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June 30, 1868 Most merciful Lord, I thank Thee, for Thou hast heard my prayer and heeded the desire of my heart for a stumbling-free, sincere celebration of the Liturgy in power and truth; I thank Thee, for Thou hast turned all the machinations of the enemy, strong and evil, into nothing; I thank You, for during the Liturgy You granted me to be washed with tears of repentance and tenderness and to perform the entire Liturgy with strength and a strong cry of the heart (a strong cry of the heart) and to partake without condemnation of the Holy Mysteries; and perform a prayer service of thanksgiving with a burning heart; I thank Thee, for in Thy liturgy you always give me cleansing of sins, and sanctification, and peace, and boldness, and strength, and health and completely revive me, O Lord! Oh, what sweet tears you gave me today during the liturgy, what thunder, what musicality in your voice! To the surprise of everyone, the singers sang magnificently, extremely harmoniously and musically! Glory to You for everything, Lord! Grant me and all of us to glorify You for many years, especially in our hearts and lives, in our deeds! So, no matter how much the enemy tried to devour me, You, my omnipotent Lord, destroyed all his machinations and escaped from his hand. For the gift of tears, I thank You, my Grace! God! I confess before You that life and health and strength of spiritual and physical strength are not in the country, not in the forest, but with You - in the church, especially in the liturgy and in Your Life-giving Mysteries! Oh, greatest bliss, Holy Mysteries! Oh, life-giving Divine Mysteries! Oh, unspeakable love, Divine Mysteries! Oh, the wonderful and unceasing providence of the Lord God for our salvation and deification - the Divine Mysteries! Oh, pre-betrothal of eternal life - Divine Mysteries! My Lady, Most Holy Theotokos! I prayed to you before the liturgy, and ask me the grace to perform it with great power, for the glory of God, for the salvation of the world and my own! You arranged everything for the good! Thank you, all-merciful Quick-to-hear, unshameful hope! Is it not from the abundance of heart, love, gratitude, kindred caring that the lips of your sister Anna Konstantinovna speak, such kindnesses and services flow? Now you don’t have an excess of love for her, respect, gratitude, caring - and you are silent more, and it’s difficult for you to say a kind word from the heart. From now on, feel sincere gratitude and love for your sister, and for all sisters and brothers. Three times at different times we prayed to the Lord in church during the service for the gift of rain - and the Lord mercifully fulfilled the prayers of the Church: the first time it rained at night in Kronstadt; another time - rain clouds gathered and rushed around from midday and in the late evening everyone gathered in the east, and there was strong lightning, and there was rain, as you could see. Whether or not, Lord, the good desires of our hearts and our tender prayers will be fulfilled - in any case, may Your name be holy and blessed, for in any case, Your will is perfect and tends towards the good of Your creatures, the All-Good Creator and Source of all goodness, but we often sin in our desires. Worthy and righteously, the Lord daily scorches the earth with the sun and does not send rain - for people who have received reason from God act foolishly, having tobacco icicles burned in their teeth and inhaling and exhaling their smoke. What exactly is smoking tobacco? Food is not food, nor can it be called drink; This is some new material for breathing, invented by some crazy people for breathing and almost entered into general use. And with what greed many people breathe in this newly invented breathing substance! It’s like they can’t live without food. Well, so what? If you love to breathe smoke, so breathe it: now, in addition to tobacco smoke, God gave you smoke from burning houses and forests as punishment, the air turned into smoke - breathe smoke, experience what this breath is like. You loved fire, the game of this dangerous element, so enjoy the spectacle of burning cities, villages, and your forests: now they have been burning for several days, and with dryness and strong wind the conflagration has spread far, far away; After this, play with fire and smoke, smoke your cigars and cigarettes, love them to the point of passion and to the point of chilling towards all the duties of a Christian, dream that your life is tobacco, a cigar or a cigarette, when a Christian is forbidden to put his life even in bread, but is inspired to hope in God, the Source of life; be filled with smoke instead of being filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs [Eph. 5, 19]. But what would happen if the Lord completely deprived us of rain and allowed all our houses and forests to burn? Would there have been a time for smoking then? And what's in tobacco? – Does not satiate, does not quench thirst; chain smokers hunger and thirst for tobacco - such insatiability! Oh, truly, God has given you over to a depraved mind to do lewd things [Rom. 1, 28]. How much money goes into tobacco? How many useful things, for example, soul-saving books, could you buy with this money, or other things? How many beggars could you clothe, put on shoes, feed, shelter, or give medicine to the sick? Calling themselves wise, they became fools [Rom. 1, 22]. When pride or malice, or envy, or bickering and resistance, or fornication, or love of money, or greed for food, or stinginess, etc. arises in you, immediately cut them off from your heart with a cross and, when you cut them off with this sign of victory, say with indignation and hatred: die pride, die malice, die envy, die fornication, bickering, love of money, greed, stinginess. Yesterday, during Vespers, I fell into the sin of waywardness, self-love, pride, malice, impatience, when the sexton Nikolai began to sing, Lord, have mercy at the Great Litany, out of voice with me, but he, it seems, did not even think of resisting me: the devil slandered him to me, and I became embittered, embarrassed, torn with vexation and impatience - I wanted to put it in my own way. Arm yourself against the ethereal enemy and passion, and not against your brother; rage at the passion, not at the person. (At lunch I ate meat: I have trouble eating meat - I become angry, impatient, capricious.) I don’t need to eat meat at all: it brings me trouble. Blessed are those who do not eat meat! The Lutheran faith, which rejects very many things that lead to perfection - which is in the Orthodox Church (not to mention the Orthodox faith itself), cannot lead to the godly perfection of its children; Thus, for example, she rejects fasting as an obligatory virtue of a Christian. Is it possible to achieve perfection without abstinence and fasting? It is impossible: there was fasting in the Old Testament: Moses fasted; fasted Anna, mother Samson; Hananiah, Azariah, Mishael, Daniel and many others; even the pagan Cornelius fasted; the apostles fasted, and all who shone with holiness fasted. Fasting is the wing with which we fly to the heights of purity and dispassion. And if in the Old Testament fasting was considered necessary for the highest pleasing of God, then all the more necessary is it in the New, in which all Divine powers for life and piety are given to us, which is a primarily spiritual Testament, which prescribes to crucify the flesh with passions and lusts [Gal. 5, 24]. Fasting is a weapon against the devil, who fights especially through the womb. This means that if someone does not fast, he is not a warrior. (Reformed and Lutherans.) I have huge capital. This capital – what do you think it is? - the image of God, according to whom I was created. If I put this capital into circulation, that is, if I multiply the talents given to me by God, then I will acquire eternal blessings in heaven. How to multiply talents? Use all the strength of your soul for the glory of God. Do not eat fish at night, and in general avoid eating too much at night. You can't sleep if you're full. Paralyzed state. Until now, I, the accursed one, am seduced by my appetite and eat greedily. Should a Christian behave this way, having to mortify and enslave his body? Is it not for my gluttony, hard-heartedness and malice that the Lord punishes me so terribly with such a terrible drought and burning of forests? God! I thank You, for through my prayer you grant extraordinary strength to me, weak, from the heart during the Liturgy and with great strength to perform the Liturgy in spiritual grace. (July 4th.) The servant of God Melitina (Bazhenova), after the prayer service I served, soon became healthy, as if someone had lifted her illness with her hand (her words) - but she had been sick for a long time. Glory to Thee, Lord! One must ask the Lord for rain through fasting and abstinence, and not through satiety. I must be lenient towards the reader Nicholas and towards every person, and not be very demanding and offended by faults and errors, for I myself am a person with infirmities. If, after a few comments, which I must make with love and a spirit of meekness, he does not correct himself, I must leave him to God, as they say: God is with him, and I will be right; I shouldn’t be angry, and this is both unreasonable and useless: why should I torment, worry, kill myself because of the turmoil of another? Everyone reaps what you sow, not everyone else. But I myself have a lot of passions, especially anger, self-will, pride, and envy. Yesterday during Vespers, I became very embittered in my heart against the faulty sexton Nikolai Shakhmatov and could barely serve Vespers and the Blessing of the Water prayer service. The sword of God hangs above us. It is our duty to announce this and urge them to repentance and conversion. It is written in heaven and on earth: I am angry. When smoking smoke, talk about smoking tobacco. Forests are burning because human souls and bodies are burning with hellish passions; The stench of smoke is everywhere because in all souls there is the stench of passions - malice, pride, contempt, hardness of heart, lustful impurity, voluptuousness, covetousness, unbelief, blasphemy, blasphemy, foul language, etc. It is as if the whole earth is burning: is not the hour of the second and terrible coming of the Lord of glory and general conflagration near? You are a ruler (metropolitan, archpriest, priest), but because, more than others, you must rule over the passions and conquer the hearts of everyone with meekness and love, and not with thunder and fear. I thank You, Lord Jesus, for You saved me in the apartment of Your sick servant George (Ivanovich) from the cramped conditions of the enemy, who wounded me with anger towards the small beggars. Why was I annoyed? After all, they are Christ’s children and my members. Why didn’t I rather smile, looking at their desire for me? A Christian’s faithfulness to his Lord is recognized especially in adversity and sorrow. Don’t complain to the Lord when it’s hard for you, but endure generously. The earth and everything earthly - food, sweets, clothes, gold and silver jewelry - dust, decay. May your heart always be in God. The face of material nature shows us the face of God, wrathful or meek. Every grain affirmation was wiped out [Russian: every stalk of grain was destroyed] [Ps. 104, 16]. So I will erase you too: your life is in My hands. God is my guardian - I will rely on Him alone, I will cleave to Him with all my heart, and I will consider everything earthly as nothing, I will not cleave. I will endure everything that is unpleasant for the flesh and thank God for everything, and, moreover, remember that God is infinitely good, wise, holy, omnipotent, righteous, unchangeable. During worship, look completely indifferently at rich and poor, noble and simple, with stoic composure, towards the one God in vain and sorrow; remember that worship is spiritual, Divine wisdom. My reader laughs that sometimes I cannot read some prayers and repeats twice: why don’t I laugh when he cannot completely read I Believe? But have mercy on us, Lord, who are weak. Duality of principles: spiritual, holy, divine love and carnal, earthly, demonic love; holy boldness and boldness; church and theater; incense and smoking - and so on in everything. You must watch yourself vigilantly so as not to take the side of the enemy. It is very difficult for voluptuous, pampered people on hot days - and the enemy tempts them with impatience, grumbling, blasphemy, despondency, relaxation of soul and body. You might be interested in: