About prayer

Hurry, brethren, closer to our Lord Jesus Christ, who created us, good, humane and merciful, who does not want the death of the sinner, but seeks his conversion and the preservation of life. Everyone, watch and be ready, because you do not know at what hour our Lord will come. Listen better to what He says: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” (Matt. 3:2). Behold, brethren, the judgment is already at the door, and abundant tears, strong lamentations, and fervent prayer are needed - and not today or tomorrow (but constantly). Prayer is a treasury of every good, inaccessible to any thieves, a haven safe from storms, the basis of peace, a healer of the soul; prayer is psalmody, sanctifying the soul and body; To put it briefly, prayer opens the doors of heaven, brings every person closer to God - both big and small, rich and poor, and it makes the one who prays with all his heart every day higher than the angels. But what cold word (I hear) from many? I am a sinner, they usually say, I have no boldness, I am oppressed by shame, and I cannot raise my eyes up and look at heaven, because I have sinned a lot in word, deed, and thought, and every day and hour I have spent my entire life in fornication. With what face and how dare I enter the church? How can I open my foul and unclean lips? How will I turn my tongue or what bad deeds of mine should I first of all beg God about? So these are the satanic speeches you speak! Remember who Christ calls as he walks the earth—the righteous or the sinners? He says this: “he came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Matthew 9:13). I am a sinner, you say, and how can I enter the church to become righteous? You reason correctly when you say: I hear, but do not observe: what good does it do me? To this I will tell you: whether you observe or not, just enter the church, listen to the Divine Scripture, listen to what is being read. I know very well that if you enter the church, listen to the Divine Gospel, teachers - the apostles and holy fathers, then even if you had a heart of stone, even if you had the temperament and savagery of a beast, in the end, you will still easily be touched by your heart. Are you a sinner? Enter the church, fall down, cry, weep, moan, shed tears. Have you sinned? Confess your sins to God, say simply: I have sinned, - tell it to God, who knows everything before it happens, - tell it to God, who tests hearts and wombs, - say it here, so as not to be convicted and put to shame there by many thousands of angels and people. Tell me what is better: here in church to confess before God only and your spiritual father, or there to disgrace yourself before so many thousands of people and angels? Are you a sinner? Just say this - I don’t demand anything more from you - and accompany it with a groan. What's so hard about that? What's unpleasant? Does this require any monetary expenditure? What kind of trouble is it to simply say: I have sinned? Are you saying you're ashamed? Pathetic and unfortunate! When you sinned, you were not ashamed, but when you need to repent and thereby receive salvation, are you ashamed? When you embraced a nasty harlot or did bad deeds, you were not ashamed, but now you are ashamed? When you sinned, when you fornicated and committed adultery, you were not ashamed, but when you begin to repent and be saved, then do you become ashamed? When you stole other people's property, when you oppressed widows and despised the poor, you were not ashamed, but now you are ashamed? When you swore by the terrible name of God and bore false witness, when you broke your oath, when you committed all sorts of bad deeds that were hateful to God, you were not ashamed, but now you are ashamed? Oh, dear one, having such a Master, can we remain careless and not apply? Christ commands: do not steal, do not commit adultery, do not fornicate, do not kill, do not bear false witness, honor your father and mother, and love your neighbor as yourself; be meek, kind, merciful, generous; Avoid enmity, be peace-loving, so that you may be worthy of the kingdom of heaven. And no one delves into (His words), no one obeys, no one pays attention, but we all continue to remain frivolous! But the devil inspires the opposite: commit adultery, kill, break an oath, steal, be inhuman, a blasphemer, merciless, cruel, a corrupter; become a self-seeker, a misanthrope, and even better, a hater of God; be treacherous, abusive, greedy; be a predator, a talker, a liar, a scolder, a treacherous one. And we know how many obedient executors of his suggestion there are, because like slaves, tied hand and foot, so we run and subjugate ourselves in relation to nature. Now we have wasted our entire youth with demons, now we have grown old and entrenched in sins. We are no longer able to do good in order to reach the kingdom of heaven, but the devil (not content with this) is busy with fire and eternal torment - and we run to the devil. What should we do with you, man? What do you want? What are you striving for? To be with Christ or to be with a demon? Do you want to be with Christ? Then, for the rest of your life, give up pleasures and pleasures, stop debauchery, stop stealing, stop drinking, stop stealing other people’s property, stop mocking, deceiving and being arrogant. Beware of temptation: none of these people will enter the kingdom of heaven. But if you want to be with demons, if you strive into fiery Gehenna, then do what you want, live as you want - no one is stopping you. Give yourself over to the world and its shameful passions, fornication, adultery, drunkenness, intemperance and similar demonic pleasures: no one forbids you. After all, the Gospels do not convince you, the law does not admonish you, the prophets do not teach, the apostles do not constrain you, the instructions of your fathers are useless to you, the example of your brothers does not matter to you: you have become completely shameless, you look just like a harlot. Continue to enjoy what you consider good in this life of yours, but there you no longer expect salvation or participation in the coming day of Christ. The hour will then fall upon your lot when you will appear naked and naked before the judgment seat of Christ, before the faces of angels and people. There it will be revealed what you are like; there all your untruths will be exposed. You cannot laugh at God, and then you will hear this sad sentence: “having tied his hands and feet, take him and throw him into outer darkness; There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 22:13). Who will not mourn such a person after this? Who will not regret the one who has brought upon himself eternal torment at the cost of temporary pleasures? Do not flatter yourself: God does not allow you to laugh at Himself. It is written: “neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor wicked people, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6:9, 10). Having put all this in our hearts, let us, brethren, refrain from such evil deeds and let us not hesitate to repent with all our souls, so that we may avoid the coming wrath and achieve heavenly and eternal blessings, which may we all be rewarded with the grace and love of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom be glory to the Father with the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen. Creations attributed to St. John Chrysostom and classified in the Minya edition as Spuria. The paragraphs in the text were arranged by us – Editorial staff of “ABC of Faith”