Август 1869 г.

On August 3, I sinned against my brother Alexei during dinner, and he also served mass in the cathedral and preached a sermon! All because of the womb! Oh, blind and stinking lord! I thank the Lord, who strengthened me to perform the Divine Liturgy and pronounce the names of the royal persons at the great entrance calmly, unhurriedly, and deliver the sermon. I thank the Lord, who strengthened me to perform the Divine Liturgy and pronounce the names of the royal persons at the great entrance calmly, unhurriedly, and deliver the sermon. The voice was weak - from scrofula. In St. Petersburg it intensified. Fast. After Vespers there are three christenings. Foreigners gawking. Suspiciousness, embarrassment, reticence from the embarrassment of the words of some. You have to look everyone straight in the eye and not be ashamed of anyone. Look firmly to God. All are worms before Him. He who hates his brother is a murderer [1 John. Z, 15]. Be careful that there is no brew of malice in your heart; Beware of addictions to sweets and clothing: because of them, anger and enmity settle in the heart. But this addiction has turned into a habit for us, and we don’t consider it a sin. Avoid drinking sweet tea in large quantities: it relaxes your nerves and drives sleep away from your eyes: you will fall asleep a little in the evening, and then you will wake up or will wake up. A person gets angry when beggars ask for alms, which favors him. Why is he angry? Because he spares money. Why does he regret? In order to feast more on oneself, to dress up in rich clothes, to live in wide rooms, to sit on expensive chairs and sofas, to walk on colored carpets, to rent a dacha, to go for walks, to play cards, to go to theaters and clubs, to subscribe to newspapers - or to save money and collect it from God knows whom, and to lose and ruin one’s soul; so as to please the prodigal flesh more, to be proud and vain. Poor thing, he does not think that in the end he will turn to dust, and his soul will go to Gehenna, forever rejected from God. He spares the beggars a few kopecks, although sometimes he himself has a full bowl in the house, that is, everything is in abundance, and the beggars have no bread, no shirt, no outer dress, no warm corner: even if you live on the street, you may freeze. After this, man, listen to your flesh, feast, drink different wines, make different jams, bake all sorts of cookies for the destruction of your soul, get satiated, dress up, go for walks, collect money in chests, take it to banks - oh, how you will make a mistake, you will be deceived, you will be ashamed, man, at the hour of death and on the day of the terrible Judgment! Then you will curse yourself and your birthday, your passions, your money, your flesh, your awards, these theaters, these clubs, your parties, your friends with whom you walked, these libertines with whom you so shamelessly debauched yourself - and you will regret and lament piteously that you spared the beggars alms that would bend your Judge to the mercy of you and save you from Gehenna. And now there is no mercy for you, for you yourself have not done mercy [Jas. 2, 13]. This is how crafty and evil your flesh is or the sin that lives in you! Every day he builds feats for you and seeks to destroy you, and you make friends with him every day and do not declare war on him, you always obey him and submit to him. Sin presses you, forces you to do evil deeds - don’t look at it, but force yourself to do good in every possible way. The Kingdom of Heaven is taken by force, and strong seekers obtain it [Matt. 11, 12]. Again I listened to the demon of gluttony and delicacy - I spared my brother the sweets that I do not spare myself, and I grew cold towards him, I hated him, having committed the sin of internal murder! Forgive me, Lord! Yes, I love my neighbor as I love myself: I don’t regret anything for myself - and for him too. I myself receive freely from the Lord - and I have no doubt about giving to him freely. My brother needs no more now than he needed yesterday and the third day and so on - a year ago, and two years ago, and three years ago, and so on. The table of God for His creatures is exceedingly abundant, and He constantly creates from nothing, or from matter once created by Him, which is not destroyed, but, according to His mania, is constantly modified. Glory to Your power, Lord! Glory to Thy industry! Let us be carefree, placing our trust in the Lord. I am a materialist. I hope in matter, not in God, damned one. I cling to matter, not to God. And when did the Lord leave me? - Never. Was it not in one day that His Providence rewarded me tenfold, a hundredfold for what I gave freely to my brother and the poor? Why am I worried? Do I regret it? What kind of addiction, what kind of madness of the heart? What kind of persistence? What kind of anger? Oh Satan! It's you! Even in church you confuse me and incite me to sin, and you weigh heavily on my heart to force me to remain silent; You are creating in me thoughts and passions of prodigal things! Doubts from you! partiality, fear of persons! love of money, envy, malice, pride! Just as you feed your soul without sparing, let us feed your brother’s soul too. We have equal rights to the gifts of Divine goodness. Both are equally sinners and slackers. Let’s put aside self-love, pride and envy, lust and stinginess: let’s not consider ourselves the only ones who have the right to eat and drink; rather, sometimes deny yourself food and drink in order to provide it with joy to others. Grant me, Lord my God, to hate sin with all my might, for it is from the devil. (I wrote on the morning at two o’clock on August 3rd during a terrible thunderstorm, when after a fiery and life-giving, joyful prayer, through the obsession of the enemy, I felt cold and tightness in my heart, the fatality of enmity towards my brother.) Let no pretext be an incitement to enmity: all pretexts are from the devil; There is no pretext for enmity, and there are countless pretexts for love. Yes, I pay attention to myself constantly. Sin, like lightning, strikes quickly, instantly, although it does not enlighten or enliven, but darkens and destroys. Grant me, Lord, to sincerely remember at litanies and in prayers the names of the reigning persons and their entire household, so that it will be easy for them and may their hearts be warmed and strengthened towards Your people and may they retreat from luxury and addiction to earthly goods and from pride and all sin, and may Your people live in piety and purity. The Most High thundered wonderfully last night, the lightning flashed wonderfully. I thought: Eternal Love is thundering - we are safe. The Unapproachable Light shines with His lightning - the Lord, seated on the Cherubim, illuminating all the Heavenly Powers and served from these second lights 105. Glory to You, Unapproachable Light! I read a prayer during the flashing of lightning: Christ, the true Light. Sin in its very impact on our soul shows proof of its absurdity, for it deprives the soul of freedom and life, plunging it into oppression, powerlessness, slavery, destruction - for example, anger, pride, envy, fornication, covetousness, laziness, stinginess, voluptuousness, pity for things. Sin, instead of any evidence that it does not have on its side, acts through violence, wounding, stinging the insides, and pouring out the burning poison of sin. Blessed is the one who despised everything earthly and was wounded by the love of God, the love of heaven. But how few such people are among the fallen sons of Adam! The sting of sweets, self-interest, honor does not work in whom, who does not sting? And who has the sting of true love for God and neighbor? The sting of sweets and honors has driven out the sting of God's love and gives it no place. In some, these two principles fight every day and alternately displace each other, but in others there is no struggle: the earthly sting completely dominates, suppressing the heavenly sting - for example, in covetous people, sensualists, ambitious people, drunkards, deceivers, murderers, fornicators and adulterers. Oh, when our hearts will be completely inflamed with love for the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Life-Giving, Trinitarian Divinity, who commanded us to preserve His commandments [Ps. 118, 4 ]! Away with the pursuit of sweets, money, elegant clothes, pleasures, vain honors, which I do not deserve, like a scoundrel; away with everything in the world - my soul perishes in sins, an immortal soul created in the image and likeness of God, falling away daily from the Source of life and plunging into the depths of evils and passions. This is the subject of my concern! Why do I worry and worry about a perishable body and perishable goods, imaginary, dreamy, like a dream, like a ghost, vanishing goods? He who loves only pleasant things, very reluctantly and impatiently, with cowardice, faces troubles or labors and, returning home, considers himself entitled, as it were, because of a trifle or for nothing at all, to be angry with those at home who do nothing or do only the most empty things, envying their peace of mind. He has [no] true love for his neighbors, for he loves himself most of all and does not like to bear the burdens of others, seeks his own in everything and, if he works for someone, expects a due tribute of reward, but if he does not receive, he grieves and complains about those who did not give, although the duty of a Christian requires that he himself joyfully give to the poor from his property, and the Lord rewards the merciful soon. He loves not his neighbors, not their priceless souls, but the treasures of this world, and the enemy nesting inside him strongly incites him to do so. August 5th. All-night vigil. I thank the Lord, who quenched the great storm of demons within me and transformed great confusion, sorrow and oppression into great peace with the grace of the All-Holy Spirit! I thank the Lord, who so often works miracles of transformation in me, the transformation of my heart and face! But do not allow me, Lord, to be transformed into evil, into an evil spirit, into malice, pride, envy, fornication, and so on. May I not be like Belial 107: what kind of communication does Christ have with Belial? [ 2 Cor. 6, 14 – 15]. August 5th. I went out of town to visit a poor commissar to give communion to his sick daughter; spent forty kopecks on the cab driver. The Lord rewarded the unrewarded expense on the same day when seeing off the body of the deceased high school student (three rubles). There is no need to grieve when we sacrifice our wealth to the poor, but to rejoice when we serve them with our wealth and helpfulness: God will not forsake. Recognize the passion of greed that nests in you and do not judge the greed-seeker, for you yourself are the same. Pray for them and for yourself. When the Lord says: if anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me [Matt. 16, 24; Mk. 8:34], then He means by the cross an internal cross, and not an external one, and especially not a gold or silver one, for the servant of Christ is not a slave of gold and silver, but of Christ, and despises these metals, which so deceive so many. Reject gold and silver and do not seek it - this is the cross. And we are looking for golden crosses! This is paganism, idolatry under the guise of Christianity! Fight sin and passions - here is the cross! Endure sorrow - this is the cross! Endure humiliation - that's the cross! They give you torn clothes - but do not tear your soul apart with indignation and malice; They give you dirty clothes or they have soiled them - but do not dirty your soul with rage and malice: the soul is greater than the clothes [Matt. 6, 25; OK. 12, 23 ]; peace and love are most precious. Be peaceful and loving. It is better to wear holey and dirty clothes than to be at enmity. August 6. I thank the Lord, who strengthened me to unfalteringly perform the Divine Liturgy, to pronounce with a pure heart and voice the names of the royal persons at the great entrance and to partake of the Divine Mysteries without condemnation. I defeat my internal enemies through the Lord my God. Feelings, or the heart, must be protected in every possible way from coarsening and cruelty, passions and addictions (love of money, ambition, lust, fornication), for with feeling and heart one must love God. When loving God, love His image - man, and do not place him lower than earthly things: food and drink, sweets, money - or his body higher than his soul. This is my reward: the testimony of conscience and the voice of the people among whom and to whom I serve. And the Lord has honored me with this in abundance, although not by merit, but by His grace. Why am I waiting for the synodal blessing? How would I ask for it? Doesn't this humiliate me? Is it not You, the Author of all earthly power and dominion, Lord Jesus, who bless me daily and distinguish me with an inner anointing? Do you not abide in me and I in You? Yes, I seek praise in myself, and not in others. May I die for earthly glory, external, vain, erroneous, ephemeral; Yes, I seek heavenly, inner, true, eternal glory. Amen. Let me not think about earthly glory: it paralyzes and kills my spiritual life. Let me live piously and glory will come. She runs from those who seek her, and chases those who flee from her. Such is the glory of the saints. Truly, we must avoid earthly glory in every possible way, so that heavenly glory does not interfere, for many, taking advantage of earthly glory, dreamed of themselves and perished. On work days, even less should I be indignant at those who drink tea with me, because I myself do not drink and there is no expense for me. What terrible destruction the human body undergoes soon after the soul leaves the body! How insignificant is the body, what a cobweb, what insignificant grass! What infinite importance is the soul, which animates the body, rational, free, created in the image and likeness of God! How to educate, educate, develop it! How pitiful is the work of the flesh, which excludes the work of the spirit! How pitiful is the love of money, gluttony or voluptuousness, ambition! Does a human blessing, for example, a synodal one, or a reward in general, always correspond to the inner dignity of a person? - No. For the one who receives a blessing or other human praise is often a wicked, evil, unjust, stingy, envious or adulterer, a covetous person, etc., and while people extol him, he is internally cursed by God and has no fellowship with Him. This is how inconsistent human praise is often with the inner state of a person. A Christian must be concerned precisely about internal praise - the praise of conscience, not from man, but from God, as it is said: that circumcision that is in the heart is in the spirit, and not in the letter: its praise is not from men, but from God [Rom. 2, 29]. And now they are striving for this in order to receive praise not from God, but from people, and so that their praise and reward will be published in newspapers and magazines. Is this consistent with the Gospel, with its spirit? The Lord is our glory, and He alone is able to repay according to the deeds of everyone. There is nothing more sinful than to hide the vile passions of the heart under the guise of piety and hang the chest, in which countless passions are hissing, bringing curses from God, with crosses, and even precious ones, and multi-colored ribbons: the price of the precious metal could better be used to help poverty, and the ribbons are reminiscent of the Savior’s saying about the Pharisees: on the outside they seem beautiful, but on the inside they are full of... hypocrisy and lawlessness [Matt. 23, 27, 28]. The government is fair, rewarding merit, but the ambitious are unfair, looking for differences and being proud of them, shaming their brethren, who work conscientiously and, due to the invisibility of the place of service, are not noticed by the government. Whoever chases after earthly glory, after earthly wealth, after earthly sweets, his heart grows cold towards heavenly glory, towards heavenly treasures, towards heavenly sweets - such is the order of things, such is the essence of the soul! Two masters cannot work and love two. The beneficial effect of the Mother of God prosphora: in the evening or at night, when I couldn’t sleep, I got up, ate the prosphora - and perked up, even if I was doing something, and then I lay down and fell asleep well, and got up without heaviness. Bread will strengthen a person’s heart [Ps. 103, 15]. Our Christian self-correction and self-improvement is greatly delayed by our worldly addictions to glory, to gain, to sweets, and pleasures. We work for mammon - and therefore we cannot work for God. We hear the words of the psalm: Work for the Lord with fear [Ps. 2:11], sung during the Vespers service, we are touched in our souls, but we do not work for the Lord, but rather for our own belly. Self-correction is also delayed by condemnation of others and anger towards the brethren: our anger invents and exaggerates the shortcomings of our neighbors, but covers up our own and does not notice. Why do you, my brother, look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not feel the beam in your own eye? [Matt. 7, 3]. Woe to us sinners from our malice! Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, we often say or hear in church. Where is this glory? First of all, in us: in our creation, providence and especially redemption, in the constant cleansing of our sins and the resolution of sinful bonds, revitalization, sanctification, calming and strengthening of souls, disturbed and weakened by incessant sins, in the enlightenment of our souls, constantly darkened by sins, in the healing of our infirmities and illnesses, in grace-filled assistance in our affairs, in the well-being our life, further - in the vegetation of many fruits of the earth and the contentment of countless creatures with them, in the goodness of the air, in the peace and silence of the people, in exposing heresies and schisms and shaming them. Most of all, the glory of God is manifested in the Holy Church in the intercession of the faithful by the grace-filled Mother of God Mary, in the Divine Mysteries, in the holy saints of God, in miraculous holy icons and relics and countless manifestations of the supernatural power of judgment and mercy of God in the Orthodox Church. Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen. The wife stops her husband from going to the dining room and singing, because Grigory Ivanovich and Annushka’s bedroom is near the dining room, but the husband goes ahead and doesn’t want to know anything: it’s time to get up, he says, and he goes with grief and annoyance both at his wife and at those who have been sleeping for so long. However, he later repents and calls himself an ill-wisher, stubborn, wayward, evil and asks God’s mercy to forgive him of these sins. August 15. The marriage of Theodore and Matrona was celebrated at three o'clock. There are a lot of people. The enemy hindered very strongly; my weakness, a stabbing in my right side. Before the wedding, I ate fish pie and village fish at home. In vain: my heart became weak to fight the multitude of adversaries. Doubt is bad. Prodigal suspiciousness. Haste and vague, unclear pronunciation of words, in which lies the power of betrothal and wedding: the servant of God N is engaged to the servant of God N; servant of God N is getting married to servant of God N... Fear of looking at the bride... August 17. Prayer service at Goremykin's. Stumbled when leaving names; Archbishop Mir of Lycia was not reprimanded due to the machinations of the enemy; embarrassment, torment. How annoying the enemy is! During prayer, every word should be imbued with heartfelt conviction, faith and hope and warmed with love and humility. It is necessary to mortify the flesh: the sting of the flesh greatly hurts and carries away, the sting of carnal voluptuousness and contemplation. Meat should not be eaten. Despise outfits: they serve fornication. To You, Lord, may my eyes gaze unswervingly, to You, my Prototype, so that I may be conformed to You, the incorruptible, perfect, prototypical beauty, who conceived and created all mental and sensual beauty. A priest must be above all human fear, like the apostles, prophets, martyrs, hierarchs of the Church and other saints, for he is an angel of God Almighty. I thank the Lord and extol his goodness and quick obedience, as this day has strengthened me to perform a prayer service before the beginning of the teaching and the blessing of water in the gymnasium, in the meeting of students, mentors and superiors and strangers. At first I was embarrassed and, from internal confusion and powerlessness, could not pronounce certain words due to doubt and missed them, but then I raised a strong inner prayer to the Lord during the reading of the Holy Apostle, and then the Lord gave me the strength and boldness to loudly complete the prayers to the end. And the words: not a ghost frightening us 108 still hesitated to pronounce and missed. What an enemy ghost! He said his speech at the end, but rather hastily. What an insane amount of benefits I borrow daily from the air - from this richest treasury of God, how many principles I receive from it that nourish, revive, encourage, strengthen the body, infuse vigor and into the very soul, so closely connected with the body? What will I bring, what will I repay to the Lord my God for this invaluable gift? Oh my God! I am constantly in Thy good deeds; Every moment of my existence You do me countless good deeds, solely by Your goodness. You nourish me, enlighten me, clothe me, strengthen me, heal me, cleanse me, sanctify me, pacify me, please me, help me. The abyss of Your blessings, Lord, to me a sinner! For the sake of short-term, almost momentary pleasure, I work daily for a soulless, blind belly; because of momentary pleasure, I burden my soul and body and have to take on a lot of troublesome work for the soul - long walks to give the stomach the opportunity to digest food that is sometimes taken in excess or at the wrong time, or on time and not in excess, but fatty and indigestible! How long will gluttony and gluttony last? How long until the highest and reasonable interests of my existence take a decisive advantage over the lower, purely animal ones? How long is gluttony, covetousness, voluptuousness, love of glory the desire for ephemeral, perishable glory? How long do I not devote my entire life to God, doing good deeds, abstinence, prayer, contemplation of God, and almsgiving? I sinned against the Lord - I offended the poor under the following circumstances: I left the house and went to the bookbinder to get books; I meet beggars who want to ask me for alms, some for the second time, others for the first time today; I tell them: don’t sit here (and where can they sit, poor people, when they don’t even have an apartment?). One followed me, wanting to talk about something; I say with anger: don’t follow me, wait here until I return, and I myself went to the bookbinder. I'm coming; takes out three books; I ask: what are they worth? “One ruble fifty kopecks,” they answer. A nice price, I think: one and a half rubles for one binding, but it’s a pity to give a beggar at least ten kopecks each a day (let’s say there are ten of them), and moreover for the necessary needs: food, clothing, shoes, housing. Well, I thought, I read so many books that teach me good, I buy and bind so many, but I still haven’t learned to do good willingly and with joy, in the simplicity of my heart? After this, why buy books? In a truly evangelical way, they need to be sold and the proceeds used to help a beggar: buy him clothes, shoes, pay for his lodging. Oh, how little spiritual intelligence I still have! How frivolous, outward, covetous, and proud I am! In general, we have a lot of pride, vanity, vanity, madness, and unfriendliness! How much injustice we have regarding the poor and needy! Let’s take our luxury: how much we offend the poor with luxury. I don’t regret throwing away tens and hundreds of rubles for myself in order to get a good dress, good furniture, a good apartment, a good carriage, good books (how many good ones? - without number), in order to keep a rich table; I weigh out money to merchants almost in pounds - I enrich the already rich; I show off myself, I swim like cheese in butter, I ride around on trotters, and I spare a penny for the beggars; For myself, without need, I willingly throw away tens and hundreds of rubles, and for the poor I spare tens of kopecks for their needs; I flaunt myself, but the beggars walk around in rags, barefoot, homeless? Are these poor people my work? Is it not the fruit of my luxury, vanity, pride, hard-heartedness? If I had a Christian heart, couldn’t I shelter them all, clothe them, put them on shoes, feed them? So. I myself am like an idol, in gold and silver, and poor people like me, brothers in Christ, for whom Christ died, members of Christ, children of God, although, like me, not without sins, of course, are hungry, naked, homeless, homeless. Where is Christianity? Where is the mercy? Where is the love for one's neighbor? Where is the gospel life? We ourselves are well-fed and satiated, dressed and dressed in five to ten clothes at once, and expensive ones at that, we live in magnificent chambers - and because we ourselves do not know any need, misfortune and grief, we do not sympathize with the poor, their grief and need, whereas then we should have come to pity, seeing such a life incompatible with their human dignity, seeing them rejected from people, eking out such bitter life. Our prosperity should arouse in us special compassion for the unfortunate, but it turns out on the contrary, due to our abuse of God’s gifts, and therefore we are unrequited. Lord, have mercy on us! By purchasing from them an abundance of all earthly goods, we enrich ourselves and rich people, but we impoverish the poor more and more - for everything superfluous that we buy for ourselves is taken from our neighbors. Why are we angry with beggars because they come up to us several times to ask for alms? You can’t play for two or three pennies, especially when no one is giving except you and me. Let’s give more at once, we’ll always give, or we’ll build it into a place – and they won’t come. We are all obsessed with covetousness, with acquiring things, with enriching merchants and taking money away from the poor. In the Cross, like in the light of the sun, all the love of God Almighty for the world, for man, all the power of love, was concentrated. If God the Father gave His Son for us, how can He not give us everything with Him? [Rom. 8, 32]. Therefore, the cross, which we use during prayer and on other occasions, is a guarantee of all God’s mercy to us and the speedy fulfillment of our prayers. It is also a weapon for driving away adversaries and nailing or crucifying the flesh of passions. August 23. Evening. All-night vigil. I thank the Lord, who gave me the strength to perform the all-night vigil without stumbling under many temptations and snares of the enemy, and to read the Gospel without stumbling, and let me go. Oh, how the ethereal villain frightens with imaginary fears! Like needles and thorns, the insides gore, inciting confusion, fear, anger, fornication, laziness, pride, vanity, and haste. Through me, although an unworthy instrument, the Church, the most holy and immaculate Bride of Christ, speaks and acts when I perform services and the Sacraments. Keep the glory of God in mind and strive to proclaim it with a strong heart and tongue. The Lord gives me everything - and I must give the gifts of God to those who demand them. (Dream: Evgraf Andreevich Vsevolzhsky gave me five silver rubles for some demand, as if for a prayer to a woman in labor.) Each of us is subject to some kind of weakness, has some kind of passion and absurd habit, therefore we must be lenient towards the shortcomings and bad habits of our neighbors, especially our family, co-workers, neighbors, whose constant cohabitation with whom and frequent encounters with whose errors and weaknesses makes them everyday, petty, and vulgar for us. Love is patient... covers everything... does not get angry, does not think evil [1 Cop. 13, 4, 7, 5]. August 24. I thank the Lord for the grace of tears of tenderness during the liturgy, the rationality of consciousness and feeling during the celebration of the Sacrament, and for the gift of a strong word when delivering a conversation about the first commandment of the law of God. At the thanksgiving service, I stumbled from heartfelt weakness while reading the final prayer of thanksgiving, and my heart became weak because of man-pleasing: during the special litany, I entered the altar and ordered the prosphora to be brought out to some eminent persons (Vsevolozh. Dm. and others). Do not please people, but please the one God, turn your heart and thought entirely to Him. Father Deacon Peter Al visited. Sofronova on a birthday cake; He drank vodka and sherry and porter - and did it badly: his head ached, it was hard. He served Vespers with weakness of heart, stumbled, left unsaid words, missed words. In the evening, returning from the Assumption Church (they were expecting a marriage and did not get it: the bride did not come), he met a beggar boy and was angry that he was coming for me - for alms. Sent him forward; I found him at the fence of our house and gave him three kopecks with displeasure, but the Lord punished him - he deprived him of peace and freedom of spirit: cramped conditions and ruin of the spirit appeared. I barely asked for mercy from the Lord through inner prayer. Seriously punished. I have everything freely from the Lord, but I regret giving freely to the poor. Where is the love for one's neighbor? It’s a strange thing: the Kingdom of Heaven is bought with perishable alms—and we don’t want to buy the Kingdom with perishable things. Others buy houses and dachas, but I – or all of us Christians – should buy the Kingdom of Heaven, a dacha in heaven. At least a small corner, speaking in human and local language. August 25. Monday. Before the coronation. According to the Metropolitan's dispatch, the wedding of the undertaker Nikandr Smirnov's son, Alexander, was celebrated. Before the wedding, the devil created a storm of confusion in me, especially through brother Konstantin (dream [demonic]). Sweets must definitely be despised, because because of them the devil keeps us in his clutches, and how! - with great rage and strength. I begged the Lord and the Most Pure Mother of God to calm the storm and grant peace. The marriage was performed solemnly, calmly, unfalteringly, without haste, with dignity. At the end of the marriage, leaving the church, I accepted, through a demonic obsession, dishonor with my brethren from the drunken merchant Alexander Dmitriev, that we are insignificant people and cannot do anything without the Metropolitan. May the Lord reward him for His servants, may he teach him not to blaspheme the order of the priesthood, which is honorable even for the Angels themselves. Kvartalny [...] and many others were witnesses. In the sermon to expose: in a certain city there was a rich merchant. Or in "Vestnik". I looked at the cotton wool bib prepared for Grigory Ivanovich and was envious and hurt in my soul: why is this being done in my house not for me, but for someone else - I wish I had everything. That's disgusting pride! How carefully you need to look at your own and other people’s things and not stare at them, not become attached to them! Sin guards us at every step in order to break into us, like a thief and a robber, to rob the soul, its righteousness and peace and populate it with lawlessness, cramped conditions and confusion! The same must be observed regarding pleasant food, drink, beautiful faces, money, generally good and expensive things and all the treasures of this world, and cleave with all your heart to the one God, the all-perfect treasure and the fullness of blessings. Department for catechetical conversations. Place the words of the Savior into the conversation: He who listens to you listens to Me [Lk. 10, 16] - to intimidate those who are inattentive and neglect the preaching and to encourage those who are attentive. The apostles are fishers of men not only during life, but also after death: their life, their self-sacrifice, their [violent] martyrdom served and serve as an example and light for people of all times and places; It is from them, according to the testimony and expression of the Church, that the vegetating of Divine agriculture, and the grace of the martyr of the army, forming an honest passion, manifold fragmentation with wounds and fire, and with boldness they pray for our souls 109. What extreme poverty is ours: we are ready for everything empty and bad, but for the good and important we are unprepared and inactive. Take a closer look at your life: what is it like? In constant vanity, in addictions, in earthly pleasures, in constant sin. Is this what Christians, heavenly citizens, a holy nation, a special people are called to [1 Pet. 2, 9 ]?.. When you think how the Lord God has elevated our nature by His incarnation, resurrection, ascension, deification, and on the other hand, when you imagine how absurdly our life flows, in what empty, soul-sucking passions, habits, customs, in what vanity, then shame and horror pervade the whole being at the thought of responsibility before God at the second and terrible coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, when He will carry out the final and last Last Judgment on the whole world; It is then especially scary for the fate of the powerful, learned and rich of this world and the careless shepherds. Here are many many people caught alive in the will of the devil [2 Tim. 2, 26]. What friend of humanity will take care and try to rescue them from this disastrous condition? Jesus Christ is apparently not on earth, the apostles are not: they are in the ranks of the ranks of Angels. Who will be God's fishers of men? Who should it be? We are priests; we are set on this; we are successors of the apostolic work and apostolic grace. We must be the organs and trumpets of the Holy Spirit, proclaiming the wrath of God coming upon the sinner: sin is crafty, subtle, quickly creeps in and takes root in the soul - who will show those who are inexperienced in the fight against sin, who have not learned to watch over their hearts and notice the crafty machinations of the enemy over them, who will show the ways of sin and teach them to evade it? You, Knower of the Heart, give Your shepherds the mind, lips and wisdom to teach Your people this spiritual warfare with sin; Thou shalt teach the hand of Thy people to fight, and their fingers to fight, and make the bow of their coppers their arms [Ps. 17, 35; 143, 1]. Those who hunger and thirst for truth certainly pray; they cannot live without prayer: if for some reason they leave the prayer rule unfulfilled, then they have no rest until they fulfill it with all zeal and with tears; and those who do not have greed and thirst for truth either do not pray at all, or pray little and coldly, without the participation of the heart, without warmth. He who hungers and thirsts for truth often approaches confession and communion - because these Sacraments quench the hunger and thirst of the soul, exhausted from sins, and saturate it with the righteousness of Christ, which is imputed to it after the resolution of sins from the priest and after communion of the Body and Blood of Christ. The insignificance of man. One day I was writing down my thoughts and spiritual observations about myself in my diary, and I saw some kind of winged creature running across the white field of paper. an insect barely visible to the naked eye. I thought: this insect is like nothing, for with one breath I could immediately destroy it. But I didn't. I remembered my insignificance before God. I imagined that I was incomparably more insignificant before God than this insect before me: one wave of the Lord - and I began to exist, one wave of Him - and I would not exist; My life in comparison with His life is one moment or less. And I am not only insignificant before God, but I am also an immeasurable sinner before Him, I offend Him incessantly, I violate His holy and all-saving commandments and I deserve His great righteous anger, as I am ungrateful to Him for His countless benefits, for creation in His image and likeness, for the gift of reason and free will, for all spiritual and material gifts. Oh, how I must humble myself before the Lord God, before Whom I am so insignificant, a sinner, and Who constantly pours on me, every minute, every day, year, so many great, undeserved mercies, instead of which I should endure righteous punishment. Blessed is he who mourns [Matt. 5, 4]... How can we not cry, for example, because we do not produce spiritual fruit, we are overwhelmed by worldly pleasures, that we do not bring God the fruits of virtue, despite the fact that we listen and read the word of God, and go to divine services, and partake of the Divine Body and Blood. How can we not cry that, having been Christians for so long, we still do not have the Spirit of Christ, we are not conformed to Him, we do not imitate His life in the least, we are not clothed in Him, according to the Scripture: all of you who were baptized into Christ have put on Christ [Gal. 3, 27]. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His [Rom. 8, 9]. I see and feel how the devil is intensifying to tear Christianity out of the hearts and lives of Christians and plant his lies, his charms in them; I see how he is intensifying to suppress in me Divine heavenly thoughts and feelings of Divine goodness and to implant earthly thoughts and the same feelings; how he intensifies to steal my inner prayer and forcefully force me to remain silent and not say my prayers before the people; how he intensifies to root carnal passions in me and bind me with them, so that I will always be his captive. I see how, during public prayer, he instills in me his vain, charming fear and various doubts or passions and thereby produces in me spiritual paralysis, from which my heart dies and my tongue is tied; but I also see that I must not succumb to this vain fear of demons, and serve louder, and be as bold as possible, and must resist it in everything, strengthened by the grace of God and strengthened in the power of His strength [Eph. 6, 10]. The poor in spirit does not judge others, but judges himself strictly. [...]. Chapter 14 of the Gospel of Matthew. Not those poor in spirit who, due to the multitude of their sins, do not dare to lift their eyes to heaven and suffer reproaches of conscience; not those who are truly poor in all knowledge, in all meaning and cannot give any account of their faith to infidels and people of other faiths and live like senseless cattle - no, not their Kingdom of Heaven. Not those poor in spirit who have been subjected to shameful poverty and humiliation of the spirit as a result of gross vices: drunkenness, debauchery, failure and failure in everyday or spiritual affairs, but those who, doing good deeds and avoiding bad ones, consider themselves indecent slaves, attributing all good to the grace of God, and to themselves only shortcomings and vices. What is our virtue? What do we have of ours? Should we think good, should we wish good, should we do what good we can on our own? No: all this is from God. Ours is only evil, only sins. And we are proud, and evil, and envious, and stingy, and hard-hearted, and incontinent with greed, and liars, and impatient, and murmuring, and lustful, and cowardly. It’s good if we have not yet lost our conscience and have faith in God, which is also not from us, but from God and is His gift: then our faith and conscience keep us from sins, even gross and obvious, and encourage us to constant repentance; and if we repent of our bad deeds, desires and thoughts, then we receive mercy from God, and He instructs us on His path and gives us to walk according to His commandments, and if we again transgress His commandments and repent again, then we will again receive forgiveness and the strength to live in virtue. This is what life is all about for the best of us! We continually sin, we continually fall, but we continually rise from our fall; then, with the help of God (certainly with the help, we cannot do otherwise) something good, but again we fall into evil, into some kind of passion - and there are many of them, and the enemy alternately brings on us one or the other, and the dominant one most often - and then we get up again. This is what our whole life is like! Where is our spiritual wealth? No - we have nothing except poverty, all the wealth of good things comes from God. And poverty of spirit, and crying over sins, and a meek disposition of spirit, and greed and thirst for truth are acquired through prayer, contemplation of God, and reflection on one’s misfortune and damnation. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake [Matt. 5, 10]. Women, innocently persecuted by drunken or depraved husbands because they expose them to drunken and depraved lives, are persecuted for the truth. How pleasant it is for us to meet our fellow citizens in some foreign city or place! Especially relatives or those who have benefited from us! How pleasant it will be for pious people to meet like-minded holy prophets, patriarchs, forefathers, apostles, hierarchs, martyrs, saints and all saints in Heavenly Jerusalem! Blessed are the poor in spirit, blessed are those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure, the peacemakers, the outcast, the reviled!.. [Matt. 5, 3 – 11]. (Concluding bliss.) There are people who, seeing pleasant dreams in their sleep, upon awakening, regret that they were interrupted and wish that they would continue. Similar to them are all those who, being greedy for the pleasures here, want them to last as long as possible, not knowing that earthly pleasures are a dream, a dream. Just as one tear and one touching thought, feeling can and does have an important influence on the subsequent state of the soul, so one unclean thought, unclean feeling, desire can and also has a very important harmful, destructive effect on the soul. From small things comes everything great: from a good thought - great virtue, and from an evil thought - the greatest atrocities, from humility - the greatest exaltation. At the small entrance, the Royal Doors open during the singing of the beatitudes of the Gospel because these commandments are the path to bliss and to heaven, and the Lord, having fulfilled exactly the entire law, Himself walked this way and showed us an example - all who fulfill His commandments will follow Him, as many have already entered; Therefore it is said: Blessed is the entrance of Thy saints. Just as pride and the desire to become like God cast Adam and Eve out of paradise, so humility leads them back into it. Who am I to be proud of? Above me is the infinity of heaven: there is the beginningless and omnipotent Lord, living in an unapproachable light, who created everything with His word, there are countless hosts of Heavenly spirits and holy people; the earth is filled with people and all kinds of creatures; in the underworld, hell is ready to devour me if I do not repent of my countless sins: there are myriads of evil spirits gnashing at me, ready to devour me. What should I be proud of? By your insignificance? Your misfortune? God! Give me the grace and strength to love my neighbor as my own member, and even more so Yours, to be lenient, to be patient with him if he is of little sense and little learning or uneducated, not to reproach him for this, for even with sense and learning I often act senselessly, indulging in gluttony, intemperance, rage, malice, envy, love of money, and am overwhelmed by lustful thoughts. The whole work of prayer consists in sincerely pronouncing every word of prayer and not flattering with your tongue. Putting off your clothes and putting on church clothes means putting off the old man and putting on the new and putting aside all worldly cares and perceiving heavenly thoughts, or putting on Christ, the perception of angelic dignity. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness [Matt. 5, 6]. How rarely do you receive communion and how necessary is it to receive communion more often! After all, the soul is tired of spiritual hunger and thirst. Hunger and thirst for grace. Samaritan woman and Jesus Christ. Device souls - to seek the living water of grace. How can you not cry incessantly about your sins—how can you find time to play cards, go to the theater, and have fun all day long! After all, we have an internecine war, because we have a terrible fever of sin! After all, we face an unceasing feat against the enemies of our salvation, merciless and fierce, crafty, never-ending! After all, the mental thieves constantly undermine the church of our soul and steal all the good thoughts, dispositions, feelings of the soul and sow the tares of sinful thoughts, desires, intentions, the tares of many different passions. Cases in which we must be meek: when our desires are not fulfilled, even if they were fair, for example, when the table is not prepared the way we would like, or clothes are sewn not to our taste; when they offend us innocently, persecute us, condemn our good deeds, attributing evil goals to them. Take the example of David and the Lord Jesus Christ. Mercy [Matt. 5, 7]. How can we not be merciful when we ourselves constantly take advantage of both the mercies of God undeservedly and the mercies of the society in which we live. List, if you can, these favors, for example, the protection of laws, state salaries, public charitable institutions, whose charity extends to us (gardens, water supply systems, lighting, churches, libraries, hospitals, educational institutions). You shall not make for yourself an idol [Exod. 20, 4]. Each of us is more or less an idolater, for we are all partial to the world, to its various benefits; because of the attachment of our hearts to things, we constantly violate the law of love for God and neighbor, for because of the attachment to things we constantly violate love, which is the fulfillment of the law [Rom. 13, 10]: we are proud, we are at enmity, we envy. Because of our addiction to the world, we do not care about the soul, we do not think about the eternal good of our neighbors, we do not care, we do not have love for God. Theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven [Matt. 5, 3]. This Kingdom is imperishable, free from all rebellions, disorders, untruths, while earthly kingdoms are all wavering, transitory, full of untruths. Do you know what the greatest, unprecedented event was on earth? - The Son of God was and lived on earth in our human form, and performed wonderful deeds - and incomprehensible deeds to the unenlightened by the light of God, and performed miracles as God, and suffered and died as a man, and rose again as God, preached about the Kingdom of Heaven, established the Sacraments, appointed the apostles (and after them - bishops, priests, deacons) as continuers of His work - the salvation of the human race - and then ascended to heaven. So that this greatest event, the saving event, is never forgotten, the Church, since the times of the apostles, has established to remember it in the Divine Liturgy, which is nothing more than the remembrance of the earthly life of Jesus Christ - His birth, His hidden and revealed, or public, life and service to the human race, His sermons, His miracles, His Mystical Supper with the disciples, at which He devoured Himself: eat, cry, My Body 110 ... and drink My Blood, His suffering, death, resurrection and ascension into heaven. The service of the liturgy in the Orthodox Church is majestic, instructive, and touching; truly the Angels themselves serve with us during it, as it is said: Now the Heavenly Powers serve with us invisibly 108 111. Here, in the liturgy, it is visibly shown how the Lord appeared to the world with the preaching of the Gospel, how He opened for us the doors of paradise, or the Kingdom of Heaven, which had previously been locked by our sins, with the help of what good deeds we can enter the Kingdom of Heaven opened by Him. We should not forget our sins and dream of our imaginary righteousness: our pride has the habit of hiding our sins and displaying some good deeds, as the Pharisee exhibited them. Remembering your sins greatly contributes to sincere humility. The great saints of God often brought to mind their sins, as if at the same time forgetting their good deeds or considering them only due, according to the word of the Lord: we are worthless servants, because we did what we had to do [Lk. 17, 10]. Thus, the holy Apostle Paul often recalled his life as a Judaizer and his persecution of the Church of God and called himself the first sinner [1 Tim. 1, 15]. Thus, the beloved confidant of Christ John, a vessel of purity and chastity, meekness, humility, patience, said: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us [1 John. 1, 8]. And from the Old Testament - David, Daniel?.. They were filled with a feeling of contrition for their sins and did not have even a shadow of pride despite all their virtues. Rejoice in the contentment and happiness of your brother parasite as if it were your own, and do not envy him, and do not be angry with him and do not envy him for eating your bread and salt, moreover God’s, and absolutely not yours. Blessed [Matt. 5, 3 – 11]. Man was created for bliss, and in the beginning he was completely blissful, but when he sinned, he was deprived of bliss; but the desire of the heart for bliss, created for bliss, remains: and so man (seeks bliss in every possible way), deprived of primitive bliss, tries to find bliss. But he looks for it where it does not exist - on earth, in creatures, and it is in God and in the fulfillment of His commandments. They seek bliss in food and drink, in rich clothing, in wealth, in pleasures, for example in theaters, and find only some shadow of it, and then for a minute, and after a minute of earthly pleasure they again encounter burden, emptiness, sorrow, melancholy. Where is the bliss? Come, erring earthlings, to the church of God, and the Lord will show you the true path to bliss, show you your true destination, the sources of living water. You have hewed out broken cisterns for yourselves that cannot hold water [Jer. 2, 13]. Blessed are the poor in spirit [Matt. 5, 3]. Prayer. Embrace of the Father... Our insignificance. Sinfulness. Short life. Present trial. For of them is the Kingdom of Heaven [Matt. 5, 3]. The kingdom of earth is shaken and transitory, but the Kingdom of Heaven is unshakable and eternal. There is another life for which we strive. If in this life only we hope in Christ, then we are the most miserable of all people [1 Cor. 15, 19]. All of heaven will abandon you and retreat after death if you do not live like heaven, but live only like earth, drinking, eating, dressing, and playing cards. The Lord will say to you: we do not know you [Matt. 25, 12]. The Lady will say: we don’t know you. The apostles will say: we do not know you; all the saints too. So, let us take care to acquire heavenly morals here in advance, to become accustomed to the spirit of the inhabitants of heaven: the spirit of holiness, purity, meekness, kindness, and mercy. Oh, how careless we are about acquiring the heavenly spirit here and surrendering only to the earthly spirit! Set sail into the deep and let down your nets for a catch [Lk. 5, 4]. Here you are, poor in spirit, why did you come and go to the church of God? You have come here, to the treasury of God’s grace, to be enriched with spiritual gifts - the cleansing of sins, the peace of God. And the proud sons of this world? They do not feel the need for the grace of God: they have become rich, they say, and require nothing [Rev. Z, 17]. They go willingly to the theatre, to a club or to a feast house, and not to the Church of God. This is how many people live and die. What does the frequent expression “Kingdom of Heaven” mean in the Lord’s preaching? In the beatitudes of the Gospel? The hunger and thirst for truth is beautifully expressed by the holy fathers in prayers for communion, in morning and evening prayers, in the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, in the service on the Week of the Prodigal Son, the publican and the Pharisee, in the services of Great Lent, or in the Lenten Triodion. The poor in spirit treat everyone meekly and with respect, while the proud treat everyone pompously, arrogantly, angrily, and contemptuously. God! Let me comprehend the mysteries of Christian life! Grant me to walk in the path of Your commandments, for hitherto I have wandered. The great gift of the Creator to man is tears of repentance: they destroy all the machinations of the enemy, who constantly entangles us with various passions, they scorch, they drive him away; they cleanse sins, bring some kind of goodness into the soul, peace, silence, freedom, the fragrance of shrines, meekness, love for God and neighbor; the entire demonic stronghold is turned into nothing. But woe to the insensitive, who do not reflect on the misery of their sinful situation, who do not feel their guilt, the gravity, the abomination of their sins - woe to the unrepentant hearts! The enemy firmly sits and reigns within them. Prayer has the goal of bringing a person to true humility and contrition for sins. When true humility comes to the heart, then the person is saved, the devil fled, struck by humility. The Lord enters the heart and takes up residence in it... But as long as there is no humility, there is no true prayer, and various dreams and demonic fears wander in the heart. Look how the truly humble fathers prayed, how deeply, how passionately, how tearfully. How they cursed themselves, considering themselves to have surpassed everyone else in their sins! What joy their prayers bring to our souls until now, how they bring from us sighs, tears, contrition, sadness for God! This is where the poverty of spirit lies! How can we not cry incessantly because our heart strives to do everything contrary to the Lord, how can we not cry about the evil inclination of our heart? How not to cry about unrepentance, uncorrected heart? We pray so much, sing, read, so much we partake of the Holy Life-giving Mysteries, which can transform even a stone into soft wax, - and we do not change for the better! Oh, damnation! Oh, malice! Oh, pride! Oh, earthly passions! Oh, the flattery of the love of money! Oh, the flattery of voluptuousness! Remember, as it were, the scales that fell from the eyes of Saul [Acts. 9, 18]. And then Vladimir Equal-to-the-Apostles. This is the scale of sin on our soul that must be removed, otherwise we will not see God. About the second commandment 112. If you stare at good faces, you will not like bad, ugly faces, and this is a sin, deceit. If this is a husband, perhaps he will not love his wife if she is ugly. No one should be judged by the flesh, but by the spirit. You judge according to the flesh [Jn. 8, 15]. Blessed are the meek [Matt. 5, 5]. There are people who consider themselves to have the right to be angry with every handy person, with every thing, as long as this helper and these things do not please him. I will talk about tobacco - the idol and about its idols 113 - cigarette holders, also about cards, and then we will get to the others. About the idol - human flesh, to which so many sacrifices are made. Blessed are those who mourn [Matt. 5, 4]. Blessed are those who weep with those who weep, those who sincerely sympathize with those who mourn [Rom. 12, 15]. It is better to go to a house of mourning... than to go to a house of feasting [Eccl. 7, 2]. An idol is a woman’s head: how much care and labor goes into cleaning it! Is purity of heart valuable or not to you? Is it expensive for you to be a pure village of the Holy Trinity? Is the uncleanness of fornication and sodom disgusting to you? Is it disgusting to be a stinking church of demons? If yes, then be afraid of satiety and, if you are a single person, or a monk, or a priest living a chaste life, avoid eating meats and fatty indigenous fish, because where there is excess in food and drink, where there is consumption of meats and fish, there prodigal uncleanness dwells in the heart. Tears are the waters of the Red Sea, in which the mental Pharaoh is drowned [Ex. 14 ], another baptism is tearful, cleansing sins; bath of repentance. Those who sincerely cry over their sins are usually meek, because they are constantly immersed in the consciousness and feeling of their sins, consider themselves to be the most sinful of all, see all the weakness and sinfulness of human nature, and therefore are lenient towards their neighbors, rewarding themselves with God’s boundless love for mankind. Just as crying for sins is closely connected with the consciousness of human poverty and with a sense of humility, so meekness is closely connected with crying for sins. Blessed are the meek [Matt. 5, 5]. What peace and quiet reigns in the soul of the meek; on the contrary, what a storm rages, what fire of hell devours the evil and irritable! What a correct flow of blood, correct breathing, digestion - in a word, what order and well-being in his physical nature and what a disorder in the irritable one in his physical nature: how the blood agitates and boils, what irregular and intermittent breathing, how digestion is upset! And how all this contributes to the disorder of his bodily organism and shortens his life! How many suddenly died of anger! How many fell ill from anger and had to pay for short-term anger with several days or weeks of illness, while others, if it went unfavorably, died, suffering from pneumonia or cancer. And the meek! Since their spirit is always calm, there is order and calm in the whole body, in all its functions, and its life flows like a calm river; a meek disposition of spirit removes many causes of illness and is very conducive to long life, especially if, with meekness, one is self-controlled, chaste, and unselfish, because all passions are associated with unrest and disturbances in the soul and body and therefore harm the mental and physical well-being of a person. The character of meekness is not to resist evil, but to patiently endure insults: if someone hits you on the cheek, turn the other one too, generally hand it over to the One who judges righteously [1 Pet. 2, 23]... Inner meekness, inner kindness; the spirit of love, forbearance, calmness, patience, humility (the thought that I myself would have acted worse, would have done or am doing an act; that irritability and anger primarily hurt me, cause primarily spiritual and physical harm to myself). The opposite of meekness is zeal, arbitrariness, resentment, fighting (quarrelsomeness). From rage, they say, Father K[...] died. The harm of rage. Malice destroyed Saul, meekness prolonged David's life, and he inherited both the land and the kingdom. A stern look at every sinful thought, every sinful movement of the flesh, war with the flesh. Blessed are the pure in heart [Matt. 5, 8]. Meekness does not raise its voice against its neighbor in rage, but quietly, kindly, calmly notices his disorder or remains silent, correcting it himself if possible. The source of meekness is humility and remembrance of one’s shortcomings, infirmities, weaknesses, God’s immeasurable condescension towards us and people’s long-suffering and condescension towards us, also remembrance of the God-like nature of human nature, redemption, deification, adoption of people to God and in general that they are the work of God’s hands, beloved of God, and the crown of creation. Let your meekness be known to all men [Phil. 4, 5]. Learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart [Matt. 11, 29]. (Meekness comes from humility.) Meekness in the look, in the word, in the movement, in the step. He will not raise his voice, he will not look sternly at anyone. Do you want us to say that fire will come down from heaven and destroy them?.., you don’t know what kind of spirit you are; for the Son of Man came not to destroy the souls of men, but to save [Lk. 9, 54 – 56]. Behold the meekness of the Lord and the irritability of the disciples! We are like these students: we are ready to take revenge for every trifle in our hearts, in words, in looks, in deeds. When talking about the commandments, say everything that you yourself feel from fulfilling and not fulfilling them; How God rewards for fulfillment and how He torments for non-fulfillment is a guarantee of future torment and future bliss. What was the reason that today I was finally furious with the beggars? – Love of money; If I were not a lover of money and completely trusted in God, I would willingly give the last to my neighbor in the name of Jesus Christ and would rejoice, wasting my wealth on the poor. Oh, how imperfect I am still, attached to this place. He is cold to what is there, that is, to what is above. The predilection for earthly things manifests itself in me when they call with a demand to the rich and to the poor. Here the thirst and desire for money is now manifested, and almost during the teaching of the most pure and life-giving Mysteries. Oh, the damned desire of the heart for covetousness! But we go to the poor reluctantly! Oh, the audacity of the heart! Why am I, crazy, depriving myself of the sweet Divine world and creating a hellish storm within myself? - Because of ashes, because of money, because of sweets, because of clothes, because of vain, temporary honor. Many beggars constantly demand food, money - and I am furious when I should be rejoicing, because it is not I who are giving them, but they who are lending me money by eating and drinking what is given to me. What can we say about those who are angry at soulless things? What kind of nonsense is this? How can they be to blame?.. This means that the irritable person is somewhat out of his mind or he does not think, does not give himself an account of his actions. An irritable person often blames everyone and everything without guilt, he casts a fierce gaze at everyone and everything, and often everything around him experiences his anger: people - angry abuse, and sometimes beatings; things also go to things: who has not seen how an irritable person throws things that create the slightest obstacle in his way, breaks them, tramples them. This sometimes happens because of his painful condition. How unnaturally he raises his voice, in which one can see the excitement, the anxiety of the soul. Imam's flesh... I burn with rage... 114 Into the conversation. Tobacco is initially bitter and unpleasant, but then becomes sweet. It’s like every sin: at first it’s disgusting, but then you get used to it and it becomes sweet. Temporary sweetness of sin [Heb. 11, 25]. Irritability can become a habit, and a person will constantly be irritated by everything, and will lose peace of mind - this most precious treasure in life. In front of people we are meek, but in the dark and without people or a home - we are animals, animals, that is, in relation to the powerless beggars and households, when they do something contrary to us, our old man. It’s amazing how cunning man is, how changeable and can take on thousands of forms! Before the rich, on whom we recognize our dependence in material terms, and before nobles, scientists, bosses, whom we feel superior to us, we are meek, and before the poor and needy, asking for our help and protection, we walk like roosters, with our heads raised, or, even worse, we treat them like fierce animals; sometimes it’s as if we make them forget their human dignity, or that we are ordinary mortals and that we are supposedly as distant from them as heaven is from earth; We caress the rich and noble, we fawn over them, we show servility, or, more simply, we give an indulgence; We look down on the poor, we say rude things to them, insolence, and at parting, perhaps, we will inflict hand-to-hand reprisals for some trifle, even for the fact that he did not flatter our pride, said an unkind word, or presented his humble request not for the first time. From anger, irritability, how the spirit is agitated, how the blood is agitated, what confusion, what fire of hell scorches the soul and body! Wanting to improve our life, which was upset and outraged by the enemy, and to plant His Divine meekness in our hearts, to drive out malice, the Lord commanded: Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth [Matt. 5, 5], and: learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart [Matt. 11, 29 ]; humble, he added, because meekness comes from humility: where there is no humility, there is no meekness. And where there is true love, there is meekness and humility; and where there is no meekness and humility, there is no true love. Anger and irritability come from drunkenness, satiety, intemperance in general, from love of money, lust, ambition, and love of clothing. What are the modern idols? Well, for example, any boss who pleases his subordinates in some very unimportant way, for example, by cutting them a lot of slack in everything, becomes almost an object of adoration. His subordinates give him a sumptuous dinner with music, lift him in their arms and triumphantly carry him, like a deity, into a carriage, with noise, uproar and shouts of “Hurray!” About the sixth and seventh commandments 115. If you want to be calm, contented, healthy - do not let yourself be disturbed by lustful thoughts and lust, stop the impulses of passion at the very beginning - and you will be calm and healthy; also, do not give room in your heart for anger, malice, irritability towards your neighbor, towards your comrade, neighbor, boss, towards your family - and be calm and healthy; be happy with little, do not envy anyone - and be calm and content; Don’t suspect anyone of hostility towards you, don’t think badly of anyone, wish everyone well, try to notice something good in bad people and love them for this and pray to God for them - and you will be calm and content. Second Commandment 116. You are an idol for yourself: you admire yourself in the mirror when your face is blooming, you abhor yourself when for some reason it is unseemly, and you grieve about it; Does this mean that you are also inclined to admire only good faces in others, and abhor ugly ones? So? But this is ungodly. Isn’t the soul the same in both the beautiful and the ugly? Is it better for the beautiful than for the non-beautiful? Are not both the beautiful and the ugly created equally in the image of God? Oh, what an idolater of external beauty you are. What cunning eyesight you have! Why do diseases occur in particular? From unreasonable nature, from the type of food, clothing, air, sometimes from [...]. Is it because of this special person that you honor him? The Fourth Beatitude. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness [Matt. 5, 6]. I feel pride in myself - I hunger and thirst for humility; I am obstinate, irritable and angry - I hunger and thirst for meekness and gentleness; I am impatient - I thirst for patience and complacency; I am intemperate - I hunger and thirst for abstinence; I am lustful - I hunger and thirst for chastity; I am envious - I hunger and thirst to be content with little and wish the best for everyone; I am crafty - I hunger and thirst for simplicity and sincerity; I am cold - I hunger and thirst for ardor towards God and neighbor; I am cowardly, cowardly, outrageous - I hunger and thirst for courage and imperturbable calm; I am partial - I hunger and thirst to respect everyone equally and not to understand a single one according to the flesh; I am disobedient – ​​I hunger and thirst for perfect submission for Christ’s sake. I see many different untruths in people: insults, bribery, lack of faith and unbelief proudly raising its head, debauchery everywhere, disobedience to the saving statutes of the Church, neglect of fasts - and I hunger and thirst for holy, saving truth; I see drunkenness - I can’t curb it and I only hunger and thirst for the people of God, God’s treasure, to live abstinently. I am prone to despondency - I hunger and thirst for ever-present cheerfulness and hope; I am powerless for good and strong for evil - I hunger and thirst for everlasting strength for all virtue and powerlessness for all evil; I am changeable for the worse - I hunger and thirst not for change for the worse, but constantly for change for the better. I am passionate about earthly blessings and indifferent to heavenly and enduring ones - I hunger and thirst on earth for heavenly life, that is, spiritual, holy: heavenly thoughts, heavenly feelings, desires, aspirations, heavenly virtues; I am money-loving and selfish - I hunger and thirst to be unmercenary and non-covetous; I am devoted to earthly sweets - I hunger and thirst to leave them and love spiritual sweetness, the sweetness of thinking about God, the sweetness of conversation with God in prayer, the sweetness of the word of God, the Divine Mysteries, the sweetness of clinging to God; I have a passion for fine clothing - I hunger and thirst for the incorruptible robe of righteousness - to put on Christ; I feel the attraction of my heart to earthly rewards, distinctions, I want to be a gold-bearer, I want to shine - and I condemn myself; but [also] my soul finds this empty, hungers and thirsts for heavenly reward, the honor of the highest calling of God in Christ - to shine with heavenly light, with divine light in the Kingdom of my Heavenly Father. I see the oppression of the poor; I see the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the homeless - and I hunger and thirst for righteousness, when the mighty of this world and the rich of this world will stop luxuriously, oppressing the poor, selling his last livestock in order to take a debt from him, which will go to empty whims. I see the education of youth that is perverse and not in the spirit of the Orthodox Church - and I hunger and thirst for the truth of the Gospel and Church. An idol regiment is a city [Acts. 17, 16]. This is every person: the heart of each of us is full of different idols. Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head [Matt. 8, 20]. Hunger and thirst for truth are opposed to greed and thirst for evil, sin, corruption, with which the sons of this age strive to commit all unrighteousness, greed and thirst for self-interest, voluptuousness, absent-mindedness, games and other things. Complaint from Timofey Aleksandrovich, a retired major, about the disobedience, insolence, and anger of his daughters: the daughter broke two plates on her father’s head, and hit him in the head with an iron (the eldest). What misfortunes! What disrespect! Is this how the fifth commandment 117 is fulfilled? The hunger and thirst for truth of Christian souls is beautifully and touchingly expressed in the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, in the prayer of Manasseh, King of the Jews, and others. Do not hit the [key] of the box with your hand and do not hide treasures for yourself on earth, where moth and rust destroy [Matt. 6, 19]. Otherwise, God will punish you with paralysis of your arm. What honest 118 and great promises have been given to us by God in the beatitudes of the Gospel, which constitute the essence of the Gospel! How not to work here for the glory of God and the salvation of the soul! Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness... will be satisfied [Matt. 5, 6]. Great righteous people suffered persecution: the Forerunner, Isaiah, the apostles, hierarchs, martyrs. Where is the truth? The world lies in evil, adulterous and sinful. Jesus Christ was martyred. Hungry and thirsty for truth... (common people, beggars). Since the Fall, famine has visited people, all kinds of untruth have multiplied on earth: idolatry, addiction to earthly goods, voluptuousness, love of money, oppression of the strong by the weak, lies, deception, slander, deceit, cunning, unbelief, polytheism, hypocrisy, bribery, extortion, intemperance, rage, irritability, murder, envy, gloating, rancor, laziness, fornication, strife, quarrels, enmity, wars. The Lord came to fulfill for us in body and soul all the righteousness of God, and the Just One died for the unjust to bring us to God [1 Pet. 3, 18]. The righteous are those who, with the help of the grace of Christ, have fulfilled the righteousness of God: He who does righteousness is the righteous [1 John. 3, 7]. The strong do not seek the truth. On earth they are trying in every possible way, apparently, about the truth: for this, laws are written (and promulgated by the royal authorities) and ministers, priests of truth, judges are appointed - for this, world courts, to which all those seeking truth can turn. So I fell internally into sin - and spiritual anguish befell me: my soul has lost the gum of truth - where will I find the truth? - In Christ, the Sun of Truth, in my breath: I will be satisfied with Him; He is my food, my inexhaustible drink. It’s a strange thing: I think I’ll be satiated with sin - and instead of satiation I find in it hunger, cramped conditions, sorrow, powerlessness, and darkness. The righteous, hungry and thirsty for righteousness, ate little bread and drank little, so that they could hunger and thirst for righteousness the more and be satisfied with it; They slept little, so as not to lose from their hearts in their sleep the truth acquired in the waking state. I thirst - cried the Savior on the cross [John. 19, 28]: He thirsted for the truth of God from men, and not water! The prodigal son was hungry: I am perishing with famine [Lk. 15, 17]. Those who hunger and thirst for truth diligently read the word of God in order to see their untruth in it, seeking in it the truth of God and trying to fulfill it; diligently attend divine services in order to be satisfied with the righteousness of God, which penetrates the divine service, and to see their own unrighteousness; they often confess their untruths to those who have received from God the power to forgive and resolve human untruths by the power of God; one who hungers and thirsts for truth hungers and thirsts for reading books that contain the truth of God and describe our responsibilities to God and neighbor, especially the writings of the holy fathers; one who hungers and thirsts for righteousness seeks conversations with pious and spiritual people and greedily listens to the word of God in church and pious conversations in the house about God and His works; He who hungers and thirsts for truth does not tolerate the slightest untruth of sin in himself and tries to be the sun of righteousness, just as the Lord is the Sun of righteousness, not having the slightest stain of untruth, and having noticed untruth in himself, he grieves over it and immediately brings repentance. Are there many who hunger and sincerely thirst for truth between our penitents and our communicants? – Very little, for whoever truly hungers and thirsts for righteousness, after receiving the forgiveness of sins, tries in every possible way to refrain from the unrighteousness of sin and to observe the truth, and among our penitents there are few such: after confession, they again take up old sins; others hunger and thirst for sinful unrighteousness. Hungering and thirsting for righteousness [Matt. 5, 6], that is, Christian perfection. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy [Matt. 5, 7]. Lord, have mercy! The connection of this commandment with the previous one. He who hungers and thirsts for justification and pardon, does the mercy himself. For as we do with our neighbors, so the truth of God will do with us. If you forgive people... [Matt. 6, 14]. Whatever you want people to do to you, do so to them, for this is the law and the prophets [Matt. 7, 12]. You are concerned about decorating your body with clothes, but the walls are also dressed in colorful clothes. How are you better than the wall? Have you forgotten your purpose, that you should be clothed with Christ, or with His virtues? If you forgive people... [Matt. 6, 14]. If anyone... deviates from the truth... [James. 5, 19 ] 119 . Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy [Matt. 5, 7]. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful [Lk. 6, 36]. Reveal in conversation the endless mercy of God, shown to the human race in general and shown to each of us in particular. This abyss of God’s mercy should encourage each of us to mutual compassion and mercy. In addition, we constantly need God's mercy, as those who sin willy-nilly every day and hour: our soul, which does not have peace due to sins, seeks reconciliation with God. The Lord, in this regard, made us extremely condescending: He deigned to declare in the Gospel that every true mercy shown by us to our neighbor is, as it were, mercy to Himself and brings down mercy from Him to the most merciful. Co-creator with me [Matt. 25, 40]. Those who are merciful... will receive mercy [Matt. 5, 7]. On the contrary, the unmerciful will not be shown any mercy at the Judgment. Judgment without mercy to those who showed no mercy; mercy exalts itself over judgment [Jas. 2, 13]. The Gospel does not encourage any virtue as much as mercy. The parable of the unmerciful debtor, the parable of the ten virgins, the parable of the one who fell into robbers 120. The Apostle says: let us remember the poor [Gal. 2, 10]. Be a god for the poor. As the eyes of slaves are turned to the hand of their masters, as the eyes of a slave are turned to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes are turned to the Lord our God, until He has mercy on us. Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy on us, for we are filled enough with contempt; Our soul is quite filled with reproach from the arrogant and humiliation from the proud [Ps. 122, 2–4]. Because of our poverty God is rich, but through His poverty we have become rich [2 Cor. 8.9]. Here is an incentive to mercy! And the Apostle says this to encourage mercy. What do we most praise about God? Mercy. What perfection is most glorified in the Queen of Angels and Men? Mercy. (Canon of Hodegetria.) What spirit breathes in the speeches of the Savior, in His conversations, parables, and deeds? Spirit of mercy. What does the Church most instill in us in its readings and chants? Mercy. Why are some saints especially glorified? For mercy, such as Nicholas of Myra. Mercy. Thus, mercy seems to be especially characteristic of God and His saints; the mercy of an Angel and a person likens them to God, for mercy is a manifestation of goodness, the infinite goodness of God, affecting all His creations. What types of mercy are there? How and in what spirit should mercy be shown (according to the word itself)? - With tenderness, compassion, humility, and respect for the person being beneficent. Out of gratitude to God, who has mercy and mercy on us, how can we not show mercy to others who need our help? Why have we been given a heart that can feel and sympathize? And how guilty before God and people are those people who, through gross pride, self-interest and carnality, have suppressed sensitivity and compassion in themselves? The Fifth Beatitude 121. Because of our poverty, that through His poverty we may become rich [2 Cor. 8, 9]. Encouragement to show mercy to the poor. The first commandment and the second 122. Idols. Everyone wants to show off with their face, clothes, differences; love for oneself is carnal, earthly, but there is no direct love for one’s neighbor, or for God either. The second commandment of God. How much the habit of constantly chewing and swallowing, or eating, drinking, smoking, harms the spirit of piety! Wherever one could take up the word of God, or books of spiritual content in general, or pray, or go to visit a sick person, or talk at home about something soul-saving - and you never know the spiritual subjects of the greatest importance that should be discussed - a person instead just chews and chews, swallows and swallows, smokes and smokes himself, pours and pours like a bottomless dish. Another person, it seems, has everything and should be happy and prosperous, but does not have one thing, for example, even a badge of distinction, which he expected, and is in trouble and unhappy. Why? Because the insignia is his idol. On the contrary, whoever has the Lord God in his heart and cleaves to Him completely, even if he had nothing of earthly goods, but was only with himself, he is content and happy. Fools, saints, unmercenaries. Smoking tobacco causes many fires. What is our tobacco idol? And the Emperor publicly ordered smoking everywhere and allowed everyone to do so. Is this possible? Some people's heart is deceived by itself, and the person is in love with himself; another is seduced or is seduced by others - however, whoever is seduced by himself, by the beauty of his face and places high these beautiful but transitory features, this, I will say, a transitory shadow, is seduced by himself and by others, is vainglorious in his own face and is carried away by the beauty of another. And the idol himself, and others. The sting of carnal love quickly and imperceptibly pierces the heart, hiding behind natural or even evangelical love. Second Commandment 123. The glory of the incorruptible God was changed into an image made like corruptible man, and birds, and four-footed animals, and reptiles, etc. [Rom. 1, 23]. Prophet Zechariah, ch. 13, 2 124. Vice openly raises its head, openly rides in carriages, openly shows kindness. First commandment. Superstitions: dreams of the Blessed Virgin Mary... Twelve Fridays. Addiction to earthly life: superstitions frighten those who are passionate about earthly life: don’t say hello at the door, don’t start business on Monday, put a piece of bread in the salt, the cat ran across, the priest came across. The Eighth Beatitude 125. How dissatisfied we are with ourselves when we do not express the truth where it should be expressed, and what complacency and triumph of spirit we feel when we express the whole truth that was in our souls. And how much benefit for us and for our neighbors comes from this love of truth and frankness! How much harm comes from hiding the truth! Prophets. Apostles. Martyrs. I will not speak, and there will be a fire burning... in my bones! 126 Second commandment. What evils can be caused by drunkenness! It uproots good homes and families and plunges family members into poverty and debauchery. I knew one noble family. The father, who was previously in poverty and on trial, was acquitted and then recovered, and began to live well. Then he began to drink, he drank for a long time, no advice helped, and finally their condition was exhausted. The mother of the family, having visited some families with a request for assistance, was refused. What was to be done as a last resort? She had several daughters, good-looking. She decided to sacrifice their innocence to obtain daily food. What a terrible evil is drunkenness! How many souls does a drunken father of a family destroy: both his own soul and the souls of family members! Oh, drunkenness! Drunkenness! O network of enemy! And yet, despite the enormous evil of drunkenness, there are still an abyss of drinking houses, countless in number: like fly agarics for flies, placed on all the roads! What self-interest does not do! Oh, self-interest, self-interest! How many souls are dying because of you! Oh, earthly love! How murderous you are for heavenly love! This is why true followers despise the belly with sweets, and all self-interest, and worldly glory and, leaving the world, go into the desert, so that, having renounced everything earthly, they can work for one God and endure unceasing grief. Second commandment. “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die!” » [Isa. 22, 13; 1 Cor. 15, 32]. And indeed, gluttons spend their time only eating, drinking and smoking. When they get up in the morning, instead of washing their faces and praying to God, they immediately start smoking; then, without praying or thanking God for a well-spent night and without asking the Lord God for a sinless day, they sit down to tea; then they wait for lunch while walking; After having lunch, they rest, then drink tea or coffee again, then walk and again eat and drink. Soul! you have a lot of good things lying around for many years: rest, eat, drink, be merry [Lk. 12, 19]. This is what every rich man says within himself and, collecting everything for himself, lives only in himself and for himself, not thinking that hundreds and thousands of poor people before his eyes or in the same city or village sometimes have no bread, clothes and shoes, no home and drag out a miserable life, while he, the rich man, overeats, gets drunk, dresses in Dutch linen, silk and velvet, English cloth, the best tights 127 and drape. They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built [Lk. 17, 28]. They spend their lives eating and drinking, buying, selling, planting trees, planting gardens, vegetable gardens, building and rebuilding houses, but they do not care about the only thing they need - about saving the soul, about pleasing God; worldly, vain, fruitless, ephemeral (one-day) affairs for the soul absorb all their attention, all their care and effort. Now listen to you who say: “... let us go to such and such a city... and we will trade and make a profit”; you who do not know what will happen tomorrow: for what is your life? steam... [James. 4, 13 – 14]. In the second commandment one must attack drunkenness, luxury, dress, and misogyny. The people who commit the most lies on earth are those who are rich and want to get rich, who grab wealth into their clutches by all means, despite the suffering of poor people; they are raking in the heat with someone else's hands. Idol female head. How much time is wasted every day on this head, how much hairstyle, cleaning! The head is removed, but prayer is not thought about; after cleaning, tea or a cigarette, it’s time for lunch - all the time in the bustle. The second commandment is about cards. The gambler does not pray: this is a great loss for the soul. The time for evening prayer comes, and he still plays cards and, of course, does not think about prayer; The time of morning prayer often passes with cards, and the gambler still plays cards - a serious sin, and time, they say, cannot be turned back: value time, because the days are evil [Eph. 5, 16]. The gambler wastes a lot of his time. And how much irritability there is during the game, and how much anxiety after a loss! And the wife and children miss their father so much! In the seventh commandment 128, talk about the many indecent houses in Kronstadt, about their harmful influence on the morality of the city population, about how innocent youth is corrupted by them (in confession, boys and adults admit that they go to these houses; if it weren’t for them, there would be no sin). Woe to the man through whom temptation comes [Matt. 18, 7]. To the extent that carnal, unlawful love makes a person warm towards the person he loves, so much so does it cool him towards those persons to whom we owe legitimate love, such as: parents, brothers and sisters, other relatives and acquaintances. Carnal love is a scourge or worm for natural and evangelical love. Gluttony, love of money too. Esau sold his birthright for his belly; Judah sold his Lord for money. And now people sell their souls to the enemy of the human race for the pleasures of the womb and for the sake of money. Children grow cold towards their parents, loving the womb and self-interest. What is tobacco? - Children's icicle. [Yes] is it all about being children? Isn't this fiery icicle dangerous? Is it possible to burn houses, villages and cities with it? From a spark, they say, there is a flame. Hasn't this happened to us often? Is this childish prank typical of adults and serious people? (Fourth Commandment 129.) Gathering in church and listening to the Gospel and the Apostolic reading or the Old Testament church readings and chants, we see clearer than day that we are all equally created in the image of God and likeness, we have the same purpose, we have the same sinful ulcers and ailments, the same spiritual needs and bodily needs - in a word, we recognize the unity of nature and the need for each other, especially grace, in the mercy and help of God, and we learn to respect and love each other, help each other. Man, created in the image and likeness of God, must love his Creator with all his heart and soul, with all his thoughts and with all his strength (to explain this - with all his heart and strength [Mark 12:30]). But here love for the world or for creation haunts him every day and intensifies to crowd out love for God and neighbor (His image). This is favored by man’s sinful inclinations towards the world, which have become natural: addiction to his flesh, its pleasures, to wealth, to the honor of this world... Here each of us must be a fighter and warrior all his life, and he is a saint of God who has overcome the love of the world with the love of God. Who will separate us from the love of God? .. [Rom. 8, 35]. What is love for God? – Love is patient... and so on [1 Cor. 13, 4]. Who is in my heaven? .. [Ps. 72, 25]. Why do we most often violate the commandments of love for God and neighbor? Because of money, food, clothing, grievances (honor), in general because of attachment to earthly goods. Whether someone took ours or did not give what was ours is a disaster: malice, hatred, envy, curses, slander... Therefore, be indifferent to earthly acquisitions and to earthly honor and dishonor. Acquire God in your heart and strive for the honor of a heavenly calling. All our lives the devil fools us with various ghosts - earthly things and earthly honors, but does not even allow us to think about heavenly ones. He steals and steals and steals from us both God and salvation. Having offered conversations about Christian faith and hope, we will now begin to talk about love and good deeds - for faith without works is dead [Jas. 2, 20, 26]. What is the use of my faith when I am intemperate, angry, proud, envious, unrepentant in heart, lover of money, hard-hearted, unmerciful, murmuring, despondent, etc.? Wild people began to smoke tobacco, pagans who did not know the true God began to play cards. Anyone who enters into a serious struggle against smoking and gambling, theater mania and club life will be subjected to the same persecution and opposition that those who enter into the struggle against idolatry were subjected to. Oh, everywhere there is incense being smoked to the idol of the flesh: everywhere there is a game of cards, everywhere the delirium of theaters and clubs, supported and amplified by talkative newspapers. Having been created in the image and likeness of God, from nature at birth I inherited corruption, a sinful infection, a damned heart and a darkened mind, a predisposition to all kinds of sins hidden in the heart of a baby, like a seed in an embryo. As the baby grows, sin also grows, the inclination towards sin also grows, and the baby already shows in itself anger, pride, greed, stinginess, love of money, willfulness, and stubbornness. We must begin from infancy to eradicate the evil seed from a person’s heart and not allow it to develop and grow stronger, like thin grass in a field. The tares of sin grow quickly and grow strong like ivy. We all have a lot of work to do with these tares, but not everyone works to remove them. Playing cards develops selfishness and irritability. Gamblers often ruin their home, their family; fathers leave their wives and children; wives and mothers of children. Love for God means love for holiness, truth, mercy, meekness, kindness, humility, abstinence, patience and all virtues and complete hatred for all sin, in whatever form it may attack us: lust, envy, malice, impatience, self-will or stubbornness, pride and vanity, deceit and hypocrisy, whether it be gluttony, love of clothing, luxury, absent-mindedness, disobedience, despondency, laughter, carnality and similar sins. Love for God means love for things above, as eternal, and neglect of things below, as transitory. Love for God is tested and exercised through love for one's neighbor, so that one who does not love one's neighbor cannot love God. Therefore, love is long-suffering... love does not envy... does not boast, is not proud, does not act outrageously... is not irritated, does not think evil, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; covers all things, believes all things, hopes all things... Love never fails [1 Cor. 13, 4 – 8]. There is also an idol. His name is health. Many sacrifices are made to this idol every day. For this idol they eat everything that is healthy, under the pretext of health; it’s healthy to smoke - they smoke, to sleep a lot - they sleep a lot, to walk a lot - they walk, to commit fornication - they commit fornication, to drink wine - they drink wine, and everything for health or under the pretext of health. O inexorable idol - health! How many sacrifices do you demand for yourself! It’s better to be unhealthy than to commit lawlessness for your health! For health reasons, sometimes they don’t even go to church: the weather is bad or the wind is blowing. If you love Me, keep My commandments [Jn. 14, 15]. Love consists in fulfilling or keeping the commandments. God is love [1 John. 4, 8], and through one love he brought all creatures from non-existence into existence. What are tobacco and cards in origin and consequences? Is this caused by the need of nature? Smoking tobacco is already harmful because this lust attaches us more strongly to the earth and turns us away from heaven. Irmos express the works of Jesus Christ, His miracles in the Old Testament, proving His Divinity, creativity, providence and salvation. July 19. I thank Thee, O most merciful Lord, for Thou hast given me this day, during the all-night vigil in the Assumption Church, a warm prayer, filled with tenderness, peace, sweetness, contemplation and inner conversation with Thee. Oh, who will let me pray to You all the days of my life! Glory to You, my Creator and Savior! You transform me during prayer and prayer, by Your grace, and form paradise in my soul, transforming earth into heaven; You fill my heart with tender and pure love for You and my neighbors, for all earthly beings, and you inspire me to intercede for the salvation of all of them. You transform me wonderfully in prayer: I am a miracle of Your goodness, Your power, Your wisdom; from the greatest sinner I become as if righteous, somehow luminous, fragrant with the grace of Your Holy Spirit. I am amazed at myself. I know that I am at home, in the world, the greatest sinner, the receptacle of all sins; but here Thy grace makes me a miracle of transformation, transformation, sanctification, deification, renewal: I am made holy by Thy Holy Spirit. What's more surprising than this? The black, smoking brand becomes all luminous coal. Glory to Your miracles, Christ, glory to Your goodness, Your bounty, Your power, Your holy faith! Do this with all people and grant me and them perfect salvation to be achieved by Thy mercy. Glory to Thee, consumer of sin, most merciful Lord! To love God means not to love the world, nor the things in the world [1 John. 2, 15 ], to have no attachment to anything earthly: neither to glory, nor to wealth and pomp, nor to sweets (consider everything a dream), but to one God; means to hate with all your heart and with all your mind every sin: fornication, malice, envy, pride, intemperance, idle talk, foul language, disorderly laughter, idleness, condemnation, slander, laziness, lies, deity, perjury, hypocrisy, theft and other sins; means constantly remembering God and thanking Him. to glorify Him, to worship Him, to fight for Him constantly with sins and passions, to deprive oneself of bodily rest for Him, to crucify for Him incessantly, to deny oneself, one’s desires, one’s will, one’s thoughts and live according to His desire, will, and thoughts. How vain, petty, and base we are! Sitting at the table with empty conversations, laughing, or at the blue table, that is, the card table, is nothing; standing in a church for an hour during a service is a disaster, it’s hard! But won’t it be hard for you, friends, in paradise? Isn't it easier in hell? The glutton has a sore spot - his stomach, which hurts, aches, worries him every time his free parasite eats his favorite expensive dishes, cookies and jams, drinks difficult drinks bought at a high price. His heart is callous and cold towards his brother; there is no spark of holy brotherly love in him; he is sad, gloomy, gloomy; During the meal he does not have a good, living thought, consistency in his thoughts, or a sense of goodness: he seems to be mad, for the demon of the womb darkens and torments him. This is why love for God and neighbor dries up - because of a stinking belly, because of manure, because of pus, because of mucus! With such insignificant, empty things the devil leads to such great crimes, to the violation of the entire moral law, which consists in loving your neighbor, for the whole law is contained in one word: love your neighbor as yourself [Gal. 5, 14]. Be a glutton after this, break Wednesdays, heels and all fasts, indulge in intemperance! Oh, how many gluttons are already in hell! To love God as the most perfect Prototype, who is love, truth, truth, wisdom, omnipotence, one’s neighbor and oneself, as His image, and to cleanse oneself from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit and to improve in every virtue; to love what is above, to despise what is below, to be heavenly citizens on earth means to love God: for this reason God came down to earth, so that he may lead us to heaven. How the verbal heavens lived on earth - the holy apostles, hierarchs, martyrs, saints, unmercenaries! Why do I seek earthly glory, earthly reward, that is, from people who walk above and do not lead 130, and not from God, and I become despondent and faint-hearted when I do not receive it due to human slander or secret denunciation against me? Am I not from above? Am I not a Christian? Isn’t it contrary to the Gospel to seek glory from people, at least from the Synod, for even in the Synod there are people with sins, although they have been especially sanctified by the sovereign or the bishop? Try to have an immaculate conscience and do the works of service as they should - and conscience itself will be your reward. And despise earthly glory. Earthly rewards feed in us self-love, pride, conceit, vanity and overthrow humility, and a humble opinion of oneself, as the worst of all, the most sinful, the weakest spiritually and physically, is most necessary for a Christian. And that's who I am. Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and everyone who humbles himself will be exalted [Lk. 14, 11; 18, 14]... And you exalted yourself, asking to be presented for a reward and showing off your dignity. What do you have that you would not receive from God? And if you have received it, you boast as if you had not received it [1 Cor. 4, 7], but how would you do everything with your own strength? When you have fulfilled everything commanded to you - and how far I have not yet done everything commanded - say: we are worthless slaves, because we did what we had to do [Lk. 17, 10]. Let them mercilessly destroy the prepared sweets, if the disembodied enemy makes such a net destructive for me from them. Let there be none. Love for God consists in the rejection of love for oneself, or in self-sacrifice. For example, you love to smoke, play cards, eat and drink sweetly, stare at beautiful faces, you love to collect money and not give, you love to dress up, go for walks, go to banquets, you are envious, you are arrogant - throw it away, reject it from yourself, and you will love God and your neighbor, and until you reject it, you cannot. You cannot serve God and mammon [Matt. 6, 24; OK. 16, 13]. Hate all your sinful inclinations and habits - and you will love God. Look how the saints the Forerunner, Elijah, Paul, Peter, John, the martyrs, the saints, the unmercenaries, and the hierarchs loved God. Love you too. Look how the people of this century work tirelessly from early to late, laying earthly paths (I mean railroads), overcoming all sorts of obstacles, strengthening wilds, throwing bridges across rivers, demolishing mountains or laying paths inside mountains, just to make the path straight, hard, smooth, and fast. And we, when the path to heaven lies before us - also not without wilds, rivers and mountains of its own kind, however, paved and significantly leveled for us by the Son of God, Who Himself was the first to walk along it - we doze, are lazy, do not want to overcome some of the difficulties along this path, presented to us by the flesh, the world and our common enemy the devil. Or again: look how in the summer the villagers work to harvest grain or flax, hemp, vegetables or hay from the fields in order to provide for themselves and their livestock in the coming autumn and winter: they go to work early in the morning with the sun rising and work in the sweat of their brow all day, almost forgetting about food, in order to collect everything on time, so that nothing is lost from rain or drought - but we are lazy look up 131 to the petrified earth of your heart with fasting, prayer, repentance, vigil, sow with deeds of mercy in order to reap the fruits in eternity. Or take the example of a merchant. How he goes for goods, buys, transports, sells, counts profits, losses... and again starts bargaining. Oh, if only we could imitate the purchase of virtues. I will teach with examples from everyday life (photography, aeronautics, railways, steamships, dresses (fashions), theaters, clubs, evenings - where they play cards, lose, drink, get drunk, overeat, become accustomed to idleness, idleness, proletariat 132, love of money, drunkenness). Every day the sinner is oppressed by hatred, malice, envy, love of money, voluptuousness, lust, despondency, laziness or blasphemy, wickedness and other passions. All profit is unchanging Christian love, unfading kindness, humility, patience, abstinence, chastity, constant thanksgiving, diligence, heartfelt thanksgiving, glorification. About the dangers of hairpieces - moral and physical. A good man brings out good things from the good treasure of his heart - he speaks well of everyone, but an evil man brings out evil things from the evil treasure of his heart [Lk. 6, 45] - speaks badly of everyone, sees black spots in the most important, holy people and exaggerates them and speaks evilly about them. In cases of failure to satisfy our passions, for example, ambition and others, the devil strikes the heart with despondency and cowardice, fear, and relaxation of spirit and body. But he who trusts in the Lord, impartial to the world and the opinions of men, like Mount Zion, does not waver [Ps. 124, 1 ] and does not become despondent because his boss deprived him of his reward because of a rumor, perhaps not very favorable, about him, or for some other reason. For him, the reward is in God, and the judgment is in Him: if he has sinned, he says: “I have sinned against you, Lord: I repent, forgive me.” If you are not rewarded, there is no need: “You will reward me when I appear before Your face,” or at least: “Do not judge me according to my deeds and do not condemn me to hell.” And he laughs at despondency, as if it were a demonic trick - for there is nothing more meaningless than despondency in the face of misfortune, misfortune or failure. You are irritated because of sweets with your brother, who consumes them mercilessly, but you should despise them and willingly offer them to your brother, for sweets are your idol, because of which you constantly resist God, violating His commandment to love Him and your neighbor [Matt. 22, 37, 39, etc.], destroying the entire law because of such trifles. You regret giving freely to your brother, for you receive everything freely from God, in abundance - that’s how proud, evil and stingy we are! That’s how arrogant we are, expecting to live long days and saving up for months and summers, while we don’t know what will happen tomorrow! For our life is a vapor, appearing and disappearing for a while [Jas. 4, 13 – 14]. How inattentive we are to the Lord’s commandments and violate them several times every day! The Lord says: if anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me [Matt. 16, 24; Mk. 8, 34], that is, through meekness, humility, patience, non-covetousness. And we don’t even think about denying ourselves. Why do we violate our love for God and neighbor many times every day? Is it not because of pride and his children: lust, love of money, greed and ambition? Is it not because of voluptuousness and slavery to the belly and loins, self-interest and pride? The brother took too big a sweet piece - and now there is trouble in the heart, the evil takes away from the brother; My brother took my money - and here again the sting of anger in my soul; the brother did not do honor - again trouble: indignation and annoyance are seething. Like this Thus, all our sins occur because of pride! Love for God and neighbor, due to the strengthening of self-love, is weakening and drying up more and more, and if it were not for daily repentance, not pain for sins, not the Divine Liturgy and communion of the Holy Mysteries, then we would have long ago made an idol of ourselves, to which we would sacrifice everything - both faith and virtue, and we would do everything for ourselves, but nothing for our neighbors. So, it is necessary to deny yourself daily, and above all, to despise the womb. Consider all sweets as if they do not exist, because 1) they are all given to you as a gift from God and 2) they will all really disappear as if they never existed. Despise them as ephemeral, but respect your neighbor to the fullest and do not spare him anything, for he is the image of God and for him is the whole earth, all its products, all the fish, birds, animals, metals: he subdued everything... under his pose [Ps. 8, 7]. How passions darken us and how stupid they make us, that we feel sorry for our neighbor for the dust of the earth or earthly works and creatures that God Himself subjugated to him, as well as to us. No matter how natural and convenient it seems to love your neighbor as yourself, and yet, due to sinful corruption, our self-love, there is nothing more difficult than to love another, like yourself. It’s sweet for yourself, but disgusting for others; thick for oneself, empty for another; too much for yourself, not enough for others; I would like everything for myself - at least nothing for someone else; I was insulted - it’s a problem, I insulted someone - nothing. Because of wealth and satiety comes pride and contempt for the poor, who, when the psalmist complains about them, says: “We are filled enough with contempt; Our soul is quite filled with reproach from the arrogant and humiliation from the proud [Ps. 122, 3 – 4]. Wealth is an idol and the devil himself. You see that the enemy is making disastrous digs inside - and you need to protect your insides - your heart - as firmly as possible, namely: not have an addiction to sweets, to self-interest, to honor, to be temperate, God-minded, to pray unceasingly, to work, to sleep little. If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief would come, he would have been awake and would not have allowed his house to be undermined [Lk. 12, 39]. He who hears My words and does them... is like a man building a house, who dug, went deep and laid the foundation on the rock [Lk. 6, 47 – 48]. Dig and deepen. Delve into thought about the image of God in man, about the fall of this image, about its restoration by the Son of God, about His free descent and exhaustion, death on the cross and resurrection, about our inattention to ourselves, absent-mindedness, laziness, about the closeness to everyone of the hour of death, about a terrible and righteous test, about the eternity of torment, where the worm... does not die and the fire does not go out [Mk. 9, 44, 46, 48]. In order to preserve all respect for a person who for some reason has become vulgar for us, we must often delve deeper into reflection on the fact that God imprinted His Divine image on his soul, that He did not spare His Only Begotten Son for him; that he is a child of God in Christ, like you and me, for everyone says the prayer: Our Father, who is in heaven, although he, like us, bears the wounds of sins; that he has been redeemed by the blood of the Son of God and he, like you, has been promised the inheritance of the future Kingdom; that everything earthly is given to him as a footstool and that, therefore, neither you nor he is allowed to cling with your heart to anything earthly, that is, of course, to wealth, beauty, pleasures, honors and glory and to earthly pleasures, for because of them there is a cooling towards God and towards the heavenly Fatherland and towards your own soul, negligence about virtue, about avoiding sin and correcting the heart. If a brother’s entire dinner consists of two or three glasses of sweet tea and jam, is that really a lot, is that a luxury? - Unless your eye is evil, when God is good and gives everything abundantly for pleasure! Tuna accepted it - don’t be sorry to give it to Tuna. This is how the enemy of voluptuousness reigns and establishes itself in you. Crucify the belly. The modern world, according to the teachings of the evil one, is trying to introduce - and has introduced - into the life of the people the former corrupt purely pagan customs: theater, horse racing, parties, and even more: card games and other games, luxury in clothing, in home decoration, in the table, in tableware, in teaware. The people have taken off the reins of the fear of God, the fear of the future Judgment, the undying Gehenna and indulge in drunkenness and debauchery, and the Holy Synod and the local bishops, knowing little about their flock, do nothing against the common evil. May the Lord guide them. I thank the Lord, who gave me the grace of sincerity and tenderness of heart when I read the prayers for communion for the communicants. I read them with warmth, unfailingly, with heartfelt contrition. Great gift from the Lord! He performed the Liturgy, by the grace of God, also with warmth of heart. August 9, 1869. On August 10th he served in the Duma. I was angry with the elder N. Sidorov and scolded him behind his back at the altar, but then he repented, and the Lord took away my distress, and I was moved by the mercy of the Lord - it was so easy, sweet, peaceful for me. But after I took from the two extra prosphoras taken on account of the brethren, for the health and repose of everyone who worked in the creation and decoration of this church, I was attacked for some unknown reason by a terrible tightness of heart: there was no more peace, no boldness, and so on throughout the mass. What kind of cloud? How weak a man is! How wrong the calculations are! You think to serve with peace, ease, and boldness, but it turns out differently. The rain of hell descended, the rivers of hell came, and the weak church questioned 133 my soul and body [Matt. 7, 27], and I’m all depressed: there is no free thought, feeling, word. And I wanted, in the breadth of my heart, declaring love to the whole world, to pray for everyone. The remembrance for health and peace was insincere - was this the cause of grief? August 11. Monday. Exam at the gymnasium. Examined Frank and Tikhomirov. Tikhomirov really didn’t know anything from the Catechism. The temptation of the enemy is yesterday's sweets (Uvarova's sweet pie and sweet tea and [Lavrenty's pie] responded badly. The need to crucify the flesh and despise the womb). The need for heartfelt hatred of any sin, no matter in what flattering or attractive form it may be presented: whether in the form of sweets, or money, or honors, for example, awards - orders and other things, or in the form of a feast, a card game, festivities, music, illumination. Oh, how absurd and, despite all the absurdity, sin is brazen and violent! How it nests in the womb, and mainly through sweets! What a shame! How it degrades the dignity of our deified nature! Man is the fruit of marriage and the blessing of God: grow and multiply [Gen. 1, 28]. The wonderful and useful soul-saving custom of praying to God in the morning and evening has been abandoned by many Christians, but the soul- and body-scorching custom of smoking tobacco exists everywhere. A man gets out of bed, and instead of washing himself to pray to God, he immediately lights a cigarette or pipe and thus makes a sacrifice to his idol - the flesh, and not a rational verbal and heartfelt sacrifice to his God, Creator, Provider and Savior, or without crossing himself drinks tea, often completely unnecessarily, without feeling the need, but only out of habit. Meanwhile, what is the best time to talk with God and read the Gospel, if not the morning hours, when the soul and body are especially fresh and vigorous? And many people don’t pray in the evening because at that time they are at parties, in a club, where they diligently dance or play cards, sometimes - alas! - until the very morning, when the gospel for the morning service is heard in the church. When, during such a pastime, should one pray to God, and how should one stand in prayer, before the face of the living God, who knows the secrets of the heart, when the soul is not at all ready for such a holy conversation, when it is with disheveled thoughts and feelings, and the heart, perhaps, is still full of passionate sensations? So we steal from ourselves, from our souls, an invaluable capital - time, killing him for vain things! Who has enough tears to mourn this free madness, this rational madness of Christians, this pagan life? Where is the faith? Where is the midnight prayer? Where is the expectation of the second coming of Christ? Where is the fulfillment of the duties of a Christian? Alas! Christianity has turned into one name: the name is Christian, but the deeds are satanic. Our flesh is our idol: we serve this idol every now and then, and for serving it we leave the service of the true God. How? Here's how. Firstly, we lull her into a long sleep, when we should get up early in the morning to pray; secondly, almost the whole day we eat and drink and pamper her again with various delicacies, when simple food and drink would be enough for her, from which we would be much stronger in spirit and body; thirdly, the hearing is tender with music, the sight is with illuminations and funny lights, the sense of smell is with smells, the taste is, except for sweets, with tobacco, the whole body is with lying down, various rides: in balloons, in carriages, on scooters, on skates, ice boats 134 and so on - with festivities, an idle life in the countryside! This is how many sacrifices we constantly make to the idol of our flesh. Where is the care for the sinful soul? Is she, poor thing, an immortal soul?.. No: with death the end of everything, they say, there are, there are madmen who say this, who exempt themselves from immortality and resurrection, and Judgment and eternal punishment; somehow only in reality they [fire] themselves! We all serve the creature more or less than the Creator, we are all fans of sweets, money, honors! Let us remember the female admirers: how much vile idolatry, senseless adoration, vulgar servility there is here! And what is it like to worship actors and actresses! How many and what sacrifices are made to them! How much applause! How many emotional delights, exclamations, emotional affects! Stage performances, behind-the-scenes actors and actresses excite delight, surprise, and the majestic church of nature, The Creator in His creation does not seem to deserve reverent surprise and gratitude! That we live every moment with God, breathe Him, feed on the fruits created by His wisdom, goodness and power, are illuminated daily by such a luminous sun, breathe blessed air, that His thunder thunders above us, His lightning flashes - this and the like does not produce in us surprise, reverence for the Creator, but a dressed up, skilled actress produces in you [ecstatic] delight. That God sent the Only Begotten Son into the world, made the Beginningless the first in humanity, the Indescribable indescribable, made God a man, and what’s more, gave Him to suffer and die for us, for only in this way could we be saved from eternal death - this does not produce in us surprise, awe, gratitude, but an opera singer or a singer, an actor evokes in us surprise and a thousand thanks. And that in the Church of God the greatest miracle of His goodness, wisdom and omnipotence is performed daily - bread and wine are transformed into His Body and Blood and the faithful partake of the very Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and through this are cleansed from sin, sanctified, adored and made partakers of eternal life - this does not produce in them surprise, reverence, thanksgiving! They barely partake of the Immortal Source once a year - but we are hungry for dinner parties, gambling evenings and nights, for monetary winnings, like flies to honey! And others - rougher - to drinking houses, to various scandals, foul language and bad actions. O Christians, Christians! Will Christ our Lord tell us something? How will we appear at the Judgment and where will we go from the Judgment? Is it not into eternal fire? How we loved darkness rather than light [Jn. 3, 19]. How petty, low, insignificant, dirty we are - when the Creator and Savior has exalted and magnified us so much! How addicted we are to earthly sweets when we are promised heavenly sweets; we are nailed to the ground when our fatherland is heaven; We work for the flesh and its lusts, when we need to live according to the Spirit, sow to the Spirit and do God’s holy will! Incomprehensible madness and stubbornness! Here the adversary daily confuses, fights, pinches our souls with sweets, self-interest, and ambition! We are like sheep being devoured by the beast of hell! All because of what? We please the flesh, which the Christian faith requires to crucify, that is, its passions and lusts. If, because of sweets or because of money, self-interest, an enemy incites enmity against a brother, it is better to abandon them, as if they did not exist, and keep love for one’s brother intact, for he is in the image of God and the whole earth is subjugated under his nose [Ps. 8, 7]. So today I regretted the sweets, began to suspect their brother and others of stealing them, and what confusion took possession of me, what sorrow, crampedness! Apparently, the enemy incited me, set me on fire with his dreams, irritating me, wounding my heart more and more with the sting of sweets, just as he sometimes sets my heart on fire with vain enmity against a brother. Where is the love for God and neighbor? She was kidnapped, torn out by the enemy through the excitement of another, opposite love in my heart - love for the world, for the flesh, for sweets, a burning, deadening, darkening love; By clinging our heart and flesh to sweets, the enemy at the same time arouses in him both enmity against his neighbor and enmity against God. Through the womb, through poison, the enemy plunged Adam and Eve into death; through the womb, through poison, through sweets, he is destroying us even now. This is why we need abstinence and fasting, which we neglect, and this is why we suffer so much internal suffering from the enemy - that is, because of our intemperance and addiction to worldly sweets! If I am a warrior, a fighter, then let me abstain from everything with which the enemy fights me, from everything pleasing to the flesh. Yes, I willingly give up my sweets to others! Grant me, Lord, the grace to mortify and enslave my body; Consider all the sweets, wealth, and luxury of the earth as a fleeting shadow, as decay, as a ghost, as a dream, and to love eternal sweetness, the sweetness of Your sight, the sweetness of selflessness and all virtue and eternal life! Grant me, here on earth, to carry You in my heart - endless sweetness, You, incorruptible treasure and wealth, You, indescribable beauty, which has beautifully adorned and beautified all the cathedrals of Angels, all the faces of saints, all earth-born and wandering on earth, every creature, animate and inanimate. Grant me, Lord, to be above visible creation and to always ascend to You with my heart, not in the least clinging to earthly creatures, for every time I cling adulterously to a creature, I, like a bird, become entangled in the snares that the enemy has set for me at every step. What empty things can delight 135 our souls from love for God and neighbor! And this happens all the time, every day! Oh sweets, sweets! O self-interest, self-interest! O glory, earthly glory! How vain and empty you are! Heart, how stupid, crazy, senseless you are! When will we fix our hearts? When is the heart's grief? How long shall we grovel and perish? How long shall we not strive for true and eternal bliss? How long do we chase dreamy, carnal, earthly, one-day bliss or pleasure? How long will the enemy mock us? For such a long time passions distract me from the Lord my God! I waste so much time in vain fighting them, when I should be in fervent prayer, contemplating the works of God, in deeds of virtue! Away with destructive sweets! Let simple bread and water, and that in moderation, be my food and drink! It's safe for the soul! Be extremely careful of any excess in food and drink, especially in the morning, when you need to primarily strengthen your spirit with prayer, for the enemy especially torments the intemperate, and rightly so. When my stomach gets stronger, I am sometimes irritable and angry; I must also have mercy for other irritable people and not be upset with them, with their whims. In the upcoming conversations I want to show all the truth and righteousness of the Divine commandments and all corruption our nature; I will mercilessly expose human vices. This conviction, of course, will also affect me, as the first of the sinners. I will mercilessly denounce the adulterous and sinful world, lying in evil, so that it can see how it lives indecently and adulterously, what countless executions it deserves, and so that it will realize that eternal torment, eternal fire, tartarus of hell are fully deserved by it, and so that it will not think that eternal torment is an impossible thing. Because of trifles, he became angry with his wife - because she spilled the lamp and covered everything with oil; seething with indignation, did not want to speak; rushed about like crazy. I'm so spoiled! Be everything according to me! There is no patience, no meekness, no malice - even more so. But we must look at everything with indifference and not abandon calmness and meekness. Smoking tobacco, irritating the nerves, contributes to a lot of irritability of character. Until now I have not learned to curb my anger! Where is Christian wisdom? An angry person thinks that everyone is offending him and that others are irritating him, although he himself gets irritated and offends others. Someone accidentally breaks something or spills it carelessly - and he loses his temper and is angry at everyone, not only at those who did it, but also at others. When performing the Sacrament, I am a king, a master in my place: no one has the right to rush me, therefore there is no need to rush, but to do the work calmly, sedately, with the fear of God. Show how love for God and neighbor is violated with the violation of each commandment. You know that your heart and your flesh are lascivious, and you are greedy for pleasures. Or don’t you know that sweets, although very nutritious, greatly stimulate the lusts of the loins and vile thoughts? Oh, you adulterer! I am the Lord God [Ex. 20, 2]. I am your Creator, Provider, Savior; I nourish you, grow you, enlighten you, save you; I am everything to you; know me, honor me, love me. For the ox knows his owner, and the donkey his master's manger... [Isa. 1, 3]. I am the Lord... who adores you; I, who have given and bestow all good things and have prepared future blessings that no eye has seen... [1 Cor. 2, 9]. Seventh Commandment 136. When lustful thoughts and movements trouble you, remember the eternal fire prepared for fornicators, and your flesh will cool and the fire of lust will go out. Also imagine all flesh smoldering in the tomb and stinking. You look at icons dispassionately, and at living images - people standing in a church or in another place, look dispassionately. We are accustomed to being busy with vanity, trifles, and not with business, not with the salvation of the soul, not with the correction of the heart, not with perfection in virtue: we only want the body to be healthy, and the face to blush, and the dress to be in fashion, so that gold glitters everywhere - in the ears, and on the chest, and on the neck, and on the arms, and on the head. We are occupied with the outer splendor, but we are not occupied with the inside, the heart; we are not accustomed to descending into its depths and seeing its ugliness, emptiness, stench, in order to see all the need for correction and renewal. We become everything: scientists, and, perhaps, good teachers, and rich, and masters in various arts, crafts, arts, and good dancers, and actors, and skilled gamblers, and drunkards, and gluttons - just not good Christians: we are somehow accustomed to rejecting Christian obligations from ourselves; Christianity, true Christianity, internal, sincere, has become something extraneous for us; For some reason we don’t accept the Christian, evangelical, renewed life well - we all like to wear the old rags of passions and sinful habits, but we are alien to the true clothes, as if we don’t want to put on Christ and are afraid, or we want to work for Christ, but at the same time we want to sow to our flesh, please it in lust, indulge in voluptuousness, covet, and boast; It seems to us that we believe in Christ, love Him, but in fact we neither believe nor love Him, because we believe only in ourselves, we love ourselves only to the point of madness: Christ comes in the form of a beggar - to ask for alms, and we are alienated from him, we despise him, we refuse him, we reproach him. Love for Christ consists in fulfilling His commandments - we do not fulfill them. The Lord says: Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be burdened with gluttony and drunkenness and the cares of this life [Lk. 21, 34 ], and almost every day we indulge in gluttony and drunkenness, excessive worries of life, not caring about the soul, about its renewal, about casting off the sackcloth of sin and putting on the clothing of Christ, the clothing of righteousness! Others willingly imagine themselves as passionate Jupiters, Venus or warlike Mars, Hercules, but do not want to be humble, meek, chaste Christians. We must turn Christianity, or our faith, into life, into action. God! Those who have sinned - do not judge me: I am the first to pronounce upon myself 137, I condemn, I impute to be worthy of all condemnation and torment, as Your poor people are embittered by their abuse, rage and hair-pulling. Have mercy, Lord, have mercy, my Lord, have mercy, love for mankind! Don’t eat fried herring with potatoes; Don’t eat blackcurrant jam with cold water: it’s very irritating and makes you lose your nerves. After composing and rewriting a sermon, it always becomes difficult for me due to loss of nerves. Lord, heal my infirmities! Self-loving, lust-loving, glory-loving, self-seeking, carnal-loving shepherds, we feed ourselves, and not the sheep of the Lord [Ezek. 34, 2–10]. Thou Thyself, good shepherd, Lord Jesus, feed Thy sheep, acquired by Thy honest blood, or teach us Thy love, confirm us in Thy love, that we may be able to feed Thy sheep! He insulted an orphan as a beggar, deprived an orphan of the required shoes, annoyed an orphan by his hair; He insulted and offended Christ Himself in the person of a beggar. Woe to me, accursed, evil, proud, contemptuous, proud, voluptuous, selfish, unmerciful, cruel, parasite, sloth, spendthrift, prodigal, predator, deceiver, deceitful, slanderer, lacking in faith, desperate, murmuring, insatiable. Ah, if I had truly believed in Christ and the Gospel, I would not have acted so angrily, contemptuously and cruelly towards the poor! I would always be glad to see these friends of God, bearing the cross of His poverty, patience, meekness and humility, I would joyfully share with them my last possession, as with Christ Himself. When will my faith turn into action? In order to deprive those gathered for prayer of the great fruits that occur through the goodness and generosity of God for those praying, the devil tries in every possible way to confuse and stutter, to weaken internally and deafen the priest praying for people - this is a visible instrument of God’s grace and God’s generosity. But let the priests of the Lord understand the intentions of the enemy and let them not be embarrassed by his fears and crafty slander, but, strong in faith and self-control, let them without hesitation say the church prayers from the bottom of their hearts. Let the people of God ask for the gifts of God with faith and boldness - and they will give them, like burdocks: Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you [Matt. 7, 7 ], and so on. I am low and great, vile and holy; now all earthly, now all heavenly; sometimes weak, sometimes strong; sometimes cowardly, sometimes courageous; sometimes sad, sometimes trustworthy; sometimes sad, sometimes happy. On the seventh day we are forbidden by God to do so that we devote this day to God, prayer and good deeds and remember eternity, where there is no bustle here, where there is no work, where there is eternal peace. The Lord has exhausted all of Himself for you, and where? - On the Cross! And you, at least, exhaust your wealth for Him in the face of the poor, for He Himself receives in the face of the poor. They often come to you - but often God gives you, often you also receive countless spiritual and material benefits from God; the benefits you receive from God are infinitely greater than those you give to the poor. Do not be passionate about the land and its benefits - it is not your fatherland; its benefits are insignificant because they are transitory. Do not be passionate about the earth, but hasten to heaven: there is your fatherland, your essential, enduring blessings, which no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no one has breathed into the heart [1 Cor. 2, 9]. Do not be passionate about the earth: one day it will be burned up and the works that are on it [2 Pet. 3:10], and your body will be dust, and your things that you love will all be dust, and to dust they will return; one soul is eternal. Exercise and perfect it in meekness, humility, patience, courage, kindness, mercy, hard work, the body in abstinence, purity, chastity. Love willingly suffers a lack of something (especially the necessary) in order to provide its neighbor with what is necessary and calm him down. Is that what you do? The devil is simple, like a thought, like one iota in a word - and be simple, peaceful, faithful to Christ, looking to Him unceasingly. The goal of all Christianity is to lead to heaven from earth, to remove earthly attachments from the hearts of people; and we have already been co-created with Christ, therefore addiction to earthly goods: money, clothes, food, drink, earthly honors and distinctions is completely contrary to the spirit of the Christian faith. Why do we want to be rich, and famous, and luscious? We don't know what we are doing. If the enemy instills into your corrupted heart bad thoughts and feelings regarding some members of the human body and wounds your heart, then tell him that the beauty of the members of the human body is divine, for the God-Man Himself took upon Himself our flesh with all its members, not to mention the fact that God Himself, with His most pure hands, created our original composition and breathed into it an immortal and holy soul in the image and likeness To yours; and when the enemy confuses you with his attachments to earthly things and persons, tell him that what is yours is Heaven; and if by malice, say that God is love [1 Jn. 4, 8] and commanded love [John. 13, 34; 15, 12 ]; and if by pride, say that the Son of God Himself humbled Himself to the form of a slave 138 and death on the cross [Phil. 2, 7 – 8 ]; and if it’s envy, say that we have all been given countless blessings in Christ, which no eye has seen and no ear has heard... [1 Cor. 2, 9]. Obedience to a boss or someone else in anything just is my wealth, my spiritual interest, and I should not be burdened by it. August 26. Cathedral liturgy. The names of the royal persons were said firmly. I read the prayer behind the pulpit loudly and without stumbling. After the great entrance to the Our Father, I felt the great grace of God within me and had the gift of tenderness with tears, especially when pronouncing the words Take, eat... etc. After the Our Father, I remembered the act of the drunken merchant Al. Dmitriev, some rancor appeared, and I lost peace, freedom, the consolation of the Holy Spirit and began to pray for the said merchant, so that the Lord would forgive him his sin: I don’t know what he did, and I tried to bless him who cursed me in the church and humiliated my priesthood: just before communion, the enemy fiercely incited me to be angry with him, but I did not listen to him in the power the fortress of the Lord crushed his anger and strength, although not completely; After communion, he again began to strongly incite me, but by trusting in the Lord I did not allow myself to triumph over myself and was strengthened in spirit for the prayer behind the pulpit. At the beginning of the liturgy, when the enemy began to kindle enmity in my heart against the brethren, I inwardly prayed to the Lord to unite us with each other with a union of love - and I felt in my heart love for the brethren, and peace, and space in my heart; I remembered the beauty and greatness of the Divine image, impressed on our souls, and the brethren became kind to me for the sake of this Divine image and likeness. When I felt very sorry for my brother’s sweets and was stung in my heart, I knelt before the all-seeing God and said inside: Lord, take from my heart the sting of the earth, the sting of earthly sweets, the sting of selfishness, the sting of earthly glory, the sting of earthly love, and sting me with the sting of Thy Divine love, with the sting of heaven, - and my heart was healed: the sting of the earth was no longer in me, I felt peace, freedom, and revitalization in my soul. Glory to Your goodness, Lord! Glory to Your mercy! Glory to Your power! They say that humanity is becoming weaker - why? From unnecessary pleasures, from the unnatural habits of smoking tobacco, spending nights playing cards... Why does anger live in me and not die? Why, for insignificant reasons, do I become embittered with my brother and become insolent before God Himself, when, for example, my brother does not want, or rather cannot, sing in the same tone with me when I proclaim the great litany? Why am I losing my temper? Why do I allow the spirit of malice to butt me with hellish, fiery butts and, being cowardly, I get irritated when he butts me? Why am I angry with my brother when he offends me and reviles me with crafty and derogatory words? Have I not yet learned from the meek and humble-hearted Jesus Christ, the gentle Lamb of God, meekness, humility and gentleness? Strengthen me, Lord, never to be irritated by opposition in the future. Because of my brother’s incongruous tone, I became irritable—but is there strength in tone? Is it not in sincerity and simplicity and goodness of heart? Keep your eyes on the Lord before you, fear the Lord, offer up prayers from the depths of your heart for the whole world, for all of God’s property, and don’t worry too much about your voice and tone: serve as you need to. August 27. At the liturgy, at the great entrance, I had difficulty saying the royal name and could not finish it because of a split heart, because I was thinking of rushing to the gymnasium after mass. At the prayer service to the Iveron Mother of God, I stumbled over the Gospel and missed some words; he pronounced the last water-blessing prayer firmly, calling on the Lord and Lady with all his heart for help; the enemy intensified to double the heart - so throughout his life he tries to double in everything and thereby relax it. And malice comes most from excess in sweets: it is convenient for the enemy to force the insides pampered by sweets to malice and irritate them. This is the connection between sweets and anger and pride! Nothing happens without consequences: everything leaves us with either life-giving or disastrous fruits. So, whatever you think, think about the consequences. Be happy with everyone and everything and do not allow restless and painful displeasure to arise in yourself towards your neighbors, for example, towards your family, colleagues and others, otherwise you will make yourself an unhappy person. There was an incident today at mass: I became displeased with Father Archpriest for his inappropriate frugality and became upset with him, and through this I exposed myself to hellish fire and cramped conditions. Only during the time of the Apostle, when I cried out to the Lord so that He would grant me the grace to be content with everyone and everything, and forced myself, convinced myself to be content, and became content, did I calm down in my heart. So, be happy with everything, be happy with little. August 28. All-night vigil. I thank the Lord, who has given me the grace of fervent prayer with tears in the midst of distress and sorrow brought on by the enemy. By the grace of the Holy Spirit, I fervently prayed for the granting of the grace of knowledge of God to all people, the cleansing of sins, unity with the Church to schismatics, and the salvation of souls to all. It was good for me because of my tears. I sinned against the Lord - I became embittered with the beggars: with annoyance I threw away the pennies, but did not give them into my hands, and did not give them to some boys at all, although they asked me many times and chased me to the very gate. And he himself was full, and, moreover, after communion, with food and sleep. (The pie strengthened the stomach, the tea made it hot - and that’s why there was strong nervous irritation. Lenten pies are especially harmful.) Do I really lay down my soul for my neighbors, sparing them a few rubles and kopecks? Have I not yet given up my anger? Am I still chasing after self-interest and temporary possessions? Sell ​​your possessions, says the Lord, and give alms [Lk. 12, 33], but I collect my property and refuse alms, fearing to become poor for the sake of the Lord, and because of love for corruptible property, I despise the poor, these little ones, whom the Angels... in heaven always see the face of the Heavenly Father [Matt. 18:10], and I am faint-hearted when I have to give away a lot, and I grumble and am indignant. Lust, satiety, love of money and ambition block the ear of a person’s heart, and he does not and cannot sympathize with the suffering and need of others; there is no sincere prayer in his heart; he is irritated by the requests of the beggars, although he sees that they have nothing, and although he himself has in abundance everything that is necessary for life and serves for pleasure; he is irritated by the very sight of poverty, the cry of a sick person or his sick appearance. So, in order to have a subtle hearing of the heart, one must always eat and drink abstinently, sleep abstinently, pray daily with zeal, work, reflect on our general frailty and weakness, the deep poverty of the soul, alien to all true virtue, full of all sin, all malice, all filthiness of passions. I am an evil servant, because I give alms with sorrow and displeasure, forgetting that the most merciful Lord repays a hundredfold for every alms and that the more alms we have to give, the more we must rejoice, and not grieve and hope in God that He will reward us here too for our deeds of mercy. Everything is due to the delusion of the heart, because a lot of pride nests in it, that it is accustomed to voluptuousness, greed and is generally partial to earthly goods and has not learned to despise their Kingdom for the sake of the Heavenly; because he has not learned to appreciate the incorruptible wealth of virtue, for example, mercy, non-covetousness, meekness, kindness, etc. My stomach is still raging, or I am sick with gluttony, I am greedy, I often rage at those begging for alms and destroying my (or better yet, God’s) trash. How long is this? The belly is waste, and the belly is waste: God will bring to naught both this and this [1 Cor. 6, 13]. Am I putting all my care into something that will soon be abolished and disappear? Where is the concern for the abiding, eternal? How long will satiety last? How long have you been inattentive to yourself while eating? I thank the Lord, who has given me the grace to celebrate the Liturgy on August 29 without stumbling, loudly, heartily, with many tears and to pronounce the names of all kingdoms, esp. If the devil tempts you with someone else’s face, say in your heart to the Lord: Lord, You created every person wisely, purely, unblamely, chastely, and let the abomination turn to its culprit, the vile devil. The good news for mass is heard as the joyful news of the resurrection, immortality awaiting us, as the news of our deification, as a verb about God’s endless love for the human race. Wonderful Divine Liturgy! I thank the Lord, who cleanses all my iniquities when I fall before Him in prayer, and who gives me peace and freedom of spirit (the Lord saved me from lustful thoughts and feelings that involuntarily came to me and carried me away with carnal sweetness). Through every sin the soul falls away from God, the source of life, therefore it is extremely necessary to beware of every sin. Transfiguration. Elijah and Moses spoke 139 of the exodus of Christ from this world. So we, too, being in the glory and wealth of this world, must think about our exodus, about our end: with what and how will we depart from this world, how and with what will we appear to God? [A bodily need is not the same as a habit.] I am used to eating and drinking in the evening; but the needs, the older a person is, the smaller they become. Therefore, you need to leave the habit of eating at night; especially don’t eat pies at night. Because you feel sorry for your neighbor for a sweet piece, you sometimes fall into such a net of the enemy, into such pincers, a vice, that only with great effort and some time, with the help of fervent prayer to God, will you free yourself from them. And this is all science for you - to despise sweets and not to cleave your heart to anything earthly, and to love one God with all your heart, your neighbor as yourself, and strive diligently for the heavenly sweets that abid. For everything earthly is a web. Gehenna is a necessary consequence of sin: it begins already here, in the soul and body of a person, and will only open with a terrible roar after death and especially after the Last Judgment, in order to forever devour unrepentant sinners. The flame of passions is the forerunner of Gehenna, their ferocity is a small resemblance to the ferocity of fiery Gehenna. Do not eat fatty foods, for example fatty pies, fatty fish, fatty meat - it increases mucus, pus, scrofula, greatly burdens the body and soul and relaxes a person, making him incapable of business, especially mental pursuits. Why is this so? Because fatty food is difficult to digest in the stomach and in some way communicates its coarseness, its spirit to the heart. If you have eaten fatty animal food, eat light vegetable food that cleanses the stomach - and you will get better; if you ate something quite bland, eat sour, salty or sweet and sour. The time has come for you to take revenge on the womb and in general on the flesh and the world with the word of the church. Fight in the name of the Lord, in the power of His strength. We all chase impressions and pleasures of the moment and do not look at the end of these pleasures and at the end of life - at Judgment and Gehenna. Zelo (Church Glav.) – carefully. Belial (Heb.) – lit.: obscene, unpunished – the name of the devil. For this reason, ecu (Jesus Christ) came in the form of a slave, not frightening us as a ghost, but giving true health to the body (prayer from the follow-up of the small consecration of water). I cried out the stichera on the Lord at the Great Vespers service of All Saints, tone 6. On Holy and Great Thursday the canon at Matins, Irmos of the 3rd canto. From the celebration of the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts. Do not make yourself an idol (Ex. 20:4). The shrine is a church, a place where idols were placed. Akathist to the Sweetest Jesus. Kontakion 11th. Thou shalt not kill. Do not commit adultery (Ex. 20:13–14). Honor your father and your mother, so that it may go well with you and that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you (Ex. 20:12). Honest (church glory) - dear, true. If any of you deviates from the truth, and someone converts him, let him know that he who converts a sinner from his false path will save his soul from death and cover a multitude of sins (James 5:19-20). See: Matt. 18, 23–34; 25, 1–12; OK. 10, 30–35. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy (Matthew 5:7). I am the Lord your God... may you have no gods other than Me. Do not make yourself an idol (Ex. 20: 2 – 4). And it will come to pass on that day, says the Lord of hosts, I will destroy the names of idols from this land, and they will be mentioned no more, just as I will remove false prophets and the unclean spirit from the earth (Zech. 13:2). Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 5:10). And he said: I will not remember the name of the Lord, but I will speak below... in His name. And it was like a burning fire in my heart, scorching in my bones, and I weakened everywhere, and I could not bear it (Jer. 20:9). Tricot is a patterned wool or cotton fabric for outerwear. Thou shalt not commit adultery (Ex. 20:14). Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy... (Ex. 20:8). Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for by nature the tombs are unknown, and men do not know who walks above (Russian: Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like hidden tombs, over which people walk and do not know it) (Luke 11:44). To plow (obsolete) – to plow. The proletariat is parasite, selfishness. In the second half of the 19th century, the word “proletarians,” in addition to meaning “a poor man who does not have his own land or property,” had the evaluative meaning of “a parasite, a parasite, a bad worker.” Having asked the church (Church Slavic) - they attacked the house. Buer is a type of sailing sleigh for skating on ice. Delight (Church Glav.) – here: to kidnap, take away. Oglagolovati (Church Slavic) – to accuse. The image of a slave (Church Slavic) is the image of a slave. Verb (Church Slavic) – here: to proclaim, to predict. You might be interested in: