Раздел 2

Serving God is serving the world, as the King of the world, and the reader and singer, as well as the priest and deacon, must in every possible way beware of embarrassment and haste, but in the world it is not easy to perform any service. Don’t be blind to the merits of another and to your shortcomings, don’t dwell on the shortcomings of another, so that your brother’s twig does not seem like a log and you don’t despise and hate him - but look for the good sides in him, carefully look for all the shortcomings in yourself, and pass on the good sides, leaving as if unnoticed, so that small good deeds do not seem like great ones, so that you do not appear wise, so that your own does not appear to you the log that is in your eye for a knot [Matt. 7, 3]. It is not I who speak, the Church speaks, which is the pillar and ground of the truth [1 Tim. 3, 15], - understand this about the prayers you read. The priest is great in his place, in the church and in general in the place of his ministry, and he should not humiliate himself with man-pleasing, partiality, cowardice and cowardice before the strong and glorious of the earth, but must be majestic, important, dignified and completely devoted to the cause of God, the glory of God and must pray equally for everyone and consider everyone equal before God. Glorify the great - you yourself will be great. A seduced person is a spoiled person. He gets easily irritated by all sorts of small things and is ready to start big quarrels because of small things. He is the easy play of demons, who easily plunge him into any passion. How exalted and adorned is human nature in the person of the God-man, the Mother of God, the holy apostles, prophets, hierarchs, martyrs, the venerable and righteous and all the saints! What light! What a holy fragrance! What power! What kindness! What wisdom! Oh, if we always remembered this and imitated the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, His Most Pure Mother and all the saints, each according to his strength! We ourselves would achieve the fate of the saints, and we ourselves would be enlightened like the sun, fragrant like fragrant cypresses or krinas! The spiritual attitude of the clergy towards the flock: through their prayers the sins of the flock are cleansed, their spiritual and material well-being is increased, illnesses are driven away, vices are reduced and God’s blessing is brought down. Oh, if only they always remembered this! You meet your colleague or your brother-in-law (sister-in-law), and you begin to dislike both this and that, the third, and the fifth and the tenth, and you feel contempt and disgust and hatred for him! What does it mean? This is the action of your pride and the devil - the devil bullies you, incites you to hatred, anger, contempt. Answer him: I see, I understand you, bully, arsonist, instigator. I am worse than everyone, I must turn my hatred, my contempt on myself, and not on my neighbor, who, like me, is in the image and likeness of God, to whom free will is given, whose Judge is God, as well as the Shepherd and Visitor of his soul, who commanded us all mutual love and made it a sign of His true disciples. I thank You, all-merciful Lady, Quick to Hear, for you stood up and saved me from cramped conditions and sinful sorrow, from the burning of sin and brought peace, freedom, and spiritual coolness down into my soul. (Prayed before the image of the Tikhvin Mother of God in the living room.) An idolatrous disposition of spirit, hope for bread, money, and earthly things in general, is revealed whenever we feel sorry for our neighbor’s food and drink, especially sweets, money, etc., when we are angry with them and become furious when they ask us for money. For then our lack of hope in God, who in His holy word promised a generous reward to those who give, becomes evident [Lk. 6, 38], addiction to earthly things and extreme disrespect for the person of our neighbor, whom we exchange for soulless things. The priest must be the intercessor of the offended, the reconciler of those who disagree and quarrel, the feeder of the hungry, the clother of the naked, the teacher of the ignorant, the renunciator of his peace and his property, the comforter and healer of the sick, the comforter of the sad, the intercessor of those in trouble, to be all things to all in order to save at least some [1 Cor. 9, 22]. It is not in vain that he bears the image of the Savior. Great and difficult is his ministry! There is no time for delicacy, no time for ostentation, no time for play or fun for him. I thank You, all-merciful Lady, for you have delivered me this day several times through my prayer from the evils that befell me. I thank You, Lord, long-suffering, for You delivered me through my prayer from the passions of dishonor and distress, when I bowed the knees of my heart and body before You and cried out to You with all my heart! September 5th day. Evening. 10 pm. I thank You, Lady of Kazan Theotokos, for Your greatest mercy shown to me, the accursed one: when I, sitting in the dining room at the table after tea with my wife and sister Anna Konstantinovna, whom I could not calmly look at from anger, cried out to You with all my heart for salvation, You soon heard me and consumed my anger - I began to calmly talk with my wife and sister; I clearly saw that my sister’s anger and pride were only apparent, that everything seemed to me, seemed to be a dream, and that in reality she was not like that at all, but a kind and smart girl with her own character - persistent, important. Thank you, Lady, for taking away the blindness and madness of anger. What a connection, what a cycle of sins and passions! I love to eat and drink sweetly, through this I become greedy and stingy and a misanthrope, cold towards God, unmerciful. Why? Because sweetness strengthens in me false, carnal love for myself and inspires me to attract everything to myself as a sacrifice to my lust: food, drink, clothes, money, and even beautiful faces to sacrifice to my carnal pride; and since many people interfere with our carnal pride or its constant continuation or strengthening, for example, they often come to us to eat and drink or deprive us of money, etc., then, as a natural consequence of sin, we feel disgust and hatred towards them; those who contribute to our voluptuousness, giving us the means for it, we usually love, but with carnal, not spiritual love, at least rarely with high, spiritual, pure love. What a connection of sins! By immoderately taking advantage of the sweets of food and drink, I naturally fall into the voluptuousness of fornication and adultery, and become defiled by night dreams, dreams of the action of a foul of the flesh. What a terrible connection of sins! Being a lover of voluptuousness, I necessarily fall into the sin of misanthropy towards those who share pleasures with me, to whom I am often forced to give either these sweets, or money, or in general means that serve my voluptuousness or love of clothes, peace, bliss. Oh, how often and often I sin! How I sin with sinful rage when I am forced to give alms to many reluctantly! This rage is the roar of pride and voluptuousness, deprived of its natural food! We must cast aside this rage once and for all and joyfully squander our possessions on the poor, leaving less means for the voluptuousness of our flesh. Do not make large reserves of sweets for yourself, which can plunge us into carnal impurity, and try to lead a harsh lifestyle, giving alms from your labors to the poor. Try to be meek and affectionate, especially to those who ask for alms from you, and always give to them with good nature, whether it be a lot or a little, to many or a few. We must rejoice that we take away from our flesh what is unnecessary and harmful and give the necessary means of life to those in need for the sake of the name of the Lord and for the sake of brotherhood in Christ. How the devil tempts people so powerfully and how simply! The Moscow Metropolitan's favorite horses have fallen! The beloved coachman (addiction to the coachman) slandered the Bishop of the Housekeeper - a learned, intelligent hieromonk. The Metropolitan reprimanded him severely, and the hieromonk, who was soon to become an archimandrite, hanged himself! What springs! All three were led into temptation through what? – Through dumb animals, whom the devil killed by God’s permission, may the thoughts of the hearts be revealed. Thus, our all-good and wise Lord and Provider allows the enemy to tempt us with various everyday circumstances, so that thoughts, sinful or holy, evil or good, pure or unclean, will be revealed from our hearts, and so that the sinful ones will be immediately corrected, and the saints will be perfected, multiplied and strengthened in themselves. I will repeat: oh, what a close connection between sins and how one must fear every sin, every addiction, even the slightest, to visible things! The devil tempts us with the things and persons around us! We will always be on our guard here. Let us not cleave our hearts to sweet food, to sweet drinks, to good clothes, to beautiful dishes, furniture, to beautiful rooms, to paintings, to money, to beautiful faces, lest Satan tempt us with anything that has been said, but let us cleave with all our hearts to the one God and let us read the sincere prayer of the Lord Our Father. (The incident with Father Matthew: how he was furious when called into the house, how he swore and how he suddenly calmed down and became affectionate when he was given a handful of silver. An eyewitness account.) Plato the archbishop accommodated only relatives. Archbishop Macarius allegedly drove Leonty, Bishop of Kamenets-Podolsk, from his place - and in the lords of passion! And we should show everyone an example of dominion over passions! It’s up to us to set an example of mutual love. We are placed on the candlestick, so that we can shine for everyone in the church of the Church. Save and preserve us all, Lord! You will test the hearts and wombs of everyone. Looking at the cross and kissing it, say to yourself: this is the strongest guarantee of God’s love for me! This is the strongest motivation for me to crucify my flesh with passions and lusts! This is the best incentive for mutual love, especially love for God! May this be done by the grace of God. The enemy, who confuses the entire universe, daily and hourly intensifies to create confusion among us and arouse passions because of the most insignificant reasons, because of the most empty things, and therefore the servants of the meek and humble Lord Jesus Christ, for our sake who took on the form of a slave, suffered and died, must be meek and patient, counting as nothing the things of this world or some malfunctions and damages in things done by their neighbors, considering the world and silence and mutual love above all the visible blessings of the world and to things and deeds of little importance without attributing enormous significance, as happens with almost all of us due to the influence of the enemy and our pride on us. They make an elephant out of a molehill, they say. What are you looking at on your face? Smell and smell it, look at its ashes, at its pus. Isn’t our body dust and stench, food for worms? Shouldn’t we marvel at God, who so wisely and artistically created man from the earth? Sin constantly acts violently in me - anger, pride, envy and ill will, coldness, stinginess, addiction to earthly things, lust, greed, and the flesh constantly strengthens to take advantage of the spirit and suppress its aspirations and energy. We need unceasing prayer, and with prayer, unceasing struggle. And thanksgiving to the Heavenly Father, His Only Begotten and Consubstantial Son, and the Holy Spirit, the life-giving and co-essential, Trinitarian God, who mercifully listens to me and patiently saves me through unspeakable goodness. Thanks to the Queen Theotokos, Mother of the Most High Lord, my all-merciful Lady, who graciously listens to me and saves me through my prayer. Until the end, may I find salvation in God, my Savior, and in the Mother of my Savior. Sinners like me! May you also find salvation in the Lord your God and in the Most Pure Mother of God until the end of your days! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! What disasters and crimes do people fall into who do not pray, who spend time in distraction, in games, in delicacy (adultery, fornication, tyranny, madness), and what threatens them; how necessary it is always to pray, to work, to abstain. How few people pay attention to spiritual needs, how many live by mere sensuality, mere external impressions or reading external books (I mean all worldly books, not spiritual), external arts (music, theater, shoemaking, tailoring, plumbing, carpentry, [mechanical]) etc. How much harm is done to the Christian life by one delicacy, mere absent-mindedness, laziness, lack of understanding of oneself, alienation from Church, from the word of God, spiritual books, failure to fulfill church statutes, life according to the worldly spirit, and not according to the spirit of the Church; how little there is for the Christian, saving spirit, how much for the worldly, destructive, satanic spirit! It is not external enemies who persecute and tyrannize us, not tormentors, as in the first centuries of Christianity, but our own flesh, our carnal passions - pride, disobedience, self-will, anger. What corrodes and corrupts our lives, our hearts? Lack of faith, envy, anger, pride, condemnation, suspicion, malice, addiction to folk clothing, delicacy, drunkenness, especially drunkenness - this is what kills the Christian life. For the clean air that we breathe constantly, give a pure heart to the Lord and constantly breathe with pure thoughts, desires, intentions, and deeds. Three times today the Most Holy Lady saved me from the fiery snares of the enemy through my prayer, when I prayed to Her with the confidence that I was standing face to face with Her and speaking my lips to Her lips. Oh goodness! O speed of salvation! Few words are needed, as long as they are spoken with faith in Her presence, Her goodness, holiness, power, wisdom, only in repentance, only from the depths of the soul. (I was irritated with Father Archpriest for the shabby and dirty everyday vestments he had assigned for service on the bright feast of the Nativity of the Mother of God.) God! You took off Your garments when you hung on the cross and did not become embittered at Your enemies, but meekly endured every dishonor for our sake, but we do not want to endure a small offense for Your sake, we do not want to put on old garments on the feast days of Your Most Pure Mother, in garments gilded with purity, innocence, humility and other virtues, clothed and embellished. Be, O Lord, Thy will! Let us walk around in rags and unclean vestments, when, by Your goodness, our closets are bursting. Give them some sense, as they should. We, Your servants, deserve to have peace among ourselves. How long will we tell our boss, how long will we tolerate him? He who degrades the rank of the most illustrious priesthood, may he himself be humiliated if he truly humiliates. Will you be happier, more sublime, holier, more peaceful in bright, clean vestments? – But clean things remind us more of purity and excite us to purity of spirit. Remember that all the glory to the princess’s daughter (the Mother of God and every believing soul) is within [Ps. 44, 14]. Pay all your attention to the inner, and despise the outer. As we neglect the external, we care more about the internal. To despise outer splendor and beauty for the sake of the inner beauty of the spirit, which cannot be achieved without despising outer splendor and outer beauty, for our heart is simple and united and cannot love both the material and the spiritual at the same time. No one can serve two masters [Matt. 6, 24]. Give the external to God, and take care with all your might about the internal, which is of infinite importance, while the external is of little value. If there is a beautiful exterior, but there is no internal beauty and there is only ugliness, then woe to that person, but if there is no external beauty and purity, but there is internal beauty and purity, then the person is blessed, and others, looking at him, can feel very good, and the ugly external is unnoticed or is not paid attention to as an empty thing. And the priests, who denounce in their parishioners the vanity and sophistication in clothing and home decoration, should themselves despise external splendor and care most of all about internal beauty, meekness, gentleness, dispassion, about heavenly blessings, considering everything earthly to be a shadow; about mutual love commanded by the Lord, about love in which the law is fulfilled. (About our deification in Christ, about the future lightness, non-vain, enduring, true.) The absence of visible and perishable beauty awakens the desire to seek incorruptible and invisible, eternal beauty, while, on the other hand, the presence, the presence of perishable beauty arouses the desire for this perishable beauty, addiction to it and alienates from imperishable, spiritual, eternal beauty, distracts from the search for it, from the love of it. Therefore, many saints voluntarily abandoned all earthly beauty, all the charm of visible things and retired into the desert, wore hair shirts and rags, ate coarse food, slept on bare ground, had no beauty in their homes, very little of any comfort, lest they cleave to the place and things of their wanderings and forget their true and eternal fatherland, lest they love the creation more than the Creator and They will not cleave more to creatures than to the Creator. Earthly love blinds the eyes of the heart and brazenly and violently tears the heart away from the love of God and neighbor and makes the entire soul empty and dead, filled with various passions. Therefore, a priest, appointed to serve such great, holy, heavenly mysteries, must be all grief during their celebration, especially the Eucharist, and as if not feel on himself not only shiny or worn-out vestments, but also his very flesh, showing everyone an example of neglect of earthly and carnal things. Concentrate most of all on contemplating the economy of human salvation and finding ways to correct Christian morals. They fell hard. I will lift up my eyes 60 to the Lord [Ps. 24, 15]. This is what to remember and do! God! I thank You for the salvation that was revealed to me in the morning at five and a half o’clock, when in three moments I cried out to You for salvation and received it, bending the knee of my heart and body before Your image in my hall. Sin acts in us as a simple, fast, evil, darkening, oppressive, scorching force. Great power must be used against him - the simplest, the fastest, the good, the enlightening, the spreading of the heart, the cooling. This power is the grace of the Holy Spirit. There is a close connection between sins: he who loves chosen, sweet dishes certainly loves chosen, bright clothes, as the experience of life says and as the Savior says in the Gospel: Behold, those who are in the most glorious clothes and food are in the courts of kings [Lk. 7, 25], connecting clothes and food, or passion for them. And all this is produced by vain self-love and vanity. All the glory should be inward. Grace is the food and clothing of a Christian. Having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace [Eph. 6, 14 – 15]... It is good to strengthen hearts with grace, and not with food [Heb. 13, 9]... Where there is sorrow, there is grace. Evil spirits are especially in an excited, angry state on the days of great holidays and especially act to blaspheme the name of God in people who are inattentive to themselves, when the Church glorifies the name of God. In whom are evil spirits active? - In drunkards, in quarrelsome people, in adulterers, in thieves, etc. The Church itself commands that on special holidays one should clothe oneself in the brightest dignity. However, consider shiny clothes as vanity - let the soul shine with courage, faith, trust in the Lord, hope for eternal blessings, eternal light, meekness, kindness, humility, self-control, purity, patience. It hurts when wild meat or cancer or a [rotten] member is pulled out - it’s very painful when the Heavenly Physician, as it were, circumcises our passions (like wild meat) (the rite of circumcision is painful). That is why through many tribulations we must enter the Kingdom of God [Acts. 14, 22]. It is painful to cut out gluttony, love of clothing, ambition, etc., because they are deeply rooted in the soul. Meanwhile, they greatly hinder the love of God and the establishment of the Kingdom of God in us. Our carnal pride and vanity are great. Insisting on satisfying carnal passions, our flesh intensifies to turn into nothing the Divine economy of our salvation, eternal promises, all the commandments of God, to destroy, to scatter the entire law of the Gospel. This is our misfortune! I thank You, Holy Father, for even on this day You have saved me by Your mercy, by Your ineffable compassion from my anger towards my sister, always bring me into my house and always bend my knees before You. And I thank You, Most Holy Lady Theotokos, for through Your intercession our Heavenly Father has mercy on me. But through Your prayers, Lady, create love between all of us, between the brethren of the church and members of the family. God! Give us the grace to pity and love our father Archpriest Paul, so that he too will take pity on us and take care of us, so that his heart will not turn away from us, and may his heart not turn away from Your poor. Above all, let him not turn away from You. It was in vain that I worried yesterday about the holiday vestments. Father Archpriest gave his word. - All my addiction and the machinations of the enemy. It’s good not to eat meat, not to drink wine, oh, how good it is! How easy! What vivacity of thought and heart! What lightness in body and soul! It’s good not to eat fish, but to eat vegetable jam. Holy Father! I thank You again and again for new miracles of Your mercy, for hearing, for pardon, for salvation, for peace! Remember that while you live in spacious, clean and exquisitely decorated rooms, many, many of your brethren do not have a place to lay their heads due to their poverty, and leave your vanity, your luxury and sell at least your excess property and distribute it to the poor; and you will have treasure in heaven [Matt. 19, 21]. Remember that you are a wanderer, a traveler, and do not stock up on unnecessary things, so as not to complicate your journey, not to become attached to the bustle here and not to forget about your fatherland. Priests, deacons and readers need to learn calmness, courage, swagger, loudness, clarity in worship, order and correctness of actions in service, especially meekness and humility and purity of heart. I thank Thee, my Lord, for Thou didst cease the violence of sin through my prayer, and transformed confusion into peace, and reconciled me with my sister, in whom I really did not like lying on the table. I thank You, Lady, for I saw You with my eyes and prayed to You to reconcile us, and You reconciled us: my sister and I explained ourselves, and everything passed. Truly, the enemy incites us to anger, envy, pride, and stinginess. Oh, how much we see in the actions of our neighbor and how often we interpret innocent actions, not intentional, not evil, in ourselves as guilty, intentional, evil! The speck in a brother's eye seems like a log. How is man different from animals? - Reason and free power, also the eternity of their soul, sinfulness and holiness, for animals know neither sin nor holiness, and also the fact that for some people there will be eternal torment, and for others - eternal bliss, and for whom - it is known. Sovereign, prince, count, metropolitan, in general a bishop, a priest, a general, a warrior in general, a millionaire merchant and just a merchant, a farmer, a warrior, an artist, an artist, a craftsman - first of all, people must educate themselves, develop, improve themselves as people, enlighten their minds and hearts with the Gospel truth and acquire a pure heart and a strong will in faith, hope and love, and then, or at the same time, to educate ourselves as members and as useful agents of society. September 9, 1867. I thank You, Lord, for you so powerfully, graciously, wisely, simply saved me from the wickedness and oppression of the enemy in the apartment of my father, Archpriest Joseph Belkin, on the day of his Angel, when I called him Joseph the Beautiful, for I deceived myself in my heart and thought that this was flattery. Most of all, I thank You, for today (9th) You gave me the gift of tearful prayer during the All-Night Vigil, during and after the Six Psalms; thank you for the grace and gift of the Holy Spirit. Instead of silver and gold, let tears for sins, abstinence and alms be your bliss. The name of God, the name of the Mother of God is shrine, sweetness, greatness, peace, joy. I pronounce the name of the Lord unworthily, the name of the Mother of my Lord, for my heart is unclean, my lips are unclean. Wine and meat and milk bring me trouble: terrible overcrowding, disappearance, cowardice - the visible punishment of God! It is good, truly good, not to eat meat, nor to drink wine. How easy it is to eat lean food - root soup, radishes, fried potatoes! People who are happy on the outside have many internal, illusory, imaginary or passion-induced misfortunes, and they know no peace due to the most empty reasons. Happiness does not lie in the external environment, but in total devotion to God. I had to bear a very heavy internal cross today during the celebration of the late liturgy (on Sunday), the cross of abandonment of God, sorrow, oppression, despondency, so that I could not even pronounce some words from empty fear and from doubt of my ability to speak. The priest must consider as a passing shadow and as dust, equally all things that are shiny and whole and not shiny and torn, neither have partiality for the former, nor disdain the latter or become upset and irritable with those they give, but cleave to God, the only Existent, ineffable, eternal beauty, to the local beauty and serene, endless life. The enemy teaches us to dream, that is, to consider earthly things as something important, not to be satisfied with the present, with what we have, and to desire something better, more brilliant, more. Yes, the priest must think about the kingdom above and living with God, the Angels and the saints, about perfecting himself in this [world], as it is said: that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work [2 Tim. 3, 17], about finding ways to correct and improve the lives of Christians, so that they too become heirs of the Kingdom prepared for the elect from the foundation of the world. What horrors are happening here in Kronstadt: one captain of a foreign ship was killed and thrown into a ditch, bloodied and beaten. Another case: two swindlers, fleeing from police soldiers, pushed one old man and killed him. What drunkenness! Debauchery! Fun! Do not be ashamed of the face of man, it is said, for God’s judgment is [Deut. 1, 17]. This is what has been said about divine services: do not be ashamed of a person’s face during a divine service, for it is God’s service; every person - king and subject, nobleman and commoner, military leader and warrior, merchant and farmer - may they be equal for you in the church; do not be ashamed and do not be afraid of any of them, for it may very well be that another nobleman or even the one wearing purple in the eyes of God stands lower than a simple farmer. The priest, as a servant of God, must be majestic during worship, peaceful, courageous, and strong in spirit. What a blessing from malnutrition! How easily it is served, with what strength, boldness, equanimity! I thank You, Lord, for in the apartment of the sick Gromov (unction) you had mercy on me, saving me from anger at the clerk who came late to the service. God! Take away my ill will from my soul through the prayers of Thy Most Pure Mother, my holy Guardian Angel and other ethereal heavenly powers and all the saints. I sincerely wish this and for this I pray for Your goodness. Don’t sigh at anyone, don’t complain, don’t be embittered, but pray for those who cause offense and entrust your offense, your sorrow to God, the omniscient and omnirighteous: He will manage everything for good. And you live in peace and love with everyone. Why do you humiliate the Lord and His immaculate and most holy bride - His Church - before the mighty of this world - bishops, archpriests, various officials, secular, military and scientists, before noble or rich and elegant women and the same men? Why, I say, do you humiliate the Lord and His Church by being cowardly and timid on their faces during the priestly service? Does not the truth of the Lord endure forever, and are they not like dust, which the wind sweeps away from the face of the earth [Ps. 1.4 ]? Are they not like worms before the Lord? Oh, what little faith you are! Strengthen yourself in the Lord and in the power of His strength where there is temptation for your faith, for your hope. Raise your voice like a trumpet, especially where a stupid, suspicious, fearful heart thinks to remain silent, to fear fear, where there is none. How many barking souls are lost for their Christian education and upbringing by those Christians who leave church meetings or worship services, without particularly good reasons, through negligence and laziness! The soul plunges into the vanity of the world, into the unity of things, into all sorts of sins, or, more precisely, into the abyss of sin, grows cold towards God and perishes spiritually. Those who do not go to church can be compared to those who constantly sit in a cramped and stinking room and do not allow fresh air into the room, nor do they themselves go out into the fresh air. Just as those little by little fall into weakness and consumption from the malignant air, so those who do not go to church fall into spiritual stunting, become powerless for a Christian, virtuous life, are filled with all sorts of spiritual weaknesses and sins, remain ignorant of Christian dogmas and the rules of Christian life, and thus often become morally and (...) worse than Jews, Mohammedans, even pagans, who know as far as circumstances allow them worldly, their faith and, according to the utmost understanding, perform its rituals. And how many of us don’t go to church! Each word contains a special world: one word contains many thoughts or evokes them, for example the words: Mother of God, or God; or a person, or in particular a famous person: Ivan such and such, Konstantin such and such, etc. Therefore, every word requires reflection. How did you read the akathist to the Mother of God, captivated at first by the enemy, struck in the heart, exhausted, indignant for the reluctant and suspicious reading? You turned out to be unfaithful, fickle in your feelings towards the Lady, towards Her blessings. You were reluctant to read the praises of the Lady, worthy of all praise at all times; you turned out to be a treacherous traitor. How many blessings have you received and are constantly receiving from the Lady? You taste the flesh and blood of Her Son almost daily! She saves you constantly. If at night, in your first dream, you were asked to read an akathist to the Mother of God or the Savior, read it with all the fervor of your soul, with pleasure, with joy, consider it happiness that you have the opportunity to praise the ever-praising Lady who prays for us day and night, or the Lord who always saves us. It is unknown when the Lord or the Most Pure Mother of God will desire to test your faith and fidelity to Him, to Her, your love: you would not turn out to be unfaithful, unloving, cold. We must be attentive to ourselves at all times, because our adversary the devil walks around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour in every possible way [1 Pet. 5, 8]. Today, when there were few people in the church, someone forced me to read an akathist - I reluctantly, with a divided, cold heart, began to take on such a great task as praising the Mother of God; the devil took advantage of this, confused, destroyed me, took away all my warmth: my soul grew cold, lifeless, indifferent, insensitively I read the entire akathist and the Gospel and the entire prayer service. Such a temptation! And what humiliation and shame overwhelmed me! What a fire burned in my insides! And what would have happened to me if I had not fallen in repentance to the throne of God, begging His ever-present and infinite goodness to have mercy and save me from such a storm, from such a fall; what would have happened if He had not saved me? So we are grateful to the Lord for His incarnation, for His suffering, death, burial, resurrection for our sake! This is how we glorify the Most Pure Mother, who embodied Him, the most honest of all creation, this is how we burn with unceasing faith and love for Her! Where is this faith and love? This fiery love? After all, She is our blessed life, our salvation, our security, our protection after the Lord and together with the Lord! Be ardent to the Lord and to His Most Pure Mother at every moment! Be indifferent to earthly sweets, do not exhaust the fervor of your heart on soulless objects, so that you do not be completely powerless to love God! Glorify the Lord and His Most Pure Mother with all your strength, so that He too will glorify you. Before glorifying the Lord or His Most Pure Mother, we must first ask the Lord to grant grace worthily, with all our hearts to glorify Him and Her Who gave birth to Him and think about what a great deed is worthy of glorifying Them, how worthy and righteous it is, how much, infinitely much we have received and are constantly receiving and still have to receive from the Lord and from His Most Pure Mother, if we remain in faith, hope and love until our last breath! I thank the Lord, who clearly saved me during Matins, when I fell before His throne. What life, what peace, what boldness in His salvation! But even after the Fall at the Akathist, You saved me, who fell before Your throne. The devil turns away with all sorts of deceits from the love of God, the Mother of God, the holy Angels, the holy people and from the love of one’s neighbor! Oh, how subtle, cunning, and vigilant the villain is! And we must be vigilant, wise as serpents, and simple as doves [Matt. 10, 16]. In order to see the many salvations of the Lord, we need many temptations, so that we may recognize our sins and weaknesses. Lord, have mercy on me, as you have sinned. Self-force is needed everywhere: when teaching young men, to teach them from the heart, firmly, history, dogma or the rule of life, etc., and in prayer, to always pray sincerely and willingly, and when doing good deeds or correcting duties - everywhere you need to force yourself, and force yourself to distance yourself from any sin, for example, from gluttony, gluttony, drunkenness, anger, pride, envy, covetousness, laziness, guile, disobedience, cowardice, despondency, murmuring, impatience, blasphemy. How the inhabitant of Tartarus, the devil, plows 61 hellish cold on our soul, as if he cools the hearts of everyone towards God, towards the Mother of God, towards the saints, towards eternal life! What ardor it conveys to temporary life, to its vain blessings! What a fire for malice, envy, covetousness, self-will, insolence, stubbornness! Every sorrow and oppression of sin, every attack of the enemy is now cooled and eased by the hope of God’s mercy, which will soon help and save us. But what will happen posthumously, that after the general judgment, when all hope for the mercy of God, all unity with God will be severed? Oh, horror! ABOUT! May my mind not think about this! Before the torments of hell, my mind becomes numb, my heart contracts! It’s good to do everything correctly, on time, because correcting what was done incorrectly is inconvenient, difficult and time consuming. Oh, if only we could always do the Lord’s commandments correctly! For this is our only true well-being! It can be positively said that the owner of the house, hating some of his family members, relatives and visiting guests, hates them because of his bread and salt, because of his belly, and thus violates the law of Him crucified for us in a daring manner because of a blind and stinking belly, because of the dust of the earth. And the longer someone eats our bread and salt, the worse it gets, the more we often despise him, especially if the person being fed does not please us mutually. But what is ours and which of us belongs? Are we not all God’s and are we not all God’s? Let us give ourselves and each other and our whole belly to Christ our God and love each other, forgiving each other’s mistakes, not torturing what is charged, not chasing after offenses. We are all extremely weak and sinful and therefore deserve leniency and pity from each other. We are images of God, but fallen, we are members of Christ, but sick; We are members of each other, but we are alien to each other. God! I thank You for the gift of warm prayer given to me yesterday at the All-Night Vigil, especially during the Six Psalms. God! Thank You for cleansing me from my many sins many times yesterday. When a wolf runs into the herd, there is confusion in the herd; when the mental wolf raises its paw into the soul, there is also confusion in it, in addition to fear, cramped conditions, humiliation; So he, the thief and the robber, is reflected in our soul by malice, hatred, envy, pride, stinginess, resistance and disobedience, fornication, etc. Reasons from the evil flesh to sin: I saw my free parasite or a frequent guest - and hated him, or a beggar who often came - and my heart turned away from him. O damned flesh! There is no truth in you. Remember this firmly, new person! If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation [2 Cor. 5, 17 ]! He must crucify the flesh with its passions and lusts, with all its malice, pride, ambitious plans, covetousness, gluttony, drunkenness, and waywardness. The evil flesh seeks to turn everything into a reason for anger, embarrassment, contempt, ill will, all the mistakes of its neighbor - and add new evil to evil. Crucify the flesh, carnal wisdom with spiritual wisdom. September 14. I thank You, most merciful Lord, for You have granted me the grace and strength to perform the Divine Liturgy without stumbling, with strength and thunder, and to pronounce the royal house by name before a large assembly, and to pronounce the word with great boldness and solemnity. I thank You, O obedient Master, gracious to our prayers, for when we were sometimes tempted by the evil one during the Liturgy before the great entrance and became faint-hearted and afraid of dreamy demonic fear and with strength cried out to You for salvation, you saved me, and, always afraid to speak out the names of royal persons, you granted You have great boldness and firmness in your voice and triumph over the fighting evil forces. Glory to Thy all-merciful and all-powerful power, O Lord! During Vespers I was overcome by the power of wickedness towards you who was standing in the church. Iv. Petrovich; At home, anger towards one’s neighbor and stinginess are fought. A good clergy in society is like a soul in a body: without it, society will be an ugly, stinking corpse. In this sense, it was said to the apostles and their successors: You are the salt of the earth [Matt. 5, 13]. Society must respect the clergy and satisfy their needs, so that they may carry out their high service without sorrow, and may the Lord bless the society itself for the sake of the servants of God. Meet the poor as the Lord, with respect for his human and Christian dignity, as a brother, as a fellow member of Christ; be patient with him, be lenient with him. If you do something for a beggar, do it as you would like it to be done for you; do to him as you do to yourself. God! I thank You for cleansing the carnal movement from touching and caressing my wife. September 14, 1867 How to distinguish between thoughts and feelings - are they from God or from our corrupted nature and from the devil? If they come from a loving heart and bring peace, courage and strength to the soul, then they are from God, and if they do not come from love for one’s neighbor and bring with them confusion, decline and relaxation of the spirit, then they are from our corrupt nature, the devil, and then we must fall to God with warm prayer for the enlightenment, strengthening, and pacification of our heart. Every day our souls are ready to perish from sins - we must pray daily for the salvation of our souls, as the Church does. The world doesn't understand this. Everything needs to be said from the heart, humbly, calmly, without fighting 62 . If it weren’t for the Holy Mysteries that cleansed my sins, especially the sin of gluttony, then what would have happened to me? How morally I would fall! The lips kiss the thing, and the heart is depicted on the thing, or represented by the thing. Glory to Thee, Lord, my most blessed companion! Are you in constant communication with the spiritual world? With disastrous passions, with the blindness of our minds, with various troubles and sorrows, misfortunes, with our extreme weakness - this is necessary for us. Help, intercession, healing and salvation come only from above. I envied the silk cassock of Father Deacon Alexei. Envy kills the soul. Am I still earth-loving? Do I still not love my brother as much as I love myself? Do I not still rejoice in his well-being as if I were my own? A sincere believer in God and who loves Him during prayer, especially public prayer, is completely in God, philosophizes on high, diligently listening to supplications, prayers, petitions, thanksgivings, praises offered up from clergy, readers and singers to the all-powerful, all-good, wise, generous, omnipotent and beginningless God, and is not carried away and not stolen in the church by worldly vanities thoughts about clothing, food, drink, money, the amusements of this world or grief about loss, insult, etc.; and someone who is not a sincere believer and who does not love God is sure to be almost carried away and robbed by earthly thoughts and passions: envy, enmity, or thoughts about food, drink, clothing, connections in society, about acquaintances, relatives, friends, and does not heartily listen to church prayers, does not enter into the spirit of these prayers, into their meaning, as well as into the meaning of church rituals, and is not able to rise to that level, because he has grown coarse, has grown fat, has clung to the earth from pride and other passions, and knows only his own belly and earthly things. We must cleave completely to God and forget everything earthly in the church. The enemy entertains and incites the one who serves God with various objects and punctures or intensifies to puncture him in thought, in word, in deed, in his whole life, especially with gluttony and delicacy, malice, pride, envy, contempt, rebellion, laziness, smart clothing, covetousness, depending on who has enslaved himself to what. A Christian who knows the will of his Lord, who calls us to grief, let grief see, let grief have a heart and mind, and let his heart be placed in the power of the Lord. Self-love flares up when beggars ask for alms, especially often, or when guests come often. Then you need to treat little beggars kindly. Do you know how to play the God-inspired book (Psalter)? Few are good at it. You must have faith and love for the God of David, his humility, kindness, courage, patience, and simple-heartedness. I thank You, Lord, for with such love and patience you have cleansed my sins even until now, especially before the Liturgy. I thank the Lord and Lady for the constant help. Speak every word before God. The earthly direction of the heart overcomes me - towards him: it must be heavenly. Show me, above all earthly and material desires, O Lord, with the prayers of the Lady, the Heavenly Powers and all the saints. Not only the outer world, but also my flesh and my heart must disappear during prayer, especially during the offering of the Bloodless Sacrifice. Just as cloudy weather with its pressure constrains both our body and our spirit, so carnal pleasures and worldly worries suppress our spirit and do not allow it to ascend to the mountain, to its Heavenly Fatherland, the patronymic of the spirits - the heavenly angels and the firstborn spirits, written in heaven [Heb. 12, 23]. Sometimes a person is overcome with an evil thought, inconsistency, and arrogance. We must immediately eradicate it through repentance and self-condemnation. Dust - and the living image of God, or: the whole earth - and man. What a great man! The whole earth is nothing before him. And we spare money for our neighbor’s needs, sweets, clothing, shelter. The benefits provided by the Orthodox Christian faith and Christian Orthodox worship are spiritual sobriety, cleansing of sins, holiness, light, peace of mind, strength, true, non-vain life on earth and blessed, eternal life in heaven. Also: healing from illnesses, from passions, freedom from darkness, cramped conditions, slavery to sin and the devil, from sorrow, despondency, spiritual impotence. And it doesn't stop. And this is important when we are corrupted by sins by nature, conceived in iniquities and born and living in sins, when illnesses naturally accompany sins, when sins and passions constantly fight us, confuse, darken, weaken, plunge into despondency and threaten to deprive us of all the blessings of temporary and eternal life, when there is one who does not sleep, like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour [ 1 Pet. 5, 8], the enemy of our salvation. Here the holy faith and the Orthodox Church seem to be the greatest good. What a blessing for civil society and families! What order it establishes, what purity of motives for the conscientious fulfillment of all civil and family duties! When they invite you to dinner, remember the dinner in the Kingdom of God, about which the Savior spoke [Matt. 22:2 – 14], and think about the righteous reclining at the supper of the Kingdom of God, please them and consider the earthly dinner as nothing, no matter how sweet it may be. We will constantly prepare for an answer at the Last Judgment, we will give a daily account of our aspirations, intentions, desires, thoughts, words and deeds. God! Grant me to constantly look to You with the eyes of my heart, and not to visible things, to adhere to virtues, and not to earthly splendor, not to covetousness, not to earthly pleasures. I thank You, my Savior, sit on the throne of Your glory and save me from now on, work in me with strength. See the unity of human nature in everything and love every neighbor, except the enemy of God, as yourself. Leave your rage against the one who offends and sins, and with the spirit of love, pray to God for him, may he bring him to his senses, and do not be arbitrary. Remember why we partake of the Divine Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ - precisely for the remission of sins and eternal life, and take comfort in this. Oh, give me the most pure Body and Blood of the Savior for the betrothal of the future life and the Kingdom! I thank You, Most Holy Lady Theotokos, for You heard me, in the sorrow and oppression of sin, when I cried out to You for salvation, and You quickly and clearly saved me by Your power, by Your goodness, by Your mercy. Oh, how it became easy for me from Your intercession and pardon. Be strict with yourself, condemn the evil in yourself mercilessly, but be lenient with others, be patient, cover the weaknesses and mistakes of your neighbor, as far as this serves to preserve love and peace and if it is not harmful to them and those around them. Do not be a despot, demanding the unconditional subordination of others, for God Himself does not violate the free will of man and gave him the freedom to stretch out his hand to whatever he wants. Curb pride, contempt, and anger in yourself in every possible way; do not humiliate any person, no matter how sinful he may be. Don’t trust your old man (yourself): often others only seem to us to be very worthless, disgusting, despicable, while they are actually people like people, no worse, even better than you, and you only by the grace of God and thanks to happy circumstances, rose above them to serve them and, perhaps, by their own mercy. Try to speak more often peacefully with your family and the poor. Blessed is the one who has acquired the all-valuable and only treasure of the heart - God, and has rejected from the heart all the idols that the world worships - the passion for elegant clothes, for money, for food and drink, for amusements, for the rich furnishings of the home; Blessed is the one who sees grief, as a Christian should, who considers everything here to be smoke, who awaits eternity as the only lasting other-existence, this living with God and with the saints. When your heart becomes embittered against someone for his mistakes, contradictions, disobedience, etc., then remember the many of your mistakes, passions, as well as contradictions, rudeness, disobedience before your superiors, and condescend, forgive the one who sins or has sinned against you, humble yourself before the righteousness of God, punishing you, admonishing you with the like. Otherwise, we see too much bad in others to hate and despise them, and in ourselves we see too much good and not enough bad to turn hatred on ourselves. We melt, we languish in our sins, but we still seem like human beings. Pray, as for yourself, for everyone who sins and love him, despite his mistakes, as you love yourself, or leaving his mistakes, covering them with condescending love; remember his many good qualities, which in our enmity against our neighbor are hidden, are in the shadows, or completely disappear from our memory; do not be unjust to another, to his merits: if you are vigilant for shortcomings, then all the more, out of the love of Christ, be vigilant for virtues, of which no one is deprived. Pray for the one who sins and offends like this: Lord, forgive and cleanse his sins, just as you forgive and cleanse mine. Remember that sin in general is stubborn, willful, assiduous, forceful, impudent, and this is both in you and in others. Beware of fanning the flames of sin, lest you be scorched by Gehenna and scorch others. Doctor, heal yourself [Lk. 4, 23]. In order to make peace with someone who sins against you, imagine the weakness of sin common to everyone, then remember how this person has often been affectionate towards you before and is ready to be affectionate from your little affection, how you yourself despised his affections and thereby gave rise to resistance to you, to enmity against you; Blame yourself, and justify him - and you will be reconciled. Our Christian task is renewal: if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation [2 Cor. 5, 17]. Do we remember our task, do we strive to resolve it, to fulfill it? Did you miss her? Are we not dozing? Our task is heavenly wisdom, preparation for the Heavenly Fatherland. Do we live in heaven, are we put off by the worldly lusts with which we have clothed ourselves? We know how to think about virtue, but in the very matter of virtue we are inert, selfish, proud, evil, envious, more lustful than lovers of God [2 Tim. 3, 4] and philanthropic. Anticipate these passions; always almost our virtues [...] when the right opportunity comes to do them, and we remain defeated and in shame. Why is it unpleasant for us that guests stay with us for a long time, and why are we happy when they leave us? – From lack of faith, from lack of Christian love, because we are carnal, not spiritual. We forget the Lord's feeding of the five thousand people with five loaves and two fishes; that our God - the Almighty God, the God of generosity and those who fulfill His commandments, especially the commandment of mutual love (members of a single body), will never leave, but will always give them everything in abundance, so that they will never become poor; we forget the widow of Sarepta, who fed the prophet Elijah and miraculously did not lack food for two years, the widow of the prophetic disciple, who miraculously received an abundance of oil! We forget our Orthodox monasteries, which feed thousands of people and never become scarce, pious and charitable private people, who never become scarce. What we should rejoice over, because of our lack of faith and cowardice, we mourn, because of this we become irritated, embarrassed, we dislike and hate each other. Oh, grant us, Lord, to always live in mutual love and despise confusion caused by the enemy and found by him, entirely, without reflection or hesitation, in the simplicity of the heart. I thank You, Lord my God, for You have granted this day to perform the Liturgy without stumbling and to partake of Your Holy Mysteries without condemnation and to pronounce the royal house firmly. I thank You, because before the all-night vigil in the Assumption Church, You performed a miracle of mercy on me, delivering me from the [kindling] of Satan, removing from me the disembodied enemy who had clothed me in carnal passions, in the sting of sweets, and pacified me through the prayer of my faith, which You gave me. Hallelujah, glory to You! By every word of God man shall live [Matt. 4, 4; OK. 4, 4], because everything that exists is called from non-existence to being by the word of God: let there be [Gen. 1]. He spoke, and was... commanded, and was created [Ps. 148, 5]. You are not poor in spirit, you do not consider it necessary to resort to the Savior, you do not consider yourself a great sinner and almost consider yourself a righteous person only because you do not offend anyone, do no harm to anyone, justifying your fornication, gluttony, luxury, bacchanalia; The sacrament of atonement does not apply to you and the Lord did not come for you, for he came into the world to save sinners, to call sinners to repentance, and you do not consider repentance necessary. The Angel of God, our guardian, wounds our souls towards heavenly love, and the devil constantly wounds us towards earthly love. Blessed is he who knows the plans of the evil one and destroys them by the grace of Christ and is wounded by heavenly love. Have I not yet learned from the meek and humble Jesus, my Lord, who stretched out His hands on the tree of the cross in terrible torment for my repentance and thereby redeemed me from eternal torment and from the work of the enemy? Am I still irritated and embittered at the beggar who constantly asks me for the alms he needs? Do I still consider differences in tribes when giving charity and voluntarily, although not always, when giving alms to Russians and Orthodox Christians, am I ready to turn my face away from Finns and Lutherans and thus insult in him the dignity of man, created in the image and likeness of God? Have I not heard or read in the Scriptures that in Christ Jesus there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all [Col. 3, 11 ]; Don’t you hear in the Gospel the answer of the Lord Jesus Christ to the lawyer who asked the Lord, who is my neighbor? [ OK. 10:29], and who considered only his fellow tribesmen as neighbors, that a neighbor is every person who has fallen into poverty or trouble and requires our help? Go and do likewise [Lk. 10, 37]. Forgive me, Lord, for my sin that I was angry with the Finnish Lutheran and with annoyance and evil zeal gave him what he relentlessly demanded. Apparently, You appointed him to receive from my hands the gift of Your goodness, as the Lord of all. I thank You, Lord, for having punished me with illness due to cloudy weather, You healed me; I also thank Thee, for Thou hast granted me the grace to perform without stumbling the Sacrament of Marriage and the Sacrament of Baptism, and for the constant evil temptation and stubbornness before and during baptism, through the prayer of my heart, Thou hast quickly taken away and granted it in peace. September 17, 1867 What peace, what bliss it is to love God with all your heart and man as yourself! Why are we lazy to fulfill these two main commandments? - From perverse self-love, from lack of faith, from addiction to earthly things. How cruel it is to go against the grain or live contrary to the commandments of God - what languor, what torment, what incessant remorse, what sorrow and oppression! And despite all this, we almost constantly violate God’s commandments. He who does good to the poor lends to the Lord [Prov. 19, 17]. True. When you begin to observe your income, you cannot help but notice that the Lord will soon return what is given to the poor in abundance, and thus the hand of the giver does not become scarce. Glory to Your bounty, O Lord, glory to Your providence for us, unworthy and many sinners. Seeing how your wife and your family love you, especially seeing constantly how God loves you, love your neighbors, especially the poor, the sick, those in trouble, love to the point of selflessness, as the Lord God loved you in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, who endured the cross and death for us; Do not regret your property for the poor, your intercession for those in trouble, worry about the sick, work hard, be patient. Many of the simple people value much more the faith, and the Church, and its clergy, and its divine services, and the priestly blessing, therefore we, the clergy, must value this sense of faith and piety in the simple and treat them kindly, politely, meekly. There are many peoples in the world, many nations, states, beliefs, denominations, but not all of them are pleasing to God, and not all of them will be saved from eternal fire; True, in every nation he who fears Him and acts in truth is acceptable to Him (Acts 10:35), but not every faith teaches the righteousness of God, and some teach human lies, for example, pagan, Mohammedan, Jewish, even some Christian faiths, therefore it is necessary to please God and save the soul to leave the errors of these beliefs and turn with all your heart to the true faith, in which it is possible and convenient to please God. It is therefore clear that only those who with a sincere heart hold to the holy Orthodox Catholic Christian faith and fulfill its commandments and statutes will be saved, accepting its holy, God-given teaching without any fuss. Many are called, but few are chosen [Matt. 20, 16]. Oh, how one must treasure the priceless treasure of the Orthodox faith! By fulfilling her commandments, statutes, teachings, Sacraments! Obedience to hierarchy. Accept the request of your neighbor, for example the poor or a parishioner of any kind or anyone else, as you wish, so that your request is accepted by others, higher than you, equal or even lower. Always put yourself in the place of the one asking and take his needs to heart as your own, and satisfy them as if they were your own - quickly, conscientiously. [...] my service, about the words I pronounce, your pride, your carnal wisdom - this is a drag on me and does not interest me. I despise carnal wisdom, both mine and others; I know that the word of God and the word of the Church are the truth, the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Giving alms to a beggar means acquiring a jewel. How quickly the Lady hears and saves those who call on Her with faith and humility! I said to Her in my heart: indescribable beauty, all-pure Lady, take away the ugliness from my soul - and I immediately, in an instant, felt the removal of sinful impurity and heaviness and the revitalization of the soul as if by the life-giving breath of spring air. I said similar words in my heart to the Lord in the church: Unspeakable beauty, uncreated, Lord, take away from my soul the ugliness of sins and my passions - and immediately I felt inside an invisible hand, taking away my sins and suddenly reviving me, and I said inwardly: Glory to Thee, Lord! May God grant that we do not philosophize about visible things as if they do not exist, but about heavenly, eternal things, as truly abiding forever. Insert the nails that nailed the hands and feet of the Lord into the cross - you introduce into it through this very life-giving power for all ages, terrible for demons, saving for believers, saving power, averting troubles, raising the dead, driving away demons; you unite the Lord of glory with the cross forever, and where the cross is, there is Christ and His power. The same sins in everyone - not in deed, but in thought, not in word, but in thought, with the difference that some are refrained from sin in thought, word and deed, while others, seduced by it, strive for it as pleasure or as a means of obtaining pleasure for themselves. We all deserve some degree of leniency and we all must crucify the sin that lives within us. You need to draw out with your voice the names of the royal house and, in general, the words of prayers that are difficult to pronounce for some reason. Every society has a goal that it strives to achieve, has rules or laws through the implementation of which it achieves its goal, and has the means to achieve it. The purpose of the Church is the purification and sanctification of sinners and their introduction into the Heavenly Eternal Kingdom; laws - the commandments of the Savior, the apostles, holy fathers and teachers of the Church; means of hierarchs or clergy - Sacraments, worship, rituals, preaching the word of God, fasts, holidays. Anyone who belongs to the community of the Church must fulfill the commandments of the Lord, the Founder of the Church, especially guarding his inner being, his heart, always being kind, meek, pure, patient in his heart (among Lutherans?). The Church has the goal of bringing the ships of our souls into the heavenly harbor filled with spiritual treasures. But on the sea of ​​life, storms are constantly raging, raised by the ruler of the abyss: the ship in which the soul floats on the sea of ​​life - the body, must be lightened in every possible way by throwing out of it the burden of temporary addictions, the burden of food and drink, and taking away from it unnecessary clothes, the load of gold and silver and other things that so often sink and submerge the soul alive here and deprive it of spiritual sobriety and light. If sinful lust is struggling with you, flow to the protection of the Virgin with sincere prayer to extinguish the fire of sin, to cleanse your vile heart, and you will immediately receive help and deliverance. I have experienced this myself many times. Look how much concern the Lord has shown for you for the salvation of your soul: He did not spare His Only Begotten Son, He sent Him from heaven to earth and gave him up to suffering and death: do you care about your soul, have you not brought it all down to the earthly ashes, instead of philosophizing on earth and living on earth heavenly, in the flesh spiritually? Disciple of the Lamb slain for the world, do you live meekly? The Lamb without blemish - do you live blamelessly? long-suffering - do you endure? Having no place to lay your head, do you despise temporary rest, have you clung to gilded palaces, to rich furniture, to earthly things in general; disciple of Him whose kingdom is not of this world—do you not think of reigning in this world? The holy apostles, hierarchs, martyrs, reverends, righteous and all the saints, having seen the indescribable providence for the human race of the Lord of glory, who descended from heaven, that he may lead us to heaven, who suffered, died, rose again and again ascended to heaven - having put everything earthly into nothing (to zero), they despised all thoughts, all the desires of their hearts, all the strength of their souls, turned to this highest sacrament, they turned all the love of their hearts to the Crucified One, to His Parent according to Divinity, and to the Holy Spirit who came from Him, and to Him who gave birth without seed for our salvation. What are we doing? Damned, crazy, we hardly value the sacrament of salvation and cleave to the world and its lusts, we put corruptible things more expensive than our immortal soul and, neglecting the soul, we chase after them, because of them we turn away from God the Savior, our neighbors, we are careless about the salvation of ourselves and our neighbors, we are proud because of decay, we envy, we fight each other. Is this what our Christian faith is? Who teaches me spiritual lessons of humility, meekness and kindness, patience, condescension, purity and chastity, abstinence, spiritual sobriety and vigilance like the Lady? For She teaches these lessons quickly and simply, and wisely and holyly, and with power - so that in an instant you feel capable of fulfilling these virtues at the time when you are worthy to receive the mercy of the Lady. God! I thank You, for You heard and had mercy on me, giving me the grace to celebrate the early Sunday Liturgy without stumbling, but after a strong struggle with passions and falling before Your life-giving and magnificent throne. I thank You, for with the strength received at the Liturgy, You granted me to perform prayer before the holy icon of the Mother of God of Iveron. God! Let me see my sins and blame myself for everything, and be condescending and affectionate towards my neighbors. Is it not because we sometimes hate some people because they go against our passions or value their human dignity and thereby humiliate our pride and ambition, which, constantly demanding honor from others, almost constantly humiliates others? We leave the debtor to ours. Oh! We must learn the wisdom to leave our debtors. We are all sinners and out of natural malice, out of pride, out of envy, pride, out of bad skill, inattention, we can often make mistakes against each other: we must forgive these insults, which often occur at the instigation of the devil, we must cover them with love, we must not at all be vindictive in word or deed: Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord [Rom. 12, 19], but endure and endure. Woe to the impatient! If you notice any disapproving side in your neighbor, in a man or a woman, do not despise him, do not hate him for it, but remember that we are all weak, that you yourself are the weakest of all, and condescend to your neighbor, and do not deprive him of your love and your respect, do not ruin the commandments of Christ. The Lord only commanded you to love not the righteous, but also sinners, like yourself. Do your neighbors have many weaknesses? You are no less: the Lord is patient with you; be patient with your neighbor. When it is said that love is patient [1 Cor. 13:4], then, of course, this is said not about the righteous, but about sinners. Through the passions within me, the enemy daily arms me against my loved ones, against Archpriest Paul and against sister Anna for their unique character, because perhaps they are contrary to my passions, I do not love them. Oh, whim of the heart! Love as the Lord commands, and not as you like, not just who you want and how you want. Love your enemies and haters. Look who the Lord loved and prayed for! Love your neighbor while you can; the time will come when you will want to, but you will not be able to love and will not be able to prove your love by deeds. The best praise to God is our good life (love, kindness, meekness, non-covetousness, heavenly wisdom, abstinence, purity and chastity, obedience, hard work, etc.). So, glorifying God with your lips (Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, etc.), glorify especially with your deeds, the spirit of meekness, humility, love when dealing with your neighbors, generosity, mercy, purity of soul and body, honesty, truth, meekness of disposition, as befits a child of God and a member of Christ. Don’t trust yourself when your heart is trying to reprimand your neighbor about his excess in the use of sweets. This is what your greed and your lust speaks in you. Leave others and look after yourself. Burn with desire for imperishable, future treasures, turning the beauties of the world into dust; seek above all else the cleansing of sins, holiness, peace and union with God, love for your neighbors, meekness and humility, because this is your life, your true path. Worldly addictions kill spiritual and heavenly aspirations, especially gluttony, covetousness, and carnal impurity. Pray, priest, fervently for people while standing in church, for these sheep do not know what to pray for as they should, they are ignorant, but the Holy Spirit constantly teaches you what and how to pray. At least you, priest, take care of your soul and the souls of your spiritual children, for they are all busy with worldly affairs. Looking at the image of the Lord suffering on the cross, say: here, in these cruel sufferings of my Lord, there is also my considerable share of causality, and my sins increased the severity of these sufferings. My passions burned the body of the Divine Sufferer, who suffered for me. I thank You, Lord, for the miracle of Your mercy over me (in the Intercession chapel of the Church of St. Andrew the First-Called), for my malice did not overcome Your unspeakable goodness and mercy and had mercy on me. Everything is Yours, Lord, Your prayers and Your grace. I thank You for the gift of the liturgy, the peaceful celebration of the liturgy in the power of truth and the non-judgmental communion of Your most pure Mysteries. Oh, how good it was for me after mass! September 25th 1867 Do not cleave to visible things, so that your soul will not be stifled in the end, on the day of your death, as they often are stifled in your home life and during worship. Oh, how necessary it is to cleave to the one God and not commit adultery in your heart with the persons and things of this world! The Christian faith and Church is a beautiful, wise and strong building, erected by God Himself. Flow mentally from Adam to Christ, from Christ until now and from now until the end of the age: what fidelity and consistency the Lord has in His deeds of providence and salvation of the human race! How exactly His promises and prophecies were fulfilled! How His judgment punished the sinners and rewarded the righteous! How wicked cities and kingdoms disappeared, and those who feared God prospered! How the history of the Christian Church is the realization of the Gospel! How all the events of the world are directed towards a single goal, so that there is one flock and one Shepherd [John. 10, 16 ]! How is the fight against evil going! Do not have communion with sin - and you will have communion with the Lady and will be rewarded with the grace of Her visit and Her help. Unclean dreams creep up at night to deprive you of your purity and chastity, and you will awaken in time, not yet defiled by the unclean outpouring; get up immediately from bed, fall to your knees before the icons, punish yourself by kneeling, offer a full repentant prayer for your sins, especially about your lust, about your greed for food and drink and intemperance in food and drink, for unclean visions occur especially when the flesh plays from satiety. In this way you will avoid communication with the sin of prodigal uncleanness. No matter how sin creeps up on you, carefully notice its attacks and, by the grace of God, destroy its machinations over you and you will have communion with God, with the Lady, with the Angels, with all the saints who have pleased God. Give me, Lord, the grace to be indifferent to the loss of earthly blessings, for with their loss the blessings of the soul increase: faith and hope in God and love for God and neighbor, the hope of eternal life and the blessings there, while the enjoyment of earthly blessings leads to desecration of the flesh, to enmity with neighbors. How many times have I experienced how absurd, dishonest and disastrous it is to begrudge one’s neighbor sweets, money, and material goods in general when he needs them, how insane it is to put one’s hope in things and not in God, who gives us everything abundantly and measures what we give, how insane it is because of visible things to fall away from the love of God and for one’s neighbor, to be wounded by earthly love and to fall away from heavenly love! How weak is our aspiration for the life of the next century, imperishable life, and how strong is the thirst for perishable life! If any of your boss showers you with curses, unfair reproaches, slander, do not be tormented later, do not imagine the darkness of evil in the boss and do not feel sorry for yourself, do not feel sorry for your old man, who is truly worthy of all reproaches and accusations, but consider this abuse of the boss as a due tribute to your sinfulness, passion, for what sins we do not commit. And if, perhaps, the boss accuses us of something of which we are completely innocent, then we are probably guilty of something else. But self-pity, despondency, various gloomy ideas and ill-wishes regarding the boss’s face, bitter words about him must be removed. We must humble ourselves before the boss, as before the instrument of God - the Judge and the Avenger. Respect the one created in the image and likeness of God, no matter who he is, so that his Prototype does not take revenge on you for disrespect, contempt and abuse of His image. If you yourself ate sweetly chune by the grace of the Lord, then do not spare your brother, no matter who he is, your own or someone else’s, rich or poor, to eat and drink sweetly from you and do not envy him when he takes your goods, your sweetness with a full and bold hand. Here there is a temptation for you: what do you cling to with your heart - to God or your neighbor or to earthly things, to the Source of life (living waters) or to dust, to the body or to the soul, what do you love more - this, temporary, or that imperishable age? Soul or body? Theater, they say, is a teacher. Where from? - From this world. Who are we? - Christians. Who is our Teacher? - Lord. Who should we learn from? – From the Lord and from the Gospel and the Church. But those who love the theater do not love the Church. Christians also have many, many secular teachers who have supplanted the Heavenly Teacher: these are magazines, these are various secular books. Do not pay attention to the faces of the mighty of the earth when you need to turn your heart’s gaze to the one God, and do not be servile to them, but first give due honor to God, His Most Pure Mother and His saints, and then to the mighty of the earth, even the Metropolitan himself. I was subjected to great temptation by Metropolitan Isidore, not bowing as I should to the image of the Lord in his office. He drew many bad conclusions from this. May the will of the Lord be done! The earthly is drawn to the earth, the rough, taken inside, makes the heart rough. If you eat meat, you will become heavy and want to sleep, and you will be unable or unwilling to pray and think about God and read the word of God. The heavenly, on the contrary, attracts to heaven; fine, light food does not cause roughness to the heart if consumed in moderation. Thus, prayer and reading the word of God, thinking about God directs the soul to God, to eternity, to heavenly life. Light food does not interfere with prayer, contemplation of God, reading the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Fathers. I thank You, Lord, for the mercy shown to my soul on the way to the navigation school to priest Lebedev, after I was upset with the poor and repented of this grief; I thank You, because for the sake of Your blood, poured out for me, You took away my sins and gave me peace. But, O All-Tsar, O Lamb of God, teach me meekness and humility towards everyone: without You I cannot do anything [John. 15, 5]. September 28th day. 1867. 12 o'clock at night. God! You have corrected and are constantly correcting my paths and aspirations - what will I repay to You for this ineffable mercy, My Father, my Provider, my Savior? What will I repay You, as You have granted me to know the ways of life, to know Your most sweet, all-saving name? What will I repay You, since You taught me to call on You? What will I repay You, because You have known me? What will I repay You, as if I took You near my mouth and my heart? O all-merciful Lord, o beneficent Master! Oh the abyss of love and long-suffering for me, a sinner! I thank You, I praise You, I magnify You, I worship You. So, Lord, this morning I arose, burdened with the multitude of Your blessings, I arose healthy, unharmed, peaceful, and most importantly - in unity with You, the God of my life! And for this I thank you, for you did not destroy me with my iniquities, but you usually loved mankind 65. You need to have compassion for your neighbor in need, in illness, in sadness, in disaster, to accept someone else’s grief as your own and to tear away from your heart stony insensitivity, deceitfulness of the heart, cold indifference to the close circumstances of your neighbor, for this last thing from the devil is the distortion, the ugliness of our nature, although it very often happens to many of us. We must overcome evil, the deceit of our hearts, and all its varied passions. Having been established [glory: nazdani] on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone [Eph. 2, 20]. Who am I? Which building am I a member of? What should I be like? Regarding yourself and others, regarding the Cornerstone? O my Christ! Place me firmly in Your building. My brothers! Like living stones, build yourselves into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood [1 Pet. 2, 5]. Be one living and holy building, be one living body, rejoicing and compassionate with each other, helping each other. Our trouble is that we are different. God! I thank Thee, for Thou hast fulfilled my fiery prayers: and bestowed singers on the church, and beautified the church, and encouraged public charity, erecting a shelter for the poor! I thank Thee, for I am bold with you, even if I am a sinner, even if I am dust, weak, or worthless. Glory to Thee, O Thou, workest in all [1 Cor. 12.6 ]! Give glory to Your great, most glorified name! We live, we live our short earthly life, then we die, and eternity will come! What will it be like? – Which one you prepared yourself. Looking at the cross, say to yourself: this is the proof and guarantee of God’s love for me! Will I die with such love for me from the Lord God Himself? - I won’t die. So that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life [Jn. 3, 16]. The bishop bears the rank of Christ, and the king bears the rank of Christ - both are worthy of the greatest honor on earth for the sake of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the eternal Bishop and the eternal King. Poor boys should give alms with pleasure: they beg out of extreme need and, having received a sufficient amount, do not come for a long time. Oh, poor things! They do not have where to bow their heads, they do not have what to eat and drink and what to wear; Among the abundance of the townspeople of the city, at the sight of the many different generous gifts of God, eaten and drunk or used for clothing, they walk like thirsty tantalums 66 like hungry sheep, like naked. We abound in all sorts of blessings: we eat, drink the best, dress richly, elegantly, elegantly, but with them it’s the other way around. How not to feel sorry for them! How not to deny yourself the extra to give them alms! A person suffering from a cold from unclean spirits, in addition to praying for him, must receive communion, so that the evil spirits will stop their deceit against him. (Potapov’s wife.) The cross teaches us self-sacrifice for the glory of God and for the good of our neighbors! There is temporary light, and there is eternal light; There is temporary fire, and there is eternal fire. Therefore, looking at the temporary light and the temporary fire, think about the eternal fire and the eternal light. The righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father [Matt. 13, 43]. Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire [Matt. 25, 41]. Remind yourself during prayer to pray in few words, so that not a single word is uttered frivolously, but each one is thought out, evaluated, felt! How sweet it is to pray in this way! Desire life with God, because it is holy, sinless, serene, all-blessed, endless. How long shall we drink these iniquities like water [Job. 15, 16 ]? In the Holy Spirit there is no distance: everything is close, everything is one - the Mother of God, the Angels, and holy men. Let us commit ourselves and each other and our whole life to Christ the Bot. If your neighbors offend you, do not be angry, do not take revenge, do not be discouraged, but give yourself, your enemies, and your whole life to Christ God, the all-wise and all-good Creator, and you will be blessed. Our impatience, impatience and arbitrariness are what bring us trouble. We certainly strive to take revenge on our enemies with our word or deed. Do not be so proud and self-willed as to consider all your demands and actions fair, but consider yourself a sinful, weak, deceived person (every man is a lie [Ps. 115:2]) and do not always stand your ground, but prudently yield to the request or demands of others, for example, your wife or someone else; Realize that the demands of others from you, for example, your wife, which are contrary to your desire or demand, are sometimes more prudent, better and more useful than yours, and that you must accept them, and reject your own and overcome your stubbornness. This is worldly prudence and Christian wisdom. Die for everything in life - for sweets, beautiful clothes, for insults, for honor, and live for God alone. The world is crucified to me, and I to the world [Gal. 6, 14]. Let us die to sin (over the dead the word about death for sin). True Christians look down and desire heavenly treasures (with all their hearts), while imaginary Christians look down and desire earthly blessings with all their hearts - honor, happiness, sweets, shiny clothes and various things. The true ones live in renewal of the spirit, putting off the old man, which is decaying in the lusts of delusion [Eph. 4, 22]. True Christians constantly remember that they are temples of the Holy Spirit, for the Spirit of God lives in them [1 Cor. 3:16], and try with all their might to live holy. I thank You, Lord my God, for at this very moment I received mercy from You, standing on my knees before You and crying out to You for salvation from the passion of anger and stubbornness: I received peace and freedom into my soul. Moral teaching: one should not find fault with everything - this is a matter of malice. How sublimely a Christian should look at himself, calling the Most Holy Theotokos his Lady! What should our spirit be like! What purity, what abstinence, what heavenly (spiritual) wisdom! God! I thank You for the current (October 4) liturgy, for You have granted me to perform it without stumbling, peacefully, boldly, for Your glory and for the salvation of people and my own. As you asked, benevolent Master, so you gave it to me. Glory to Your throne, and especially to You, who sits on it, for I never fall to it in vain, even if I touch it with faith, but the power and mercy of God always act in me. What a noble, holy thing to serve poor people and to be, according to the Apostle, everyone... everything [1 Cor. 9, 22], or, according to the word of the Lord, a servant of all [Matt. 23, 11]. And we are afraid to serve something to everyone, we run away from charity, we run away from the poor, fearing that we might not give to them, and trying to satisfy some of our vanity. What does the robe of righteousness, worn at baptism, have to do with the primitive state of the first people? They found out that they were naked, and they sewed together fig leaves and made aprons for themselves [Gen. 3, 7]. To heal from scrofula, drink holy water. Believe that we are all one body of Christ, and individually members [1 Cor. 12:27], and with this faith serve all people in their varied needs, expecting reward from the Lord and doing everything willingly. O Gospel, Gospel, Gospel! What heavenly wisdom is contained in you, what light, what power! What perfect knowledge of our nature, what wise and at the same time simple rules of life! And how little we follow the Gospel! That is why our life bears little resemblance to a Christian life! Everything is trying to tear me away from You, Lord: my heart, my mind, my corrupted will, my sight, my hearing, my taste, my smell, my touch! And the belly is in You alone! God! Delight me and draw me to You, who guide your ways. Whose intention, whose thought do I recognize in the perverse action of my heart, mind and feelings? - The devil, my adversary. Our prayer should be free, willing, reasonable, calm, imbued with faith, hope, and love. To pray for everyone sincerely, for the whole world, for the sovereign and his house, for all classes, one must love everyone sincerely. Be in constant union with God, and at night renew this union through prayer. The name of God, invoked in prayer, is peace, joy, sanctification, sweetness, lightness for the spirit, health and strength for the body. Spilled ointment is the name of the Lord, poured out ointment is Your name [Song. 1.2]. School is a place of education for the world, primarily and in part for the Church, for the Kingdom of God, and the Church is a place of education for heaven, for eternity, for the Kingdom of God. Here we are prepared to live forever with God and with the saints in heaven, just as in school we are taught to be useful members of society. You like light, beauty, glory, and you admire gold, silver, gilded palaces, gold and silver things, human beauty, the beauty of some animals, the beauty of plants, clothes, houses, various things, or you admire the glory of this age - human respect, servility, many servants, rich carriages, richly decorated rooms, etc. Ah! Stop clinging to all this, for all this is momentary, perishable, does not satiate your heart, does not satisfy the needs of the immortal spirit. Strive here, self-deny, endure in self-sacrifice for the sake of God and your neighbors - and you will be honored with the most luminous, ever-joyful, indescribable light of the evening, you will see the indescribable kindness of the face of the Lord, pouring out on all those who are in His Kingdom light, life, indescribable peace, unspeakable bliss, you will be awarded the honor of a heavenly title, you will heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ, receive eternally blessed life. What does everything here mean before everything there? Is it possible to compare the benefits of that century with anything? Believe, strive, pray, trust, love your Lord above all else, do not cleave to the creature, cleave to the Creator, have mercy on the creation that is about to pass away - and you will be worthy of the blessings of eternity and blessed hope in the Kingdom of glory. If you are educated, intelligent, like Socrates and Plato, or higher - like Solomon himself, but if you are subject to low passions, if you are proud, a freethinker, selfish to the point of baseness, stingy, envious, hard-hearted, angry, impudent in word and hand, or a sensualist and libertine, a glutton, a drunkard, a spendthrift, a spendthrift, if you are a tyrant in the house of your wife and children - what is in your mind, in your education? The worm has long ago undermined your flower, it will soon fade and fall off. Combine a kind, pure, meek heart with intelligence and enlightenment - then your mind and your education will be an invaluable treasure for you and for others. Otherwise, you are just a smart fool with whom it is dishonest to communicate. Look at the Holy Mysteries: how the Lord can make you heavenly from earthly, and spiritual from carnal. How to look at yourself? – Like a temple of the Holy Spirit, like the work of God, artistic, wise, pure. How to look at every sin? - Like a flatterer, a robber, absurdity, madness. Sacred Psychology (or Christian Psychology). [...] rich: the Bible, the Gospel, theological books, the writings of the holy fathers, the benefits of this science for a Christian, self-knowledge. Appearance of the Mother of God in Blachernae, St. Sergius of Radonezh, St. Gregory the Wonderworker, clergyman George in Tikhvin. How can I pay for myself worthily that, being the work of God’s hands, all pure, beautifully adorned, fragrant, bright, I defiled myself with sinful feces at my very root, in my very heart and throughout my whole being, imbued with it like rags with oil, disfigured myself, disgraced myself, darkened myself and, being created incorruptible, subjected myself to corruption with all its horrors? How will I pay myself? But, O You, radiant from the Virgin, Christ my Savior, came to earth for this sake, may you deliver me from eternal tears and from my eternal sobs. You washed me in Baptism, sanctified me in Confirmation, revived and fragrant me in Communion, cleanse and heal me from spiritual ailments in Repentance, enlighten me, guide me on the path of truth and salvation and guide me to Yourself in the Priesthood, sanctify and bless me in the very embryo of my being, when you bless the union of my parents in Marriage, You also heal me from corruptible ailments caused by my sins, cleansing my very sins through the prayers of the priest and the anointing of holy oil in the Mystery of the Blessing of Unction. How much care you take for me, a sinner, in the Church! How much love and care You showed for me, founding Your Church on earth and entrusting to it the work that You Yourself came to do, which You Yourself did! What forbearance, meekness, what long-suffering You commanded her when dealing with me! Glory to Your ineffable mercy, Lord! Sin is stubborn (obsessive), persistent, shameless: everything has its own way, everything repeats in our heart the same lessons of evil, impurity, wickedness, intemperance, pride, malice, envy, stinginess, covetousness, laziness towards everything good and saving. A champion of truth! What should be done against this? - Continuous striving for virtue. The devil constantly does his work in us, the work of sin and death, and we must constantly do the work of salvation, the work of pleasing God. If during prayer you happen to be robbed from the enemy and become carried away by thoughts about some things or persons, and confusion, crampedness and darkening of the spirit occur, then immediately stop your usual prayer (for example, evening prayer or some other prayer, for example, when performing the liturgy or the Sacraments, a prayer service, a memorial service, an akathist) and bring to the Lord God in secret sincere repentance for your absent-mindedness, or addiction to things, or in enmity towards your neighbor, and you will calm down and again be able to sincerely pray to the Lord. This happened to me today at evening prayer. The names of saints are spiritual fragrances. They should be pronounced with high respect and reverence. Saints are the dwellings or abodes of the Holy Trinity, emitting Her life-giving, sweet stench, Her life-giving, most joyful light. Oh, how worthy are the saints of God of all honor! What contempt are worthy of those who, for the injustice of it, consider paying them respect by calling them as intercessors before God, by worshiping before their icons, relics, by lighting candles before them or burning incense. Moreover, the name of God - the name of the Creator, Savior, Judge of all, the all-fragrant name, giving fragrance to everything - must be pronounced with the greatest reverence, calmness, fear, and purity of heart. If you vividly imagine that this entire infinity of creations, this entire majestic, wise edifice of the universe with all the infinite variety of creatures, so wisely constructed, was called into existence by His single word and exists according to His single all-good, all-wise, all-powerful will, then you will involuntarily be filled in the depths of your soul with gratitude, amazement, awe and horror, but also with love for the all-good, infinite, the all-wise, all-powerful, unchangeable Creator of himself and all creatures. O most holy name, O most fragrant, praised and exalted name, glory to you! October 12th day. 1867 My insult, my sadness and tears after the unkind, resistant reception of the Metropolitan mean my pride, my conceit, my confidence that I was worth the affectionate, respectful reception. If I were humble and not self-important, I would consider such a reception a worthy retribution for my vices, for my sins, which are countless, and complacently, with joy I would endure this obstinacy, sighing about my sins and praying for the bishop that he would enlighten me about my sins. Oh, cowardly me, I listen to praise with pleasure, although it is unworthy, and I am offended by reproaches, although they are fair! Have mercy in annoyances, sorrows, troubles! All church prayers are the fruit of a God-enlightened, sober, holy mind and heart and constitute the true glory and adornment of the human mind and should be pronounced or sung in the ears of people with joy and reverence. In order for ordinary people to fully appreciate these prayers and chants, they themselves must, through sobriety, abstinence, purity, and God-mindedness, rise to that purity of heart that the holy men who composed these prayers and songs acquired. At least they were holy at the time in which they wrote and performed these prayers. What then does the shame of some people when reading these prayers mean? - This is a devilish shame that humiliates them. The Savior said about such shame and about such bashful people: For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man will also be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy Angels [Mk. 8, 38]. Are you angry with yourself for what you eat and drink? - No. Should you be angry with others because they eat and drink with you and your God-given property? - No. Isn't it crazy to be angry? - Yes. Why are we doing this? Why are we discouraged? - From pride, from addiction to things, from lack of faith, from depravity of the heart. Be impartial to everything earthly, cling with all your heart to the heavenly, to God, whose right hand is inexhaustible and whose life is endless. Remember the Lord, who fed five thousand with five loaves and two fish, the Israelites in the desert, fed for forty years with manna, remember the countless number of riches sent by the Lord for six hundred thousand of the Jewish people, the widow of Sarepta, miraculously fed for two and a half years during a famine for the sake of her hospitality and love of hospitableness, Elijah the Thesbite, fed by corvids and an angel, the widow of a prophetic disciple, whose oil was miraculously multiplied by the man of God. Learn to be in abundance and scarcity and to always be satisfied with your participation and do not be faint-hearted, having such a caring, most good, wise, omniscient and omnipotent Father and Provider, who is the Lord and Creator of every creature, verbal and dumb, animate and inanimate. Let us not be self-willed, let us arrange our own good, but let us surrender ourselves, each other and our whole life to Christ God, Savior, Provider, Judge. A true believer with simplicity of heart in all circumstances of life, happy and unfortunate, relies on the Lord. When prodigal lust tormented me, I cried out to the Lord: save me, Lord, from the charm of the flesh, and He immediately saved me. We fornicate from the Lord with our sight, we fornicate with our taste, our hearing, our smell, our touch. Steer well with your spiritual steering wheel, that is, with your heart, certainly calling on the grace of God to help you. Look at the helmsman on a ship or steamboat: he constantly looks ahead of the ship to see whether it is going in the direction it should be, or is deviating to the side. If he neglected it a little, the ship would probably run aground, or collide with another ship, or take the wrong route. Steer the wheel well, so that your life will faithfully follow the path of Christ’s commandments. Why does our heart's gaze become clouded? From the attachment of sight to earthly things. Why do we treat our neighbors unlovingly, harshly, enviously, unkindly, with hatred? From our addiction to earthly things, from dissatisfaction with what we have, from a restless desire for more. We must treat our neighbors, family and strangers, always kindly, meekly, respectfully, calmly, with constant firmness in kindness and meekness, for we constantly walk before God, who oversees all our thoughts, words and deeds; and also because man is God’s most beloved creation, created in a special way, and redeemed by the priceless blood of the Lamb of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. When we have many guests, then the Providence Lord sends food and drink to them. Guests came to see me - I was called almost on the same day to two sick wealthy people. For performing the task, I was given a ruble in one place, three in another, along with the sexton. Thus, I received almost three rubles suddenly. And this is not a loss. I thank the all-merciful Providence, constantly vigilant over us. But grant, O Lord, to Your people holiness, peace, silence, health, salvation, long life and an abundance of earthly fruits. Punish mercifully for untruths, be long-suffering and loving, admonish unflaggingly, so that we do not grow old in our sins, and do not perish in cruelty. Wake up! Who is the Head of the Church? – Jesus Christ. Who is her pilot? - Holy Spirit. To those who love theater and clubs: if Baal is your god, then follow him, and if Jesus Christ is your God, then follow him. What do you choose: theater or church? But remember: the theater is Baal, and the church is Jesus Christ. Therefore, having received a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us keep grace, with which we will serve God acceptably, with reverence and fear, because our God is a consuming fire [Heb. 12, 28]. Christians! May we infinitely cherish the unshakable kingdom... You see how shaky, how wavering all the kingdoms of the earth are, what turmoil is everywhere, what defeats and victories, how unreliable their peace is. One Kingdom of Christ is eternal. Blessed are the Christians who believe in this and feel this great truth in their hearts. I thank Thee, O Most-merciful Lord, for last night in the gymnasium Thou didst save me twice by Thy goodness, Thy bounty, saving me, firstly, from decline and despondency of spirit when I realized the inadequacy of my studies with the gymnasium students, and secondly, from grief and tightness of spirit at the thought of my unjust neglect of the second teacher of the law, Father Archpriest Pavel Lamanov. Oh, how good it was for me when You saved me, how peaceful, easy, joyful! And how difficult it is before Your salvation! O my Savior! Everywhere You are my Savior! How vast, continuous, and swift are Your mercies towards me! God! Behold, all that is good in me is You, Your grace. What will I bring to You, my joy? But confirm in me, Lord, by Thy mercy alone, Thy goodness in me, in my heart. The Cross covers and protects me everywhere: when I am awake and when I sleep, I walk or sit, I eat food and drink - everywhere the grace of Him Crucified for me is with me. Glory and thanksgiving to the Lord, who loved me so much. Glory to the Lord, who created me, who rewarded me, who grew me, who enlightened and enlightened me unceasingly, who cleanses all my iniquities, who heals all my ailments, who crowns me with mercy and bounties! Behold, I am a miracle of His mercy every day! Do not treat anyone arrogantly, contemptuously, or rudely, if you want others to treat you with respect: [for] we are all of the same nature and in Christ we are all deified. I thank You, Lord, for You have granted me the grace with boldness, in Your truth and power, to perform two prayers with the blessing of water at the private bailiff Ivanov and at the peasant Nikolai Solovyov. In view of the highest, most important objects of faith, in view of the greatest shrine, what vanity, what stupid dreams very often occupy many of us. Here is a man standing before an icon of the Lord, the Mother of God, an Angel, an Archangel, a saint or an entire face at home or in a church, and sometimes instead of prayer, instead of putting aside all everyday worries for this time and in this place, he settles his accounts and calculations, expenses and income, enjoys the profit, is upset by the loss of profit or failure in enterprises (of course, there is no mention of spiritual profit or loss), or thinks evil about his neighbor, exaggerating his weaknesses, passions, suspecting him, envying him, condemning him, or, if it is in church, peering into the faces of those standing near him, also at who is dressed, who is good and who is not, or making plans on how to spend the day, where to go, in what pleasure or in what vanity to spend the day, etc., etc. And this often happens when? – When the highest, most heavenly Sacrament of the Eucharist, that is, the Most Pure Body and Blood of the Lord, is performed, when we must be entirely in God, completely occupied with thinking about the sacrament of redemption from sin, eternal damnation and death being performed for us, and about the mystery of our deification in the Lord Jesus Christ! How we crushed, how we became fussy, and why is it all? From inattention and negligence about your salvation, from addiction to the temporary, from weak faith or disbelief in eternity! By offending others internally or externally, obviously, we first of all cruelly offend ourselves, and in general, by committing sin, we offend ourselves, violating the law of God and falling away internally from the source of life - God. By offending others, we plunge a sword into our own heart, killing ourselves spiritually. Oh, what madness, what absurdity - sin! What a deceiver, what a charm, what a cunning! Fulfill the law of God urgently, although at first it is disgusting for a corrupt heart to fulfill it, turn away sin with all your might, although it is sweet and tempting for our voluptuous, but sinful flesh. Love your enemies, give away your property to the poor, love abstinence and fasting and a modest meal, get a lot of sleep, a lot of peace, recline on a soft bed. Love work, avoid laziness. Why does all nature and everything in nature revolve wisely and in amazing order? Because the Creator Himself disposes and controls it. Why is there so much disorder in the nature of man, the crown of creation, why is there so much disorder and ugliness in his life? Because he himself decided to dispose of himself, apart from the will and mind of his Creator. Sinner man! Surrender all of yourself, all your life to the Lord Your God, and your whole life will revolve in a wise, beautiful, majestic and life-giving order, and all of it will be beautiful, like the saints of God, who have given themselves entirely to Christ God and whom the Church offers us as an example to follow. Just as you expect favor from the Lord, so many expect your favor and favor: understand how to treat them, with what kindness, with what kindness! Understand how to bend God to your mercy! He who commanded me to love my brother and not to torture from the one who takes what is mine, to give even a shirt to the one who wants to sue me, can increase my wealth, as he gives us everything abundantly for the enjoyment of tuna. So, may I love my brother, not exacting from him for his unrighteousness against me, voluntarily giving him what he wants to take from me, for the Lord gives, and the Lord also takes away, whether through fire, through kidnapping, or otherwise. “You, brother, have secret connections,” one reverend husband remarked to his spiritual son. And he answered: no, father, I don’t have any. The reverend husband again says: no, you have - you have secret connections with sweets, with money, with elegant clothes, with gold and silver things, etc. Remember how greedy, stingy, money-loving, envious, prone to panache, etc. you are. The spiritual son of his reverend father was ashamed and agreed that he really had secret connections that separated him from God and from love neighbor. Where is our Christian life? Where is the desire for the highest? Where is the contempt for others? Where is the contempt of the flesh? Where is diligence to the soul? Where is meekness, humility and kindness? Where is the abstinence? Where is purity and chastity? Where is the mercy? Where is the love for enemies? Where is the patience for insults? Diseases? Misfortune? Where is the navel, tight? Where is our cross? We have become like the pagans and even surpassed them in sins. Is this a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people taken for an inheritance [1 Pet. 2, 9 ]? Everyone looks at their beautiful clothes, everyone cares about tables with good food and drinks, everyone longs for distinctions and awards, everyone thinks about winning money or collecting wealth, some about building houses, some about what. And some are talking about introducing a new view (idea) in science in order to distinguish themselves in some way from their other comrades in science. And very few people talk about how to better succeed in the Christian life, how to please God more conveniently. Our trouble! Christ the Savior, lift our burdens! Enlighten the eyes of our hearts! Take away our addictions, cleave our hearts to You! We pray to You for this with all our hearts! Where is the imitation of the Leader of the faith, the Lord Jesus, His Most Pure Mother, the prophets, apostles, hierarchs, martyrs, saints - their love for God and neighbor, their self-sacrifice for the sake of God and neighbor, their contempt for earthly things, philosophizing about things above? Notice how the Lord raises us everywhere from earth to things above: He gives the law on Mount Sinai, He appears to Elijah on Mount Horeb, He Himself is transfigured on Mount Tabor, He ascends from the Mount of Olives, He sends down the Holy Spirit to the apostles when they were sitting in the upper room - for what? May we rise above the earth. I have become everything to everyone [1 Cor. 9, 22]. Do not be upset that you have to serve daily in many different ways, and rejoice that you can serve the members of the great body of Christ, that you live not for yourself, but for the Lord Jesus Christ, your Master and benefactor. Stupid heart! I reject you, I despise you! - So tell him in all his passions and predilections. When, for example, he feels sorry for what his neighbor eats and drinks and is obsessed with the fear of poverty, or when he becomes angry with his neighbor, despises him, or when he is obsessed with false shame, fear, etc. Having said this from the heart, you will calm down! Say again: I place all my hope in God, not in things. Always recognize the spirit of the same devil immediately in different passions and addictions of life and despise them. Despise the flesh, from which the devil wants to make another deity and, hiding in its passions, wants to be considered a god himself. Oh, the trick! Despise the blessings of the world, which feed the criminal desires of the flesh. Cling to the one God undividedly, indissolubly. Forgive the brethren, pray for the brethren. Every day the Lord tests our hearts and bellies through various circumstances that arise according to His will. We must use these admonitions from Him. Your neighbor came to ask you for alms, and you took pity on him, and even cursed him - and so a test was made for you. Take advantage of this lesson. You met the pretty face of a woman, you stared and gazed with lust - again a test has been made for you. The main thing is love. And how does the enemy tear us away from love? - Ashes: money, food, drink, clothing. We are stupid! Blind heart! I marvel at Your unspeakable love for me, my Creator and Savior. You brought me from non-existence into being, You created for me the loins of the father and the seed-sac of the parents; You created for me gates and motherly breasts, You created motherly breasts for me and gave me milky springs in them; You poured out life-giving air for me and for your various animate and inanimate creatures, which you mostly appointed for me; You have planted in the depths of the earth and are extracting from them various fruits for my nourishment and pleasure; You created for me, to serve me or as food for me, various animals; You filled the air for me with the birds of the air; You have shone for me the radiant sun, moon and stars; You created for me gold, silver, all metals and precious and simple stones; You created for me the silkworm, as well as various plants that provide material for my clothing and my decoration; You created water for my washing, for drinking and for cooking my food; You created for me the joyful and strengthening tree sap; You created fire to illuminate and warm me, and, what is most amazing, amazing, and wonderful, You created me in Your image and likeness, and when I fell from You through sin, You restored me through the greatest mystery of Your Incarnation, suffering, death and resurrection. You have given me Your cross-bearing, martyred for me, Your life-giving Body as food, and from Your ribs, from Your hands and feet, Your Blood shed for me, that I may be cleansed in You and by You, that I may be sanctified by You, revived by You, bear fruit for You, and live through You forever and ever; You have given me the rebirth of water and the Spirit, the seal of the gift of Your Holy Spirit and the betrothal of a future inheritance; You have granted me repentance in the stomach and cleansing of my spiritual impurities; You have given me shepherds and teachers and leaders to You, to Your blessed Kingdom, You have blessed me at the very source of my being - in the loins of the Father, You have sanctified the gates and the false mother; You granted me healing for my bodily ailments in the Mystery of the Blessing of Unction; You gave me mentors and mentors and educated me truly; You constantly have mercy on me, cleanse me, save me, intercede, enlighten me, pacify me. How many of Your mercies have been and are constantly being revealed to me! What will I bring to You or what will I repay You for Your ineffable mercies, Lord! How merciful You are, my Lord, my peace, my joy, if in truth and simplicity of heart, mouth to mouth we speak with You! How quickly do You grant salvation! Glory to You! All who take the sword will perish by the sword [Matt. 26, 52], the Lord said to Peter the Apostle, as if foreseeing that the popes would one day take a knife or sword and combine secular and spiritual power in themselves and, as a result, perish. A person’s sin is in itself a punishment for him, although sometimes, perhaps, it is not noticed by him due to obstinacy in sin, or because of its false sweetness, or pleasant sting. Sin is a pestilence, plague, feverish delirium, morbid madness for that person who is subject to sin, for example, envy, covetousness, pride, vanity, enmity and hatred. And therefore we should not be embittered by a sinner, for example, a covetous, envious, stingy one, but we should have pity and pray for him sincerely, especially since we ourselves are subject to one or another sin or, all together, we ourselves experience the misery of sin. During the service, one must be extremely careful of double heart, so that, for example, through sight, it is not seduced by any material on clothes, or gold and silver, or through the imagination it is not carried away by any absent persons or things, or is not carried away by daydreaming or enmity against anyone, etc. We must serve the Lord with all our hearts, wholly turned to Him, to talk with Him simply, openly, but with fear. We turn our hatred against our neighbor’s sin onto our neighbor himself. Don't we know that sin is a deceiver, a rapist, a darker? The disembodied enemy, the prince of this world, is trying by all means to drop Christianity in the minds and hearts of people or to expel the Christian spirit from the hearts of Christians, the Christian way of thinking, feelings and Christian rituals, the materiality of Christian shrines, for example, the sign of the cross, holy icons, going to church, under the pretext that you can pray in the heart - in fact, to remove you from everything reminiscent of Christ the Savior and about the sacrament of salvation and about those who pleased Him. It instills negligence and disdain for the entire order of worship, for sanctified persons, for church rules, for fasting, for fasting, confession of sins, and communion. In Christians, everything has become only worldly, at least in many: education, and the learning of this world (classicism), and spending time or pleasure, and everyday activities - everything has an earthly, carnivorous character. The Gospel of the Lord, the sacred stories about the virtues of Christian martyrs and martyrs, hierarchs, venerable men and women or hermits who fought with the multi-passionate flesh, with the world, with the devil, are neglected. They would rather imitate the ancient pagan men who became famous in the military, civil, and scientific and artistic fields. One Existent, Who called everything into existence according to His one will, producing everything in everyone [1 Cor. 12:6], therefore to Him alone for all thanksgiving, His only will, as good and all-perfect, must be holyly fulfilled by everyone, as the Creator and Lord. The best days and hours of my journey on earth were when I was with You, Lord, when You were in my heart, when I cleansed my heart with fervent prayer before You. But the days and hours of earthly vanity were for me days and nights of sorrow and distress. Our hearts and our insides are filled with cold when dealing with our neighbors - there is no flame of love in them, the faces of our neighbors, and their need, poverty, grief, illness are alien to us. Only before the highest and the rich are we warm and affectionate. Why is this? Because we ourselves live in contentment, are partial to this contentment and to earthly goods, and are servile to those persons in whose hands, in our opinion, our well-being is; because they themselves have not experienced need, grief, or have experienced it a long time ago, but have now forgotten; because we do not enter through reflection into the spirit of Christ’s commandments, into the spirit of the Gospel. How sensitive we are to the slightest insults from our neighbors, how impatient, angry, and vindictive from pride, from the corruption of our hearts! Do not drink sweet tea in the morning, do not eat meat, or at least at night, milk and cream only with tea, and do not consume it raw, otherwise there is a great danger to chastity: the flesh is inflamed by lust. In general, tea is not recommended for a spiritually living Christian. The Lord did not have where to bow his head, and had nothing: this is how He taught us by His example not to cleave to anything earthly, but to consider ourselves strangers and strangers on this earth. Blessed is he who rises from the earth in spirit and is not bound by worldly lusts and pleasures, but cleaves to God. Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who in meekness and gentleness endured mockery, spitting and strangulation, beatings, the cross and death for our salvation; Forgive me that I have not yet learned from You meekness, humility and gentleness, and I am irritated and embittered at Your poor, like You in poverty, because they persistently ask for an addition to the mites that I give them! I realize and repent that I am proud, proud and impatient in dealing with them, because I, being similar to them in everything, and in sins much worse and inferior to them, dare to be angry and shout at them, while in their person You Yourself deign to accept alms, for they are Your members. And why? Because of Your gifts to me of goodness and love, generosity, which should serve as a strong incentive to mercy and generosity towards Your poor. And he will bring out your righteousness like the light and your justice like the noonday [Ps. 36, 6]. I will not be afraid of the people who have taken up arms against me on all sides [Ps. 3, 7]. Holy Master! By the grace of God, we can be not only servants of the Most High, but also advisers, just as the holy apostles looked at the elders, worthy of their presence at the apostolic council. The rulers fight mostly with ink, pens and paper, and not with living word and example. They have enclosed their activities in a form that is deadening the spirit, and they themselves treat their subordinates in a murderously cold and contemptuous manner, painful for their subordinates. The lamps are burning [Lk. 12, 35]. Why did our lamps go out or are they going out? Oh, how the heart hardens from eating fish and drinking tea, from eating black and white bread together! I experienced this during the fire that took place in Kronstadt in 1867, October 18th, at six and a half o'clock in the evening. We walked in a religious procession, in which there was an image of the Dormition of the Mother of God. Thank God the wind was from the south. The church remained prosperous. In the heart of a satiated person there is no consciousness and feeling of his sins, no feeling of God’s great blessings, no desire for God’s grace and shrines, no desire for heavenly blessings, no heavenly fatherland, no love for God and neighbor (only love for oneself, one’s womb and body); the heart of a sated person is rude, impudent, [...], envious, vain, impatient, contemptuous, lazy, voluptuous, cowardly, fearful, hypocritical, partial, not lively, treacherous. It is not in vain that gluttony is considered among the mortal sins: through it a person is subjected to spiritual death. Unfortunately, for the most part we do not even blame this passion for sin, and every day we make it a duty to ourselves to please our belly in whatever way we can. This is how conveniently we die. Oh, how many enemy networks there are! You, man, need to know and always remember who you are, who you are from and what you are for? You are a man, a rational creation, created in the image and likeness of God, less than an angel; then he fell into sin and eternal death and into the curse of God, completely corrupted by sin, defiled to the end at the very source of life - in the heart; then restored from the fall, renewed after corruption, redeemed from sin, curse and death by the incarnate Son of God, adopted by God in the Sacrament of Baptism, sanctified in Confirmation, deified in Communion, destined for eternal co-reign with Christ, if you live according to His commandments. Remember your high dignity, Christian, and do not humiliate yourself with addictions to temporary, perishable and dust-like goods or passions - pride, malice, envy, etc.; remember your deification, that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, that you are a member of the body of Christ, like others, and have a proper attitude towards yourself and towards others. Rage at the sin that is in you, and not at your neighbor; for example, many beggars ask you for alms, and you, out of addiction to money, are furious with them because they ask you every day for food and clothing, or to pay rent. Be angry not at them, but at yourself, at your pride, at your lust, at your addiction to things and at the poverty of your love for your neighbor; Christian self-sacrificing love is ready to give away one’s clothes to a needy neighbor, and gives without grumbling, with pleasure, but you have never yet given away your last possession - your cassock or your fur coat or your shirt, or your last ruble. But remember what the Lord has done for you, deigning to accept alms from you in the face of the poor! Or have you forgotten the Gospel and the divine words of the Lord Jesus Christ? Don't you, the teacher of Israel, know this [Jn. 3, 10 ]? Continuous prayer is an urgent need of the soul both as a tribute to God the All-Creator, Benefactor, Redeemer, and as a counteraction to the incessant machinations of the enemy of our salvation operating in our flesh. What is your life and how long will your life last? For twelve to fifteen hours, and then you throw yourself into bed like dead people. Not a dream - you would die in a few days; not light, not food, not drink, not air, not warmth - you would die. It would be good to publish a church liturgical magazine in which to place the main content of weekday, Sunday, holiday and Lenten services from the Octoechos, Menaion, Triodion; also the content of prayers during the performance of various Sacraments. This magazine would be a precious treasure for Orthodox Christians. He would clarify for them the content of the entire annual cycle of worship. How can you put out someone else's house when your own is on fire? How to extinguish other people's passions when your own are burning? - Impossible. Look after yourself, God is the Judge of others. Shepherds, shepherds! Take a bad look at your sheep. What answer will you give to the Chief Shepherd? You look after yourself well. How to look at the people, at the parishioners, no matter who they are? As sheep of the verbal flock of Christ, whose shepherd the Holy Spirit Himself has placed us. Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made us overseers, to shepherd the Church of the Lord and God, which He purchased with His own blood [Acts. 20, 28]. Apparently, sister Annushka does nothing, and yet she does a very important work of love for God and neighbor, fussing with her goddaughter - baby Sasha, who is also your goddaughter. She is like her Guardian Angel. But you don’t and can’t do this. Don’t judge her: she makes you no less, even more. Remove evil from your heart, your pride, self-love, envy, your stinginess. Do not judge anyone internally either. Do not believe the whisper of your pride that you are more worthy than others and do more: they are more - you are less. But know the action of the devil in yourself: believe that you are the work of the devil, inciting you to be angry with your neighbor in many different ways. It is enough for the disciples if they master the present manual of worship or Church history with a few verbal additions (St. John the Theologian only repeated: love one another). It is an important and difficult matter to be truly pious, therefore people who do not have the spirit of piety do not believe that others have it, and call them hypocrites, hypocrites and other disgraceful names, imposing on them their own thoughts and feelings. Yes, it is a great thing to be truly pious, so great that a truly pious person seems amazing. There is no need to have an addiction or aversion to anything from temporary things, neither to beautiful and luxurious, nor to ugly and torn, shabby clothes; neither to pleasant food and drink, nor to unpleasant; neither to a beautiful nor to an ugly face, neither to a rich nor to a poor, noble and simple face, but to value above all the one soul, which is the same for everyone - and to cleave entirely to the Lord God, our infinite life. I thank You, Lord, for you have granted me today to celebrate the early (funeral) liturgy without stumbling and have saved me many times before and after the liturgy. October 21, 1867 Is this how Christians live, expecting eternal life, unity with God and the saints? Is this how I live, teacher of Israel? Are you in the pleasures of life? Is it possible to combine both, is it possible to love God completely, loving sweets, sin that seems sweet? Is not the love of this world contrary to the love of God? Don't we notice this all the time? Do not humiliate the human dignity of others by neglecting their kindness or services or by being bitter and irritable, but have mercy on everyone, honor everyone, be condescending to everyone for the sake of Christ the Lord, of Whom we are all members, and for the sake of the image of God, in which we are all created. Disregard for others leads to disdain for you, irritability and anger also cause anger and irritability in others, and the flame of enmity flares up, which sometimes cannot be extinguished. We must acquire a kindly, patient, and enduring spirit. Holding back anger is like hail. Know the beauty of the enemy at the very beginning of anger: the enemy arouses anger in us because of one word, sometimes because of one look, sometimes simply because of an assumption, because of imagination, remembering. Be on guard of your thoughts and your imagination and your memory. There's no telling where a fire of anger can break out. When you see someone angry, turn away from him, and do not set him on fire with a word of opposition; by avoiding, you will save both him and yourself. Angry as a fire-breathing mountain. Volcanic eruptions are a moral lesson for us. Woe to that person - master, husband, boss, father or mother, whose servants, wife, subordinates, children do not want to restrain the anger of their master or father and mother with their compliance, obedience, silence - and fan the flames of anger with their resistance, stubbornness or obstinacy, anger. I thank You, Lord, for You have given me the grace to perform the Liturgy without stumbling. I thank You, for after stumbling at the prayer service, you raised me up at the prayer service, granting me complete freedom to read the prayer for the blessing of water and all the faces of the reigning house, and you drove away the dream of the enemy far away. Pitiful beggars, they fully deserve quick, sufficient compassion, and not just some. If they relentlessly follow you, excuse me, don’t blame me: crying need forces them to pursue you; give it - and they will happily leave. You are looking for light outside, that is, you are looking for addiction to visible light, brilliance, splendor, and neglect the inner (which comes from purity of heart, prayer), and meanwhile the light must shine from within us! Oh, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, streams of incorruptible, intelligent, non-evening light can open in us! The Most Holy Lady Theotokos is all inexhaustible fragrance. Just as incense in a censer through living coals turns into a pleasant fragrance, spreading throughout the entire church or throughout all the rooms, so the Most Holy Virgin Mother of God, by the grace and love of God the Father and the Son of God, who dwelt in Her inexpressibly and became incarnate from Her, and the Holy Spirit, who came upon Her, all fragrant, spreads the fragrance of Her virtues throughout the whole world, to everyone giving to the hungry to enjoy His spiritual, supernatural goodness, to the praise, thanksgiving, and imitation of the faithful. Wonderful incense is the name of the Lady. The immaterial fire of the Holy Spirit transforms this incense into a worldwide cloud of incense, spreading over the whole world, and everyone enjoys this incense according to the measure of faith and love. I sinned, today, because of my belly, I became embittered at my family for leaving me without tea and coming home late, although, however, I slept through the time when they were away. Don’t get excited, let the anger of the person who is angry at you pass; If it passes, he will repent, he will admit that he did something wrong and ask you for forgiveness. The mad heart rages against innocent babies too! Oh, how necessary it is to bridle the heart, to despise and stifle its impulses, like the impulses of hellish fire; You especially need to pray unceasingly and lament your sins. You are hot, dashing, but often kind, and Annushka’s sister is also hot, dashing, but often kind and helpful. You don’t get angry at yourself for being angry sometimes, and you shouldn’t be angry at her. Common infirmities - general and indulgence. Tolerate each other. I have nothing in the world of my own except God and my soul and the soul of my neighbor. That's just mine. Everything else is temporary, momentary, insignificant. There is nothing more shameful than the desires of the stomach, and there is nothing more insane and humiliating for the spirit than to be at enmity with one’s neighbor because of the stomach, because of certain deprivations, or simply because of the consumption of excess. Live hungry, but love. Let the heart not become double in prayer, let it not cleave to anything other than God, and in life also, let it always be in one God and with God. Commandant Kuznetsov said that nowadays girls and boys are not given a true education, they are not given a heartfelt education, they are not given faith. First of all, learn to be affectionate with your family. Joy is in mutual love and help, service, and not in food and drink, in the chambers of the rich, in gold and silver, in expensive clothes. What is in all this when there is no peace in the soul, when the soul is not at peace with God? Is this how I still look at this dust, at these slimy sweets like food, drink, sugar, pies, cakes, etc.? All this is momentary, insignificant, and yet how much lasting, humiliating harm to the soul comes from this momentary ashes! How much callousness this attachment leaves in the soul! How much killing egoism! Earthly love still has a lot of place in my heart: addiction to food and drink, beautiful clothes, beautiful furniture, dishes, etc., pity for what is good, sweet, shiny, dear to one’s neighbor (although one’s neighbor is dearer than anything in the world) and desire for oneself. Blessed is he who has acquired living faith and true prayer: he has found true deliverance from passions and will rest in peace. And whoever is without this is incessantly worried. One must hate sweets and be content with what is necessary. Oh, how addiction to sweets cools hearts towards God and neighbor and often arouses what enmity towards one’s neighbor! Oh, how harmful satiety is for the soul, especially for a soul that has corrupted itself with sin. I thank the Lady of Tikhvin in the living room, who clearly saved me through my prayer. October 24. I thank the Lord Jesus Christ, my King, who clearly solemnly saved me by touching the throne with faith in the Peter’s chapel on October 24 at Vespers. I thank the Lord, who vouchsafed me with great boldness to perform the blessing of water while looking at the image of the Savior. Temptation is defeated by the calling of the Savior. How the devil educates and guards in a person his earthly attachments, his passions, how he strengthens, if a person is inattentive to himself, to his heavenly calling. Oh, how you must always be vigilant over your heart! How diligently we must cultivate heavenly love in our children, young people, in everyone, gradually eradicating earthly love, imagining that heavenly love is God’s and from God, and earthly love is devilish and from the devil, that is, [I mean] addictions; how the first is peaceful, eternal, reasonable, and the second is vague, transitory, unreasonable. Heavenly love is love for God and neighbor, love for the heavenly fatherland, for the glory there, love for virtue - meekness, humility, abstinence and purity, obedience, patience, almsgiving. Be careful that your heart does not become double between attachment to God and to the world, especially when you serve God, and always and everywhere; Give yourself completely as a sacrifice to God, like Abraham did his son Isaac. In the church, do not look at the faces, let everyone be equal before you, do not be ashamed and do not be afraid of the one who wears the diadem. Oh, sweetest, eternal, Heavenly Fatherland! Sweets and acquisitions are rust for the heart, the destruction of love for God and neighbor. You regret sweets, but your heart is the temple of the Holy Spirit, don’t you regret it? Do you save sweets and money, but don’t take care of your heart? - Madness. With me, as with Elisha, is the heavenly army, ready to defend me. It is good for the Lord to work. Place all your trust in Him, all your sorrow. Be silent, stop [Mk. 4, 39]. This happens to us. The Lord speaks to the storm of passions roaring within us, and it will be silent and cease. You just need to pray. Real life is a rag, a dream. Anything that hinders the love of God must be removed or despised. One must have determination and willpower in the fight against passions, firmness and constancy in virtue; one must resolutely desire renewal of the spirit. You are chasing dreams, man: love the truth, God - the beginning and source of everything that exists. Sweets are a network of enemy laid for me. Thou hast laid down steadfast love for us, O Lord: Thou hast given Thy only begotten Son to die for us 68 . Grant me, Lord, to have a love for You as firm as adamant and to trample upon earthly love; grant me to fulfill Your commandments, grant me to see the image of Your glory in every person, although he bears the wounds of sins, to honor everyone, to despise no one, to consider everything earthly as rubbish compared to man. Vine and branch. I am the vine, and you are the branches [Jn. 15, 5]. Learn this secret. The branch lives the life of the vine. The intelligent branch must feel that the other branches are one with the Vine and with it, and sympathize with them. Intelligent branches must graft others into the animal Vine, correct, purify. All who take the sword will perish by the sword [Matt. 26, 52]. What the Lord said to the Apostle Peter applies to his successors - popes, priests, Jesuits, Catholics, to the secular authorities, to their troops. Both people and their passions are like a ghost. What need, misfortune, inexhaustible poverty we were in, when the Lord Himself came to us from heaven, taking on our image - human nature, and sovereignly saved us from sin, curse and death. But even now he constantly saves us from spiritual troubles, sins, passions, and strengthens our weakness. What need, misfortune, poverty we all find ourselves in today! Does a man of God's Body and Blood (that is, you, a Christian) behave this way and should he behave this way? - No. It should be all the fragrance of holiness, meekness, humility, gentleness, non-covetousness (God alone is his acquisition), purity and chastity, abstinence, patience and courage, constancy. The wicked flesh, even in the very sanctuary of the church, is raging with various worldly passions: rancor, enmity against a brother, remembering his imaginary or real insults, internally entering into debate and ranting with him, falling into inner zeal and thus allowing himself to be robbed by the enemy of his soul and laughing at himself or remembering how his brother takes carelessly sweets, feeling sorry for them, is hostile to his brother, inflamed with anger at him, forgetting that he himself eats and drinks sweetly from others and that everything taken by his neighbor will be measured to us in abundance. Gluttony feeds on the sins living in us and intensifies. This is why fasting is necessary - it weakens the power of sins and passions. On the occasion of the fire - talk about the flame of passions and the fire of Gehenna. Your own good (beyond the glory of God and obedience to the Lord) requires that you love your enemies, for love is sweet and peaceful, but enmity is bitter, troubled, and oppressive. One should be angry at the sting of sin (for example, anger, envy, stinginess, etc.) or at the culprit, and not at one’s neighbor. For example, they take your sweets mercilessly, and you become indignant, angry - indignant, angry at your addiction, at your delusion, that you, created in the image of God, cleave to the dust, value insignificance, and you despise man, this image of God - man, to whom the whole earth is subjugated, all cattle, birds, animals, fish, plants, metals, [you despise] as nothing! As voluptuousness increases, hostility, contempt and injustice towards our neighbor who uses our sweets increases, and therefore we must despise and hate sweets in every possible way or maintain complete indifference to them, as we do to dirt, clay, rubbish, harmful mucus. God save every person from despising, hating and offending his neighbor, who is a member of Christ and created in the image of God, because of these mucus, because of this dust. Isn’t Almighty God, who created everything with one word, able to multiply everything for us, just as he multiplied the five loaves? - Of course he is strong. Let us therefore keep His commandments. But we won’t eat at night. For food, drink, sweets stand like a stake in us. Should be despised, not [...]. In You alone there is life, Lord, in love for You and your neighbor. Shouldn’t we joyfully give alms to the poor, these members of ours and Christ’s? And why should you grieve when you give them alms? Do we grieve when we ourselves receive mercy from someone? - No. And it should be the same here. Why does grief occur when giving alms? – From addiction to one’s flesh, to money, to sweets, etc. From a false view of life and the means of life. You eliminate Providence, which constantly takes care of us. If we want to be gods, providences, creators of our own well-being... After that, do you not rely in everything on God, when He showed such great providence for you that He gave you the Flesh and Blood of His Son for food and drink? If you want to be happy in life yourself and teach others to be truly happy in life, learn and teach to rely completely on God’s providence in each one’s own conscientious activities. All our misfortunes and worries come from dissatisfaction with our current situation, from dissatisfaction with those around us. Rely on providence, which will arrange everything for good, and, apparently, for evil; lost - do not grieve: and loss is good; if you have offended, leave those who have offended to God, and it will turn out well. What grace the Lord has, what peace! After work, sleep is pleasant, food and drink are pleasant. After the labors of temporary life, how pleasant will be the eternal rest, the eternal supper of the Kingdom of Heaven. Oh, what sweetness is tasted by the prophets, apostles, hierarchs, martyrs, saints, unmercenaries who labored here for the glory of God! Why are we sleeping? Why do we exhaust life through passion? Our heart must give inner meaning and unity to all our thoughts, activities, all things and not get carried away by the first impressions of things. The stamp of reason must be on all our deeds. System, unity, purpose. Look at the sciences, how they are systematized. Oh, if only our life were so correct! However, she is guided by the finger of God! Not everything has to be our way. Let us surrender our whole life to Christ our God. Do you have a taste for prayer at home and in public, worship, reading the Gospel, holy books? If not, then you are sick, you are spiritually dead. Don't tell me that you have a desire to read worldly books. – This is flesh, this is the world. You have a soul with heavenly needs. Respect, respect for man as created in the image of God, as the price of the Blood of Christ, as a child of God in Christ; care, care for him, for his spiritual and physical needs. God! You are all grace, love, all Your deeds are goodness. You are all indescribable beauty, and Your deeds are beauty; but also in the works of Your hands You are wisdom and beauty. Everything was created, decorated, and exists by You. How many creatures great and small, animate and inanimate, rational and irrational! How many benefits for intelligent creatures! And to top it all off - the Church on earth, the beginning of eternal life, the heavenly and spirit-creating sacraments and the sun between them - Your Body and Blood! Do not trust your heart in its impulses, which sometimes, apparently, are just, humbly admitting your corruption before God, but leaving judgment over those who do injustice and offense to God, who is all-wise, omniscient, all-good, all-powerful, all-perfect. Otherwise, in our impulses, we can anger God and harm our neighbors and ourselves. Oh, we are evil, we are deceitful! Is it possible and should one listen to the boss when he is in a hurry to perform God’s service without special need? Ask yourself: don’t you sometimes do the same thing? Are you in a hurry unnecessarily? In this case, condescend to your boss as you condescend to yourself, forgive him as you apologize to yourself. Do not offend God by opposing your boss or being angry with him. Haste does not always harm the service and glory of God. Resistance to the boss often reflects our hatred of him, disrespect, contempt, rivalry, ill will, stubbornness, from which God forbid, and reluctance to the glory of God. This is easy to notice by the feeling of embarrassment and enmity that permeates the entire soul. Sometimes you can hastily perform the service without disturbing the rite of worship, and maintain peace of mind. After all, our God and our soul are swift as lightning. Our love for God and neighbor is tempted in every possible way, and we must always be ready to endure temptations with meekness and gentleness, constantly looking with the eyes of our hearts at God, who sees everything and judges everyone. We are very weak in mutual love. If our neighbor took something of ours, for example, a favorite thing, sweets, etc., and we breathe hostility towards him, he said an offensive word - and we are offended; he did not please us - and we are offended. Where is Christian gentleness? Let's despise the outside, let's respect the inside. Why are you listening to the animal, the wild voice of your flesh, satiated and groaning under the yoke of food and drink? Why do you breathe hostility towards those who consume food and drink, which you should have despised long ago! O mad flesh! Or have you not known the sweetness of the Lord, why are you still pleasing your belly? From those innumerable, greatest, most beneficial deeds that the Mother of God has shown and continues to show to the Christian race, create a radiant image of Her good, most pure, perfect soul and worthily marvel at Her divine virtues, kindness, beauty and thank and honor Her unceasingly with all your heart. We must make every effort to ensure that our hearts are not divided between God and the world, or worldly and carnal lusts, between our neighbors and things. So, when you serve God, do not look at human faces or at rich clothes, at gold and silver, do not think about pleasing your belly, leave all care for the flesh, especially all carnal lust, and be all in God, all heavenly. When you have to share a meal with your neighbor, do not spare him sweet foods and sweet drinks, may your heart and soul not cleave to sweet foods and drinks instead of your neighbor, but may you despise sweets and may you honor your brother, even though he often comes to you, and may he willingly throw everything he eats at his service, for he is the image of God and the king of the earth, the ruler of all creatures. You have conquered everything, it is said, under his nose [Ps. 8, 7]. A priest, when he serves in a church or on behalf of the Church in a home or in some other place, he is the herald of the Church, its prophet, the organ of the Holy Spirit and must, with greatness of spirit and with boldness, loudly, sedately, firmly do his job, as God’s prophet or as an apostle, and stand above any shame or fear of man. What is the benefit of living faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? – Enormous, innumerable benefits: freedom from the torment of the passions, from their dishonor, peace of mind due to a calm conscience, peace with neighbors due to restraining the impulses of passions and giving everyone their due, as required by the Gospel, joy in the Holy Spirit, health of the body due to freedom from the passions that most harm our health (intemperance, debauchery, anger, malice, envy, laziness), clarity of thoughts, success in business. Believe, therefore, all of you, in Jesus Christ, the restorer and renewer of our nature. Turn to Him constantly in prayer when you feel the violence of sin, passions or lack of strength in yourself, and you will receive quick help. It is sweet to be with the Savior, who exists everywhere and fills everything like air. We are calm by the grace of God, but our Eastern brothers - the Cretans and Eastern Christians in general - are suffering 69. Do you think that they are more sinners than you? - No... but if you do not repent, you will all perish in the same way [Lk. 13, 3]. Perhaps their violent death, their blood, is our atonement. Perhaps they, as martyrs, serve as the foundation of the Church, [the foot] after all the saints; perhaps they closed the gates of hell that opened on the Church. Look at the archpriest as a member of Christ and respect him as a member. In memory of God's mercy that happened to me in the morning during Matins in church on October 27. Because of the excess in food, God allowed the enemy to move into my insides, and as a result I felt as if I were being pierced by thorns or needles in my insides and could not control my heart and tongue. But when I fell, kissing with faith, to the holy throne, I immediately felt that the gore in me was gone, I felt at ease, I received freedom of heart and could already serve with boldness and loudness. Glory to the Lord for this. God! The air above Your holy throne is sweet to me, for the air on it is blessed, and its dust is sacred. October 27. I received the obvious intercession of the Mother of God in the gymnasium in front of Her image in the hallway. Through her intercession and intercession I was saved from the sorrow and cramped conditions and humiliation that befell me for my anger at the boy and pushing him. He behaved with boldness and dignity in front of the director and students, calmly, self-controlled, and important. He celebrated the Liturgy with grace and loudness. The royal house spoke by name at mass and vespers. For the blow of the hand of a poor orphan boy, who persistently asked for alms, I was overcome by grief and cramped conditions, but through the prayer of repentance I was granted mercy from the Lord, going to Paraskeva Alexandrovna Yudenich to serve the all-night vigil. He served the All-Night Vigil loudly and freely; The akathist to the martyr Paraskeva was read solemnly, with a loud voice. Glorious akathist! Walk in the ever-living consciousness of God’s presence and in the remembrance that God sees all your thoughts, desires, intentions, all your actions. Why was I angry with the beggar? Did I take off my clothes for him, did I give him the last piece and left myself hungry, did I lose my health for him? There was nothing like that. I always remain well-fed, clothed, under a clean and spacious roof. Why am I furious at the persistent beggars? - From satiety, petrified insensibility, from extreme false love for oneself. Those who have sinned against the Lord! Oh! We cannot live in luxury when there are many poor! Sell ​​your possessions and give to the poor [Matt. 19, 21 ]! You bought everything for yourself that is in your closets and chests! All this is the property of the poor: sell and distribute to them. I rightly received a reprimand from the director for coming to class late, because I began to neglect my work. Cursed be he who does the Lord's work carelessly [Mer. 48, 10]. God! Have mercy and correct the work of my hands! Correct the work of the hands of my brethren, the teachers of the gymnasium and the rulers. Looking at the Divine-Human image, especially when He shines with Divine glory on Tabor, I think: how You, Lord, have adorned human nature through Your Incarnation and especially through Your Transfiguration, and how we, unworthy, darkened by sins, little value our deified nature, and some of us, even the majority, do not value it at all; how we humiliate and defile ourselves with passions - pride, vanity, envy, intemperance, gluttony and drunkenness, covetousness, absent-mindedness, prodigal uncleanness, vanity and other passions! Also, looking at Your Theanthropic image, I think: I must look at every Christian in You, or in unity with You, for You led humanity, which became Your body through faith in You. I must look at Christians as Your members and at myself as one of them, and attract everyone to You, serve everyone, and sincerely love everyone. The reward from God for fasting is that the fasting Daniel the prophet was preserved unharmed in the lion’s den. Daniel represents Who? - The Lord, who descended into hell, was free among the dead 71 and suffered nothing from the wiles of hell. The Church of God cares for the whole world, suffers and prays daily for the peace of the whole world. Indeed, it is a pity for the world when you read and hear about incessant turmoil, wars, and disasters! After all, everyone who inhabits the world is brothers like us, our flesh and blood. How not to feel sorry for them! Our enemy the devil is the spirit, and the spiritual weapon against him is the cross of Christ or the sign of the cross. To return the hearts of the fathers to the children, and to the disobedient the way of thinking of the righteous [Lk. 1, 17]. The disease of the age is that the hearts of fathers have turned away from their children, and children from their fathers, especially spiritual ones; there is no concern for souls, only concern for the pocket, so that it is always full, and for clothes and distinctions. What comes out of this? The children all scattered in all directions; there is no faith in the heart, no zeal for the Church, this ark of salvation. And you can’t count how many people are contrary: every step you take, you are opposed to the Gospel, the Church, your way of thinking is completely contrary to the spirit of the Gospel and the Church. Regarding what, for example? – Although regarding alms. Give to everyone who asks you [Lk. 6:30], says the Lord. Our opponents say: no, what I have is mine, and I will not give it to anyone else, even if you ask me - everyone work for himself, get it himself; and regarding the preservation of purity and chastity, betrayed by the Gospel, listen to what today's wise men say! You need to turn your ears away. October 29. I prayed to the Lord that I might perform the Liturgy with boldness, in the truth of my heart, with much power, for the glory of God - and the Lord fulfilled the request of my heart. He sang the Liturgy with boldness. I celebrated the wedding badly, not cheekily, not sincerely, not boldly, with fear, I stumbled, I didn’t finish reading the Gospel: in my heart there was a villain-enemy, a fierce adversary! Why did this happen? Because I ate deliciously and beyond measure, I relaxed myself. But the subsequent life of the spouses depends on the wedding: how they got married, so they will live, for sincerity, warmth, and strength when reading prayers bring down the blessing of God on the couple, and lethargy, hypocrisy, timidity, omissions of words deprive the young couple of some of the gifts of God, and for the sins of the priest, the newlyweds are deprived of the grace of God. Therefore, pronounce all the words of the prayers heartily, boldly and forcefully mint them out. The Church educates and prepares in you citizens of heaven, children of God, heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ. (Parishioners.) (The law teacher at the school too.) It is not the flesh that must be nourished - the nest of sin, passions, the devil, but the spirit that is suppressed by carnal pleasures, which must be nurtured, cutting off the sweets. When, during marriage, you feel embarrassment, fear, thoughts of doubt, despondency, reluctance to do something, a dislike of your heart towards the bride and groom, know that this is the enemy working in you. Immediately rise up from despondency, embarrassment and fear and with the words in your heart: I trust, Lord, my heart is in Your strength - read and act boldly, with boldness, calmly, unhurriedly; do not yield a single step to the enemy, that is, not a single word, that is, so that he does not steal a single word, does not steal from the heart and from the tongue. Fight courageously, don't be afraid of anyone. You are above everyone here, as a shepherd and father. Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning [Lk. 12, 35], that is, souls burning with faith, hope, love. The loins are girded, that is, practice relaxation of the heart, strengthen the heart with faith, contemplation of God, abstinence, prayer, and almsgiving. There is strength in unity. Live peacefully, friendly, and sociably with your brothers. Looking at the high ranks - royal, bishop, priest and others, marvel at God's goodness, generosity, love for mankind, for which the Lord awarded such honors to man, created in His image and likeness, and remember what He destined humanity for in eternity. Saint John the Theologian is surprised at this in the Apocalypse and says: And he made us kings and priests to God and His Father [Rev. 1, 6]. Deeply respect the rank of king and priest. We must read and sing prayers and chants in church or at home so that thought, feeling, and correction are visible in the reading and singing. Every day the flesh attracts and presses me to the earth through ordinary heaviness and through various addictions (food, drink, clothing, money, various things), and my soul must daily strive towards heaven, as if created for heaven, as having come from heaven (from God through the breath), as redeemed for heaven by the blood of the Son of God. In the morning you have to leave drinking tea and eating a bun - unnecessary. One empty habit. One pious man, seeing his people forgetting themselves in their sins, often repeated in their presence the following words from their morning prayers: suddenly the Judge will come and everyone’s deeds will be exposed 72 . He said this importantly, thoughtfully, firmly, and many, feeling all the truth and power of his words, abandoned their sinful deeds. God! I thank You for Your obvious salvation of me, a sinner, in the gymnasium (October 30, Monday). Be zealous for holiness, for righteousness to death, and not for a moment be weakened by any sin. Remember how holy the Lord our God is, in whose image we were created, how infinitely great is His holiness, how infinite is His hatred of sin. Hate sin with all the strength of your soul, but not the sinner who is possessed 73 from sin; love holiness with all your soul. Do not trust carnal pleasures and pleasures, gaiety - the poison of sin is hidden in them. Do not believe a hair of your flesh - she is a prodigal, do the opposite of her desires; she is angry - accept goodness, she is stingy - accept generosity, strives for delicacy and satiety - accept moderation, fasting, eat simple food and drink, plant-based, not animal; furious at the beggars when they persecute us in order to get the required amount of money from us, and is consumed by pity not for the beggars, but for the money - let us take pity for our kindred nature, for poor humanity, and satisfy their needs as far as possible, meaning the word “opportunity” in the true and not the false sense; whether we are embarrassed when we need to be peaceful, whether we give in to unreasonable fear when courage and vigor are needed, whether we lose heart when we need the triumph of the spirit - let us perceive peace in our souls, courage, greatness, firmness (for example, in service, in the performance of the Sacraments); if you breathe hatred towards anyone every day, seeing and exaggerating every twig, every weakness, error in your neighbor and turning it into a reason for hatred, enmity, slander, condemnation, wolfish glances, gloominess - immediately throw away the enmity - this is the offspring, these tares in us of the devil and accept love that is long-suffering, merciful, covering, enduring everything, not thinking evil, never falling away. The safe and just thing is to hate yourself, your many-passionate flesh, your old man, who sins a thousand times daily with persistence, continuously, knowledge and ignorance, willy-nilly and involuntarily, day and night, in mind and thoughts, in word and in deed. This is useful because it leads to correction, and to hate your neighbor for anything is illegal, insane, and destructive, for the essence of the law is to love your neighbor as yourself, and the Son of God came in human form in order to personally teach the commandment of love; For this purpose, He served in every possible way, doing good to people, healing their illnesses, raising the dead, for this purpose He washed the feet of the disciples, for this purpose He ascended to the cross, to teach us from the cross to lay down our lives for our friends, and the Apostle John says: We know love in this, that He laid down His life for us, and adds: and we must lay down our lives for our brothers [1 John. 3, 16]. Hatred, malice is the greatest sin, raging with special force in the corrupted nature of humankind, a daily illness, a constantly smoldering fire, ready to flare up and burst into flame at the slightest occasion, a snake hiding in a hole, ready to crawl out and bite at the slightest occasion; The same must be said about prodigal lust: it also does not sleep, especially if we often eat and drink and become satiated. And the urge to eat and drink should not always be believed, but with extreme caution, because the flesh, corrupted by sin, is always ready to turn this natural need into evil, into passion: and this is unpleasant for it, and this is necessary, and this is necessary, this food is not good, this is harmful; Against this passion there is a virtue opposite to it - abstinence, moderation. There are also many passions in us, against which we must always be on guard, for example, laziness and relaxation, when we either do not want to do the work of our calling, for which we are appointed, or we do it sluggishly, carelessly, incompletely, unconscionably, not from the heart - a sin that is especially grave and harmful in its consequences in those people who are placed on guard over the well-being of the people or the salvation of human souls, for often depends on their laziness and negligence. the temporary and eternal fate of many people, when, for example, due to the negligence of the shepherd, the verbal sheep perish in ignorance and in vices; What does such a person need? What is needed is vigilance, hard work, patience, unceasing prayer, teaching, prohibition, supplication; There are also sins of zeal, envy and ill will and malice, prideful rebellion, when, for example, a subordinate person resists the lawful orders of his superior, whom he does not love or respect for anything - one must be firmly armed against such a sin, as against the fiend of Satan, who fell with pride, resistance to God the Creator and which to this day teaches everyone who succeeds to resist God the All-Creator. Resistance is akin to willfulness and stubbornness - also the devil's song, when a person does not want to do a legally required task or does not do it as he should and as asked, but in his own way, in discord with the desires of, for example, parents, bosses or even his comrades, often to the detriment of himself and others, just to fulfill his will, to satisfy his stupid pride, in a word, to fulfill the will of sin, the flesh, the devil; against this sin one must acquire childlike, good-natured and simple-minded obedience to parents and superiors, obedience that willingly cuts off one’s own will in order to fulfill their legal will, and willingly sacrifices some external benefits that could come from fulfilling one’s will, for example, some material profit, some pleasure, improved health, etc. But obedience to the will of God and the queen in a Christian should extend to self-sacrifice, to the state of the soul, to the shedding of blood, to the loss of health and generally external well-being, for to God we owe life and all blessings, and from Him comes our eternal destiny. There is also the sin of hypocrisy, against which we must take frankness: as they say, what is in the soul is on the face and on the tongue; hypocrisy is a constant deception to the spiritual harm of others, keeping people in constant deception regarding the face of the hypocrite and regarding faith and virtue itself, performed by hypocrites outwardly, perversely, which is why those who look at them learn to perform the rituals of faith and virtue also outwardly, pervertedly, without entering the spirit of faith and virtue. Such were the Pharisees whom the Lord strongly rebuked. Hypocrisy bars both oneself and others from entering the Kingdom of Heaven, because it makes it impossible for a person to internally correct himself, turning him around on external rituals alone (going to church without a firm intention to improve in life; annual repentance out of form, out of duty, out of habit; accepting the Holy Mysteries also out of duty, without a decisive intention to change one’s life). Produce fruit worthy of repentance [Matt. 3, 8], said the holy Forerunner of the Lord and the Lord Himself. By their fruits you will recognize them [Matt. 7, 16], the Lord spoke about the hypocrites. We must avoid drinking milk, cream, or cow's butter in the morning, for all this makes the heart rough and predisposes the heart and flesh to lustful movements. Be faithful to God always and in everything: whether you say the Lord’s Prayer, say every word sincerely, with reverence, focusing your mind and heart on one God, not paying attention to anyone; Whether you read another prayer, read it again with all your heart, without double hearts, without paying undue attention to anyone or anything. The enemy of our salvation especially tries to distract our heart and mind from God when we begin to serve Him, and tries to adulterously tie our heart and mind to something extraneous. Always, at every moment, be with God, especially when you offer prayer to Him: at this especially time, be faithful and unchanging to Him. If you change, you will fall away from life, you will plunge yourself into sorrow and distress. Often, having given alms against our will to the poor, who often and persistently persecute us, we grieve as if we were brought to the gallows, as if we were parting with life, although we ourselves are well-fed, and clothed, and warm, and everything is going well. This is empty grief, as they say, from having nothing to do or from the lack of real sorrows, misfortunes, misfortunes, from an excess of happiness. And how angry we are at those asking, how irritated we are, screaming, yelling, and showering them with curses! And they, like meek, affectionate sheep, call us by tender names - darling, father, etc. Here is our closest relationship, our Father, our Mother, our King, our Queen - God in Three Persons, the Most Pure Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ; then our leaders and fathers in Christ - forefathers, fathers, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, hierarchs, martyrs, confessors, saints or abstinents, etc. You are no longer strangers and aliens, but fellow citizens of the saints and members of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone [Eph. 2, 19 – 20]. How stubborn my heart is often, devilishly stubborn - it does not want to give to the beggars who urgently demand alms, although it realizes that their demand is fair; How sorry it is to part with extra pennies, how indignant we are, irritated by those who demand them, and how reluctantly we give alms when forced! Oh, pride, oh, satiety! I realize that this is sinful, that such disposition of the heart is from the devil, from sinful self-love - according to the spirit of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, one must deny oneself, give one’s last to those in need, sacrifice one’s love for one’s love for one’s neighbor in case of need, and not at all become irritated and not despondent when, beyond expectation and beyond desire, not only in time, but also untimely, sacrifice one’s property to one’s neighbor or serve him with one’s own strength, with our breasts, with our spiritual energy, constantly bearing in mind the Author and Finisher of faith, the Lord Jesus Christ, who willingly endured, without the slightest murmur, to the end, for the sake of our eternal salvation and bliss, all kinds of labor, hardships, insults, beatings, spitting and, finally, shameful death. How little faith I still have, how willful, stubborn, earthling, how little I still have faith in the Lord and hope in Him and love for Him! For instead of hoping in Him, I still place hope in earthly blessings, instead of trusting completely in Him, I trust my carnal thoughts, feelings, movements or the words of carnal people who say corrupt; Instead of loving Him completely, with all my heart, I am still wounded by earthly love, carnal love, the love of things! I have not yet become completely attached to God, which is why I am still faint-hearted when deprived of earthly things, at which I should rejoice; I grieve when giving alms, when I should be complacent and imbued with pity for the poor, daily driven by their poverty, like a cruel driver. So I am faint-hearted, I grieve when I should be generous and calm! Some stupid delusion of the heart happens! And when you believe your state of mind with the Gospel, compare it with the highest image of our behavior - the Lord, and you will find that you have been carried away by the dream of your heart, that the state of your soul is unreasonable, that in your heart sits a dreamer, a liar, a murderer, Satan - and by the consciousness of all this you will again come to a calm, reasonable state. We are so attached to earthly goods, and not to God and our neighbor, that we are ready to lay down our souls for these goods, and not for God and our neighbor. Oh, how arrogant we are in contentment! How proud they became, how they became like dumb beasts - lions and wolves, tormenting their prey! Where is true mercy? Where is the charity, where is the effort about the benefits of poor people who barely have somewhere to lay their heads? Where is the memory of their bitter fate? Where is the impartial representation of their true situation? We depict the sign of the cross on ourselves, by the way, to remind us that if God the Father did not spare His Only Begotten Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also give us all things with Him [Rom. 8, 32 ]; also in order to always see in him a constant encouragement for mutual love. Give alms with love to the poor, as members of the body of Christ, as to Christ Himself, and you will offer a sacrifice pleasing to Christ and will little by little fulfill His Gospel; Treat everyone, serve everyone meekly, humbly, kindly, considerately, as if with Christ Himself, and you will continually offer a sacrifice pleasing to Christ. But avoid words of irritability, bitterness, murmuring, shouting, and contempt at all costs, for Christ our God is always with us and in our midst. May we always have the Lord before us. Whoever tastes a lot of earthly sweets, his heart has become coarsened in them and he is incapable of spiritual, heavenly sweets. That is why it is necessary not to attach one’s heart to earthly sweets, but to constantly develop a taste for spiritual sweets through abstinence, through attending and listening to divine services, through thinking about God and contemplating His perfections, through prayer, reading the word of God and communion of the Holy Mysteries. Think about what you are called to do? - To the Kingdom of God. You have been called to this from your very baptism. Sin constantly chills me 74 internally, defiles, confuses, darkens, plunges me into slavery, but this is what I ask of you, Lord, that you may cleanse my sins, that you may grant me the grace to get rid of them, to trample on them. The thought came to me of the death of kings, with whom the world itself is small, who possess all the treasures of the world, all honors, and I shed tears, remembering the frailty of human nature, its transitory nature. But he passed, and now he is gone; I look for him and do not find him [Ps. 36, 36]. The enemy of our salvation removes from us the thought of death, resurrection, judgment, unspeakable bliss and unspeakably terrible torment, and tells us one thing: enjoy earthly pleasures, eat, drink, be merry. The addiction of my heart to earthly goods deprives me of the true life of the spirit, greatly prevents me from loving God and my neighbor and makes me a moral monster, perverting my rational, free, heavenly nature and making it somehow dumb, slavish, earthly. The less dependent I am on these earthly sweets and beauties, the more reasonable, free, and sublime I become, the more heavenly I become. Beggars are truly gentle sheep, worthy of all pity, and this is especially true for children and adults; we must have mercy on them. Oh, what reproach of the gob-breakers 75 is their soul filled with, what humiliation of the proud [Ps. 122, 4], what trampling! What answer will we give to the Judge, the Father of the orphans and the Judge of widows [Ps. 67, 6 ]! You should not drink tea in the morning and eat a bun early. And what senselessness is there in pursuing momentary, crude, carnal pleasure and then enduring cramped conditions, languor almost all day, being paralyzed in all spiritual pursuits, enduring humiliation, shame, and spiritual impotence within oneself? So, don’t drink lukewarm things in the morning, lest the sinful warmth in the flesh and the fire of voluptuousness intensify. Whatever sweetness (sweet piece) whoever takes from you, do not chase after it, do not feel sorry for it, do not be irritated with the one taking it because of it, but be indifferent to it; equally, do not be offended when they do not invite you to dinner and do not be tempted by food and drink, for all this is pus and dust and all this is momentary. Keep love in your heart for God and your neighbor unchangeably. He breathed into his face the breath of life [Gen. 2, 7]. This means that the human soul is the breath of God and therefore must constantly breathe with God, cleave to Him alone, and not cleave to temporary things; breathe with the spirit of heaven, and not of the earth. November 3. I thank You, Lord, quick Obedient and quick Helper of my soul. This day in the gymnasium, several times in my spiritual need, I heard, stood up, saved and had mercy on me. (Friday.) How to celebrate the resurrection? – Resurrection from carnal to spiritual life. If you died for God with pride, rise again in humility; if you died with malice, irritability of character, rise again in goodness, gentleness, meekness; if you died through carnal uncleanliness, gluttony, gluttony, drunkenness - rise again in mental and physical purity, with the firm intention to please the only God henceforth through prayerful vigil, contemplation of God, and abstinence; if you died through laziness, rise again through diligence; if you died through covetousness, rise again through non-covetousness; if by stinginess, rise in generosity and grace; if by envy, rise in goodwill; if in self-will, stubbornness, disobedience, rise in humility, obedience to the authorities - in a word, kill the passions in yourself and revive the virtues that have been destroyed in you, resurrect in yourself the hope of the resurrection of the dead, always have it in the future as if before your eyes, do not forget - and here you are according to the truth of God you will celebrate the resurrection. But if at the resurrection we are the same spiritual dead - proud, envious, haters, hard-hearted money-lovers, gluttons, drunkards, deceivers, spendthrifts, fornicators, blasphemers, sloths, slanderers, sneakers, scoffers, gossipers, treacherous, deceitful - then there is no resurrection for us. Listen: He who has ears to hear, let him hear! [Matt. 13, 9]. Church bells. You are still sleeping, and the Church is already calling the faithful to prayer and praying, and praying for whom? - about you, and about the whole world, and about the king, and about the entire sacred cathedral, and with these prayers you are protected, saved, prospered, if you are a believer. Therefore, cross yourself reverently when you hear the bell for Matins or midday or evening services, and at the same time be a meaningful, and not a meaningless, Christian who, without serious thought, misses everything serious, important, and requiring reflection. When thinking about the Christian holiday, have the thought of the eternal holiday of eternal bliss and do not engage in activities of idleness on the holiday, but take the trouble to carefully consider yourself, your life, what weaknesses, sins, vices, passions, bad habits you have, and try to become free from them and, purifying yourself continually, strive for the eternal holiday of the eternal kingdom of Christ, where peace and joy are prepared for all who labor in abolishing oneself from sin. Though your sins be as scarlet, they will be as white as snow; if they are red as crimson, they will be white as wool 76 [Isa. 1, 18]. When you see snow or a white wave of sheep, remember, brother sinner, God’s mercy, God’s bounty, God’s omnipotence, with which He cleanses our great sins, and do not despair of God’s mercy, although you were severely leprous or are now suffering from severe spiritual leprosy, but immediately come to repentance and you will have mercy; or if you were a great fornicator, but corrected yourself, repented, tasted and repeatedly partook of the blood of the Divine Lamb, who took upon Himself the sins of the world, and therefore yours, then do not despair, do not be discouraged - your sins have been taken away, consumed, washed, scarlet is white like snow, scarlet is like wave. A Christian person must completely immerse himself in a rationally free feeling or be embraced by a freely rational feeling. The feeling in a person is so important, especially when making a bloodless Sacrifice. November 5th. I thank You, Lord, for You have granted me the grace to perform the Divine Liturgy without stumbling, with strength and boldness, as I asked of You in the morning. I thank You, for You have granted me to perform the prayer without stumbling and with an akathist. I thank Thee, for Thou didst overcome my malice, with which the serpent trampled me and terribly tormented me at the entrance of Yulia Alexandrovna, through my intense prayer to Thee, God the Savior, and Thy Most Pure Mother. This anger went away after prayer before evening tea. And what an absurdity the whole web of demonic malice turned out to be! What a chimera, a ghost, a charm! By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another [Jn. 13:35], that is, if you help the poor, comfort the sad, forgive insults, be forgiving of the mistakes of your neighbors, forgive debts, do not remember evil, receive each other hospitably, without grumbling or malice. If we look at the arriving guests as if they were animals and with bestial eyes, then this is the last thing, it means that Christian love has dried up in us. Instead of tea, drinking cold water with sugar is allowed; At lunch it’s good to eat fried lamb, at three o’clock drink coffee with cream (allowed). You are constantly hurt by earthly love, the love of sweets, beautiful clothes, beautiful furniture, dishes, the beautiful decoration of an earthly dwelling, the love of silver and gold: this is dangerous for the soul, it greatly hinders our love for God and neighbor, and we must despise all this, impute it as rubbish, and put love for God and neighbor above all else. And since we are not able to do this ourselves, then we pray to the most beloved, sweetest, most beautiful Creator of creation and the Lord of forces, that He Himself, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, extinguish the flame of earthly love in our hearts and plant heavenly love, that He Himself may make earthly sweets bitter for us, ugly earthly beauties, corruptible, transitory, and may He show us gold and silver as rubbish, and may He destroy in us this old, ancient, inveterate charm of earthly blessings, seducing mortals. Love for earthly goods coincides with hatred and contempt for one's neighbor and contempt for the commandments of God. Tobacco is a sting, wine is a sting, sweets are a sting, money is a sting, honor is a sting, dishonor is a sting, envy is a sting, luxury is a sting, stinginess is a sting, pride is a sting, anger is a sting, resistance is a sting, laziness is a sting. How many stings are there in a poor person, and who is to blame? - For the most part, he embeds them into himself, strengthens them with habit and skill. Remember, you, partaker of the most pure Body and Blood of Christ, that you have an eternal life within you and a guarantee for the preservation of a temporary life. Don't worry about anything - the Lord is near. Teach, help, Lord, to despise the flesh and love your neighbor as yourself, as your member. Give me this water (You and Your life-giving Blood), so that I neither thirst nor come to draw this [Russian: here] (from earthly sweets) [John. 4, 15]. And why do I, having this water, partaking of it, being at peace, being enlivened by it, yet still thirst for earthly pleasures when they butt me, weigh me down, oppress me, darken me, weaken me, dishonor me? Incomprehensible stupidity, a wordless habit. The enemy has perverted love for God and neighbor, turning it into self-love, carnal love, carnality, gluttony, voluptuousness, love of clothing, love of money, love of things, etc. The whole earth, Lord, all people, animals, fish, birds, insects, use Your everything. Kings, princes, military leaders, spiritual ranks, secular ranks, common people, warriors - They eat and drink Yours, everyone dresses with Yours, warms themselves, is illuminated, breathes; By Your Holy Spirit, life-giving, they are revived, enlightened, purified, sanctified, pacified, rejoiced. God! Grant to the whole earth to know You in the Trinity, to be filled with Your knowledge, Your hope, Your love. God is simple and the soul is simple; simple and the devil, like a spirit - live in simplicity. We are preparing in you honest sons of the Church, faithful children of God, lovers of Christian virtue. We must prepare you to fight sin, passions, or the sinful law in the flesh, which opposes the law of your mind, the law of God, the Gospel [Rom. 7, 23 ]; we must give you weapons against carnal lust, against the lust of the eyes and worldly pride, against the errors of the mind, heart and will, against the various passions of life in various paths of sin, against the passions of freethinking, conceit, carnality, disobedience, untruth, covetousness, covetousness, idleness and absent-mindedness, seeking to spend time easily, cheerfully, in inaction; against this absurd malice, the most absurd envy, contempt and contempt for one’s neighbor, against insane stinginess on the one hand and wastefulness on the other. We must turn all your attention to your Christian calling and election, instill in you the conviction that you are God's chosen ones and should behave as chosen, holy and beloved; that your favorite, most precious place of visiting and meeting should be the church of God, the house of your Heavenly Father, this Christian school of faith and virtue and the glorification of God, the threshold of paradise, heaven, and not theaters, not worldly meetings, not places of worldly vanity, where you can conveniently lose the spiritual treasure of faith and love of God, where the corrupting spirit of the world wafts. We must prepare in you faithful, valiant, courageous sons of the fatherland, faithful servants of the sovereign, whom our fatherland so needs now, which is taking rapid steps towards improvement in all kinds of sciences, arts, industry, but, on the other hand, from the side of faith, morality, and energy of the people, which is in great decline and requires teachers, leaders for the people - generally efficient, strong, unselfish, selfless figures. We must, we must constantly keep in mind, and you yourself, your future calling, your future career, and prepare you for it wisely, tirelessly. In a similar way, turn the word to the parishioners. All spiritual and carnal passions are dreams of an evil spirit, ghosts that do not have the slightest reality, empty malice and therefore, without the slightest doubt, must be trampled upon at their very beginning. Blessed is he who takes and dashes your babies against a stone! [Ps. 136, 9]. Take the passion of stinginess and greed - what could [be] more absurd than that? To a stingy person, every guest who comes to him seems to be a dangerous enemy who will eat and drink him like that; it constantly seems to him that he eats and drinks a lot, or that he eats and drinks the wrong thing first, as he should, and he constantly suspects his parasites whether they have taken something extra or that they threaten the well-being of his womb, and almost constantly he looks at them with a spirit of hostility, he cannot speak to them cordially, humbly, calmly, freely, for how to speak humbly, calmly with those who, in his opinion, are in everything from him depend, and always offend him? It is better, in his opinion, either not to speak to them, or to speak casually, contemptuously, showing that he is offended by them all, although they are not guilty either in soul or in body, except for the fact that they satisfy the needs of their nature, invested by God, which, of course, the stingy and greedy himself considers it his duty to satisfy. Oh, wildness, absurdity, dreaminess, chimera of passions! Oh, the wisdom, the height, the holiness, the immutability of God’s commandments! And what is our own in earthly blessings? - Nothing: everything was received from God freely, by His sole mercy, therefore, one must give freely, willingly receive and willingly give, or one must receive indifferently, indifferently and give. What an intricacy of the enemy, what a demonic phantasmagoria of all our passions, for example, pride, hatred, envy, greed, gluttony, gluttony and drunkenness, fornication, anger and irritability, covetousness, extravagance and extravagance, laughter, embarrassment and fear, despondency and murmuring, disobedience, etc.! Oh, if we always remembered that every passion is the intricacy of the enemy, the work of his malice! Oh, if we only remembered that through every passion he removes us from God, the source of our life and bliss, and drags us into eternal fire, into eternal destruction! In order for a priest to have the right to rule the word of the truth of the Gospel, to shepherd human souls, to reprove, to correct others, he himself must be a light, must be free from the passions that darken the eyes of his heart and bind his mind, heart and will and make him a dumb dog, unable to bark [Isa. 56, 10]. He must be everywhere and know everything that is happening around him, study his flock inside and out, know all its qualities, habits, passions, customs, just as a shepherd knows the habits of every cattle. A priest, like a shepherd, should not doze off, for the mental wolf never sleeps. If the light that is in you is darkness, then how great is the darkness? [Matt. 6, 23]. I received and receive everything from God for free and therefore should not spare anything for others. He received his very life, his very body, his soul as a gift from God and therefore should not spare his life for God and for the good of his neighbors. And yet how sinful self-love prevails in us! If anyone wants to come after Me, turn away from yourself, and take up your cross, and follow Me [Matt. 16, 24]. Whoever is satiated betrays his heart and body into the power of evil spirits, and that person becomes an unclean church of demons. Why have you become great, judging and over-judging us shepherds? - Don't dare. Have you indulged in luxury and games? - Leave it. All everyday circumstances, even seemingly unimportant ones, for example, visiting guests, giving alms to the poor and poor, must be explained by the will or permission of God and submitted to them voluntarily, for the glory of God: for example, visiting guests, giving alms to the poor should be turned into a case of pleasing one's neighbor for good, as a means to Christian sociability, conversation, Christian charity. One should not be irritated by the frequent visits of the same guests, by the importunity of the same beggars, but should receive everyone equally kindly with the thought that we ourselves are constantly guests of God or His beggars, we constantly eat and drink His gifts for free, or before, in our youth, for many years we were guests of the Church, the Fatherland, the Tsar, when we were supported completely by the Church, the State, the Tsar, or were often guests of private individuals who Now we cannot repay because of our distance from them or because they do not need it. Doesn’t the Lord God have the right to demand from us, doesn’t the Church, the Fatherland, the Tsar have the right to demand from us the return of this debt of ours, made in our youth, when we now ourselves have good means of living and can give them to our neighbors? And besides, sociability and communication in bread and salt colors the Christian life. Arm yourself against yourself, against your greed, and not against the imaginary greed of others. For you are the most greedy. Do not be suspicious at the sight of sweets, but be simple-hearted, be calm and remain impartial to earthly sweets, desiring and hungering for those above. Remember your high calling and the long war and ambushes of the enemy, remember that an immoderate desire for earthly things, addiction to earthly things is completely contrary to the spirit of Christianity: the enemy fights against us and weakens us through addiction to earthly, perishable goods (of which the providential Lord will never deprive His servants); Through this addiction, he separates them from the love of God and neighbor and forces us to be at enmity against God and neighbor, and he does this both in entire states and in private individuals. Because of this, wars, enmity, disputes, quarrels, envy, hatred, pride, fornication, unbelief, blasphemy against God, free-thinking, disrespect for the sacred, the statutes of the Church, opposition to the Gospel, in general, carnal and ungodly life. The cathedral brethren - Father Archpriest Paul and Father Matthew (I say this without condemning), by not giving to the poor, thereby steal or conceal their property and the gift of God. I can give from their share or income to the poor without restriction. How will you revive, water, and perfume your insides, your soul and heart, deadened, withered, scalded by sins, passions, and worldly pleasures, if you do not pray and have not learned to pray with faith, hope, sincerely, tenderly, tearfully? All you have to do is always walk around like a living dead. Pray, pray with all your soul - and you will come to life. I thank You, most merciful Lord, for You preserved me invulnerable and unstoppable from the evil one during the holy and grateful prayer at the customs guardhouse 78. I thank You, because You heard my prayer about this and, having previously cleansed me from the passions of dishonor, You gave me peace, freedom, boldness of spirit, faith and hope, and in this full armor, pure, living, strong prayer. November 9th, 1867. Recorded on the 10th morning. Let the man of God be complete, equipped for every good work [2 Tim. 3, 17]. Saul, Saul! Why are you persecuting Me? [Acts. 9, 4]. Remember that if you hate any of your neighbors, you hate Christ. Write a word about the importance of priestly ministry. Come, ye blessed of My Father... [Matt. 25,34]. Break the oath, give a blessing... 79 The blessing of the Lord is upon you... These blessed ones will inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, that is, with faith they receive the blessing from the priests and from the Church. The importance of prayer: communication with the Lord. We should not imagine the Lord too far: He is in the words of prayer that we pronounce, in their cordiality and sincerity. Peace of mind is more valuable than anything in the world: treasure it and do not be indignant over ashes when you have to give them away against your will. O holy people of God, our relatives (in the image and likeness of God, what is the soul, and in the flesh and blood of the Son of God, which you and we have eaten and are eating), bodily and intimate to us, partakers of the one Holy Spirit, always pray for us to the Lord, enlighten, correct, alleviate, punish 80 us, so that we may not perish forever, but may we be saved. Recognize [soon] the sting of the serpent in your soul and, with faith and love, repel it from yourself. I get irritated when my wife gives me advice that disagrees with my views on the matter: it means that I am proud and proud, for only the proud do not tolerate advice and consider only their thoughts, words and actions to be true. We must energetically maintain respect and love for our family, with whom we constantly see each other, with whom we look closely, with whom we share everything, and for whom the enemy strives to undermine all respect and love and thus make us daily and constant violators of God’s commandment to love God and neighbor. Crucify your feelings and do not trust your eyes, your ears, your taste, your smell, your touch, when the enemy, through your feelings, begins to tempt and confuse you and incite you to enmity against your neighbors, family, or strangers. Refuse yourself from food and sweet drinks, but let your brother enjoy it, and let your soul not be indignant at him because he allegedly eats and drinks excessively. Saturday, at three and a half o'clock in the afternoon, in prayer, I made a vow to the Lord that if 75 thousand rubles fell to me by lot, then 20 thousand of them would be donated to the metropolises of Tire, Sidon and Damascus. Lisa and Anna Konstantinovna agreed. November 11th, 1867. The Gospel and the Church develop in people the love of God, heavenly, holy, love for humanity - the theater develops in people earthly, carnal, unclean, demonic love, so that it is a shame to read dramatic works to children at school, because they can be conveniently seduced by some of its cynical aspects. I thank You, because in need I fell to Your throne with a prayer for help, You quickly heard and clearly granted Your power to my soul and You opened my lips to the stumbling-free utterance of the prayer to Christ, the True Light! November 12, 1867. Sunday. Is it the fault of the words of prayers that the devil instills contempt for them and does not allow them to be pronounced in his malice? Is it another person’s fault that the enemy instills contempt and hatred towards him, while the Lord commands to love everyone as himself? Of course not. So, it is enough that there is one dreamer enemy, that is, the devil with his hasty power - we need to love everyone. There is enough evil in the kingdom of the all-good God - we need to love, lest we become like the enemy of God and become worthy of his fate. What it costs you, what efforts to restore your union with God, and you so quickly destroy it through gluttony. Lord, my mercy and help, I thank Thee, for Thou didst hear my prayer before the Liturgy, always making me fall before the throne of Thy glory, and fulfill it without stumbling, and Thou hast granted the entire Liturgy and the royal house to firmly pronounce by name, both the prayer behind the pulpit, and the thanksgiving at the prayer service. Thank you for the grace of boldness! At home, the enemy fights against me by inciting enmity, lust, greed, stinginess, and how horribly he sometimes disguises my family or visiting guests and greatly worries, stings, torments me, shames, humiliates, disgraces me. If you pray earnestly to the Lord, all the trouble will pass and you will calm down. Constant war! Constant incitement to sin, to passion of some kind: sometimes to pride, sometimes to envy, sometimes to greed, sometimes to selfishness, sometimes to clothing. Every day during the Liturgy, the greatest mystery of the union of God with people, the deification of people, the re-creation, the renewal of people is performed (as indicated in the words of the psalm pronounced before the Transubstantiation: create a pure heart in me, O God, and renew a right spirit in my womb [Ps. 50:12]). Every day, so to speak, the Lord is incarnated by transforming bread into the Body and wine into the Blood of Christ, It is slaughtered daily and given to the faithful as food. Oh, the holy Orthodox faith of Christ, filled with miracles of God’s love for people. There is truly no price for you. How unfortunate are the heretics and schismatics who fell away from the unity of the Church through heterodoxy! We need to change a lot in our lives, because a lot of things have developed in a completely unChristian way, such as: spending time, especially at a party, playing cards, exhibiting various sweets that are harmful to the soul and body, as relaxing both, idle talk, ridicule, playing soulless secular pieces on an instrument, dancing, etc. But our trouble is the fear of the opinion of the world: what will others say if I stop doing this and that? then? Some host would like to limit himself to simply treating guests to tea and snacks, what God sent, without sweets, etc., but he is afraid of the opinion of the world, afraid of conversations that they will call him stingy, etc. But whose slaves do we want to be: Christ’s or the slaves of the world, people lying in evil, going to destruction? When will we decide to change ourselves? A Christian daily and incessantly needs to philosophize on the high, but how can he do this when he is greedy for food, drink, and wealth, when he gets fed up and drunk every day, and collects only money and not good thoughts? Among the absurdities of the flesh is the fact that it loves to treat itself at the expense of others and to be guests, but does not favor guests at home and looks at them gloomily; wants to be received kindly when visiting, but he treats him rudely at home; so that you can be gentle with him, but he himself can be rude. Seek first the Kingdom of God and the righteousness thereof [Matt. 6, 33], that is, mutual love, meekness, self-control, purity, holiness, mutual submission, non-covetousness, trust in God, mercy, justice, patience, firmness, courage, sincerity, contentment with little. Heart, guard your heart from any dislike towards your neighbors, be supportive and friendly, kind to everyone, defeating dislike and anger, remove all gloomy thoughts and feelings from your heart. Remember that you are the servant of all, and joyfully serve everyone as the Lord; completely abandon self-esteem. Let it be unthinkable to be angry with your brother even for a moment, even if he offended you. You should have long been a kindly lamb, but kindness appears when others offend us, when anger pursues us. When there is no war, there is no place for courage, when there is no storm, there is no place for the art of the helmsman. The enemy disguises faces and things: as a result, often faces that are completely innocent of evil seem evil to us, unattractive things seem attractive. God was a man... God, who is rich, is poor, so that through His poverty we may become rich [2 Cor. 8, 9 ]; God suffered and died for us, so that He may give us eternal life and may we lay down our souls for each other: how can I not give to the poor, from whom He Himself deigned to accept alms? Always keep a stone ready in your heart (and not in your hands) and a stern gaze against yourself, against your passions, which constantly rebel, and not against your neighbor; be gloomy towards passions, and show a bright face to your neighbor. Always use the saving force to force yourself to dispassion and virtue and do not let passions, these hungry dogs, take over you. Behave humbly, not proudly, not shrewdly before your family; obey them in appropriate cases, just as they obey you, or so that they too obey you in your need and in general may they be obedient to you; Recognize the equality and equivalence of nature and for the sake of Christ Himself, who served us until the cross and death, be a servant of your neighbors. Apply this rule to people in general, friends, acquaintances, subordinates, beggars, and remember that everything good you do to others will return to you and bring peaceful fruit to yourself. Give up the habit of being offended without reason or with reason at home and in general at your neighbors: resentment is the fruit of pride. How dare we be angry with those created in the image of God, with the body of Christ, with the children of God? Who do we think we are? Why are we impatient, having before us the example of Him who suffered with meekness unto death? How not to eat, how not to drink, we secretly think, because what remains is left or others will get it - we eat, drink more than necessary and burden ourselves. I have spent money, but I don’t feel sorry for myself, we sometimes think and say. But when we spend a lot on others, it’s a pity, because it’s on others, and not on ourselves, or even though we’ve spent a little, it’s all a pity, because it’s not on ourselves, but on others. Oh, self-love, self-love! Well, what fruit do you have for your soul that you spent a lot on yourself? - None. What fruit is there for the soul when you spend for the needs of others? – Big, because you are doing a work of love, fulfilling the commandment of love. Virtue is its own reward: for example, a temperate, chaste person is always healthy, cheerful, cheerful; the meek is calm and healthy, the selfless is also calm, the obedient is also calm, and peace of mind is the greatest happiness, the great reward of a person on earth. Here is an incentive for you to be virtuous. Love is not irritated, but today I was irritated by the beggar boys who relentlessly pursued me and begged for alms. And was it difficult to give alms? He was just being capricious: he didn’t want to change the ruble because he had given it often before. But waste away corruption while the members of Christ need it and while it has value in the work of mercy, so that you may inherit incorruptible life. There is little or no love in you, for you are impatient, unmerciful, and irritable. Remember that you walk with God and for the sake of God’s presence in every place, for the sake of respect for His holy laws, never be irritated with anyone. Alexandra Nikiforovna Verzina said wonderful words: we need to constantly condemn ourselves, and not judge the sins of others, on the contrary, pray with love for them, so that the Lord will have mercy and save them. In order not to be irritated by beggars who are annoyingly and persistently asking for alms, often compare their situation and condition with yours: what they have and what you have, where they live and where you are. Then you will not regret giving them alms daily. Remember also that the poor who please God will accept us into eternal shelters, that the poor go to Abraham’s bosom. Humble yourself, restrain yourself for the sake of God and the poor, give away your possessions as the Lord commanded, so that you may become rich in poverty, and high in humility before the poor and in general before your neighbors. Every day we have a spiritual war, every day we must struggle in the fight against sin, against passions through the senses that attack us, through sight, hearing, taste (and belly), smell (stench or fragrance) and touch (especially through lust). But all ascetics abstain from everything [1 Cor. 9, 25], and this is why it is necessary to abstain from food, drink, especially sweets; abstinence of gaze, so as not to stare at beautiful faces, clothes, gold and silver in money or things, precious stones, beautiful clothes, etc.; hearing from secular melodic and passionate sounds or from ugly, outrageous and unclean speeches, from laughter, etc.; hands and the body in general from the sense of touch, which can lead to the stimulation of unclean movements in the heart, in the flesh - in general, lead a harsh, difficult life, full of hardships and exploits. Rely completely on the providence of God regarding the means of life and do not be faint-hearted, giving large quantities and daily alms to the poor, for the Lord will not deprive you of every good, of everything you need, as He has not deprived you before. You have seen and continue to see how the Lord has provided you with all the needs of life for almost 12 years of your priesthood. It will be like this until the end. So, with one hand accept the gifts of God, and with the other hand out and do not hold back the gifts of Divine love - everything is God’s, not ours, we are only guardians. Do not be jealous of evildoers, do not envy those who do iniquity [Ps. 36, 1], who have a lot and give almost nothing to the poor, who collect their lives and their good things and think: to the soul, you have a lot of wealth, lying down for the summer: rest, eat, drink, be merry [Lk. 12, 19]. Perhaps this night their souls will be extinguished, but what they have prepared, who will they be? And where do they have the oil, the oil that is so necessary for us who have to meet the Bridegroom of our souls? Will the lamps of our souls burn without oil? - No, they will go out. Oh, how necessary for a Christian is alms, which is meant by oil! If, after a frost, a thaw suddenly begins and a strong melting of the snow, and even with rain, then such a change in the air has an unfavorable effect on the soul and body, then, by God’s permission, are they not the work of our primordial enemy? In such weather, it is especially necessary to abstain from food and drink, so that in case of excess, nocturnal defilement occurs. The soul and body are completely God's, and must be completely sacrificed to God - both the ability to think and know, and the ability to desire and love, and the active ability, or free will, memory, imagination - all the energy of the soul, all the bodily powers. Let us continually work for the Lord with fear, for He is the Lord and we are slaves. We love updates, but we don’t think about updating. Avoid warm and soft blankets, a soft bed, avoid sleeping in a warm room, avoid sweets, so that the pleasured, tender flesh does not play and be polluted by dreams, so as not to relax your soul and body. Do not be angry with the beggars when they, having received alms from you, still persistently demand money from you, despite your demands to leave. Do not be overcome by malice, but by goodness and give what is required: surely the Lord will reward you for the poor, if you have done good - with good, if evil - with punishment. Always have mercy on them, for their condition is worthy of pity. I sinned gravely - I called a dog a poor boy, who has an equal nature with me, who is in the image of God, who is a member of Christ, in whom Christ invisibly rests with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Oh, how we are not afraid of sin, which could not be redeemed by anything except the priceless blood of the Son of God, sin, which is an indescribably great evil, immeasurable evil, worthy of eternal tears. Oh, how we have learned to sin, how accustomed we have become to it! Wouldn’t it be better sometimes to give everything that a beggar demands or that a neighbor takes, than to be angry, be angry with him and give everything away with anger or give away the thing? Wouldn’t it be better, without indignation, without getting angry, to give away a thing or money, food, drink, which is not ours, in the hope that the Lord will send again, as he always does, and to preserve love, which is the essence of the law, than to be angry, get angry and break the whole law at once? Is it we who repay the Creator for all His benefits to us, spiritual and material, temporary and eternal? Think about it. Do not listen to your heart, in which the devil lurks and constantly lies to us about ourselves and about our neighbors and constantly incites us to sin. Learn meekness, kindness, patience, non-covetousness, generosity, benevolence, mercy. Remember that the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep [Jn. 10, 11], not only the estate. You need to feel sorry for the poor, not the money. Our heart is a lie. Always remember this. It does everything contrary to God’s law. The more tender, sweet food you eat, the more delicate, impatient, angrier, prouder, envious, stingy, selfish and lazy you become. Hard food must be consumed. November 16. Morning. I thank Thee, Lord, for in Thy compassions Thou hast accepted me in repentance, and Thou hast forgiven me the sins of malice and pride and stinginess; I thank Thee, endless goodness, for hitherto Thou hast unceasingly had mercy on me, always repenting to Thee; Glory to Thee, innumerable goodness, for Thy innumerable mercies surprised upon me, the accursed one. Oh, how great are Your mercies! If it were not for Your mercies, I would have perished, Satan would have devoured me long ago, I would have inherited the fire of Gehenna. Because of trifles, for example because of a tasty morsel, how much we worry and how we neglect our brother. After you sober up, you see that you did something absurd. The Lutherans, having rejected the veneration of holy icons and relics, thereby broke the connection with the heavenly Church, and by rejecting prayers for the dead, they broke the connection with the dead, instilling joylessness in the hearts of the living regarding the fate of the dead, and by rejecting the hierarchy, they rejected the grace of the Holy Spirit, through the ordination of bishops, successively passing from the apostles to the entire consecrated cathedral, and through a consecrated cathedral pouring out in the Sacraments, worship, teaching, spiritual guidance to all believers. Thus, the Lutheran Church defeats and destroys itself. She is a branch broken off from the living stem of the Church, now lifeless. And indeed, in the Lutheran Church there are no relics or other signs of the sanctifying, saving and life-giving grace of God. Alas, alas, alas for Luther's faith! The fire on the throne and in front of the icons means that our God is the Fire that consumes the unrighteousness of sin, that the saints are the receptacle of the Divine fire (which is the Holy Spirit), which has consumed all their sins, that God is light, and there is no darkness in Him [1 John. 1, 5], that the saints are completely enlightened by him and are delivered from the darkness of sin and that, finally, love for God should burn in us, and our life should flow in the light of God’s commandments, and not in the darkness of sin and passions. Truly, I should be hostile and turn my angry gaze on myself, and not on my brother who comes to me to eat and drink, on myself for my addiction to food and drink and for my vain anger at my brother, as was the case before. Satan sat on me, and he drives me around. And also a communicant of the Holy Mysteries! Change your heart. Lord help me! Those who eat and drink yours cleanse your sins. Rejoice when you see them eating and drinking yours. What is humanity and what is it meant for? Blessed is he who promotes God's purpose for humanity. Blessed is he who spreads peace and love among people. Age itself has a perfect mind, not a child, Sister Anna, will answer to God for herself, not you for her. Don't be angry that it doesn't do anything. Don’t envy her calm position and inaction. Isn't the activity a hundred times better? Isn't the worker's spirit and body healthier, more cheerful? Isn't he calmer? Isn't he happier than the one who doesn't do anything? Sometimes, apparently, a person does nothing, but if we look into the matter carefully, we will find what he is doing, for example, talking kindly with those who come to our house. This is a matter of love. This is what Sister Anna does. And you have little ability for this matter, you are increasingly away from the people who come to visit you. Your sister Anna and your wife are a great help in this important matter of the hostel. So, it’s not just a matter of sewing, knitting, and fussing around the house. Conversation with neighbors is also a matter. Verbal beings, people must maintain unity among themselves with words; this is their most sacred duty. How do you feel about this great Sacrifice of salvation, brothers? It is brought for you every day. Better go to those who sell and buy for yourself [Matt. 25, 9]. Those who sell are beggars. We must thank God that we can buy oil from the poor every day. Woe, if they did not exist and it was impossible to buy it, why would the Lord have mercy on us? How would we enter into marriage with the Lord? There is something moralizing about the flames of a fire. The flame, having embraced several buildings, becomes one body, and the buildings are united as if into one, embracing everything, so that they are all in one fire. What if we, with our care, our compassion, embraced the entire social body and especially the poor, as fire embraces buildings, being for everyone not the fire of envy, malice, stinginess, fornication and hardness of heart, scorching ourselves and those in contact with us, by fire warming, enlightening and cooling with dew, or by earth bringing fatness to others. November 19. Resurrection. I thank Thee, most merciful Lord, for the grace of the uncondemned, with boldness and power of performing the liturgy and communion of Thy Holy Mysteries for the purification, sanctification, pacification and freedom of my spirit, for the bold utterance of the word. I thank You, for during a home meal You took away the vain enmity against my sister from my heart, when I gazed prayerfully at Your most pure image in the hall. Build a craft school for the poor, a workhouse for the poor. I thank You, for You cleansed and took away my fornication, when my flesh became enraged at the sight of Annina’s photographic card. Not with malice, but with fornication, but with one or the other, Satan never ceases to tempt. We must fight to the end. For this the crown of life is given. What stupidity, absurdity, illness of the spirit, madness of addiction to sweets! What enmity against one's neighbor because of him! One has only to taste our sweets more often for one who is addicted to them to hate it and not tolerate it! The enemy does his job deftly! After this, cling to visible things - you will just fall into Satan’s snare! And after this, should we cleave? God be with him, with this pleasant sweet or beautiful rubbish. One’s own peace of mind, love for one’s neighbor, especially for God, enlightened eyes of the heart, freedom of spirit, boldness before God and people, freedom of speech are the most valuable things. Truth, holiness, contentment with oneself and one's neighbors. Each person has his own demonic or angelic atmosphere, and with one person it is easy, sweet, peaceful, and with another it is hard, bitter, restless, and weary. It is very difficult to be together with people who are rich, but stingy, proud, and rarely go to church. When you have become a husband and not a child, children's toys, such as the enjoyment of food and drink, the joy of clothes, rooms decorated with gold and silver, etc., you must reject and engage in what is appropriate for a husband, namely, fulfilling the commandments of God, seeking the Kingdom of God and its righteousness [Matt. 6, 33]. Grant me, Lord, to lovingly share my meal with my neighbors, as the table of Your throne, Your most pure Body and Blood. Amen. November 21, 1867 Tuesday. Looking at your mutual, everyday communication, my brothers, I think: if only we in the same way had and loved communication with the Lord God, with the Most Pure Mother of God and with the saints - and since this communication occurs primarily in the church, oh, if only we would more often visit this house of the Lord God Almighty, in which is His throne, His Holy Body and Blood, the relics of His saints in which He rests, icons Him, in whom He is graciously present, in which His unceasing praise, the voice of the Gospel of the Lord God, His apostles speaking in the Holy Spirit, the holy hierarchs and reverend fathers, in which are the icons of His saints, in which, in a word, the whole heaven! But no - we go to church very, very rarely and don’t like to stay in it for a long time: it’s boring, it’s not our element here, everything that happens here is not in our spirit, taste, but the theater, club, ball, evening, game of chance - this is in our taste. So, I say: how much we need, it is necessary for our spiritual, true, eternal good to communicate with the Lord and with the saints at home and in church through prayerful conversation! Meanwhile, we have fallen into one-sidedness - we love earthly, everyday, worldly communications and do not love heavenly, holy communications! How can I fix this? Lutherans do not consider the Most Holy Theotokos more honorable than the Cherubs and more glorious than the Seraphim, but an ordinary mortal. Oh, unbearable blasphemy! Lady! Shame those who are heretics and raise the horn of Orthodox Christians! Introduction to the church. The benefits of going to church. In the church there is sobriety of the soul from the vanity of life, heavenly wisdom, cleansing from sins, freedom from passions, sanctification, peace and freedom of spirit; in the world - everyday vanity, intoxication and darkening of the spirit, slavery to passions, long-term wisdom, wallowing in sins and passions, sorrow, languor and tightness of the spirit. In the church there is the earthly sky, here is the throne of the Lord, here is His most pure Body and Blood, here we see in the faces of the Annunciation of the Archangels at the royal doors, the union of the world above and below, Angels with men and, what is indescribable, God with men; we see evangelists, preachers of God at the royal gates, preaching the incarnation of the God-man, His life, miracles, prophecies, suffering, death, burial, resurrection and ascension into heaven and His second coming, the approach of the Kingdom of Heaven, evangelists of the Kingdom of Heaven, who entered the Kingdom of Heaven through the gates and showing us the way there; We see in the faces the baptism of the Savior in the Jordan, His transfiguration, foreshadowing our future glory and pointing to the ineffable kindness of the face of Christ, which the righteous have to see forever and which the righteous have to enjoy forever; His entry into Jerusalem, His suffering, death, glorious resurrection, ascension; we see the Mother of God holding in Her most pure hands the eternal Child - the Son of God, Who for our sake became man, the eternal God; we see the faces of forefathers, prophets, apostles, martyrs, hierarchs, saints and all saints - the whole sky. Here we understand and are thoroughly convinced that we are not inhabitants of the earth, but inhabitants of the sky, and here only strangers and strangers. In the world there is only vanity, addictions to food, drink, clothing, money, honors, perishable dwellings, envy, enmity, lust of the flesh and other passions. Cast out from him every evil and unclean spirit hidden and nesting in his heart 82. The evil and unclean spirit nests in every person, hiding in his heart - the trials that happen to people reveal his presence in them. Thus, evil spirits reveal their presence in a person when they talk to this person about spiritual subjects, when they call him to church for a special fast, read the Gospel to him, or take him to a miraculous icon. Thus, the demon of love of money, gluttony, and stinginess is revealed when a rich person or generally passionate about money loses money (sometimes the demon induces insanity or despair in this case), or when need forces one to give money to someone or to give it often, then the money lover usually becomes restless, swears, and gets angry; the presence of the demon of gluttony and stinginess is revealed in a person especially at the table, when, against the wishes of some owner of the house, guests come and sit down at the table, with whom one must share a sweet piece and drink, it is also revealed by anxiety, regret for food, drink, despondency, annoyance, enmity towards those who come; the presence in the heart of the demon of lust and fornication is revealed at the sight of beautiful women's faces, sometimes at the sight of good children of both sexes, for the fury of passion does not distinguish between years, which is why it happens that those possessed by the fury of this passion, or the demon of fornication, rape the very children of both sexes; the presence of a drunken demon and a passion for wine is revealed in a person at a certain period of time with such force that he is ready to commit suicide if he is not given a drink, for the demon demands strongly, presses, pinches, torments his slave, and threatens him with death if he does not satisfy his passion; he also reveals himself (or almost in the same way) without addiction to smoking tobacco: show the smoker the intention to stop smoking - the demon will bring on boredom, despondency, melancholy, well, it’s just as if you can’t live without tobacco, and many, many think that in fact you can’t live without tobacco, they smoke and smoke more and more, until they completely smoke themselves. The demon of pride, arrogance, vanity, vanity is revealed when for some reason we have to communicate with the poor, with people of low birth, poorly dressed, unscrupulous - then the proud person usually does not want to tolerate company with such people, he abhors them, despises them; or when they give him instruction, which he also cannot tolerate, considering himself smarter than everyone else, or when they contradict his words or treat him dryly; the vain and vain person blushes with shame, is embarrassed, is lost when he sees any disgrace in his clothes, for example, dirt, oiliness and salting 83, or holes or shabbyness 84, and triumphs when he has new clothes, especially expensive, elegant ones, then he usually stands proudly, dreaming that everyone is looking at his clothes and are surprised at the owner of such a treasure; Without a doubt, ghostly fear is often found in celebrants who, for no apparent reason, are suddenly struck by doubt regarding certain words and thoughts, expressions in prayer, embarrassment, fear of not pronouncing a word or certain words, an absurd fear of upcoming persons, and often become stumped, or pronounce incoherent words, or rather clutch at the final words of the prayer in order to avoid such a difficult state and absurd defeat from the spirit of malice, but Those who are struck are usually amazed after this, again tormented by the inner consciousness that they are defeated and were afraid of fear out of cowardice where there was no fear. Against such diverse machinations of evil spirits, one must put on the whole armor of God, which the Apostle Paul describes in his letter to the Ephesians. Put on the whole armor of God, so that you can stand against the wiles of the devil, because our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against the spirits of wickedness in the heavenly places. For this purpose, take on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to withstand on the evil day and, having done everything, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girded with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; and above all, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the fiery arrows of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and petition, and strive for this very thing with all constancy and supplication for all the saints... Ephesus. Chapter 6 [11 – 18.] The devil is accustomed to catching us at certain things and at certain places of prayer and sacred rites, and at the sight of certain faces, and at the sight of these faces and things he strongly tempts us, and at a certain minute of sacred rites, or at certain words of prayer, the heart greatly shakes. But from our opposition, faith, and boldness, all his machinations dissipate like smoke. It is not difficult to pronounce words somehow in prayer or in conversation, in greeting, but it is difficult for a carnal person to pronounce every word from the heart, sincerely, truly. It’s better to say, it’s difficult to say prayers when there is no love in the heart for God, for one’s neighbor, or when there is no love, disposition for the work of prayer, for the work of pleasing God and saving the soul, which comes from the hardening of our hearts in worldly passions. About a false urge to eat and drink in the morning. One should not obey the urge to eat and drink in the morning, because this is the lust of the flesh, which, according to the Apostle, one should not indulge (not please) [Rom. 13, 14], but which should be suppressed by reading the Gospel, psalms, thoughts of God, a prayerful mood of spirit and external activity. By doing this, we will very soon notice that the false urge has disappeared, that the restless desire for food and drink, this activity common to us with dumb animals, has disappeared. During the table, that is, eating and drinking, try to eat without any greed or haste, without slyly noticing how and how much others eat, without any animal addiction to food and drink. Many eat with restless greed, suppressing every thought and every feeling and freedom of their spirit, like animals, they rush, like animals, to pick out the best for themselves and leave the worst for others, they envy, like animals, when others take sweet and large pieces, they get angry, cast restless and angry glances, like animals. Is this the rational, godlike nature of man? What do we sometimes bring ourselves to with our lack of reasoning, our passions, our immoderation? In order to raise one’s nature, which has fallen in the passion of dishonor, one must despise the flesh and be diligent about the immortal soul, be zealous about fasting, thinking about God, read the Gospel and other sacred books more often, spend time in useful works, generally strengthen the spirit and elevate it above the wordless and sinful aspirations of the flesh, philosophize on the high, more often remember one’s calling and purpose and that of all mankind, about what has been done by God and is being done continually for salvation the human soul, how dear man is in the eyes of God, that our soul is priceless, etc. Innumerable Grace, Holy Father, I thank You with all my soul, for You have mercy on me, Your sinful and indecent servant, in Your Only Begotten Son and, whenever I cry to You, You hear me and save me from my inner troubles. Who am I that You remember me and visit me? But give me, Holy Father, grace for the sake of Your Only Begotten Son to preserve and increase the one thing I need - love for You and for my neighbor and not to be upset when circumstances require my self-sacrifice, deprivation of Your earthly gifts in favor of my neighbor. You have had and are merciful to me so much - how can I not daily have mercy on a person like me or fellow people? How can you not love them as you love yourself? For they are members of Your only begotten Son and Your children and my members, for we are all one body [Eph. 4, 4]. How can I not despise these earthly blessings, which are dust, pus, smoke, and because of which, that is, because of our addiction to them, our enemy the devil constantly arms us against You, constantly incites us to violate Your commandments? Why does the image of the Savior in the room become mostly in the corner? Because Jesus Christ is called the cornerstone, and the cornerstone because He united the divine nature with the human. Uncreated beauty, incomparable beauty, Lord, I thank Thee, for yesterday Thou didst deliver me from the seduction of corruptible girlish beauty and from the foul lust that strongly attacked her. Falling on my knees before You, I thanked You in delight for such a wonderful work of Your hands. Behold, save me from the charm of earthly pleasures, and from the charm of self-interest, and anger, and pride, and envy, and irritation, and stubbornness, and laziness, and from the whole horde of passions and from empty fears and despondency... Not only the righteous are blessed, but also those who believe and thirst for the righteousness of Christ. Brothers, sinners like me, pray with hope - heaven is kind: the Heavenly Father, His Only Begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit - God the Trinity, infinitely good, generous, merciful, quick to obey, and if you have as many sins and passions as grains in a sack or in a bin - do not despair: His infinite goodness will overcome these immeasurables. In me the Lord demonstrates all long-suffering, all kindness, all power, as an example to you who want to believe in Him for eternal life [1 Tim. 1, 16], saving me from countless sins, rescuing me from great troubles and misfortunes, healing my many illnesses. For this be glory and thanksgiving and worship to Him now and ever and unto ages of ages. But remember that God is a jealous man, He does not tolerate sin living predatorily and adulterously in our hearts, which should be His dwelling place, His church, so that the work of His hands, created in His image and likeness, would work for this alien, this apostate from God - Satan and his hasty power. Saved, saved by God, keep yourselves henceforth from all sin and do not tempt His long-suffering. Fight temptations, temptations of sin, resist the violence of passions, hold on to faith, hope, love. The balm of the soul, the salt of life is love, take care of tenderness from drying out and try to multiply them day by day. Especially preserve love for your family, with whom you constantly live, see each other, and on whom, first of all, you must carry out Savior’s commandment: This I command you, that you love one another [John. 15, 17]. Be forgiving of shortcomings, remembering your own, always look at everyone openly, talk openly, cordially. Our enemy the devil is trying in every possible way to steal, first of all, love for family, this knot of family, social well-being and prosperity, and to instill enmity towards those close to us, so that we would thus daily be violators of the Lord’s commandment about love, the whole law of God, and would be his servants, the devil. Our enemy the devil, jealous of our deification in Christ, constantly tries to plunge us into all sorts of passions of dishonor, to depress us, to torment us with them, such as: malice, pride, envy, gluttony, greed and love of earth in general, lustful rage, wastefulness, laziness, cowardice, despondency, false fear, etc. We must constantly be sober, pray, fast, read the word of God. Believe that by giving daily to the poor, whatever they may be, you are feeding, clothing, and introducing Christ Himself into the home. How to do this! With what readiness and joy! And you often do it with annoyance, reluctance, and grumbling. Either improve, or lose your bribe. The Lord sets His table for you, offers Himself as food and drink (oh horror, oh extreme condescension, oh immeasurable love!) in order to destroy your corruption and raise you to incorruptible life, to unite you with Himself forever, [to intoxicate] you with endless bliss - will you regret corruptible food, clothing, shelter (paying money for shelter, which the poor use, is the same as introducing house). Oh, tears of repentance and tenderness! What peace you bring me, what boldness before God! With tears, the serpent nesting in my heart crawls out of my soul. Seeing your brother, who is in the blindness of some passion, for example, enmity, greed, hard-heartedness, envy, and who has fallen into sorrow or illness, vividly imagine the poverty and distress of our nature, infected with sin, its passion and blindness, its frailty, transience and mortality, and sigh deeply, take pity, grieve for every person subject to passion, sorrow, adversity, illness, because you are of the same nature as him, subject to the same passions, the same vicissitudes and misfortunes. Have compassion for the suffering, weep with the weeping and pray to the Lord of all, the Lord of life and death and the Source of light, may He enlighten mankind blinded by sin, may He give everyone to walk in the light of His commandments, may He heal from illnesses, may He stop sorrows or, if they are needed for the eternal good and bliss of man, may He give the strength to endure them complacently, without grumbling, obediently, in trust in His goodness and reward for patience. Once, due to satiety the day before (buckwheat porridge with almond milk), I was subjected to strong temptation during the service of Matins in the Assumption Church (November 24, the day of St. Catherine the Great Martyr). The reason for the temptation was given by the sexton Nikolai with his contradiction, although, however, according to his concept, he was doing the right thing. So, on the eve of the liturgy, eat and drink little and do not interfere in other people’s business. Every day we are attacked by the lusts of malice, envy, greed, covetousness, fornication, laziness, etc. We must vigorously and courageously fight them and diligently call on the Lord and His Most Pure Mother for help, for only with heavenly help can we defeat them. We must also fast and practice reading and listening to the word of God, the lives of saints, and soul-saving teachings. When guests come to you, then let your heart be with guests, and not with sweets; Do not be partial to the latter, lest you hate the former. We want everyone to be warmly disposed towards us, although we ourselves may not be sincerely disposed towards anyone. We must forget the insults and injustices or dislike of our neighbors when they fall into misfortune, and sympathize with them from the heart, as if we were the closest. November 26. Resurrection. I thank Thee, Lord, for Thou hast granted me the great 85 things I asked of Thee, and Thou hast granted to solemnly celebrate the Liturgy; I thank Thee, for Thou hast stopped my hesitator. That you can pray at home without going to church is a thought from the evil one; through this thought he wants to alienate a person from the Church and, therefore, from God. This is obvious because those who think and say that you can pray at home do not pray at home, do not go to church, and neglect the soul. When you cannot pronounce words in public prayer or have difficulty pronouncing them, remember and be heartily convinced that this is the treachery of the enemy; turn your thoughts and heart entirely to God and you will immediately speak the words of prayer easily, calmly and sweetly, just don’t rush, but speak with reflection. We must cry with tenderness every time we look at the icon of the Lady with the Eternal Child, remembering for us the incarnation of God the Word and the entire economy of our salvation. The same is true at the sight of the cross and crucifixion of Christ. Remember the delicacy of fire, delicacy before food and drink, before sweets or before women; remember the delicacy of fire, how it will feast on sinners, forever burning them and not burning them. A person is so proud that he will spend his best surpluses on luxury, on unnecessary decorations, on the acquisition of things that are easy to do without, or on empty pleasures, for example, he will burn them in tobacco, in amusing fires, or give them to the theater, to a masquerade, in general for his own pleasure, although his neighbors, whom he should help, sometimes shed their blood, die of hunger, cold, etc. - or it is better to eat a tasty dish himself, although he he is full, although it will be a burden to him, rather than give it to his neighbor, who may be hungry. How much pride we have! If you know the close connection of the heart with the belly and the influence of the belly on the heart, then carefully refrain from any burden on the stomach, so as not to aggravate and weaken the heart. Gluttony is a mortal sin; satiety is likened to a pig. People! Be renewed by putting away the oldness of sin. Succeed in renewal day by day. Honor the priesthood, bearing the dignity of Christ, doing the work of Christ, deified, deified by the Lord and adoring others, guiding everyone to the heavenly Kingdom. When you remember the royal house by name, imagine that these persons themselves are diligently asking you to remember them, sincerely desiring this, that from their sincere remembrance there will be great benefit for them, forgiveness of sins, sanctification, enlightenment, affirmation, salvation. God! Grant me to be wounded by Your exact love and not by the love of earthly things, perishable, temporary. Give me simplicity of heart, Master! Let me love my neighbor as I love myself. More humane! You daily worship soulless idols and abandon the source of living waters of the Lord. Your idols are the belly, sweets, money, various things that are beautiful to look at - gold, silver, copper, wood, marble, books in shiny bindings, or the very essence [of books] - novels, fables, fairy tales, or things made of wool, silk, linen, etc., etc., etc., everything that you have an addiction to - finally, human personalities themselves, to whom you have carnal love or whom you please and trust in until you forget God! You damned man! When will you completely cleave to the Creator instead of the creature? When will you sincerely respect and love in everything people like yourself, created in the image and likeness of God? When will you crucify the beast that lives within you - the old man, the passionate heart, the sin that nests in you? When will you despise yourself from the bottom of your heart and respect your neighbors? When will you be constant in love? How long will you be a reed shaken by the wind? Do not pay attention to demonic ghosts and incitements at the table, when meeting people, in church during worship, but courageously overcome them! Remember your kinship with the all-holy God, with the Mother of God, with the Angels, with the saints, and behave in accordance with such a high kinship. For my coldness towards God and my neighbor, for my intemperance, for my many different passions, I am not worthy of even a piece of black bread, clean air, decent clothing, housing, light and all the spiritual gifts of God, of which there is no number, - meanwhile I use all this [solely] by the grace of God. What should I do to repay the Lord for these mercies? I cannot repay due to my very limitations, sinfulness, and because I have everything that belongs to God and nothing of my own. But the Lord is pleased to accept alms given to the poor, as if He personally and promises me pardon and the Kingdom for this. What's the matter? I will have mercy on the poor, just as the Lord continually has mercy on me. The Lord deals with us as we deal with our neighbors. If a beggar asks me for alms, and I do not give him or give him very little, far from satisfying his need, then when I ask God for mercy, forgiveness of sins, I will not be worthy of His mercy, and He will turn His face away from me, just as I turn my face away from the beggar. The cross is truly a two-edged sword, with which, by the grace of Christ, I cut off my passions - the passions of the loins, belly, heart, will. This is where patience, courage, and firmness are needed, when the enemy is treacherous over us, outrages, scatters, and we should not be faint-hearted, despondent, or irritated. When you were young, you girded yourself and walked wherever you wanted; and when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and lead you where you do not want [Jn. 21, 18]. This is what happens to you now. Rejoice that for the name of Christ you are subjected to violence and bitterness from your opponent. The enemy subjects God's servants to various misfortunes and embarrassment in order to turn them away from the intention of piety, from the glorification of God. A shepherd praying with others, with his inner instinct, can comprehend the degree of spiritual lousiness of his sheep and even his fellow shepherds, because due to our close connection with each other, as members of a mysterious spiritual body, the spiritual passions of our neighbors are reflected in our soul. Blessed is the one who bears the burden of his neighbors on himself and does not choke on it - it will be easy for them. August 9, 1867 Due to excessive consumption of tea (six glasses), I did not sleep well at night and woke up almost unwell. Back pain, itching in some limbs. I drank strong tea. Vorontsov wine No. 11 is very useful. Ask here or in St. Petersburg and use stomach 86 for the sake of [1 Tim. 5, 23]. My stomach is weak. That's why I feel nauseous sometimes. Black bread for three kopecks is nice and healthy. Herring is good. Go to Novgorod if I can rent a place in the gymnasium. Do not make my rooms a stable by smoking tobacco or smoking smoke. Don't eat caviar anytime soon; Don't eat tea in the evening. Eat and drink in moderation, without greed, only for needs, not for pleasure. To punish sins in oneself mercilessly, to be lenient towards others, and not to notice them maliciously. Do not have an addiction to things, remember your heavenly calling and fulfill it unswervingly. I shouldn’t eat meat: it leaves me feeling lethargic, drowsy, and hard-hearted. Excessive consumption of red wine. Harmful for the head. For the sake of God and the salvation of your soul, do not eat meat and indigenous fish - cod, halibut, salmon, salmon, etc.; Use smelt in the ear, but do not eat ruffs and perches. Do not eat several times at short intervals. This is ridiculous, animalistic. Do not eat porridge with semolina and milk. Do not get carried away by the morning appetite for food and drink: it is false, nature does not produce it. Eating soft black bread and drinking milk at night, especially when you have eaten meat before, is very difficult. You become sick, irritable, angry, gloomy. Do not drink tea or eat anything in the morning. It is not harmful to eat black bread, even soft bread, at night if we eat it once a day. Do not serve white bread at lunch, eat black bread; Cook porridge every day, and generally anything nourishing. It is useful to drink vodka, herring, black caviar with black bread at dinner, but not before early mass. It is useful to drink sherry with tea in the evening. Go to the bathhouse as little as possible, so that the enemy does not use it to harm the soul, and does not crash into our flesh like a hair or glass and does not torment us. Avoid sweets: tea, cream, sugar, coffee, etc., sweet fruits, etc.; all ascetics (and every Christian must be an ascetic) abstain from everything [1 Cor. 9, 25]. Imagine rotting, stench, worms. Not eating fish or even fish soup is a burden to the heart. Milk with seltzer water doesn't make you feel naturally uneasy. Eating caviar and salmon as little as possible will cause a strong erection of the penis and a wet dream. In the morning and evening, drink no more than two glasses. Drinking tea alone, without wine or jam, especially strong tea, is very harmful: it upsets the nerves, irritates, and prevents sleep. Excessive consumption of meat and excess juices cause an inflammatory state of the blood, boils, and sores 87 on the forehead. You need to drink less tea. Eat and drink less oily and fatty foods (cream, butter, meat, pies, cookies, etc.): they cause excessive bloating, heaviness and indigestion. In general, do not be greedy for sweets. Bathing, braiding hair and eating meat, especially with blood (steak), bring great trouble to the soul, exposing it to terrible temptations. Crowding, irritability, fire inside. Eat less too, otherwise there will be a strong fever inside and the lung may become infected again. Father Joseph's. An excellent conversationalist. Good vodka, caviar, excellent, healthy black bread, good kvass. Note - do the same for yourself. From gluttony, greed, satiety, drunkenness comes a countless number of evils for the soul and body: hardening of the heart, dullness of thought, immobility towards goodness and moral advancement of the will, omission of duties or unconscientious fulfillment of them, rudeness and malice of character, addiction to the earth, carelessness about things above, negligence about the salvation of oneself and others (if a priest), weakness of the body, sickness, sometimes long-term illnesses, unmercifulness towards the poor and needy, stinginess, etc. But, on the other hand, by fasting, vigil, and prayer, various gifts are received from God by people who strive in these virtues and countless spiritual benefits are acquired; even the body receives health, strength, vigor, lightness, liveliness, subtlety. Breaking the fast on Wednesday and Friday is extremely harmful to the soul, for it increases its greed and the dominion of passions over the soul. And any violation of God’s commandments does not remain without a trace. What you sow is what you reap. Sweet foods greatly irritate the nerves, producing a craving for sweets and irritability in the soul. Avoid sweets. Milk is soothing. In my greed I am ridiculous, pathetic, stupid, greedy; I’m in a hurry, I eat without reason, I wish that others would eat or drink a lot of sweets, and I’m always satiated myself. Oh, tomfoolery! But remember, my soul, Saint Andrew, Archbishop of Crete, who says in his Great Canon: but you, my soul, did not partake of this grace for intemperance 88 . Do not indulge in excess in food and drink, for excess occurs later, precisely the day after the excess has been committed, and causes alienation of the heart from God and neighbor and severe irritability of the nerves and confusion of the spirit. Eating a lot of black, especially soft bread at night and with pleasure is dangerous. There are strong temptations from him: anger, lack of faith, falling away of the heart from God, the inability to pray in front of the people. The heaviness of black bread, the heaviness due to its heart, its crushing, its powerlessness. The need for fasting and eating light food. Avoid satiety, especially with black bread and butter, as it causes severe irritation and anger. However, strong tea has this particular property of irritating the nerves. Drink less tea and, if you drink, eat with it; Without food, tea is nothing - it irritates, but does not nourish. To despise one's belly, to neglect food; before the night itself, do not eat anything, especially smoked fish, for example white fish, etc. I was terribly punished for greed on the night of June 21: pain in the stomach, lack of sleep. Do not spare anything for a brother who comes often. In his person comes, as it were, his father and my Konstantin. Let him, like his father and mother, feast on me to his heart’s content. Everything was received freely from God and given to him long ago from God; we will all be together with one accord. After all, the devil himself will attack Brother Constantine through you. And where can he find shelter if not with his own people? Drink beer for health, especially before lunch. There is lamb, soup with roots. Drink tea with cream and black bread and butter. It is good to consume poppy seed sweets and other similar ones in moderation. How many disasters have you suffered from intemperance! Remember and be abstinent. Having broken the fast on Friday and [...] drinking milk, tea with cream, white bread and butter in the evening, I thought I would find health in this, but it didn’t turn out that way: I didn’t get health, although I went for a swim and took a long walk. But for the sake of health, he broke his fast, fearing the leakage of scrofula and irritability of the nerves. Keep fasting, there is salvation in it. I undid my braids, and that didn’t help. I don’t need to eat either meat or fish, except occasionally. Do not eat sweet and sour bread, especially with butter, at night, and do not drink tea infused with water that has been boiling for a long time: it terribly irritates the nerves and plunges you into anger. In general, it would be better not to eat or eat nothing at night. Refrain from noticing disorder in singing and reading during sacred ceremonies, so as not to give the ethereal enemy a reason to embitter us against our neighbor; know your business firmly. Suspicion of stealing bread, suspiciousness, anxiety - from the devil, his dream. Care and predilection for bread is adultery. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God [Matt. 4, 4]. There is no fish during the Assumption Fast. (I sinned - I was tempted, I ate.) It’s good to drink cold water with a bite of sugar to strengthen your stomach and make you feel a little weaker at night. Don't drink too much - it's harmful. Know when to drink in moderation: two or three glasses of tea and not much more. Don't anger the Lord. There are people who are glad that they eat and drink, but there are also those who mourn, are indignant, and lose their temper that frequent guests eat and drink. Who has what disposition of heart, who has what passion! And the other trembles, regretting giving a few kopecks to the poor. I sinned - I got angry with my wife because she poured tea into the wrong kettle, although it made absolutely no difference whether it was one or the other, because the same amount would have been used for both a small and a large kettle. And there would be no need to drink tea - it’s a whim. For what insignificant reasons do we violate God’s commandment of love? Curly - will educate reasoning. Theological Academy. Announce in the Assumption Church after the all-night vigil that mass on Sunday will be at nine, and not at ten, on the occasion of the highly solemn day. February 19th, 1867. The accession of the Emperor to the All-Russian throne. They say that I shake my head during a sermon, which is very indecent, especially in a kamilavka. If you live a chaste life, you should not eat meat; There is little fish to eat, especially smelt in soup. Eat boiled meat with black bread. Fine. Bring information about the poor to society. Teachings of Ignatius the Bishop. Borzo (Church Glav.) - soon, hastily. Vynu (Church Glav.) - always. Plows - blows, blows (from the verb to smell). On nya (same) (church-glory) - on them. Existing (syy) – the present participle of the verb “to be”, is used as one of the names of God: Syy – He Who Is; Thus, visible things (that is, everything material, earthly) are called here “non-existent”, having no true existence in comparison with heavenly, eternal, spiritual life, as truly existing, abiding. The prayer of St. Basil the Great “We bless you, O highest God...” from the sequence of morning prayers. Tantalus is a character from Greek mythology, the king of Corinth and the son of Zeus. He was a favorite of the gods, attended feasts and meetings on Olympus. Having become proud, he offended the gods and was cast into Hades by them. Tantalus in the kingdom of Hades stood waist-deep in the water, and branches weighed down with amazing fruits bent over his head, but, tormented by thirst and hunger, Tantalus could not quench his thirst or hunger: as soon as he leaned towards the water, the water receded, and the branches rose when Tantalus stretched out his hands to them. Clever (Church Slav.) – spiritual, intelligible, understood in a spiritual sense. Irmos of the 4th song of the Sunday canon at Matins, tone 3. We are talking about the people's liberation uprising in Crete against Turkish oppression. In the summer of 1866, the Greek population of Crete rebelled under the slogan of the unification of Crete with Greece. The rebels created a Provisional Government. The Turkish army sent to Crete failed to immediately suppress the uprising. Volunteers arrived from many countries, most of all from Greece, and weapons were sent to help the rebels. The Conference of European Powers, convened in January 1869 to resolve Turkish-Greek differences, forced Greece to refuse assistance to the rebels, which hastened the defeat of the uprising. Neglect (French) – careless, inattentive to one’s duties. “Having had the victory, O Christ, even from hell, you ascended to the Cross, and in the darkness of death you raised up those who sit in the darkness of death: with yourself, who freed the dead, pouring forth life from His light, O Omnipotent Savior, have mercy on us” (the resurrection stichera on the Lord I cried, voice 6). Rus.: “O Christ, who conquered hell, You ascended to the Cross in order to resurrect those sitting in the darkness of death with You, left among the dead; exuding life from Your light, O All-Powerful Savior, have mercy on us.” Obavati (Church Glav.) – to charm, conjure, bewitch, seduce by singing. It’s cold (Church glory) – oppresses; bothers, bothers. Gobzuyuschiy (church-glory) – living in contentment; arrogant rich man. Volna (Church Slavic) – animal wool (goats, sheep). I’m translating (Church Slavic) – I’m translating, turning in the other direction. Guard watch is a ship set up to monitor compliance with navigation rules. Troparion for the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Punish (Church Glav.) – teach, admonish. Here it means “abundance”, “fertility”. Prayer to create a catechumen from following the Sacrament of Baptism. Salting (of clothing) is a derivative of the verb “to salt,” that is, greasy, dirty, grease-stained clothing. Zhamkhotness (clothes) – old, threadbare, washed clothes (from “zhamkat” - to rub, wash clothes). Elika (Church Glav.) – what, how much. Pesyak - barley, abscess. The Great Penitential Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, read on Monday of the First Week of Great Lent. Canto 8th. You might be interested in: