215. Никогда не надо терять надежды на спасение, но и излишне уповать не должно. От похвалы убегай и себя не хвали. От уныния и зависти спасает смирение и послушание. Любопытствовать о чужих мыслях – грешно. Чтобы сказать сестрам что-либо поучительное, проси у Бога помощи и вразумления

M. St. O. n. G.I.H.B.n. p.n. Sister in the Lord M. Magdalene! I wish you God's mercy and spiritual salvation. I received four letters from you, one containing 10 rubles. God bless you for your zeal. For your congratulations on the Nativity of Christ and the New Year, God bless you. May the Lord strengthen your mental and physical strength with His grace. In the weaknesses and sins you described, may the Lord grant forgiveness and arouse zeal for salvation in your soul. I also send forgiveness in everything. Don’t be embarrassed, but humble yourself, reproach yourself and bring repentance to God. You also need to force yourself to do what you should, especially when you feel healthy. You ask how to send 100 rubles. – It’s best to send it if you don’t want it by transfer. Send some book or mushrooms, which I wrote to you about recently, but don’t write anything of great value on the parcel. We should never lose hope for salvation due to the mercy of God, who forgives our sins in repentance, but we should not rely too much either. Between fear and hope there must be our salvation in order not to become negligent, but to awaken our negligence through the fear of punishment. Do a good deed, but run away from praise and don’t praise yourself, and when you do all this, then think of yourself as if you are incapable and faulty, because you did only what you should do. Yes, remember how much you lost, then you won’t boast. You can have pious conversations with your cell if you listen with spiritual disposition. Do the prayer with your lips with attention, and when the condition that I wrote about happens, you can stop doing it with your lips. But this is in rare cases, when that state will come on its own, and you should not look for it. My health is still the same, there is no illness, although I am weak. But I accept it and work on it. I send a blessing to Pasha and Evstoliya. For your congratulations on the holiday, God bless you. May the Lord deliver one from despondency and the other from envy and teach her to do good. Both need to have humility and obedience to their mother, and not belief in their thoughts, as a cure for their ailments. Being curious about other people's thoughts is sinful and can be harmful. This should not be allowed at all. May the Lord instruct you in how to deal with them, in what way, and give you a word for their benefit. When you want to tell them something, do not forget to first mentally ask God for help and admonition. Disadvantages can be expressed if one accepts it with humility, or somehow brought to consciousness. There is no need to ask the abbess for Pasha if Pasha humbly accepts that they want to transfer her. You also ask about candles. It would be better to follow the advice of the late Elder. And if you bet on money other than given to you, then you have to bet, but it’s better not to bet yourself. And it’s better to give it to the candle maker in advance. You can help the poor, but not by yourself, but give Mother for the poor as much as you want. And if for some reason this is inconvenient, then send it here, everyone will go poor, and the Lord will accept your will and zeal. Asking for peace and God's blessing on you, I remain with the desire for salvation. You might be interested in: