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Angels and shepherds praise. Why were simple shepherds awarded such honor and glory? For their simple-heartedness and for their simple way of life, which St. John Chrysostom, in its severity and hardships, likens to the life of the Forerunner. They ate only bread and drank water from a spring wherever they could. And it is said in the psalms: He will drink from the stream along the way, therefore he will lift up his head (Ps. 109:7). Whoever eats luxurious foods and drinks expensive drinks, his thoughts cannot ascend to the mountain, but wanders and grovels down the earth (2, part 2, pp. 22-23). You write about what is going on there, for example, about tea claims. An old proverb: “Whoever you live with, that’s what you’ll be known for.” If forty-year-old spoiled K., and, moreover, in poor health, in order to keep up with others, drank tea without sugar last Lent, then it is not surprising if young village girls, not accustomed to tea much, did not drink it at all. It is true that drinking tea in a monastery brings a lot of relief to those who are accustomed to it, but it does a lot of harm to those who have not drunk it before. Such people are so addicted to tea that they don’t even know how to handle it. And everyone knows that the primordial Adam and Eve were expelled from paradise through taste and eating. Therefore, all the holy fathers prescribe to beginners in piety, first of all, abstinence from eating. So that the prohibition of tea does not seem so hard to the faint-hearted, those who love to eat cabbage soup are forbidden to consume cabbage soup for the time being. Apparently, the thing is small or the matter is of little importance, but in essence it is very important. Through such a test, apparently not entirely appropriate, the cutting off of one’s will and sincere obedience are clearly proven, evidenced by the Gospel word of the Lord Himself: If anyone wants to come after Me, deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me (Matthew 16:24). “To deny oneself” means to deny the desires of one’s will and one’s understanding. “Taking up the cross” means bearing the burden of obedience, since Christ Himself was obedient to the death of the cross. I am writing all this to confirm the strict but wise order of the one from whom it came. There is a Little Russian proverb: “The first one knows about it.” Abstinence and obedience brought benefit to many, but unbridled freedom did much harm to others, and completely destroyed others. But we have decided to seek salvation, so let us hold on to everything that leads to salvation, and let us move away from it in every possible way. I drank and still drink tea like a sick person, sometimes at the wrong time, but I really regret that before I ate and drank without any special need, when I could have abstained with greater spiritual benefit. Maybe he wouldn’t have been so unhealthy and sick, otherwise he caught a cold more than once from the tea perspiration. However, you...drink tea, just understand the spiritual matter, but for young people and, especially, simple ones, it is useful to abstain for many reasons. The first of these reasons is that it was proposed to organize the community on strict rules, since laxity in many monasteries was the reason for many unacceptable weaknesses. Although I myself am weak and weakly live, I please those who live firmly, self-controlled, and lively. And the Lord Himself calls those who labor and are burdened to eternal rest (2, part 1, pp. 33–34). ...We are the hardest people to “obey” (and it must be when it comes to tea drinking). So for forty years, living in a monastery, I pleased my sick belly with tea, but it kept hurting and hurting and did not calm down at all, but became even more irritated. It is not in vain that Saint John Climacus wrote that the more you please the body, the more it will rage and the more it will bother you. Temperate people are mostly healthy, and incontinent people are mostly sick. The first, if by the special Providence of God they are also unhealthy, then at least they find consolation in a calm conscience, which does not reproach them for intemperance, which causes relaxation, and for other things related to spiritual life (2, part 2, p. 146). You might be interested in: