing. Where is my mind? Where is my goal? Where is my true treasure, my inalienable treasure – God? Stupid heart! Stupid flesh! Stupid old man! Give him thousands of money - not enough! Give tens of thousands - not enough, hundreds of thousands - not enough! Give the treasures of the whole world - little, little, not at all will be satisfied, on the contrary - the thirst for money will burn a person more and more! But the believer and sincerely pious is content with little and very little and does not love much, for for him everything is God. He is his treasure, food, drink, clothing, adornment, beauty, strength, light, glory, strength, hope; he despises the whole world as hostile to God and him, as charming, destructive, treacherous, vain. I experienced how money-loving and envious I am yesterday: having learned that Father Alexander Taratin was giving a prayer to his maternity wife (an officer’s wife, spiritual daughter) in my place, I was extremely saddened, as if a really great grief and misfortune had befallen me; grief, cramped conditions, shame, spiritual distress tormented me for five hours (and in Kronstadt from eight and a half hours), and throughout the entire journey to Rambov and Colonel Morgasov, and in his apartment until the prayer service, which began at one ten minutes in the afternoon. And during the prayer service, what a struggle, what the greatest moral effort I had to make on myself after the preliminary mental prayer to the Lord! This absurdity could hardly escape me! Here I found in myself extreme self-love, pride, envy, love of money, stinginess, greed, carnality, gluttony, unbelief, lack of hope, despair! Am I the only one who should own the entire parish, even in my absence? I visit guests, feast, and spiritual children wait for me! Ridiculous! I thank the Lord for the power of grace, and teach me when performing a prayer service in the presence of a large military audience along with a secular one; Thanks to this grace, I overcame the fierce machinations of the evil one, who confused me and instilled fear in me, and performed the prayer service with great, sincere faith and zeal, with tenderness and zeal of God to the end. Thus, the hellish machinations of the ethereal enemy are crushed by the power of God. Glory to the Lord! Grant me, Lord, grace and strength to serve You with such and great boldness at great solemn assemblies. A Word for the Week about the Blind. How much [knowledge] and pleasures and benefits a person receives through the organ of vision and how much a person loses due to lack of vision! Here is spring now: on a clear day, when the sun is shining in full force, how much wondrous beauty we see in all of nature - in the sky, on the earth: flowers, trees, various plants, mountains, plains, meadows, gardens, vegetable gardens, fields; flying birds, fish, birds, animals, people. A blind person doesn't see this. But besides bodily vision, there is spiritual vision, which is much more important than bodily vision: with it we contemplate holiness, truth, the infinite beauty of the Creator, the beauty of true virtue, the invisible beauty of the human soul, its talents, immortality, the image of God, the likeness of God; but the people of this century, this world, do not have these spiritual eyes - they worship visible, transient, corruptible beauty and do not know the true, uncreated, created eternal beauty; they see the beauty of matter and are captivated by it and do not see the beauty of Christian virtue, Divine beauty, and do not achieve it, considering it to be nothing. What blindness! They do not see the ugliness of vice, and are seduced by it, and drown in it, and decorate it, often display it publicly, for show (paintings, statues, living pictures), they see the beauty of gold, the beauty of materials, the beauty of products made from various metals, minerals, wood, etc. - and have no idea about the beauty of the soul, the beauty of virtue, the beauty of humility, kindness, purity and chastity, abstinence, patience, mercy, compassion. I thank the Lord, who destroyed the web of our evils, which the evil demon brought upon us regarding my brewing coffee for the washerwoman, which my wife desired and attacked the servant girl Evdokia along with her sister and began to maliciously scold her. I intervened, saying that they were making a storm in a teacup, that they were angry and unforgiving towards the servants. Give me peace, I shouted in frustration, we lived in complete peace for three years, and now love and peace have been destroyed because of a trifle. We calmed down - thanks to them; and I fervently prayed to the Lord, may He destroy the devil’s entanglement in us, and may He have mercy and heal our passions. On May 22, Empress Maria Alexandrovna died. Our memorial service in the cathedral was on May 23 at two o'clock. I thank the Lord, who at this hour (four and a half o'clock in the evening) accomplished a wondrous, saving change in my soul after sincere repentance and self-condemnation, my self-conviction of malice and rancor, of self-love, waywardness, pride, gluttony, drunkenness, love of money, voluptuousness and secret lust, of laziness and idleness and negligence. (Trouble with my wife and sister-in-law Anna K. because of the servant of the girl Evdokia, whom they attacked in vain in the morning.) When I blamed only them and was angry with them, especially for feeding dinner to many outsiders, it was extremely difficult for me, when I sincerely blamed myself for my passion, anger, pride, willfulness, self-interest, stinginess, greed, dislike, unforgivingness, impatience, savagery and strangeness of neighbors - the Lord has now had mercy on me. Glory to the Lord, who enlightened the eyes of my heart and dispersed the dark, deadly clouds of passions and showed His bright face to me again! I thank the Lord, who heard my inner prayer for the reader Demetrius and for myself, so that our hearts may be mutually inclined towards each other. You showed a sign that You accepted my prayer, for the reader himself showed his disposition towards me. I thank You, Lord, because by going to Your church and reading in the choir and singing to You and the Most Pure Mother of God and all the saints, I am delivered from passions, and I am granted peace and remission of sins from Your goodness, and I am a partaker of heavenly life. And in the world there is vanity and a storm of passions: because of an insignificant incident, the enemy raises such human anger, slander, and abuse that you are horrified by his malice and deceit and want to get out of the midst of the world. Here a person’s household and even his wife become enemies. But forbid the enemy, O Lord, and grant us all a peaceful state for the sake of Your name. During the funeral service for the Empress, I was dead, depressed, bound by the enemy; I was damned, poor, poor, blind and naked, and for that I thank the Lord that He gave me peace during it. Ten o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord, who poured out His great mercy on me following my repentant inner prayer and delivered me from the extreme distress and sorrow that depressed me all day as a result of the trouble that occurred between me and my wife and sister-in-law Anna. Glory to Your mercy, O Lord, which overcomes all our evils. This whole day has been for me a day of cramped conditions, sorrow, misfortune, the possession of the devil, the torment of hell. And in hell it will be a thousand times worse for the sinner. So-called carnal love is the greatest enmity against God, against neighbors (especially those at home, who become unloved), against neighbors and against oneself, it is a desecration of God’s greatness, God’s wisdom, truth and holiness, it is a perversion, the reverse side of love, a perversion of the God-created, God-like nature of man, it is spiritual and physical destruction, desecration of the church of God not made by hands, for it is said: Do you not know that you are the church of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you? [ 1 Corinthians 3:16 ]. Therefore, it is necessary with all the attention and diligence of the soul to avoid thoughts and feelings of carnal affection and love and carnal tenderness, looking at a person one likes, so as not to be wounded more and more by carnal love. The enemy's nets are placed everywhere to trap us in destruction and aphids. Cling to God, to God with all your heart, O man! He alone is completely worthy of your love, pure, incorruptible, He alone can fully satisfy your love, your heartfelt affection; He is eternal truth, holiness, beauty, goodness and eternal, endless love, eternal sweetness, eternal wisdom; He is completely, He alone can satisfy your soul. Yesterday I fell into all the fullness of evil: into pride, self-will, pride, malice, envy, stinginess, greed, avarice, love of money, unsociability, suspicion, irritability, impatience, grumpiness, hard-heartedness, gluttony, laziness, idleness, negligence, and today into satiety - woe to me, accursed, careless and lazy. And I fell into all this evil because I did not partake of the Holy Mysteries for a long time (five days) and because of gluttony and intemperance, and that classes at the gymnasium stopped, for classes, or studying the Law of God with children, cleanses my soul, enlightens, strengthens. Sunday. Finding the head of Saint John the Baptist. I thank the Lord, who gave me a restful night, and yesterday during the all-night vigil I had tearful tenderness and today at morning prayer with living thought and faith about the omnipresence of God and knowledge of the heart, as well as knowledge of the heart and omnipresence by the grace of the Mother of God. After early mass. Having not served God’s service for a whole week and not partaking of the Holy Mysteries, but pleasing daily flesh and blood, eating and drinking and seeing, I was completely exhausted, lost in spirit, died in heart for God, reviving the flesh and all the passions of the flesh. It was extremely difficult for me to serve early mass; the spirits of malice and wickedness overcame me, burdened me, constrained me, confused me, brought me fear and cowardice, I could not pronounce some prayers and exclamations at the great entrance and at the consecration of the Gifts of Prayer. First remember, Lord, and the prayer behind the pulpit: I was crushed by enemies, killed. The lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh, from which I had not carefully guarded myself before, but satisfied it, now embarrassed me mercilessly and plunged me into cramped conditions. Only I fully pronounced the dismissal of the liturgy, raising my eyes to heaven. I thank the Lord for the communion of the Holy Mysteries. Grant me, Lord, the grace to look at women’s faces with pure, spiritual, and not carnal eyes, and not to remember or bear any grudge against any of those who treated me harshly and derogatorily (Reverend Metropolitan Isidore, reputed to be a kind and meek Bishop, but proud and derogatory in his treatment, however, I am worthy of all humiliation and severity. And save him, Master, for this humiliation, my Lord, Lord! And grant me more grace, to love him more, grant me the sweetness of praying for him). Grant me, Lord, the grace and sweetness to pray for all the highest persons, living and dead, and to heartily, separately, clearly pronounce their names in public prayer. You are no respecter of persons, Master Lord our God, for all people, high and low, are equally made of clay and equally in Your image. Let Belial flee, preventing me from sincerely praying for the great, strong, noble and rich of this world and making me timid and fearful with dumbness, and instilling neglect and coldness towards the poor dead. Grant me, Lord, to pray for everyone sincerely, as for myself, for You said: Love your neighbor as yourself [Mark 12:31]. Bear one another's burdens [Gal.6:2], pray for one another that you may be healed [James 5:16]. The absence of lessons at the gymnasium during the current, almost vacation time is a great moral loss for me - grace is becoming scarce in me. Anyone who drinks from the water of sowing will thirst again [John 4:13] (by water one can and should understand in general the blessings of this world: honors, money, food and drink, fine clothes or clothes, household utensils [...], in general, elegant and expensive home furnishings, a luxurious home, various pleasures: theater, music, games, for example cards, etc.). So, for example, I receive money, money and am not satisfied with it, everything is not enough for me, I thirst and thirst more; I have differences - and I want big ones, I have an apartment - and I want better ones, good furniture, a carriage of horses - and I want better ones, I have smart clothes - and I want smarter ones, I go to the theater - and I’m not satisfied with them, I look for some kind of ideal in it - and I don’t find it, I remain empty in it, I change outfits from one to another - and I’m not satisfied, I crave new, fashionable ones; changing furniture for furniture; I receive ranks and distinctions - and I hunger for new ones, and all my life I am tormented by the greed of new earthly blessings, I suffer from a thirst that is not satisfied by anything earthly, but is more inflamed; Meanwhile, I don’t care about the soul, the satisfaction of its heavenly, pure, incorruptible and eternal interests, or very little; I don’t care about the spiritual clothing of virtues, about spiritual food, about spiritual drink, about the spiritual light of jewelry; I don’t care about acquiring Christ, the eternal life. And having received Christ, I would never thirst. Develop this theme in the sermon. I thank the Lord, who yesterday gave me the grace to sing Vespers in peace and tenderness and to perform the Sacrament of Baptism without stumbling and sincerely in the house of Yakovlev. I thank the Lord, who delivered me today from sinful, destructive, heavy lust and who gave me the most peaceful, sweet, incorruptible outpouring of His grace (as a result of my heartfelt prayer and falling to the throne of grace in the Intercession chapel) and with boldness and consolation to read and sing the canon of Matins. Yesterday's gluttony and satiety resonated in me quite heavily during the morning. God! Again lust, again extinguish it with the water of Thy grace. Yesterday morning, before extremely rainy and prolonged weather, before a thunderstorm, thunder and lightning, there was extreme tightness in my internal organs, the strongest lust, the greatest nervous irritation, from which I got rid of thanks to the mercy of God, the prayer of repentance, moving away from the sight and thoughts of evil and inviting me to a prayer service. Alas for me, who do not have sincere love for people, and especially for the strong and glorious of the earth, although they are my neighbors, people just like me, and, like all other people of the middle and lower class, subject to sins and weaknesses and undoubtedly adorned with virtues (although some of them), having a kind and sensitive, compassionate heart. God! You commanded not to look at faces, to have faith in You and to love everyone as yourself; grant me to love everyone without distinction according to Your will - and not to servile the glorious and rich and learned of the world, nor to shun them, and not to despise the simple and the poor and the unlearned; grant me to give all their due. A lesson for me from the book “Christian Reading” for 1821. Once the brethren praised Abba Anthony of a certain monk. When this one came, Anthony wanted to test whether he could bear the insult, and when he found that he could not bear it, he said to him: you are like a village, which in front is intact and beautiful, but in the back everything has been plundered by robbers. This applies to me, the accursed one. I can't stand insults. About twelve years ago I visited Metropolitan Isidore of St. Petersburg regarding the matter of my ceding the position of teacher of the law at the Kronstadt gymnasium to my future son-in-law Grigory Tsvetkov (who was later a priest in Gatchina). The Bishop received me strictly, sternly, cutting me off at the first steps that I did not know how to walk, cross myself, bow, that in this way I could serve as a temptation for the parishioners. Apparently he even wanted to fire me from the gymnasium; In fear, alien to love and true respect, I knelt before him, for, it seemed to me, he himself was alien to love and ruled by pride and disdain for us, humble priests. I could not bear such treatment and, having come to my brother-in-law, Father Lawrence, I wept bitterly about my humiliation from the bishop, who showed me no love in word, spirit, deed, or appearance, and I disliked the proud, as I thought, Metropolitan Isidore, and to this day I feel in my heart hostility towards him, although for the sake of the humility that is due from me before the archpastor I should not consider such treatment as an insult, but as severity due to me, a sinner. And it is clear that I have a lot of pride, pride, ambition, anger, ignorance of myself: instead of loving him, I hated him and am alienated from him and am afraid and cannot stand to see him and remember him even in church during worship. I sincerely repent of this to the Lord and pray to the Lord to destroy in me this long-term struggle, this enmity and hostility towards the ruler. This is what I prayed for this very minute before the Holy Life-giving Mysteries, before the very face of the Lord my God Jesus Christ together with the Father and the Holy Spirit. God! How often do living streams of Thy grace pour into my soul, according to my faith and my repentance! I praise You, omnipresent and benevolent, righteous and holy, rewarding everyone according to their deeds. Stop meat-eating and all satiety with anything and observe strict fasting. Today, during the service of early mass, I was in pure trouble from weakness, or rather death of the heart, which is why I could not pronounce many words. Wednesday. Giving Easter. I thank the Lord, who has given me, unworthy, the grace to finally glorify this year the Resurrection of Christ - Holy Pascha with solemn singing in the church during Matins... May God grant that I will celebrate this all-joyful holiday next year. Alas for me, Lord, for I have an unclean heart, which, through self-love and corruption, does not sympathize with the sorrows and joys of their neighbors, especially those of power and the mighty of the earth and the rich, noble and learned, in the false conviction that they do not know and do not want to know the needs and misfortunes of the poor, miserable people and drink the cup of pleasure to the end, forgetting God, His law, His righteousness, His Judgment. Every family has its black sheep: but are they all like that? Aren't many of them very kind people, with a kind, compassionate heart, and a God-loving soul? So I did not sympathize with the grief of the royal house and all of Russia on the occasion of the death of the most pious Empress Maria Alexandrovna, just as during her life I almost never sincerely remembered during liturgies, due to the devil’s obsession, her name, his heir and his wife and their first-born child. Oh, heart spoiled by selfishness and countless passions! Have mercy, Master, have mercy on my soul! I thank the Lord, who delivered my soul, through the prayer of repentance before His holy icon (in my hall) on May 28, at four and a half o’clock in the evening from the meeting, from the host of my passions: from contemplation, from jealousy and envy of my brethren (archpriests comrades and juniors to me), who received my highest awards (vanity!). Through these and similar carnal passions, I almost constantly fall away in heart from the Lord, from His love, I betray Him, the all-perfect, eternal, all-good, all-sweet, beautiful, all-bright, all-powerful, all-wise, all-rich and all-rich, the highest and exalting to the third heaven His faithful who love Him, all-knowing, all-satisfied and all-blessed - so I fall away from Him, from His sweet communion through evil, seduced, evil, envious thoughts, through addiction to money, to food, clothing, jewelry, to faces shining with beauty, forgetting the indescribable, incorruptible beauty of the Face of God. Alas! Madman, I cleave to the creature instead of clinging to the Creator with all my heart, at every step, at almost every moment I betray the Creator. How many individual creatures I meet during the day, I have so many gods, so many idols. This word is true. Alas for me! Woe to me, many-passionate! God! Strengthen me in Your love; the love of this world, the love of creation, leave me behind, reject, reflect from my heart. May my heart belong to You, You alone! Woe, woe, yes I always see, for there, in heaven, there, with You, is my fatherland! Seek the things that are above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God; Set your mind on things above and not on earthly things [ Col. 3:1–2 ]. I thank the Lord, who accepted my whole-hearted and reasonable repentance on the St. Petersburg ship on May 27, on my trip to St. Petersburg and who delivered me from cramped conditions, shame, and terrible darkness regarding my involuntary payment of money for passage on the ship of Sergius Fedorovich Travlinsky. Sovereignly, wonderfully, the Lord quickly delivered me for my repentance and faith from spiritual death and mercifully gave me life, justification, holiness, peace, space, boldness. Grace also attracted to me the director of the gymnasium, Janisch, who was on the ship. I thank the Lord, who today, during the all-night vigil, delivered me for repentance from the deadly thorns of my passions and gave me tears of tenderness, deliverance, justification, peace, space, boldness, light and strength to my soul and bright thoughts for preaching on the Ascension of the Lord. Faith is the guardian of health, chastity, safety, the giver of peace, truth, holiness, light, strength, courage, boldness and every blessing of God, all grace. Blessed are all who walk by faith. Evening. Resurrection. I thank the Lord for the greatest mercy shown to me during the liturgy, especially during the reading of the Gospel, when a stream of life and the power of God poured into my heart and drove away the death of the heart, sorrow and oppression; I thank the Lord for the life-giving communion of the Holy Mysteries. I thank the Lord, who delivered me just before Vespers from suspicion and pride towards Father Deacon Poletaev, after my repentance and falling to the throne. I thank the Lord for his sovereign help during the baptism of the baby Konstantin at Pyotr Nikolaevich Slavinsky. Through the beauty and sweetness of earthly blessings, we, short-sighted, do not see their corruption and transience and vanity, and we are seduced by them, falling away in our hearts from God. Tickets must be written for the eighth grade exam. I don’t need to indulge at all: eating meat, drinking beer, sweet tea, eating sweet jam: all this causes extreme stimulation of the genital organs, tightness in the limbs - you can’t sleep, danger regarding fornication. After early mass. Oh, how poor, damned, poor, blind and naked and weak I am to the extreme! During early mass, the enemy exposed and captivated me, weakened me, tormented me so much that I burst into tears of self-pity and deepest repentance. The much-merciful One, seeing my humility and repentance, had mercy on me and sent me His help from above, clothed me with His grace, like a robe, pacified me - and I received communion with the boldness of the Holy Mysteries, enlivened by them; He boldly said dismissal, as he did yesterday during the early Ascension (holiday) mass. It was good for me after communion. But, at the end of the mass, having entered the altar of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, I saw the boots of the rector at the royal gates and was indignant at him, I allowed a heartfelt hostility towards him, which greatly confused and wounded me: I began to repent earnestly to God for falling away from love, for hostility, for malice, I asked for justification by the blood of the Lord - and the Lord, seeing the sincere repentance, forgave me, giving me peace and life again. Six o'clock in the evening. I thank You, Lord my God, for You accepted my intense repentance during my walk in my garden, into which I went out after I allowed myself to caress and pat the girl Evdokia on the face [...]. I thank You, for You sent good, bright, sobering thoughts and merciful and cleansing, pacifying, sanctifying grace. So You, O most high, all-good, all-holy, all-wise Lord, created our nature pure, holy, beautiful, immortal, incorruptible, created for the highest, good, holy and wise purpose, and not for the carnal, unclean pleasures of sinful love or gluttony and carnality. May those who think in this way perish! But You gave fleeting pleasure as an incentive and reminder and encouragement for the continuation of the human race and for the maintenance of elemental earthly life, for the body receives the means to continue life from the outside, and not from itself. And turning a means into the goal of life is absurd and means perverting the laws of nature and swearing at one’s nature, and through this, at the Creator of human nature Himself. What does worship mean and what is it for? What does it mean to serve God? – It means turning and clinging to the image to the Prototype, a small drop of life to the infinite Source of life; created in reverence and truth - to the Source of eternal truth, created in shrines - to the Source of shrines, created with free power - to the Source of freedom, gifted with reason - to the Source of wisdom and reason. To serve God means to partake of His holiness and truth and goodness, love (for God is love [1 John 4:8] and innumerable goodness), His peace, His freedom, wisdom and power, His light and fragrance - but all this only under the condition that the person approaching God approaches with faith, love, humility, zeal, with unfeigned repentance, with an extreme desire to be what Every person must be according to God's intention. To serve God is the blessedness of man; Serving God is the unceasing duty of every person, especially a Christian, for the Lord Himself serves him, his salvation through His wondrous care or providence of economy. A person serves his body, nourishes and rests it, clothes it - how much more should he serve his soul, turning it entirely to God. Serving God sincerely, a person gets rid of the sinful captivity of passions, is cleansed, sanctified, pacified, nourished and strengthened and enlightened spiritually, and if he does not serve God, then he certainly serves sin, his passions, the devil, his enemy, falls away from life and falls into the ditch of destruction. Our soul is an active being; she cannot be idle, and therefore, if she does not do good, she will certainly do bad; He who does not gather with Me scatters [Matthew 12:30]. And they always remained in the church, glorifying and blessing God [Luke 24:53]. Here is a lesson for Christians, if they want to be sincere Christians: they should be in church as often as possible and praise and bless God, as the Church has established this and as true Christians do, going to church every day to praise God, for this weakens the power of the devil over us, passions, inclinations and sinful tendencies are overcome, a person learns holiness and truth throughout his life and thus pleases God and vouchsafed incorruptibility. And this is the goal of all life. I have been given from God the grace to pray for the living and the dead, especially during the liturgy, during the offering of the Bloodless Sacrifice, and this is my sacred duty. What a wide field for Christian love, for the manifestation to the highest degree of warm Christian feeling and ardent desire for salvation in God to all Christians and every single person! Is this really what happens to me? Alas, no. During the celebration of the Liturgy, due to my passion and many temptations, I find myself weak, sinful, not corresponding to my high position and the spirit of love that breathes in all church prayers; I feel like a damned, poor, beggar, blind, naked sinner. I then recognize all the insignificance before Saints Basil and Gregory and John, before all the apostles, hierarchs, and saints who performed the Selfless Sacrifice! They were fire, and I was ice; they were verbal heaven, and I was earth, earth, earth; they were in the life-giving Spirit, and I was flesh and damnation! Six o'clock in the evening. Annunciation for the All-Night Vigil. I thank You, Lord, for five minutes before this, you sovereignly and all-mercifully delivered me from the cramped conditions and sorrow and spiritual death that befell me for my evil view and lust for a girl who lived with the Nesvitskys and asked me for advice on entering a monastery and spiritual books to read. I sincerely repented, coming home and kneeling before the face of the Savior in the hall; and now I felt the stream of life of the Holy Spirit, a life-giving stream that healed and cleansed my soul from lustful passion. Glory to the Lord! Establish me, O Lord, in holiness with chastity. Eight and a half o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord, who has now had mercy and healed me from the greatest sorrow and the stings of snakes and scorpions, with which Satan stung me back in church when saying the prayer: Christ, the true Light, and then about the malice of the sexton of Kamenograd, who did not want to issue a death certificate for the baby. For faith and hope alone, the Lord had mercy on me, saved me, revived me, killed by sin. Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian. Punishment (church glory) – admonition, edification. Neglect - neglect, treat something without due diligence or attention. Translation (Church Glav.) – Translation (liturgical). Complete (church glory) - complete, complete, make perfect, sanctify.