Апрель

Today I walked through satanic fire and water, and You, Christ, brought me into peace through the communion of Your life-giving Mysteries. ABOUT! How strong, fierce, and murderous was the temptation of Satan in the movement of anger and irritability towards one’s neighbor. I was darkened, confused, inflamed, cramped internally; he completely dropped in spirit and came to despair from the fire of Satan, without ceasing, however, to cry out to God for help; to top off my grief, the enemy spewed blasphemies at me against the Divine Trinity. I began to read the Gospel of John in church during the Hours - and, alas! without the slightest sympathy, with a dead heart, a stuttering tongue, with a desire to finish quickly. But then I read the entrance, or preparatory, prayers for the liturgy, prayed to the Lord and the Lady - and it became easier, easier: there was no fire, and cramped space, and fear, and painful languor; During mass the devil touched me quite tolerably, and after communion - oh, a miracle! I became peaceful, clear, joyful, blissful, heavenly, as if I had risen from the dead. Ole 82 blessings, ole miracles of the Lord! The words of the prophet David were fulfilled on me: Because of the multitude of my illnesses in my heart, Your consolations have made my soul glad [Ps. 93, 19]. Why is it absolutely necessary for Christians to fast or never burden their bellies with food and drink? – Because the heart of a Christian is the church of God, the abode of the Most Holy Trinity, and the Heart and the belly are together, and since the Most Holy Trinity is the Spirit and seeks what is akin to Himself in man, that is, his spirit (he who pleases the belly is a carnal man who does not have a spirit), then God cannot dwell in the heart of a glutton. My Spirit shall not abide in these men [Russian: because] they are flesh [Gen. 6, 3]. This means that in order for a Christian to become a temple of the Holy Spirit, he must fast. Having received the Holy Mysteries, firmly preserve meekness, humility and kindness of heart, impartiality to earthly goods; be abstinent in food and drink; hold your tongue, speak a little, especially do not idle talk, do not laugh, do not get irritated. Be sincere, simple-hearted in love; just as you respect and love yourself, respect and love others; what you wish for yourself, wish for others - in a word, love everyone from the bottom of your heart, as children of the one Heavenly Father. What air is to animal bodies and plants, so is the Holy Spirit to spiritual beings, angels and men; That’s why the Lord said: The Spirit breathes where it wants, and you hear its voice (His breath), but you don’t know where it comes from and where it goes [Jn. 3, 8]. Therefore believe that your soul breathes the Holy Spirit; know your Benefactor, your Belly and reverence Him daily and honor Him with love and good deeds. Flee the stinking devil's breath of sins and passions, especially enmity, disorder, pride, and unbelief. Say to yourself more often: my soul breathes the Holy Spirit, so be from Me eternal glory to the Holy Spirit together with the Father and the Son. There is a Lady and she is called the All-Powerful. If everything is possible for every believer, then for the Mother of God - without any doubt, for Her faith is limitless. The Most Holy Theotokos, after the Lord, is an unsearchable abyss of love for mankind. To whom, if not to Her, should we turn, after the Lord, in sins, in adversities, in illnesses, in sorrows? In the world, everyone usually comes asking for help to someone who has great strength, nobility, wealth, great intelligence or wisdom. Oh, our inexhaustible treasure of goodness, Lady! Oh, spiritual wealth! Oh, goodness that overflows on those who accept it! Oh, the source that never dries up! Before the solemn conciliar service of the Liturgy on holidays and highly solemn days, be extremely careful that the enemy does not overpower you with any passion, for example, malice, or unbelief, or stinginess, or some other kind. In the evening before cathedral services, eat as little as possible, and in general when you serve. A well-fed belly is a convenient means for the enemy to stifle the soul with passions. When you feel the devil’s malice towards your brother in your heart, pray for him for the salvation of his soul, for the forgiveness of his sins, according to Scripture: pray for each other in order to be healed [Jas. 5, 16]. Also remember the commandment: love your neighbor as yourself [Matt. 19, 19]. Remember also that you are more sinful, more abominable than anyone else in the eyes of God, and if you can hate anyone, it’s yourself; if you can have anger against anyone, it’s yourself. Tell yourself: that you see a piece of wood in your brother’s father and because of him you hate him, but you don’t see a log in your own [Matt. 7, 3], or even you see, but still love yourself? My brother and boss, father archpriest and dean Pavel Vasilyevich, in some true simplicity and without people-pleasing, not thinking about what they will say about him, performs the service, makes exclamations, performs sacred actions and says dismissals. Many, and sometimes even me, are offended by his inattention to those who are coming, but we are offended in vain: he is attentive to the people, perhaps more than we are, with greater preservation of his dignity as an altar server. In words and movements he is simple, kind, calm, and should be loved. And if there are some errors in his actions, then one must have leniency towards him, as an elder and a boss, and in no case lose due respect and Christian love. You must have meekness, humility, and kindness. If a boss prevents someone from receiving distinction, then one should not be indignant at him for this. He is the boss and probably has good reasons for this. We are too proud and arrogant that we dream of rewarding ourselves. We must submit to our boss as to Jesus Christ Himself. Love finding and being tired in the work of God. This makes the soul sober and vigorous in faith. False thoughts in faith immediately expose themselves - they kill the life of the heart: a sign that they come from a liar, a dreamer, who has the power of death - the devil [Heb. 2, 14]. True thoughts show their truth in practice: they enliven the heart - a sign that they come from the life-giving Spirit of God's Life, from the Life of the Father emanating and resting in the Life of the Son. So by their fruits you will know them [Matt. 7.20]. Do not be indignant and do not remain in confusion and bewilderment when murderous thoughts crowd in your head and oppress your heart, your soul: they are false, they are murderers from the devil. Away with them, and don’t ask where they came from, these uninvited guests - you will instantly recognize them by their fruits. Don’t enter into a competition with them: they will lead you into such a labyrinth that you won’t even get out, you will get confused and exhausted. Love is the fulfillment of the law [Rom. 13, 10]. Therefore everyone will know that you are My disciples if you have love for one another [Jn. 13, 35]. Every Christian should engrave these words clearly and deeply on his heart and abide by them. March 17, 1862 Today, during the cathedral service, the enemy stopped me after the great entrance with anger at the archpriest who served with us, so that I could not quickly repel him and, as a condemnation for myself, I received communion of the life-giving Mysteries. The Enemy fired and pressed me almost all day. Oh, how one must be afraid of evil, this fiend of the devil! You should not be angry with your brother for any plausible reason! The Lord commanded directly to love even our enemies, to bless those who curse, to do good to those who hate and to those who harm us [Matt. 5, 44]. Imitate God: The Lord is long-suffering and abounding in mercy... good to the ungrateful and wicked [Num. 14, 18; OK. 6, 35]. We must always remember that man is the breath of the mouth of God, the image of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and the sins and infirmities in him are an accidental matter, dirty stains that have arisen from the outside, which grace conveniently cleanses. Sprinkle me... and I will be clean: wash me, and I will be whiter than snow [Ps. 50, 9]. We must remember that God so loved the world, even though it was adulterous and sinful, that He gave His only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life [Jn. 3, 16]. And God and I need to love every person as ourselves. We love ourselves, although we are great sinners. We must love another, even though he is a sinner, for there is no person who is not a sinner. I love to look at the image of the resurrected Life-Giver with a sign in his hand 83, with this symbol of victory over death and the one who has the power of death - the devil. Death! where is your sting? hell! where is your victory? [ 1 Cor. 15, 55]. What a strong Winner! What a fierce, all-evil enemy the Victor is, an enemy who boasted of his victories for several thousand years! To you, the conqueror of death, we cry: Hosanna in the highest, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! 84 We magnify You, Life-Giving Christ, who for our sake descended into hell and raised everything with Himself 85 . Co-resurrected ecu, Christ, the all-begotten Adam, rose from the grave 86. For every idle word that people speak, they will give an answer on the day of judgment [Matt. 12, 36]. You see that an answer and punishment awaits you for every idle word, not only seductive. Why is the answer for an idle word? Because our Lord, the All-Creator of the Word, does not and cannot have idle words: the word of the Lord does not return to Him empty... with God no word will remain powerless [Isa. 55, 11; OK. 1, 37 ]; and we are created in the image of God, therefore our words also should not be spoken in vain, in vain, idlely, and every word of ours should have spiritual, instructive power. Let your word always be with grace [Col. 4, 6]. Therefore, in prayer and in conversations, be extremely careful not to say words idly, to the wind. How will you accept the Body of Christ worthily, with faith and love, when you despise His members or do not have mercy on them? Christians are members of Christ, especially the poor. Love His members, show them mercy, and the Lord will show His rich mercy to you. Could there be any other mercy richer than that which our Lover, our Savior gives us in the communion of His most pure Body and His most pure Blood? What a sinner I am! Who lives the way I live? Who has as little love for God and neighbor as I do? Who is more susceptible to all passions than I am? Who has been so favored by the Master as I am, and who is so ungrateful as I am? Do not tell me, thoughts of self-love, thoughts of satanic pride, that I am no worse than others, that I do some good deeds! Then the grace of God creates in me - not I, but I - evil, all evil: my soul is filled with evil, and my belly is drawing closer to hell 87 . I'm wallowing in the abyss of sin. I see it, I feel it, I know it for sure. Meanwhile, who is as dear to the Lord as I am? For almost daily I suck the most Divine breasts - the Body and Blood of my Lord! O my father - Lord! Oh my mother - Lord! O my Creator, O my Nourisher and my Educator, who never leaves me for a moment without supervision, without guidance, without punishment and without mercy! Glory, glory, glory to You! April 19th day, 1862. Words: For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever [Matt. 6, 13] - mean the following: You are one everywhere and reign forever, the Almighty and Glorious King. Or: the kingdom is the Father, the power is the Spirit, the glory is the Son, for it is said: I have glorified You on earth [Jn. 17, 4]. From the heart, with joy, call everyone brothers and sisters, especially your wife’s brothers and sisters. Don't be proud, for who were you? Look back. What are you? Look how many sins, infirmities, and weaknesses you have; You are truly worse and weaker than everyone else and you should consider it a blessing to call everyone brothers and sisters. Tea and smoking tobacco set fire to and relax the carnal man, who is already scorched and weakened by the many passions operating in his mind. You must be extremely careful when drinking tea and eating with it. Oh, how it relaxes the heart and awakens the hidden flame of passions! Tobacco is also an extreme weakening of the heart, strengthening the natural man against the spirit. After this, is it unimportant to drink tea and smoke tobacco in the order of Christian life, where the heart is of such great importance? Do not be dead at heart [Ps. 30, 13]. Do not allow him to fall into laziness, spiritual sleep and petrified insensibility. Otherwise, woe to you when you have to be with such a heart in the work of God, which requires labor of the heart and mind. In every possible way, eradicate from your heart pride that opposes the Holy Spirit, both carnal and spiritual. It lurks inconspicuously in the heart and is clearly revealed in dealing with others or during prayer. Never be indignant at anyone because of bread or food, do not be angry, knowing that any trouble caused by food is from the devil. Tell him in such cases: man will not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God [Matt. 4, 4]. Pay less attention to food and drink. This is the domain of the devil: with food and drink he strongly tempts and destroys everyone, burning with various passions. From the being of the thinking spirit the word is born, co-essential with it, showing in itself thought and equal to it, and from thought and with thought comes the spirit, resting in the word and communicating in the word to the listeners. This spirit is completely equal to both thought and word and co-essential with them. For example, in the word “love” you see both the loving principle and the word born from it, and you feel some kind of pleasant breath of love. The most common work of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit is to create beings in His image or those far from His image - [spiritual or sensory]. Thus, Angels and men are created in the image of God, but even creatures will give birth to creatures and species in their image. Thus, man, who creates for God, produces from himself others like himself, in his own image and likeness; living creatures produce those like themselves, but they produce those like themselves by the power of the Creator, Who Himself, before all ages, gave birth to the Son, co-essential and co-throne, the image of His goodness, an equal seal, showing the Father in Himself, and brought forth His Spirit, the image of His Son, co-essential with the Father and the Word. What beings that are far from the image of His Lord has the Lord created and is creating? Thus, He created the world: the heavens with the luminaries, the earth with waters, animals, plants, light, fire, air. But what is very surprising: man, this image of God, this god planted on earth (Az reh: you are gods [Ps. 81, 6 ]), constantly creates from himself or, better, [...] internally reveals wisdom to him, sends him [...], creates thoughts, words, teachings, edifications or various sensory creations: churches, houses, various, various things. The material creativity of the spirit is manifested first of all in the word, in its articulate sounds. Thought is certainly clothed in words, in this initially [purely] ethereal shell, when we think in words to ourselves; then it takes on a more material shell when we speak in articulate sounds; then the word turns into real material signs, although subtle ones - letters and words written or printed and, finally! into words carved, carved or embroidered. This is how creativity is characteristic even of the human spirit, this living image of God, so it is natural to it. In a somewhat similar manner, the immaterial Creator created the entire visible world. At the foundation of the visible world lie the most simple, ethereal, spiritual principles; four simple elements; from mutual copulation in various proportions they become thinner or coarser, coarser, larger and larger, by the wave of the everywhere present Creator they are united or separated. Each creature is given its own place, its own rank, order - and here the beautiful world of God flaunts, brought from non-existence into existence by God’s all-creating wisdom and the Spirit that perfects everything. When you feel sorry for sensual sweets for your neighbors, then remember that you yourself are tasting the Sweetest Christ the Lord Himself, Who, out of His great love, gave people everything for pleasure and before Whom all earthly sweetness is insignificant. When the devil gets into your heart through doubt or through another sin, tell him: give place to the One who fulfills everything - this is not your place. And tell yourself: this is the stench of the devil. To the Lord my God, the God of my salvation, I will write thanksgiving. Before confession during Holy Week, the enemy stopped me, striking my heart with tightness, confusion and evil despondency. But then I prayed with all my heart, with undoubted faith in Him, the God of my salvation, and said: God, All-Good Father! You, by Your only begotten Son, my Lord Jesus Christ, said: Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you; For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Is there a man among you who, when his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? [Matt. 7, 7 – 9]. By faith, spoken by You in my heart, I appeal to You: grant me now Your Holy Spirit, that my heart may be strengthened [...] by the work of confession, by the prudent decision [or knitting] of human consciences, by patience and complacency [...] and edifying treatment of my spiritual children. [...] Now I conducted the entire confession perfectly: calmly, kindly, edifyingly, without any burden or restless haste. I glorify the merciful right hand of the all-good Heavenly Father. So you always need to strengthen yourself with heartfelt prayer to the Heavenly Father for every spiritual achievement, as our Lord Jesus Christ prayed before appearing to the human race, before the election of the apostles, before His sufferings. The angel of the Lord took up arms over me and delivered me from my enemies. The next day, on Holy Thursday, the Lord also vouchsafed me His mercy and His salvation. During Matins he confessed calmly, with greatness of spirit and with fatherly love and edification. He joined a schismatic who had voluntarily converted after Matins. An efficient, although illiterate, guy of about twenty-three. He served St. Basil the Great's Mass quite calmly and with feeling. He took communion not quite calmly. He took communion with intense reverence and tenderness. After communion, while reading prayers of thanksgiving, I myself read prayers of thanksgiving to myself before the Holy Chalice. I was touched and calmed down, and my spirit was elevated. He said dismissal and gave the cross to be kissed with a sublime and calm [spirit]. He let everyone go with joy. The Saint himself consumed it and was inexpressibly at peace and rejoiced. Ole of God's grace! Who will let my heart be like this all my days! March 5th day 1862. Do not be offended if someone speaks to you or acts towards you insincerely, for do you always speak and act sincerely towards others? Aren't you often a hypocrite? Do you always talk to God in prayer sincerely and unhypocritically? Is it not often that the mouth utters words of truth, but the heart lies and another sings? Do you live sincerely and in simplicity before God? If you yourself are wrong before God and before people, often deceitful, hypocritical, do not be angry if others are insincere and hypocritical towards you. Whatever one sins, that is what he is punished for [Wis. 11, 17]. Have leniency towards others where you yourself have sinned. Don’t be afraid to show humility, humiliation, meekness, love, and respect for your stepbrothers and sisters. This fear is from your pride. Be quick to recognize the wiles of the devil and quickly defeat them, without touching your heart in the least. See yourself in your brother and sister, certainly yourself, for this you are told: love your neighbor as yourself [Matt. 19, 19]. Participation of the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity in the resurrection of the dead. And the Lord said to me: Son of man (image of the Son of God)! prophesy on these bones and say (also an image of the Hypostatic Word of God) to them: “Dry bones! listen to the word of the Lord (Hypostatic).” Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will put breath into you, and you will live. And I will cover you with sinews, and I will grow flesh on you, and I will cover you with skin, and I will bring breath into you, and you will live, and you will know that I am the Lord. I prophesied as I was commanded; and when I prophesied, there was a noise (of the Son of God), and behold a movement (the image and sign of the Holy Spirit, as at the descent of the Holy Spirit) - the place where they were gathered was shaken [Acts. 4, 31], - and the bones began to draw closer together, bone to bone. And I saw: and behold, veins were (speech, and was) on them, and flesh grew, and skin covered them from above, but there was no spirit in them (each Person of the Holy Trinity has His own action: hitherto the creative, living Word acted, now the Spirit will act. What equality!). Then He said to me: Prophesy to the spirit, prophesy, O son of man, and say to the spirit: Thus says the Lord God: From the four winds (the omnipresent Spirit of God), come, O spirit, and breathe on these slain, and they will live. And I prophesied as He commanded me, and the spirit entered into them, and they lived and stood on their feet - a very, very great army [Ezek. 37, 3–10]. (Glory to Your omnipotence, Lord, glory to You, the hope of our resurrection!) The Son of God gives life through the Holy Spirit, through close communion with the divine properties; The Spirit always rests in the Son, and the source of the life of the Son and the Holy Spirit is the Father. I live for the Father’s sake, says the Son of God [Jn. 6, 57]. And the bodily composition of man is created in the image of God. In the middle of the body is the image of the Father, the arms on the sides are the Son and the Holy Spirit. That is why it is said: Thy hands created me and created me [Ps. 118, 73]. Firmly believe that the evil in you - the devil and yours - will never overcome and will not overcome the unspeakable, infinite goodness of the Lord. Great is the evil of the devil in you—the goodness of the Lord is infinitely greater. Therefore, in doubt, lack of faith, blasphemy, malice, envy, stinginess, love of money, involuntary hypocrisy, beg the Lord with hope and know that His infinite goodness will bow to mercy towards you if you turn from your malice. Do good to the poor willingly, without suspiciousness and doubt and petty inquisitiveness and calculation, remembering that you are doing good to Christ Himself in the person of the poor, according to what is written: just as you did... did to Me [Matt. 25, 40]. Know that your alms are always insignificant in comparison with man, this deified favorite of God; know that your alms are earth and dust. Know that spiritual mercy must certainly go hand in hand with material mercy: affectionate, brotherly, with sincere love, treatment of one’s neighbor; don’t let him notice that you’re favoring him, don’t show him a proud look. Give, it is said, in simplicity... do good with cordiality [Rom. 12, 8]. Be careful not to deprive your material alms of value by not giving spiritual ones. Know that the Lord will test good deeds at the Judgment. Remember that heaven and earth are for man, for to him is reserved an incorruptible inheritance in heaven [1 Pet. 1, 4 ]; For man, God the Father did not spare His Only Begotten Son, but gave him up to death for him. Alas! The devil, through our wickedness, stumbles us in our good deeds. When praying to God or the Most Holy Mother of God, the Angels or saints, or chanting them, be extremely humble, remembering that you are praying or chanting with foul lips, from a vile heart, from an unclean tongue, from a soul defiled. The words of prayer are like rain or snow if spoken with faith and compassion: each of them contains its own strength and its own fruit; raindrops or snowflakes, falling in a continuous thread or flakes, water the earth, and it vegetates 88 and bears fruit; So the words of prayer, this spiritual rain, each separately water the soul, and it vegetates the fruits of virtues cooperating with the Holy Spirit, especially if there is still tearful rain. Human alms are fearful: they fear not to give to those who have, or not to give much; The mercy of the Lord is not like this - it is generous: the Lord is good to everyone, and His compassion is in all His works [Ps. 144, 9]. Whoever has, says the Lord, what will be given to him, and whoever does not have, what he thinks he has will be taken away from him [Lk. 8, 18]. Do not please the lazy flesh in prayer, do not rush: the flesh, bored and burdened by the holy work, hurries towards the end, in order to rest or get busy with carnal, worldly affairs. May simplicity accompany you everywhere; especially be simple in faith, hope and love. Incentives for simplicity: God is a simple Being, an ever-worshipping Unit, and our soul is simple. The simplicity of our soul is hindered by the flesh when we please it, when, for example, we eat and drink sweetly and generally pleasantly and a lot, smoke, have fun, and in general when we do what pleases it, for then it takes precedence over the spirit. God is unchanging love, and we must be unchanging and constant in love. Love never fails [1 Cor. 13, 8 ], Lack of love, or hatred, or only indifference and neglect - from the devil. To revitalize and sincerely pray, it is good to constantly strike in the middle of the womb (the navel), where the heart is located, and not just strike, but fold your fingers the way you folded them for prayer. It feels light and sweet in the insides with such an emphasis on the spiritual heart. The enemy flees from the sign of the Holy Trinity. The stress awakens it from the sleep to which it is so prone. Always remember about yourself that you are dirt: your body is made of earthly dirt, and your soul is dirty and stinking from the stench of sins and passions. Remember this especially when you pray to God. Remember, when dealing with your neighbors, not to be proud of your thoughts, words, or deeds. How sharply there is a difference in us, on the one hand, the good Spirit, the Spirit of peace, tranquility, joy, light, the life-giving Spirit, and on the other - the evil spirit, the spirit of oppression and languor, despondency, darkness, the spirit that kills our soul. The first is the Spirit of God, by whom we live, [breathe], spiritually move and exist [Acts. 17, 28 ]; the second is the evil spirit, Satan. Just as light, air, warmth and rain, uniting together in a beneficial effect on the earth, are the culprits of rich vegetation for it, so the Lord is everything for us: light, warmth, air and rain - the culprit of all spiritual vegetation, if He finds a heart ready to accept His all-saving influences. To the Holy Spirit, any all-saving wine, if He breathes according to His inheritance, will soon be taken from the earthly: it uplifts, increases, arranges grief 89. When your flesh hungers for the chosen, pleasant foods and drinks, remember how it treats you when you pray, or read the word of God, or compose something spiritual - in general, throughout the entire time of your life, and tell it: no, evil, nasty slave, I will not give you the chosen foods and drinks, lest I arm you with my own hands for your stubborn and evil struggle against me. Learn humility and patience through prayer: if you don’t feel like it, bore yourself, crucify the laziness of your flesh. Feed every hungry person who comes to your table, so that you may hear from the Lord on the Day of Judgment this blessed voice: I was hungry, and you gave Me food... Truly I say to you, just as you did it to one of the least of these My brothers, you did it to Me [Matt. 25, 35, 40]. Therefore, rejoice when you satisfy someone who is hungry. I thank You, Master, for You satiate my lewdness with the fatness of chosen earthly blessings. Every word of the Lord is a spiritual or material being, because He is the One and the Creator. The Lord God is omnipotent, because He is an infinite spirit, boundless power and wisdom, and every thought of Him is or can be, according to His will, immediately a deed, a thing, a life. Simplicity in faith, hope and love. Simplicity, meekness, humility, kindness, patience in dealing with others. I thank You, Lord of my life, for You have enlightened me and called me selfish by the hand of Your Angel, as I think. For in the sermon that I gave to the censor and which I found returned to the class, on the first page it was written: “the good shepherd” (this is the flattery of the devil), and under these words: “the most selfish” - with the other hand (this is the truth). So, I am self-interested, and this admonition is from You, my Master; the devil will not convict me of this, for we serve him with self-interest. So, until now I have been looking for what is mine, although I have given alms; I was looking for my own in everything: my peace of mind, my self-interest. Until now I was flawed, like Judas, a slave and a flatterer. I am lazy to write friendly letters because I have no friendship, I am looking for fragrance, gluttony, money, peace of mind, I do not like work, I am irritable and impatient. Save! Be every blessing to me! Save! Be my deliverance from all evil. The one who loves too much of the comforts in life and has furnished himself with all sorts of comforts is ill-fated: he will shun all inconvenience, become pampered, and will not get used to patience. Meanwhile, the life of a Christian is all inconvenience, the path is narrow and rough, there is a cross that requires inconvenience and great patience. So, the one who has a home and all the furnishings with all the comforts is ill-fated; His heart will love the comforts of this world, and not Christ the Crusader. Endure the inconvenience, get used to the inconvenience. I have learned to be content with what I have, says the apostle [Phil. 4, 11]. The one who loves decorations and seeks decorations for his body is ill-fated: he will not make due efforts to decorate his soul with faith, love, meekness, humility, righteousness, and patience. Particularly ill-fated is the one who seeks the adornment of honors. He will make of himself a shameful idol and, like Nebuchadnezzar, will be arrogant before those who do not have his honor and demand worship. Not in adornment with plaster... 91 [1 Tim. 2, 9]. And even we, men, like women have become, covet decorations and, like some kind of idols, we adorn ourselves, but we think little about internal beauty, we have even completely abandoned the inner church, or the tabernacle of our soul. The one who loves haste is ill-fated: he will make many stumbles, he will encounter thousands of troubles and internal difficulties due to his haste and will have frequent reasons for irritability. The one who is addicted to food and drink and is zealous about satiation and pleasure is ill-fated: he will actually see, when he begins to work for the Lord, that food and drink, if you put your heart into them, are binding of the body, sorrow and ruin of the spirit, and that a person can be satisfied with very, very few and simple foods. Love never fails [1 Cor. 3, 8], if you have to lay down your soul for your sake [Jn. 15, 13], that is, for your neighbor. I leave the brethren with perishable, transitory and at the same time spiritual debts: insults and sins against me, and my Master will leave me debts - and perishable ones! and spiritual ones, which could forever torment my soul. When you desire sweet foods or feel sorry for them for your neighbor, remember the words of the Savior: The kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit [Rom. 14, 17]. And why do we live, if not for the Kingdom of God, in this transitory kingdom of nature and in a transitory body? Also: Food for the belly, and the belly for food; but God will destroy both [1 Cor. 6, 13]. The human soul (or human heart) is simple, like spirit, therefore it must be simple in love, that is, it must love God as its Creator, from whom it came, and man as itself, like like; But one should not cleave to the things of this world, not even for a minute, because they are not akin to it, and because of their dissimilarity with our soul, the soul feels so painful when it cleaves to them. Tea, coffee, tobacco, jam, beer, wine, honey, sweet and meat dishes weaken the heart and make it repulsive to the Holy Spirit. How many were overcome by addiction to these things - they lost the Holy Spirit and lost spiritual life, for they became flesh. Every word of the Holy Scriptures, every word of the Divine Liturgy, Matins and Vespers, every word of the sacred and sacramental prayers and prayer books has a power corresponding to it and contained in it, like the sign of the Honest and Life-Giving Cross. Such grace is inherent in every church word for the sake of the Hypostatic, incarnate Word of God who dwells in the Church, Who is the Head of the Church [Col. 1, 18]. And every true and good word has a corresponding power for the sake of the all-filling simple Word of God. With what attention and reverence each word must be pronounced, with what faith! For the Word is the Creator Himself - God, and was brought into being by the Word from non-existence! The Holy Mysteries are called Divine Gifts, because the Lord gives us completely undeservedly, freely, undeservedly on our part; Instead of punishing us for our countless iniquities committed every day, hour, minute, and giving us over to spiritual death, the Lord in the Holy Mysteries gives us forgiveness and cleansing of sins, sanctification, peace of spiritual strength, healing, health of soul and body and every good only by our faith. If the Lord daily gives us Himself, His Divine Mysteries, for us to partake of, should we not urgently give tuna, the gift of perishable goods - money, food and drink, clothing to those who ask them from us? And how can we be indignant at those who eat our bread for free, when we ourselves eat for free the priceless and immortal meat of the Body and Blood of the Lord? Do not demand back from the one who took what you have [Lk. 6, 30]. You receive the Divine Trinity into your home of soul - you, vile, carnal, godless person; After repentance for sins and after receiving the Most Pure Mysteries of the Body and Blood, how can you not accept into your home your brethren, your members, the members of Christ, living images of the Most Holy Trinity, and diligently treat them, as the Lord of your life generously and lovingly treats you with His Body and Blood and the Trinity presence? Truly, like Abraham, treat with joy all who come to you and converse kindly with them. You live in the house of God, in this beautiful world, tuna, and you use all the gifts of God’s goodness and bounty, given through nature, also tuna; you live in the house of God - in the Church, or in the community of those who are being saved, and you use all the gifts of grace for your salvation - for you, too, do not hesitate to do good to the brethren, as long as you can; be good even to the ungrateful and wicked, so that you may be a son of the Heavenly Father [Lk. 6, 35 ]; willingly accept everyone into your home, knowing that you yourself live freely in the house of God, in this universe, and in the spiritual house of God - the Church, which prepares you for eternal life; let everyone partake of your meal with joy and joy, remembering that you freely eat daily from the Lord’s meal of His Most Pure Body and His Blood. April 16th, 1862 The priest raising his hands represents the Holy Trinity: the head is the Father, and two hands are equal to the head - the Son and the Holy Spirit. If you are cold, indifferent to man, to your neighbor, and do not love him dearly, then who can guarantee that you dearly love God? He who does not love his brother, whom he sees and in whom God abides, how can he love God, Whom he does not see? [ 1Jn. 4, 20]. Do not be cold, double-minded in relation to your neighbor, and you will not be cold, double-minded in relation to God. And how many cold people there are! Here I am, a great sinner, the same: I do not love my neighbor passionately, I do not sincerely sympathize with him in sorrows, in illnesses, in sorrows, in troubles, in cramped conditions. You say: what should I do with my heart? It contradicts everything true and holy, relaxes with unbelief where strong faith is needed, changes where loyalty to death is needed, does not tremble and is even ready to laugh where it should tremble and fear. What to do? What should I do, you say, with my heart? – Firmly admit once and for all to the undoubted truth that your heart is a lie and a pillar of lies: every man is a lie [Ps. 115, 2], and everything that is in the Church, from the word of God to the shortest prayer, is the truth and that the Church of God is the pillar and foundation of the truth [1 Tim. 3:15], as founded on the cornerstone - Christ, Who is the truth, and animated and guided forever by the Holy Spirit, Who is the Spirit of truth. Do they pour slop and all kinds of uncleanness into the royal bedchamber? Understand what is being said. Listen to your belly when you accept within yourself the life-giving Mysteries, the Body and Blood of Christ. Who has lower back pain? – The one who eats and drinks a lot, Who has a headache? – Who eats and drinks a lot. Who has restless sleep? – Who eats and drinks a lot. Who always walks around as if in a daze? – Who eats and drinks a lot. Who is devoted to laziness? – Who eats and drinks a lot. Who is least capable of spiritual pursuits? – Who eats and drinks a lot. Who is most susceptible to passions, especially irritability and anger? – Who eats and drinks a lot. Who's a bad friend? – Whoever eats and drinks a lot, for whose treasure is his belly and food and drink, do not seek the treasure of friendship and unfeigned love. While he eats what is yours, he flatters you, and then, when the opportunity arises, he will lift his heel against you because of your food and drink. Who has bad [...] and blasphemous thoughts? – Who eats and drinks a lot. Who is insolent towards the sacred? – Who eats and drinks a lot. [Who is a bad] prayer book? – Who eats and drinks a lot. Who loses faith in God, in his immortality, [in the existence of] good and evil spirits? – Who eats and drinks a lot. Who is light in body and cheerful in spirit? - A temperate man. Who has a light, fresh head? - Abstinent. Who always walks in the light, has clear thoughts and a bright spiritual eye? - Temperate. Who is jealous of all labor? - Temperate. Who is most capable of spiritual pursuits? - Temperate. Who controls his passions? - Temperate. Who is meek and patient? - Temperate, Who is a wonderful friend? - Abstinent, for he has a treasure - God and the human soul, or man, in which he sees the eternal image of the invisible God. Who has a reverent and holy line of thought? - A temperate one. Who reveres every holy thing? - Temperate. Who prays in spirit and in truth? - Temperate. Who has acquired an unshakable faith in God, in the immortality of his soul, in reward for everyone’s deeds, in good and evil spirits, in a word, in the spiritual world? - Abstinent, for through abstinence he himself became a spirit. These are the fruits of intemperance and abstinence. This is what experience says. We are big hypocrites, really: we fast, we fast, and we will suddenly reward ourselves five times for the fast we incurred! that is, we will eat [suddenly], so that our bones crack, and thus we will suddenly break what we have been building for many days. What kind of animals we really are! How greedy we are! How we insult the Master with our bestial attachment to food and drink and our lack of trust in the Lord! Well, where is the image of God in us? The image of God longs to be alive in every word that comes from the mouth of God [Matt. 4, 4]. Is it possible to demolish Lutheran pride, due to which they do not venerate the icons of Christ the Savior, His Most Pure Mother, the Angels and all the saints, as well as the saints themselves? This is unbearable, this is demonic pride. Is it equally possible to bear it that they reject the divinely established Orthodox [hierarchy]? The Orthodox Church is a smooth, reliable road to an eternal life. Walk along it steadily, stick to it, and you will reach the Kingdom of Heaven. If you deviate into the crossroads of superstition and unbelief, then blame yourself: you will get lost and perish. I am the way and the truth and the life [John. 14, 6]. There is no doubt that the devil in the hearts of very many people sits with some kind of heartfelt lethargy, relaxation and laziness towards every good and useful deed, especially the work of faith and piety, which requires heartfelt attention and sobriety, and spiritual labor in general. Thus, it affects the heart with lethargy and the mind with dullness during prayer. Thus, it affects the heart with lethargy, coldness and inaction of the heart when it is necessary to do good, for example, to sympathize with the suffering, to help those in trouble, to console the sad, to teach the ignorant, to guide the erring and vicious on the path of truth. We must constantly listen to our heart and drive away from it the darkness of laziness and petrified insensibility and see that it always burns with faith and love for God and neighbor and is ready for all labors and self-sacrifice for the glory of God and for the salvation of our neighbor. Do not slacken in zeal; be on fire in spirit; Serve the Lord [Rom. 12, I]. The devil sits in our hearts with unusually strong irritability: we sometimes become so sick with pride that we do not tolerate the slightest contradiction, material or spiritual obstacle, we do not tolerate a single unsmooth, rude word. But then we must endure when the waters of anger and impatience reach our soul. With your patience save your souls [Lk. 21, 19]. The rivers came, and the winds blew, and they questioned that church [Matt. 7, 27]. What will happen to her? What will happen to a person when the devil unleashes the river of his temptations on him and blows the wind of his wiles on him? If a Christian stands firmly on the rock of Christ, he will not fall, but if he stands on the sand of his wisdom and passions, he will fall greatly. Glory to the most merciful Lady, the most swift Intercessor, the Virgin Mother of God, who interceded me through my prayer from the invisible enemies who surrounded me, who stopped me in accepting the life-giving Mysteries with the heart’s addiction to corruptible waste and heart’s unbelief. Oh, what a fire I was in and what kind of trouble I was still threatened by from opposing forces, if the Lady had not interceded for me through my prayer and had not sovereignly given me shameless faith and resolved my heartfelt passion! Glory to Thee, most swift, unshaming Intercessor of the faithful! With boldness I drank the life-giving Mysteries, with firm heartfelt faith in the Lord, who exists as the soul in the body, in every part of the Body and Blood. After anxiety and fear - what calmness and boldness! After the scorching fire - what a coolness! After the heaviness - what lightness! After sorrow - what a joy! This is the betrayal of the right hand of the Most High [Ps. 76, 11 ]! Today I experienced experience once again that a priest needs to beware of the slightest connection of his heart with some earthly attachment. In spiritual life one should not neglect the slightest ulcer of the heart, nor the slightest attachment to the sensual (for the enemy can turn a spark into a great flame). One should not have the slightest passionate, carnal attachment to food, drink, clothing, money, or a human face. Otherwise, the enemy will stutter, very stutter. ABOUT! How cunning our heart is when it wants to plausibly justify its attachment or pity for something sensual! It hides behind pleasing God, reverence for shrines, or love for one’s neighbor. But from the fruits you can immediately recognize, for God, for shrines, for your neighbor - or for yourself, for your flesh, this zeal for the flesh: if zeal is accompanied by peace of the heart, love for God, then it is for God, and if it is anxiety, crampedness, dislike for God, then for the flesh it is earthly, spiritual, demonic zeal [Jas. 3, 15]. Jealousy is known from its fruit: whether it is God’s or demonic. April 18th, 1862 Under the pretext of God or a saint, do not take for yourself what is best and do not leave for others what is worse, and do not be selfish even in the work of God, and do not turn it into a means of satisfying your passions. In serving God, put aside even the slightest pleasure to the flesh. Am I not everything to you, My worm, adorned with My image? What are you clinging to? What else do you hope for? Do not forsake Me, the fountain of water of life [Jer. 2, 13]. I am life itself. Our life - the Lord - is simple. If He is in the heart, that’s enough. He alone sustains our life. That is why it is said: man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God [Matt. 4, 4]. How many times after a hearty dinner or tea with bread I died in spirit, and a hearty lunch or tea did not help me, and I had to ask the Lord through the prayer of faith for life for my soul, which died in sin. Oh! Sin kills the soul, the well-fed belly, and the whole body! Therefore, trust not in food, but in the Lord. Brashna is decay. Do not be lazy to pray earnestly for others at their request or on your own with them, and you yourself will receive mercy from God - the grace of God in your heart, delighting and strengthening you in faith and love for God and your neighbor. These words are true, they are taken from experience. We usually do not very willingly, more out of need or habit, pray for others, without the full participation of the heart, without burning [of the spirit]; We must force ourselves to pray with all our hearts, with great faith, with great boldness, so that we may receive great and rich mercy from the generous and generously gifted God. Let him ask with faith, without any doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, lifted and tossed by the wind [Jas. 1.6]. The Lord, this common Father of all, is pleased when we willingly, with faith and love pray for each other, for He is love [1 John. 4, 8, 16], ready to show mercy to everyone for mutual love. The Holy Spirit said: pray for one another that you may be healed [Jas. 5, 16]. You see how pleasing to God and how effective prayer is for one another. When we pray for the first time, or even often, for something great, according to our concepts or according to the concept, recognition of the Word of God Himself and the entire Ecumenical Church, then the enemy strongly strengthens to pierce the heart with unbelief in the possibility of fulfilling our prayer and thereby constrains and wounds our heart and does not allow us, through unbelief, to receive what we ask from God. But that this lack of faith in the possibility of fulfilling our prayer is a lie, a dream of the devil, this is obvious, firstly, from the clear testimony of the word of God that everything is possible with God [Mk. 10, 27 ], secondly, from the countless number of deeds of the Lord, natural and Supernatural, proving that for Him throughout the existence of the world hitherto everything was possible and everything will be possible, because He is the only infinitely Existing One, who created and creates everything, creates and transforms, and, finally, thirdly, from the fact that in our very consciousness the impossible becomes possible when we pray more diligently for it day by day and when We will overcome the machinations of the enemy in us with our zealous faith. We ourselves will then see that only for those who do not believe in the possibility of the Lord fulfilling anything, this is the only thing that is impossible, but for a believer, everything is possible. All things are possible to him who believes [Mk. 9:23], says the Lord Himself. The greatest miracle in the Christian Orthodox Church is the transformation of bread and wine into the true, deified Body and Blood of Christ, performed daily by the Lord through the mediation of a servant of Christ, into the true, whole Christ, the Son of God. The devil plays tricks on the priest every mass, instilling in him that Bread is not the Body, Wine is not the Blood of Christ, that is, all the thoughts in his mind and heart of disbelief in the possibility of transmutation of bread and wine. But isn’t it every time that his machinations dissipate like smoke with the help of the grace of God and the priest accepts them as the true Body and true Blood of the Lord, receiving the most striking evidence of this within himself? Isn’t it every time that the devil’s dreamy impossibility remains the most blissful possibility, and not only a possibility, but also a reality? Glory to the omnipotence and goodness of the Lord! Satanic doubt and unbelief be damned! So, after this, what shall we regard as impossible, when such a miracle takes place before our eyes every day, such as the transformation of bread and bread into the Body and Blood of Christ? Oh, God of miracles! God Almighty! Confirm unshakably our faith in Your omnipotence through the prayers of the Mother of God and all Your saints who have pleased You from the ages! April 18th, 1862. When you pray to God, then you cannot imagine His closeness in any other way than that you breathe in Him every minute, move, are enlightened, are sanctified, rested, consoled, strengthened - in a word, you live in Him, according to the Scripture: In Him we live and move and exist... Giving to everything life and breath and everything [Acts. 17, 28, 25]. God is close to you, in your mouth and in your heart... For if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart... you will be saved [Rom. 10, 8–9]. A Christian must pray, as for himself, for all Christians, so that God will grant them prosperity in life and faith and spiritual reason, and freedom from sins and passions. Why? – According to Christian love, which sees in all Christians its members and the members of Christ God, the common Savior of all, it desires for them the same as for itself, just as it strives by all means to do for them the same as for itself. One should not be angry with others without just cause. At whom will I be angry when I should be angry with myself for my countless iniquities? How can I be angry at others when I cannot find the means to vent enough anger at myself? If I am angry at others for troubles, perhaps just ones, or for the insults they have caused me, or for the untimeliness and imprudence of their demands, in general for anything that concerns me, then it means that I have not yet come to know myself, it means that I am in the darkness of self-love and pride. Let everyone be angry with me: I deserve it, because I don’t want, I don’t try and I don’t know how to serve the common salvation of all, the public good. Because of my sins, because of my laziness, because of negligence, because of the bad manners of living with people, because of the lack of true love for them, I deserve to be trampled upon by everyone. But let me not be angry with anyone, not with the last beggar, for I am the least beggar among beggars. I am a beggar [Ps. 24, 16; 87, 16]. How can I condemn others when I see in myself an abyss of sins and passions, when I don’t know how it is enough to judge myself based on my deeds, how to correct myself, so that my Master does not condemn me without mercy for unmerciful judgment towards others on the day of His terrible and righteous trial! If I judge others, consider other people’s mistakes, it means that I have not yet known myself. We are called by the name of Christ - what are the responsibilities of people called by this glorious name? All of you who were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts [Gal. 3, 27; 5, 24]. He who does not have the Spirit of Christ is not His [Rom. 8, 9]. Learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart [Matt. 11, 29]. You should have the same feelings that were in Christ Jesus: He, being the image of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God; but he made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a servant, becoming in the likeness of men, and becoming in appearance like a man; He humbled himself, becoming obedient even to the point of death, even death on the cross [Phil. 2, 5–8]. Glory to the Savior, God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, who has now delivered me from the kindled devil’s arrows of my anger! I cried out: Father, Son and Holy Soul, have mercy on me, crossed my chest and belly - and the fire disappeared, and coolness settled inside. April 19th, 1862 Faith is the key to God's treasury. She lives in a simple, kind, loving and generous heart and is generosity itself. Generosity is interceded by generosity, generosity of faith - Divine bounties. If you can believe a little, all things are possible to him who believes [Mk. 9, 23]: you see, according to the generosity of faith, the Lord will be generous to you. Faith is spiritual lips: the more freely they open, the greater the flow of Divine sources entering into them; Let these lips open freely, like bodily lips, and not be constricted by doubt and unbelief. If you squeeze them with doubt and unbelief, a treasury of God’s blessings will be hidden for you. The more generously and openly you believe in God’s omnipotence, the more generously God’s heart will open for you. Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you receive it, and it will be done for you [Mk. 11, 24]. God! Do not allow my heart to wander into the thoughts of evil! My heart is clouded, my ears are hard to hear and the eyes of my heart are adjacent. We keep icons in our homes and worship them, among other things, to show that the eyes of the Lord God and all the inhabitants of heaven are constantly fixed on us and see not only all our deeds, but also our words, thoughts, and desires. Finite, created beings are divided into past, present and future, for there is only one God who exists. Existence or future events are seen as present only by the One Lord God the Trinitarian, according to His revelation - the Angels and men of God. Therefore, foreknowledge actually belongs only to God: among Angels and men it is borrowed from God. Tell us what will happen in the future, and we will know that you are gods [Isa. 41, 23]. Glory to the most swift Intercessor, Lady Theotokos, who tangibly and quickly saved me from the devil’s heat of unbelief after communion of the Holy Mysteries! Simply, with undoubted faith in the closeness and benevolence of the Lady, I called out to Her in front of the image of Her Tikhvin icon in the altar - and I was not put to shame by Her. Glory to the Lord Jesus Christ with the Father and the Holy Spirit. I cried out to Him in the straits of the enemy: Lord! Take revenge on me 92 from my rival [Lk. 18, 3 ]! - And He immediately saved me, and it became easy, easy for me after the unbearable heaviness! April 20th day, 1862. During worship, during the performance of all the Sacraments and prayers, be like a trusting child, guided by your parents. Remember what great fathers are, what luminaries of the universe. Illuminated by the Holy Spirit, they guide you! Like a child, like a child, be simple, trusting, and undoubting in the work of God. Cast all your sorrow on the Lord, and be completely carefree. Do not worry about how or what to say... for it is not you who will speak, but the Spirit of your Father who will speak in you [Matt. 10, 19 – 20]. Long ago the Lord took away from us this concern, this sadness, teaching our God-bearing fathers by His Spirit what to say to the Lord during worship and in various cases and circumstances of human life that require prayer, bringing down a blessing from above. We have been praying for half a century. The enemy is getting cold. But what is his constriction, if our heart is established in the Lord! This is the trouble if we are not in God, if we do not have firm faith, if we have bound ourselves with worldly passions, if our mind is proud and arrogant. Then in the holiest, most immaculate work of worship, celebration and communion of the Holy Mysteries, the devil will strongly hinder us. Well, he will cleverly teach someone of little faith, or one who is arrogant in his mind, or who is partial to something earthly and carnal. It will exhaust you, exhaust you so much that you can barely bring your legs home. God is love, a simple, generous, wise and omnipotent being. Therefore, let those who pray believe that the Lord will give everything that is useful, like love, like a simple being, he will give it quickly and therefore simply, like the Generous One - generously, like the Wise One - wisely, like the Almighty He will give it in such a way, where and when they did not expect. The disrespect shown to the archpriest goes back to the bishop who appointed him, and to the Great Bishop Himself, our Lord Jesus Christ. Have all respect for the archpriest and awaken this respect in others if it is dormant. Oh, pride! How inconspicuously she seduces the heart! Be gone, you fiend of Satan! Be as meek, humble, and simple in your dealings with everyone as possible, considering yourself unhypocritically lower than everyone else in your mental state, that is, more sinful and weaker than everyone else. I am the first of sinners, speak up. From pride comes pompousness, cold treatment without any sincerity towards those who are lower than us or from whom we do not hope to benefit ourselves. Everyone dozed off and fell asleep [Matt. 25, 5]. Now in Russia people are dozing and sleeping, and throughout the whole world very, very many people are sleeping spiritually. Let us not sleep, but let us be awake and sober. A heart weighed down with food and drink cannot accommodate reason or spiritual understanding. Teach diligently, carefully every disciple or every Christian, for their angels in heaven always see the face of My Heavenly Father [Matt. 18, 10]. All people are the breath and creation of one God: they came from God and return to God as to their beginning, as to their element; and the dust will return to the earth as it was; and the spirit returned to God, who gave it [Eccl. 12, 7]. Let us be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust [2 Pet. 1, 4]. As the breath of one God and as having all come from one person, people should naturally live in mutual love and mutual preservation and should not be separated from each other by self-love, pride, malice, envy, stinginess, and unsociable disposition. May they all be one, just as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, so may they also be one in Us [Jn. 17, 21]. April 20th day, 1862. Look at the ants, how friendly they are; look at the bees, how friendly they are; look at the flocks of pigeons, jackdaws, crows, geese, ducks, swans, sparrows - how friendly they are; look at the herds of sheep and cattle in general, how friendly they are. Listen to the countless herds of some fish in the seas and rivers, who always love to walk in herds - how friendly they are. Think how even they jealously guard each other, help each other, love each other, and be ashamed of the dumb ones, you who do not live in love, who run away from bearing the burdens of others. God is long-suffering and merciful to you - you experience this many times every day. Be patient and merciful to your brethren. That is why the apostle speaks about love first of all like this: Love is patient and kind [1 Cor. 13, 4]. You want the Lord to delight you with His love, and you, too, delight the hearts of others with tender love and kindness of treatment. How quick we are to do evil and slow to do good! So I want to be kind and express my kindness in practice, but before I have time to become kind in my heart, I am already angry, already the fiery arrows of anger often scorch my insides; I want to be patient, but before I establish my heart in patience, I become irritable and impatient; I want to be humble, but satanic pride has already found a spacious corner in me; I want to be affectionate, but when I need to show affection, I turn out to be rude; I want to be not money-loving and generous, but love of money and stinginess, at the slightest provocation, like hungry and roaring lions, already demand food for themselves? I want to be simple, trusting, but deceit and doubt are already gnawing at my heart; I want to be important and reverent in serving the Almighty, but frivolity and heartfelt inattention have already preceded me; I want to be impartial, abstinent in food and drink, but when I see pleasant food and drink and sit down at the table, I, like a slave, am carried away by my belly into a pleasant captivity and easily allow myself to eat and drink more than my nature requires: greed and intemperance again precede and overcome my desire to be indifferent to food and drink. I am like that paralytic who lay on his bed for thirty-eight years and no matter how many times he came to the Sheep’s font, which healed everyone who was the first to descend into it after being disturbed by the Angel, he was not taken down first [John. 5, 7]. This is what happens to me: when I, weakened by my sins, gather my efforts and come to myself with the intention of immersing myself in God and changing for the better, but first sin slides into my heart, the devil forestalls me in my own home, in my own heartfelt font, they do not allow me to the source of living waters - the Lord, not allowing me to plunge into the cleansing font of faith, humility, heartfelt contrition and tears. Who is healing me? - One Jesus Christ. When He sees my sincere and firm desire for healing from mental relaxation and my warm prayer for this, then He will say to me: take up your bed and walk [Jn. 5:8], and I will get up from the bed of heartfelt relaxation and go, that is, conveniently, by His grace, I will conquer all passions and perform every virtue. If you spare great or small money or food, drink, clothing, books and other earthly things for your neighbor who needs them, then there is no doubt that your heart is attached to these corruptible things and you have not loved the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your thoughts, you do not have true love for God and you do not love your neighbor as yourself. Try to live a completely simple life, impartial in relation to all earthly, perishable goods. Say: the Lord is everything to me. In prayer, intentional, deliberate, extreme humility is necessary. We must remember who is speaking and what is being said. This is especially necessary when reading the Lord’s Prayer, Our Father. Humility destroys all the machinations of the enemy. Oh! How much secret pride we have: I know this, I don’t need this, this is not for me, this is unnecessary, I am not sinful in this. How much self-indulgence! Sin, passion, the devil in an instant change a person’s face from bright to dark, from good to evil. Notice here too the educational power of the soul. They say about a certain actress that she extremely quickly changes the features of her face, makes unusually rapid transitions in feelings, expressing them on her face itself. What's so tricky? What is the human soul incapable of? It follows from this that if the human soul can so quickly give a different appearance to its face, change it so greatly, then the Creator of everything will not create what He pleases from every substance, as He is everywhere and alone. When you pray, say in your heart against various enemy thoughts and incitements: The Lord is everything to me. So throughout your life, during the attack of passions and in the face of all kinds of taxes from the enemy, in illnesses, in sorrows, in troubles, in misfortunes, say: everything for me is the Lord. I myself cannot do anything, endure anything, overcome anything, win anything. I cannot create anything from Myself [Jn. 5, 30]. The word or name that every living being and every thing bears means that this living being or this thing came from the Word of the Creator and is contained in being by the Word. Another person (man or woman) was an adulterer in his youth and was not punished by the Lord according to his iniquity, or was a thief or murderer, voluntary or involuntary, and was also not punished according to his guilt. But now the time comes: the Lord remembers his sins of the past time and, despite the fact that he will perish through them forever, punishes him in old age or in adulthood with severe sorrows or illnesses and various misfortunes, so that his soul may be cleansed, as if in a crucible, from the sinful impurities accumulated in it, so that all the evil of his heart will burn out, as if in fire, and may the eternal fire of Gehenna not burn him. And how many, not knowing the fate of Divine Providence, grumble in their sorrowful situation and indulge in impatience and irritability, forgetting their previous iniquities and not thinking that if they had not been punished and cleansed by sorrows here, they would have been subjected to eternal fire there. I renew packs and packs, or even more so You, O Most Blessed Lady, renew the memory of Your miracles, the memory of Your intercession for us sinners! How quickly, O Lady, how gracefully and from what calamity You took my soul now after communion of the Divine Mysteries, when the tempter planted in my heart a fiery, killing doubt about the truth of the Body and Blood of Christ. Oh, my unfaithful heart! You have tasted peace, sweetness, life from the most pure Mysteries more than one thousand times, more than one thousand times the Life-Giver and Lamb of God, under the guise of Bread and Wine, cleansed your sins and iniquities - and you are still sick with thoughts of doubt and unbelief, albeit involuntary! How long will the charmer find a corner in your heart to plant his lies, his charm, his dreams? But I sing, most swift Intercessor, Your shameless intercession for us sinners before Your Son, Your immutable intercession to the Creator. Do not despise the voices of the belly of sinful prayers at other times, but anticipate, as if good, to help us who are faithfully calling Ty; hasten to prayer, and strive to entreat, interceding ever since, the Mother of God, those who honor Thee 93. April 27th day, 1862. Saturday. Whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man will also be ashamed [Mk. 8, 38]. Oh, despicable shame! Oh, devilish shame! Oh, the satanic stench emanating from the student of the abyss 94! How many people are sick of you! How many do not know your charm and servile you to the destruction of their souls! Here is a secular writer - a journalist, a feuilletonist! They write, they write, they write: there is something they won’t write in the continuation of their literary or fictional activity! And about God, and about the Savior Jesus Christ, and about the Church, and about divine services, about Christian holidays, about the resurrection of our flesh, about the Judgment, about the afterlife. It’s not our area, they say, it’s not our business. We are of the world and speak from the world, and therefore the world listens to us [1 John. 4, 5 ]; But if we start talking about God, perhaps they won’t even read us. Thus, secular literature is completely alien to the Christian spirit; she is even ashamed of the spirit of Christ. Here is a secular circle: they talk and talk, mostly pouring from empty to empty, and again there is no talk about God, the common Father of all, about His love for us, about the future life, about reward. Why? – They are ashamed of the Gospel or afraid to talk about God. But what is most surprising: even people who imagine themselves to be pious, the lamps themselves, rarely talk about God, about Christ the Savior, about the preciousness of time, about abstinence, about the resurrection, about Judgment, about future bliss and eternal torment in the circle of their families and in the circle of secular people, and often spend time in empty conversations, games and activities! Why? Again, because they are ashamed to start such a conversation, they are afraid of getting bored, or they are afraid that they themselves will not be able to stand it and will not speak cordially about spiritual subjects. O adulterous and sinful world! Woe to you on the day of Judgment from the common and impartial Judge! He came to his own, and his own did not receive Him [Jn. 1, 11]. Yes! The Lord and Creator of all is not accepted among us! It is not accepted in our homes, in our conversations. Or a person reads a holy book or reads prayers aloud; but for some reason he reads as if involuntarily, reluctantly, his tongue stumbles; not from the excess of the heart, but from the tightness, emptiness, his lips barely speak. Why? – From an internal disdain for spiritual reading or prayer, sown in the heart by the devil, and false shame. Oh, poor, oh, blind people we are! Where we should place the greatest honor is something we are ashamed of. Oh, ungrateful and malicious creatures! What torment we don’t deserve to behave this way! The enemy, unable to trap a Christian on the path of salvation with sorrows and hardships, poverty and various other deprivations, illnesses and various misfortunes, rushes to the other extreme: he fights him with the very health, peace, tranquility, relaxation of the heart, mental insensibility of spiritual blessings, or the wealth and space of external and internal life. Oh, how dangerous this last state is! It is more dangerous than the first state - the state of grief and cramped conditions, the state of illness and other things! Here we easily forget God, stop feeling His mercy, doze off and sleep spiritually: when the groom slowed down, we all dozed off and fell asleep. But at midnight a cry was heard: behold, the groom is coming, go out to meet him [Matt. 25, 5 – 6]. And sorrows keep us, so to speak, on a leash with God: we constantly involuntarily turn to Him for salvation and constantly feel that God is the God of our salvation... God is the hedgehog to save [Ps. 67, 20 – 21]. It is good for a Christian to live in some kind of sorrow. My heart sleeps because of external contentment, because of health, pleasant food, a very good, spacious and clean home, good clothes, good fame, favorable circumstances in my service. We must awaken him vigorously with sorrows, labor to the point of fatigue, various misfortunes and external pressures. Christ is risen from the dead! Rejoice, my soul! Rejoice, my flesh! Rejoice, all mankind! Christ is Risen! This means that you, man, were raised from the dead in the person of the God-Man and, having fallen for the sin of eternal death, were freed from it by the God-Man Christ through His suffering, death and resurrection. Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death and giving life to those in the tombs. The miracle of my Christ. Having entered the Assumption Church yesterday for the all-night vigil, I saw a cadet very casually entering the church, and, patting him lightly on the shoulder, I remarked to him that he should enter the church and stand in it more modestly, and I walked away with these words spoken only in his ears. How the devil, who was probably in him and with him, attacked me for this! How he outraged me, set me on fire, embarrassed me! A real storm of hostility rose inside me! I myself am not myself. But then I come to the altar - and in front of the entrance I lit a candle to the local image of the Savior in a state of confusion and anguish of heart - I pray to the throne, take off my outer cassock, bless the surplices of the deacon and sexton in my confused state, then I come to kiss the shroud and the cross on the throne. I cleave my lips to Christ crucified and say: Savior! You are our world; grant peace to my heart, outraged by the enemy, and heal the confusion of my soul! So what? Oh, the miracle of my Lord! Immediately I calmed down, all anxiety and embarrassment disappeared, and I began the all-night vigil in peace, peacefully burned incense, and most peacefully and sweetly performed the entire all-night service in a spirit of prayer, with the tenderness of the Holy Spirit. Prayer is spiritual breathing. When we pray, we breathe the Holy Spirit. Praying with the Holy Spirit [Jude. 1, 20]. So, all church prayers are the breath of the Holy Spirit, or, as it were, spiritual air and together light, spiritual fire, spiritual food and drink and spiritual clothing. Holy soul! All of us, Christians, are Your breath, Your birth after Baptism, and after the first creative breath in the person of the first man, we all, all the tribes of the earth, are Your breath, Your birth! Have mercy and create us all, Holy Soul, You are our Father and our Mother! Breathe in us and with Your breath drive away the stench of our sins and passions, eradicate the stench of all sinful inclinations! When praying, always firmly believe and remember that every thought of yours and every word of yours can, undoubtedly can be prophetic, deed. With God every verb will not fail [Lk. 1, 37]. And he who is united with the Lord is one spirit with the Lord [1 Cor. 6, 17]. This means that your word will not fail. All things are possible to him who believes [Mk. 9, 23]. Take care of your word - your word is precious. For every idle word people will give an answer on the day of judgment [Matt. 12, 36]. The word is the expression of truth, truth itself, being, deed. The Word precedes every being, every thing, as the wine of their existence, past, present or future. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end... Who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty [Rev. 1, 8]. This is what the Creative Word of the Father says. In Him, the Word, is the guilt of all creatures - present, past and future. Why do we honor the Cross with such great reverence that in our prayers we mention its power after the intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos and the Heavenly Powers, before all the saints, and sometimes even after the Mother of God before the Heavenly Powers? – Because after the suffering of the Savior, the Cross became the sign of the Son of Man, that is, the Cross signifies the Son of God Himself who became incarnate and suffered for our salvation, so that it was as if Christ Himself and the Cross in Christ were in the Cross. Moreover, a person crucified on a cross represents the cross itself. In His suffering, the Lord, so to speak, became engaged to the Cross and made it eternal, His inalienable property. So, the Cross and Christ, that is, the flesh of Christ, are, as it were, one with each other, and on the Cross He offered Himself as a sacrifice to God the Father for our sins, on it and with it He saved us from the work of the enemy, and therefore we honor it with such great reverence! That is why for believers it is always a great power that delivers from all evils, especially from the villainy of invisible enemies, because in the Cross is Christ, who fulfills everything, and Christ in the Cross. Just as light, air and water are together and mutually penetrate each other and do not merge, but each remains what it is: light as light, air as air, water as water, fully retaining their individual properties, and the being making up one thing - matter, so in some way the Persons of the Divine Trinity are always together and are not separated from each other: the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father and the Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father, rests in the Son, and at the same time each Person remains with His personal properties: God the Father is not begotten, not created, not emanating, the Son is begotten, the Holy Spirit comes from the Father, and the Three Persons have one being - the Divine simple being. This similarity is based on the words of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, Who calls Himself the light of the world [John. 8, 12; 9:5], and speaks of the Holy Spirit, likening Him in the actions of the water element: Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture says, from his belly will flow rivers of living water. This He said about the Spirit, which those who believed in Him were about to receive [Jn. 7, 38 – 39 ]. He also likens the Holy Spirit to air or wind: The Spirit breathes where it wants, and you hear its voice, but you do not know where it comes from and where it goes [Jn. 3, 8]. The Holy Church sings about the Holy Spirit: If the Holy Spirit breathes, he will soon take it from the earthly... The bird depicts the Trinity with its body and two wings, cattle with its head and two horns on it, and man with its head and two arms, all animals with its head and two equal eyes. The eyes of God mean the Son of God and the Holy Spirit. The All-Holy Spirit Himself appeared in the form of a dove [Matt. 3, 16], both because in order to represent by the sight of a flying bird the overshadowing from Him of the whole world and the revitalization from Him of every creature, similar to that produced by a bird sitting on eggs and imparting its life to them, - and in order to represent by the sight of a flying bird the Trinity of the Divinity and also His omnipresence, the meekness, the purity of His Being. How you stand before the king, how you speak to him, with what attention, with what reverence, so at least stand before God in prayer! The king does not see your heart, and yet you treat him with such reverence, but God sees your heart, all your thoughts and desires, and you casually stand and speak in prayer, and do not pronounce words with heartfelt attention to God, who is in charge of everything. How do you treat highly respected people, people of high rank, excellent virtue, excellent education and intelligence? How do you speak to them? Is it not with extreme respect and sincerity, or with extreme caution and fear, lest I say something indecent, absurd, offensive, lest I offend their ears with some thoughtless word? how not to insult their dignity even with some evil thought? So, at least, keep yourself in prayer when you ask for the intercession of the Mother of God, the Angels and the saints. Be extremely attentive to them, as they are attentive to you; be reverent and fear to offend their sanctity with one evil thought, for in the Holy Spirit they contemplate even your thoughts of the heart. Be completely sincere in prayer to them, just as you are sincere to yourself, remembering that the success of your prayer to them depends on the sincerity and fervor of your prayer to them. For the Lord to become incarnate is how we put on clothes; to give flesh to any creature - whether an animal or a plant - means the same for the Lord as for us to sew and put on clothes: he took it, sewed it, and put it on. Ecu clothed me with skin and flesh, and ecu sewed me together with bones and sinews [Job. 10, 11]. And what an infinite multitude and variety of substances the Lord has, from which He, the Creator, creates different clothes for different cuts for His creatures - cut, sew and put on whatever clothes you want, even from light, even from air, even from water and earth, of one color or another, even from gold, even from silver, even from azure. So He will clothe us, God willing, with light like the sun in His Kingdom. The queen appeared... in robes and gilded garments [Ps. 44, 10]. The righteous will shine like the sun [Matt. 13, 43]. And now we are dressed with earth, water, air, warmth - these are our clothes. And how wisely and conveniently all these elements are made and combined in our being! It is not heavy, and quite light, and beautiful. Oh, all-wise and all-powerful Artist, life-giving Artist! How beautiful, comfortable, and lively everything is with you! With You even the dust is revived, with You even the dust moves! So, every mass the Lord deigns for us to dress in flesh and blood! He will take bread and wine, put it on Himself in the Holy Spirit - and the true Flesh and Blood of Christ our God will come out, for the Holy Spirit both transforms and gives life. The Spirit gives life; the flesh does not benefit at all. The words that I speak to you are spirit and life [Jn. 6, 63]. ABOUT! How simple, easy, instant it all is for Him! And how much labor we give Him with our lack of faith and unbelief: how is this? yes why is this so? Oh, these grids are rational! In prayer, the main thing that you need to take care of first of all is living, clairvoyant faith in the Lord: imagine Him alive before you, in yourself, and then ask whatever you want for Christ Jesus and in the Holy Spirit, and it will be done for you. Ask simply, without hesitation, and then your God will be everything for you, performing great and wonderful deeds in an instant, just as the sign of the cross accomplishes great powers. Ask not for yourself alone, but for all the faithful, for the entire body of the Church, spiritual and material blessings, not separating yourself from other believers, but being in spiritual unity with them as a member of the one great body of the Church of Christ - and the Heavenly Father, who loves everyone as his children in Christ, will fill you with great peace and boldness. The zeal of malice 95 (diabolical) is darkened by good, and the soaring of lust exchanges [Russian: corrupts] a gentle mind [Prem. 4, 12]. Oh! How many, over time, are changed by the breath of malice, working diligently in their hearts, and from the good become evil, from the pious - wicked, from believers - of little faith! When praying, listen firmly to the words of the prayer, feel them with your heart. Do not distract your mind from them with any thoughts. When praying during divine services, the celebration of the Sacraments and prayers on various occasions, firmly place your heart on the very words of the church prayers, believing that not a single word is spoken in vain, each has its own power, that in every word the Lord Himself is Trinitarian, present everywhere and fulfilling everything. Say: I am nothing, the Lord does everything. Say again: I speak - God the Word speaks in me; I speak - and the Holy Spirit does everything. I have nothing to worry about. It says, cast all your worries on Him, for He cares for you [1 Pet. 5, 7]. You read a secular magazine or newspaper - it’s easy and pleasant to read and everything is easy to believe. But you start reading a spiritual magazine or a spiritual book in general, especially a church book, or you start reading prayers, and your heart will become so heavy - and doubt will torment you, and unbelief, and some kind of darkness and disgust. So many admit it. Why does this happen? Not from the properties, of course, of the books themselves, but from the properties of those reading, from the qualities of their hearts and, most importantly, from the devil - the enemy of man, the enemy of everything sacred. When we read secular works, we will not touch him - and he will not touch us. As soon as we take up the sacred books, we begin to think about our correction and salvation, then we go against him, irritate him, torment his anger, and so he attacks us and torments us mutually. What to do? Don’t give up on good deeds, soul-helping reading, prayer. But we must endure and in patience save our soul. Save your souls through your patience, says the Lord [Lk. 21, 19]. The same must be applied to theaters and churches, to performances and worship. It feels pleasant in the theater, but in church it’s hard, boring - because in the theater everything is perfectly arranged for a sensual person, and we don’t touch the devil there, but amuse him, well, he gives us pleasure, doesn’t touch us: have fun for yourself, my friends, just laugh and don’t remember God. In the church, everything is adapted to arouse faith and the fear of God, pious feelings, the feeling of our sinful corruption, and the devil plants doubts, despondency, melancholy, evil, nasty and blasphemous thoughts in our hearts - well, a person is not happy with himself: he cannot stand, it is difficult to stand for an hour - he will quickly run away. Theater and church are opposites. This is the church of the world, and this is the church of God. This is the church of the devil, and this is the church of the Lord. When you are asked to pray for the salvation of someone from bodily death, for example from drowning, from death due to illness, from fire or from any other disaster, praise the faith of those asking for this and say to yourself: blessed be your faith, according to your faith may the Lord grant the fulfillment of my unworthy, little-faithful prayer and may He add faith to me. Today, one secular man (Ivan Kirillovich Grechukhin), at the inspiration of God, reminded me and admonished me to pray before the throne of God for those in distress to death in the sea ice. I prayed, despite the obstacles of the enemy, despite the fiery unbelief and doubt. Those who had been in distress for three days at sea were saved during mass at the very time when I was praying. I thank You, benevolent Master, for You listened to my unworthy prayer and fulfilled it. I thank You, for You taught me by Your Spirit how it is proper to pray to You for the salvation of the perishing. Several times I repeated the boldness of prayer: before the transubstantiation of the Holy Gifts, during and after the transubstantiation. Some zealots for the splendor of the house of God and shrines in general make rich offerings or decorations to the churches of God, for example, silver vestments for icons or other unnecessary things, without which our faith and our piety could easily be done, or they make precious decorations for their home icons, for example, silver or silver-gilded vestments for holy icons. And this is when they know that in the same city or village with them there live many poor, beggars, wretched people who have nothing to eat, nothing to wear, and no one to give help to. Such people must certainly be inspired to leave unnecessary decorations in the house of God or on their icons, which often feed only vanity and boasting and a passion for the splendor of the donors or icon decorators, and to advise alms. Go, learn what it means: I want mercy, and not sacrifice?.. Just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me [Matt. 9, 13; 25, 40]. We must take care of the repose and consolation of animate churches or images of God, that is, poor and weak people, and then about the decoration and wealth of holy churches. Quite simple splendor and sparse decorations. It is advisable to even sell rich vestments with icons and give the money to the poor. Sell ​​everything you have and give to the poor [Lk. 18, 22]. Here, of course, there are rich household utensils on the icons. The saints do not need earthly vain adornments, their clothing is God and good works: only so that we remember the poor [Gal. 2, 10]. It is also advised to sell excess clothes, not to have unnecessary household precious things, for example, expensive furniture, expensive watches, expensive so-called purses and cigarette boxes, not to have an expensive, elegant table, but to be content with simple food and distribute the remaining money to the poor. Instill that people will give God an answer about the assignment of the housekeeper [Lk. 16, 2], a report on the use of God's gifts and a strict answer about how they tried to keep the commandment to love their neighbor, whether they wished as much good for their neighbor as they did for themselves, and whether they shared their excesses with the poor, whether they used the gifts of God's goodness more for their own whims, whether they were cold and insensitive to the poor, whether they had in mind the example of their Savior, for our sake and for our sake salvation came down from heaven and became incarnate... and became human, crucified for us on the cross, endured many and severe sufferings, died and was buried. To say that for failure to observe the commandment to love the Savior and one’s neighbor, they will be subject to very severe eternal punishment. Advise to give up all luxury and love simplicity in everything. Go and learn what it means: I want mercy, not sacrifice? [Matt. 9, 13]. You easily excuse everything for yourself and easily forgive, having sinned against God or against people, easily forgive others when they sin against you, forgive others as you forgive yourself. Love your neighbor as yourself, forgiving him much, much. How many times should I forgive my brother who sins against me? up to seven times?.. I do not say to you: up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven [Matt. 18, 21–22]. This is where love is known. Even this is not enough for love: love loves its enemies, blesses those who curse it, does good to those who hate it, and prays for those who harm it [Matt. 5, 44]. The Lord, as the Knower of the Heart, knowing our stinginess and petty selfish calculation in the case when we have to show hospitality and mercy to those people from whom we do not expect to receive the same, promised to reward on the Day of Judgment not only for the fact that we fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, clothed the naked, visited the sick and those in prison [Matt. 25, 34–36], but, in particular, he promised a reward for a cup of cold water given to a Christian or even an infidel in His name: whoever gives one of these little ones to drink only a cup of cold water... truly I tell you, he will not lose his reward [Matt. 10, 42]. Oh, the mercy of Christ! Who after this will not be ashamed of his cruelty of heart and shameful stinginess? Glory to Thee, God, my Savior, for Thou hast most heavenly pacified and gladdened me with the undoubted communion of Thy Holy, immortal, life-giving and terrible Mysteries and [was worthy] to completely conquer, through the prayers of the One who gave birth to Thee and the Victorious George, whom I prayed the day before (on the day of his memory) to ask me for victory over the flattering and an all-evil serpent. The devil, as a spirit, as a simple being, can stumble and wound the soul with one instantaneous movement of thoughts of wickedness, doubt, blasphemy, impatience, irritation, anger, an instantaneous movement of the heart’s attachment to something earthly, the movement of fornication, contemplation and other passions, and fan the spark with his characteristic cunning and malice into a flame that rages with hellish power in human insides. This is where we must hold on and strengthen ourselves with all our might in the truth of God, rejecting the lies, dreams and malice of the devil at their very beginning. Here a person must be all attention, all vigilance, all eye, all adamant 96 indestructible, hard and invulnerable in all its parts. ABOUT! Glory, glory to Your victory, Lord! Thus may I conquer in the power of Your fortress enemies invisible and visible all the days of my life until my last breath! Amen. O simplicity of faith! Don't leave me. April 23rd, 1862. Our nature is deeply imbued with laziness towards everything that is good, holy and useful. Types of laziness: there is laziness of Christian faith and hope - one does not believe and does not hope, or has difficulty believing [...], has difficulty hoping for a future life; laziness of sincerity in love, or laziness in true love for God and neighbor, required by the word of God: love the Lord your God with all your heart... and your neighbor as yourself [Lk. 10, 27 ]; laziness in prayer - laziness to pray from the heart; laziness in general sincerity of speech; laziness towards all Christian virtues - meekness, humility, feeling one’s sins, patience, goodwill, mercy and generosity, non-covetousness and impartiality towards earthly things, prudent use of time (value time, because the days are evil [Eph. 5:16]); laziness in wearing out good treasures from the heart, as the Savior said: A good man wears out good things from the good treasure of his heart [Lk. 6, 45], and haste to wear out all evil from the heart. In general, our nature is slow, lazy towards all good, or towards bearing the good fruits of life, and hasty, [hasty] towards all evil. For many frivolous spouses, the wife soon gets bored, just as everything in life gets boring, and they look at her as a thing or as a service tool for fulfilling all their desires. If she acts against his wishes, he will be irritated and upset with her. Are you irritated and upset at your friend, who has the same rights as you, or do you consider her to be your service tool! Listen to the apostle: Husbands, love your wives... as your own bodies... Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them [Eph. 5, 25, 28; Col. 3, 19]. Lord, you have opened my mouth, and my mouth will declare Your praise [Ps. 50, 17] – first of all, here we mean the mouth of the heart. Flattering lips into hearts [Ps. 11, 3]. The obvious powers and miracles of the Lady Theotokos, the most merciful Mother of the Lord Most High, prompt me to glorify Her, my most swift Intercessor from the flattering and fiery machinations of ethereal enemies, and to sing songs of gratitude to Her. I, of little faith and arrogant in mind, was stunned by the enemy today after communion of the Divine Mysteries (served mass in the Assumption Church at the request of Al. Vasilyevich Murashov) with lack of faith, and my soul became confused and cramped, and an internal fire scorched me; however, there were a few minutes of faith, although not very warm and firm, and at that time I felt the life-giving fire of the Holy Spirit in my lips during communion and a little after, but then the vigilant enemy quickly confused my heart, not burning with faith and love, with heartfelt lack of faith. But then I went out to serve a memorial service after mass, and inside I was all cramped and on fire. Let me, I think, again resort to my quick Intercessor, and I say to Her, and with the eyes of my heart I look at Her, Mother, as if she were alive and standing at my very heart, - for in the Holy Spirit, simple and omnipresent, all heaven can be placed near our heart, or in our heart - I look at Her and say: my most quick Intercessor, Lady Theotokos, intercede and save me from lack of faith mine, from the machinations of the all-evil and most deceitful enemy - and, oh, a miracle! oh, unspeakable goodness, oh, unspeakable mercy, oh, quick intercession! The most merciful Mother of God immediately saved me, brought me out of my cramped space, transformed my confusion into a deep and sweet peace - such silence settled in my soul, the fire of hell disappeared, and instead of it, the coolness of God settled in my heart and my face shone with heavenly calm and joy! Glory to You, offering to the Mother of the All-Blessed King! Accept from me the confession of Your strengths and blessings to my most sinful and weakest soul and for the rest of my life, O Good One, do not deprive me of Your intercession before the Son and Your God. O You, my shameless intercession, O You, immutable intercession for me to the Creator, do not despise the rest of the life of my sinful prayer, but advance, as the Good One, to my help and all pious Christians who faithfully cry out to You: hasten to prayer, and strive to supplicate, everlastingly, the Mother of God, who honor Thee. I thank You, Lord God of mercy, generosity and love for mankind, for you accepted my lewdness and my sinful, lacking faith and cold prayer for my wife, [in the scorch] of the former incorporeal enemy, you heard when I, almost getting up from her, appeared before the face of Your love for mankind; I thank You [...] because You gave her, who was not sleeping from internal fire, a peaceful sleep. And I thank You, O all-sung and all-good Mother of the All-Good King, for Your shameless intercession on behalf of us sinners. I prayed the following prayers: 1) Diligent Intercessor, 2) Intercession of Christians, 3) Stretch out Your hand... and 4) Do not entrust me to human intercession. ABOUT! Truly all things are possible to him who believes [Mk. 9, 23] and having hope of hearing and deliverance! April 25th day, 1862. In prayer, it is required that the subject of the prayer be expressed definitely, or at least there is a clear consciousness and desire for it in the heart; secondly, that this desire be expressed with feeling, with living hope in the mercy of the Lord or the Mother of God; thirdly, you need a firm intention not to sin in the future and to diligently do the will of God. Behold, you have recovered; sin no more, lest anything worse happen to you [Jn. 5, 14]. Be invariably devoted to abstinence and fasting and do not be a faster today and intemperate tomorrow, or a faster this morning and intemperate at noon or evening; Don’t be so frivolous, changeable, fickle, and don’t let Satan tempt you with your intemperance, don’t let the evil adversary drive you far from God by stealing faith in God from your heart, for a heart addicted to food and drink, a heart full of food and drink, the enemy easily, easily stumbles with doubt and unbelief and plunges it into spiritual impotence. Is it necessary to heal a sick person through the prayer of living faith - the heart, filled with the vapor of food and drink and weighed down by them, faints in faith, despite the fact that it deals with the all-good and all-powerful God, who gives life to the dead and calls the non-existent as existing [Rom. 4:17], does not believe in hope greater than hope, but faints in faith, looks deceitfully at the flesh stricken with disease... sees her painful death and doubts the promises of God, not giving glory to God through unbelief, for he is not firmly convinced that God is able to fulfill what he promised [Rom. 4, 21]. So, do not eat or drink greedily and with pleasure, lest you drive away the spiritual sweetness of faith, lest you overshadow and drown out, lest you suppress the spiritual clarity of heartfelt faith with the fumes of food and drink. Christians are the brethren of Christ: go, tell my brothers, says the risen Lord to the myrrh-bearing women about His disciples, so that they go to Galilee, and there they will see Me [Matt. 28, 10]. But all Christians are one Church of Christ, one His body. We are members of one another, and are one body and one spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling [Eph. 4, 25, 4], says the apostle. I pray... for those who believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one, just as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us [Jn. 17, 20 – 21]. This means that all Christians are the brethren of Christ. What kind of Christians should be who have been vouchsafed such a great relationship with the God-Man? How should they live? In what kind of love with each other? For the Lord Himself said: By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another [Jn. 13:35] (for He Himself is love). What kind of impartiality should we have towards earthly goods, since they are corruptible and transitory and remove our souls from God? For the slightest attachment to earthly things can separate us from love for Christ, Who demands from us, as God does from creatures created in His image, a simple Being from creatures simple in soul, complete, undivided love. Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and whoever loves a son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me... Everyone who leaves houses, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife... will receive a hundredfold and inherit eternal life [Matt. 10, 37; 19, 29]. You cannot serve God and mammon [Matt. 6, 24; OK. 16, 13]. Do not have any partiality not only for food and drink, for clothing, for a clean, spacious and well-decorated home and for good and rich household utensils, but also for your health, even for your life, do not have the slightest partiality, committing your whole life to the will of the Lord, saying: for me to live is Christ, and to die is gain [Phil. 1, 21]. He who hates his life in this world will keep it to eternal life [Jn. 12, 25]. Addiction to temporary life, to health leads to many deviations from the commandments of God, to indulgence of the flesh, to breaking fasts, to evading the conscientious performance of service duties, to despondency, impatience, and irritability. Never sleep in the evening before the evening rule, lest your heart become white from untimely sleep, and lest the enemy stifle it with petrified insensibility in prayer. Be sober, be vigilant [1 Pet. 5, 8]. Watch and pray so that you do not fall into temptation [Matt. 26, 41; Mk. 14, 38]. Watch, because you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man will come [Matt. 25, 13]. Watch, for you do not know when the owner of the house will come: in the evening, or at midnight, or at rooster crow, or in the morning; lest he come suddenly and find you sleeping. And what I say to you, I say to everyone: stay awake [Mk. 13, 35–37]. The air that covers the sacred vessels is God-bearing, for it is saturated with vapors from the Body and Blood of the Lords, and therefore is undoubtedly healing for believers. We must use them with faith for the sick and those possessed by evil spirits. If Pavlov's scarves and towels and Petrov's shadow healed the sick and those possessed by evil spirits [Acts. 5, 15; 19, 11 – 12], then, of course, the veil over the Body and Blood of the Lord of the Belly. Having received and treated with sincere affection the frequently arriving guests, take care not to despise or hate them in your heart when seeing them off from home or on the road, for the enemy does not sleep, and your flesh - this zealous servant of his - is ready to serve him at the first temptation. Having despised the guests, you will despise the Lord Himself in their person, Who Himself accepts our treat in the person of the guests, as Abraham once did, for the Lord lives in Christians, according to the Scripture: I will dwell in them and will walk in them [2 Cor. 6, 16]. Do you not know that you are the church of God, and the Spirit of God lives in you? [ 1 Cor. 3, 16]. Or do you not know... that Jesus Christ is in you? [ 2 Cor. 13, 5]. So, let the unkind end of a good deed not deprive you of the reward for your hospitality. Be always equal, that is, always affectionate, kind, especially in dealing with poor guests who have nothing to repay [Lk. 14, 14]. Be firmly confident that these people are your great benefactors: with their visits and favors to you for your bread and salt, they are preparing your reward in the Kingdom of Heaven. When you make lunch or dinner... call the poor, the crippled... and you will be blessed that they cannot repay you, for you will be rewarded at the resurrection of the righteous [Lk. 14, 12 – 14]. Put on... mercy, kindness, humility... [Col. 3, 12]. When you pray to the Lord, or the Most Holy Theotokos, or the Angels and Saints for something, asking for their intercession for yourself or for other people before God, then take the words expressing your request and your needs for the very things, for the very thing that you ask from the Lord, and believe that you already have a sure guarantee in receiving the subject of your petitions in the very words by which this subject is signified. For example, you ask for health for yourself or someone else - take the word “health” for the very thing, for the very deed, believe that you already have it by the mercy and omnipotence of the Lord, for the very word, the name in an instant with the Lord can be a deed - and you will certainly receive what you ask for for your unshakable faith. Ask, and it will be given to you [Matt. 7, 7]. Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you receive it, and it will be done for you [Mk. 11, 24]. You, master of the house, be a diligent servant to all your household or those living in your house, and let not your master’s pride lead you to contempt, to malice and cruelty towards those living under your roof, especially those living with you and eating from your table. Put aside excess anger. Great names: the Most Holy Trinity, or: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, or: Father, Word and Holy Spirit, called with living heartfelt faith, reverence or imagined in the soul, are God Himself and bring down into our soul God Himself in Three Persons. But from God and by God and in God all things [Rom. 11:36], therefore, if you are united with the Trinitarian God by living faith and virtue, especially meekness, humility and mercy, ask Him what you want, what the Holy Spirit teaches you to ask, and it will be done to you either quickly, in an instant, in one hour, or after a while, according to the discretion of the wisdom of God. Ask from Me, and I will give You [Ps. 2, 8]. Everything that you ask is less, without any doubt, infinitely less than the Giver Himself, as having to come from Him, and as the Giver Himself, this infinite, simple Being, can in some way be embraced by one of our thoughts, in one word, then believe that one thought about something, one word of yours, one request of yours for the fulfillment of something can immediately, at the behest of the Lord, become a thing and a deed. He speaks, and it will be; commands, and it will be created [Ps. 32, 9]. Remember the miracles of Moses, remember how this man of God was a god for Pharaoh and how instantly, at his word or at the movement of his hand or staff, everything was transformed or appeared. O great God, glorified God, God of miracles, God of mercy, generosity and unspeakable love for mankind, glory to You always, now and ever and unto ages of ages! Amen. April 27th day, 1862. Do not pay attention to darkness, fire and the oppression of the enemy while praying, but firmly place your heart on the very words of the prayer with the confidence that in them are hidden the treasures of the Holy Spirit, truth, light, life-giving fire, forgiveness of sins, space, peace and joy of the heart, life and bliss. I thank you, Mother of Peace, Lady Theotokos, for you heard my prayer and pacified the flame and storm of domestic enmity, from the ethereal enemy of all. I thank You, Most Merciful Lady, for in my heart you extinguished the malice, zeal and anger and in place of peace, you put coolness in the nose of my soul. Behold, I taste, O Lady, the sweet fruits of Your intercession. Behold, the bodiless enemies at Your wave scattered, like smoke disappeared. So you also pray to the Mother of the World, my brothers, when a storm of hostility and malice arises in your house. She, all-good and all-powerful, can comfortably and comfortably pacify human hearts. Peace and love come from one God, as from their source, and the Lady is in God and one with God and, like the Mother of the World - Christ, is jealous and prays for the peace of the whole world, and especially of all Christians. She has the all-benevolent mania to drive away from us the spirits of malice in the heavenly places, these vigilant and zealous sowers of malice and enmity among people, and quickly, quickly gives peace and love to everyone who flows into Her sovereign cover with faith and love. Be zealous for the preservation of faith and love in your hearts; if you do not take care of this yourself, then you will not be worthy of the Mother of God interceding for you before God; Moreover, be yourselves always zealous and reverent worshipers of the Mother of the Lord Most High, for it is worthy that she is truly blessed, the Mother of God, ever-blessed and most immaculate, the Supreme of all creation, the Intercessor of the Christian race. Try to cultivate the spirit of humility in yourself, for She Herself is humble, like no other mortal, and looks with love only on the humble. Like to look upon the humility of Her Servant, She spoke to Elizabeth about God, Her Savior [Lk. 1, 48]. Do not allow the devil to plant malice and enmity in your heart, and do not allow it to nest in your heart in any way, otherwise your malice, although not expressed in words and deeds, but expressed only in your gaze, can infect through the sight and soul of a brother or sister, for nothing is as contagious as malice (especially it conveniently infects those who have an excess of dormant malice in their hearts) - and inflate him a spark of anger into a whole flame. Be careful: with the measure you use, it will be measured to you [Matt. 7, 2; Mk. 4, 24]. There is nothing hidden that would not come to light, and nothing hidden that would not come out [Mk. 4, 22]. Have the Christian goodness of heart to bless those who curse you, so that you may please your Christ, who said: bless those who curse you [Matt. 5, 44; OK. 6, 28]. Love your enemies sincerely, not paying attention to their enmity, but to the image of God in which they were created, seeing yourself in them. Do good to those who hate you, as the Son of the Heavenly Father, who is good to the ungrateful and evil [Lk. 6, 35], believing that with good you will overcome evil, because good is always stronger than evil. Pray for those who harm you [Matt. 5:44], and through prayer you will deliver them, if God is willing, from their wickedness, malice and intrigues, and you will also deliver yourself from misfortune. Give to the one who asks you, and do not demand back from the one who took what you have [Lk. 6:30], for everything is God, and the Lord, when He pleases, can take everything away from you. Remember that you yourself came naked from your mother’s womb, and you will go away naked and take nothing with you [Job. 1, 21]. If you live like this, you will acquire for yourself the priceless treasure of peace and love and you will live long on earth [Ex. 20, 12; Deut. 5, 16], for the meek, it is said, will inherit the earth and enjoy the abundance of peace [Ps. 36, 11]. April 27th day, 1862. I only look at You, Master, with the eyes of my heart, I only believe in You undoubtedly. You yourself know what and how to give to me. You are the treasure of every good, You are the goodness, wisdom, and omnipotence that overflows to all creatures. So I look to You, O Lady, - Intercede Yourself and have mercy on me. Do not be discouraged or weakened in spirit, seeing within yourself the constant struggle between evil and good, but, like a good and courageous warrior of Jesus Christ the hero of the hero, courageously fight against evil, looking at the crown prepared by the Master for all who overcome evil in this world and in their flesh. To him who overcomes I will give to sit with Me on My throne [Rev. 3, 21]. If in your mind and in your heart there are restless calculations and calculations with your neighbor about bread and salt, for example, if you think: so-and-so comes to me often, and I rarely visit him, and you are eager to go to him in order to at least partially reward yourself for visiting him, then know that these petty calculations in you are from the devil and you greatly humiliate your neighbor and yourself to the level of an animal. Tell the enemy: I deny you, Satan, and I no longer want to serve you. Do not do the evil that perishes, do not worry about it, but the evil that abides in the eternal belly [Jn. 6, 27], - put all your efforts into it. In order not to remember your neighbor’s malice against you and to forgive them from the bottom of your heart, remember that you yourself are no stranger to malice, as well as to all other passions. Recognize your neighbor's weaknesses and passions as your own. Forgive one another, just as God in Christ forgave you [Eph. 4, 32]. - ABOUT! How sinful I am, how disgusting my sins are in the eyes of God, people, and even myself! Who could be more disgusting to me than myself? Truly no one: in comparison with me, everyone is righteous. I will be mercilessly angry with myself. And I consider it a special happiness to forgive the insults and sins of my neighbor against me, the indecent one, and the long-suffering, generous and merciful Lord will forgive me at least some of my sins. I must remember that this is the only way I earn the Lord’s mercy, otherwise I should not have lived long ago. Oh, how many misfortunes, many difficulties, how difficult earthly life is! From morning to evening, every day we must wage a hard battle to the death against the passions of the flesh, warring against the soul, against the principalities, powers and rulers of the darkness of this age, the spirits of wickedness in high places, whose wickedness and deceit are innumerable, wickedly hellish, skillful, and unslumbering! Oh, our Sweetest Savior, calling all who labor and are burdened to Himself for repose [Matt. 11, 28 ]! When You take us from here and rest us in a brighter place, in a greener place, in a calmer place, sickness, sadness and sighing will escape from nowhere! Here you see: our heart and our womb are exhausted from daily struggle and sorrow, we are exhausted, weakened, we walk like shadows, our evil enemies are constantly chilling our souls, and are trying by all means to drag us into the abyss of despair. Stretch, O Lord, Your high arm [Deut. 3, 24] and deliver us from the machinations of the ancient dragon-killer. If anyone wants to come after Me, turn away from yourself, and take up your cross every day and follow Me [Matt. 16, 24; Mk. 8, 34; OK. 9, 23]. – But who is the daily culprit of our cross, our sorrows and hardships? – Carnal, our old man and the devil with his continuous snares. Looking to the Lord when struggling with some passion or committing some sin pacifies our restless heart and wonderfully brightens our face. Gave ecu joy in my heart... signifying 97 upon us the light of Thy countenance, O Lord [Ps. 4, 8, 7]. Oh, how bright our face becomes when we look with the intensity of faith with the eyes of our hearts to the God of our hearts! Truly then the Lord is with us, saying: call upon Me in the day of your sorrow, and destroy you; I am with him in sorrow, I will destroy him and glorify him [Ps. 49, 15; 90, 15]. O Thou, most generous and long-suffering God, ready seventy-fold daily to forgive sins and transgressions to us who repent sincerely and ask for forgiveness from You, have mercy on us, who sin many times against You at every hour! Amen. April 28, 1862. What infinite insignificance is food and drink, on the one hand, and what infinite greatness is the person fed by them, on the other hand! Isn’t it the greatest madness, isn’t it atheism, to feel sorry for man, for this image of God, for this partaker of the Divine nature, for this God, who is to be in God forever and ever, for whom God will be everything: God will be all in all [1 Cor. 15, 28], - food, drink, clothing, housing and anything else earthly? So, let dust be dust - let the immortal image of the immortal God always be exalted and preferred over everything earthly, corruptible and perishing! Let us spare nothing for our neighbor. Oh, what a great honor it is to nourish, clothe, and give rest to the image of God! God, most gracious and generous! Fill our hearts with goodness and generosity! Glory to Thee, Lord, Our Father, the all-wise Tester of my love for You and for my neighbor. Do not leave me without temptations, if Your wisdom and truth pleases and is beneficial, not a single day of my life may be established, may my love for You and my neighbor be purified and exalted, and may I not appear at Your Judgment 98 before Your face! When teaching, discard the cowardly human shame that comes from petty pride and ambition. Don't think about what they will say. No matter how familiar something is to you, it may be unknown to many. A teacher of the law must please not just one, but everyone. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy [Matt. 5, 7]. Who are the merciful ones? By the way, those who forgive the insults caused to them by their neighbors in word or deed. If you forgive people their sins, then your Heavenly Father will also forgive you [Matt. 6, 14]. - Here is your mercy and God’s mercy to you! Because we have always given room in our right side for the devil to reign over us with various passions and lusts, our Lord Jesus Christ’s right side was pierced, and blood and water flowed out of it [Jn. 19, 34] - water to signify our malice, living in our hearts, as it is written: the waters of malice have reached my soul [Ps. 68:2], and the blood is like a cleansing sacrifice for our iniquities. When you feel any evil, any passion in your side, then remember the Savior’s pierced rib and throw the evil out of your heart through prayer and repentance. Remind the enemy that he has no place here now, for the Lord Himself gave His side to be pierced for us, so that we do not carry in him any malice and guile and no lawlessness. Holy men of God had enlightened hearts [Eph. 1:18] and with these eyes they clearly contemplated the needs of our nature, corrupted by sin, clearly saw what we need to pray for, what to ask for, what to give thanks for, how to glorify the Lord, and left us the most excellent examples of prayers of all kinds. ABOUT! How good these prayers are! In relation to these beads, we are for the most part like pigs [Matt. 7, 6], we don’t feel and don’t know their prices - because, for example, we know the price of food and drink, the price of fashionable clothes, a well-furnished apartment, the price of theaters, the price of music, the price of secular literature, precisely the price of novels, this eloquent verbosity - and, alas! We trample the precious beads of prayer under our feet. While everything secular finds a spacious home in the hearts of the majority, prayer - alas! does not always find a tight corner in them, does not fit into them. And when she asks to come to us and comes up with even one foot, she is immediately pushed out as a beggar, as a person who does not have a wedding garment. Again and again I thank, I glorify my most kind and quick Intercessor, the Mother of God Mary, who, through my prayer, delivered me from the wiles of the evil one through communion of the Divine Mysteries. April 29th. Resurrection. Like day, the miracles of Your goodness and power are obvious, Lady! Behold, with my unworthy lips, with my little faith, and with my bad heart, I glorify Your mercies on me, a sinner. If I, being a weak person, and not an omnipotent God, but if I want to do something within the limits of my ability, then I will do it: for example, I want to write an essay - and I will write it, I want to cure a disease - and I will, I want to do a thing - and I will do it, for example, build a house, a church - and I will build it, or, for example, I will say to one: come - and he will come, go away - and he will go away, do this - and he will do it - then will not Almighty God do everything he pleases? Our God, in heaven and on earth, has created all that He pleases [Ps. 113, 11]. Is it not from His word alone that everything that pleases will be done? To that speech, and it was: To that commanded, and it was created [Ps. 32, 9]. We are not the creators of people - and they do so much according to our word. We are not the creators of things, but things, at our desire and action, take on thousands of forms, serve countless needs and pleasures; We are not creators of things, but we create great and small objects from matter. Will the Creator Himself, who is everywhere and fulfills everything, by whose word everything came from non-existence into being, by whose thought, will and word all the infinite variety of things were created and exist, not create everything that He pleases? If a doctor sometimes revives a half-dead person because of his knowledge of his work and through a skillful, well-aimed influence on the cause of the disease, then will not the Creator of doctors and healing heal every disease with one will and a word, and will not the Creator raise the dead with one word? Let us give glory to God, we of little faith, and say to Him: everything is possible for You, Master, but nothing is possible for You. Amen. If a person sometimes only says two words, so that this and that will happen - and it happens, although not suddenly, but after a while, then won’t everything that he says suddenly happen from the word of the Creator? Amen. O You, Almighty Master, Whose mania alone everything obeys, the whole world, visible and invisible, grant me to glorify You unceasingly [...] my faith in Your infinite power, grant me unshameful faith, firm hope, unfeigned love [...] for my neighbor. Pride is revealed in us, by the way, when we, having done something in front of others mistakenly, incorrectly, unsuccessfully, or finding ourselves ignorant of something generally known, are ashamed and embarrassed by this at the sight of witnesses. There are people so vain and cowardly that they blush and become very embarrassed at any failure. For their pride they deserve it, for their petty pride they deserve it. For insincerity, for hypocrisy in front of their neighbors, they deserve it. Embarrassment shows their inner illness and, so to speak, writes it on their face. Get down to business in good faith, diligently, carefully, and not carelessly, so as to get away with it. They are especially deservedly punished with embarrassment for failing to do the work of God. For they should have in mind only the glory of God and the spiritual salvation of their neighbor, but instead, in the work of God, they care about their own glory or do not want their weakness to appear before others. They are of little faith, mercenaries, traders, tinkering with the truth of God for their own gain. If you, being in a meeting of people, call to you a person you know, and he comes up to you; if you, asking people subservient to you or one person to do something for you that is within the circle of his ability, and he fulfills your request, satisfying it according to your desire and even beyond your desire, then believe that in the same way in the Church of God, in this great house of God, divided into two halves - heavenly and earthly, any person of the Heavenly Church called by you will spiritually approach you to help you according to his inherent goodness and curiosity; ask him to do anything for you, especially related to the Kingdom of God and the truth of God, and he will do what is pleasing for you through close communication with God - the Source of goodness and strength. The saints of God hear you in the same way as, for example, the whole congregation in church hears you when you pray and speak the word, for they are in the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit [of God] fills everything. Correct yourself first, and then correct others; first demand from yourself, and then demand from others. You are indignant and angry at others for parasitism, but you yourself are not indignant with stinginess and the same parasitism, because you often live without anything to do. So, forgive your debts to your debtors, and the Heavenly Father will also forgive you your debts. Correct yourself from stinginess and idleness, so that you can teach others to work hard and eat your own bread. Doctor, heal yourself [Lk. 4, 23]. He (God) is before all things, and by Him all things depend [Col. 1, 17 ]! Great words containing immeasurable meaning! They explain the name Sy, by which the Lord was pleased to call Himself to Moses [Exod. 3, 14]. For He means the One who exists first of all, by whom everything exists. These words show the omnipotence, the infinite goodness, and the immeasurable wisdom of our Lord God. Great is our Lord, and great is His strength, and His understanding is without number [Ps. 146, 5]. Do not muzzle the ox when he threshes [Deut. 25, 4]. But with us, the enemy often blocks the spiritual lips—the heart—during the very work of working for the Lord. Such diabolical malice! You have to endure so much malice from him in this life! You serve services, perform the Sacraments, preach, teach youth the law of God - and he tries to tie your heart and body: don’t preach the word of God, don’t teach - you’re destroying my power with this, he says. Our self-love and pride are revealed especially in impatience and irritability, when one of us does not tolerate the slightest trouble caused to us by others intentionally or even unintentionally, or an obstacle, legally or illegally, intentionally or unintentionally, opposed to us by people or objects around us. Our self-love and pride would like to put everything on our own, to surround ourselves with all the comforts and honors of temporary life, we would like all people to silently and quickly obey our signal, and even - to what extent pride does not extend - all of nature! Then how - oh, woe! – we ourselves are very indifferent to faith and to every good deed and to pleasing the one Lord of all! Christian! You must certainly be humble, meek and long-suffering, remembering that you are clay 100, dust, insignificance, that you are unclean, like the port 101 of an unclean wife, that everything good in you is God’s, that God’s gifts are your life, breath and everything, that for the sin of impatience in paradise you must now atone for your future bliss with long-suffering, which is necessary in the world imperfections [...] of the Falls of fallen Humans, living with us together and constituting numerous members of a single, sin-harmed and weak humanity. Bear one another's burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ [Gal. 6, 2]. An impatient and irritable person does not know himself and humanity and is not worthy to be called a Christian! In saying this, I pronounce judgment on myself, for I am the first to suffer from impatience and irritability. Be especially patient with your closest members, with whom the Lord Himself has placed you in close relationship, with whom you must serve first and most of all, namely: your father, mother, as your first benefactors after God, your wife, children, brothers, sisters, all relatives, and then everyone else. For whoever does not provide for his own, and especially for those at home, has denied the faith and is worse than an infidel [1 Tim. 5, 8]. Try not to get irritated with anyone, especially not to lose your temper in front of anyone. Be patient with everyone [1 Thess. 5, 14]. Rejoice at every opportunity to show kindness to your neighbor as a true Christian, striving to acquire as many good deeds as possible, especially the treasures of love. Do not rejoice when they show you affection and love, considering yourself to be justly unworthy of it, but rejoice when you have an opportunity to show love. Show love simply, without any deviation into thoughts of wickedness, petty everyday selfish calculations, remembering that love is God Himself, a simple Being. Remember that He watches all your ways, sees all the thoughts and movements of your heart. Don’t say: guests have come to me, when I myself intended to go on a visit. May this be an opportunity for you to show cordiality in hospitality, love for your neighbor as for yourself. Make profit for your soul from this incident. Remember that all life should be one love. ABOUT! Do not miss the slightest opportunity to show Christian love. Do not miss opportunities to pray for a person at his request or at the request of his relatives, friends, admirers or acquaintances. The Lord looks with favor upon the prayer of our love and our boldness before Him; In addition, prayer for others is very useful for the one praying for others: it cleanses the heart and confirms faith and hope in God and kindles love for God and neighbor. When praying, say: Lord! It is not at all difficult for You to do this and that to this servant of Yours—do this and that to him. For Your name is Good, Lover of Mankind and Almighty. If we, the wicked ones, know how to give good things not only to our children, but also to strangers, how much more do You give all kinds of good things to those who ask you [Matt. 7, 11]. Our life is a child’s game, only not an innocent one, but a sinful one, because with a mature mind and knowledge of the purpose of our life, we neglect this goal, and engage in empty, aimless things. So, our life is a child’s, unapologetic game: we amuse ourselves with food and drink, enjoying ourselves, instead of using it only for the necessary nutrition of the body and maintaining bodily life; We play around with clothes, instead of just covering our bodies with them decently and to protect ourselves from the elements! We amuse ourselves with silver and gold, admiring it in treasuries or using it for luxury items and pleasures, instead of using it for needs and sharing surpluses with those in need. We amuse ourselves with our homes and the many different utensils in them, decorating them richly and exquisitely, instead of having only a solid and decent shelter that protects us from the harmful effects of the elements, and things necessary and decent for home use; we amuse ourselves with our spiritual gifts - the mind, the imagination, in a word, using them only for the service [...] of this world, for the service of the earthly and corruptible, instead of using them for the service of God, for the knowledge of Him, the All-Wise Creator of every creature, for prayer, supplication, petitions, thanksgiving and glorification and for showing mutual love and respect, and only partly for serving this world, which has no time to completely pass away; we amuse ourselves with our knowledge of worldly vanity and waste the most precious time given to prepare for eternity in acquiring it; We often amuse ourselves with our position, our duties, frivolously and carelessly and unjustly fulfilling them and using them for our own selfish, earthly purposes. We amuse ourselves with good human faces or the fair and weaker sex and often use them to play with our passions; we amuse ourselves with time, which should have been used wisely to redeem eternity, using it for games and various pleasures; Finally, we amuse ourselves with ourselves, making some kind of idols out of ourselves, before which we ourselves bow and for which we seek the worship of others. Who will sufficiently describe and mourn our wretchedness, our great, enormous vanity, our great disaster into which we voluntarily plunge ourselves? What answer will we give to the immortal King - Christ our God, who comes in the glory of His Father to judge the living and the dead, declare the counsels of the heart [1 Cor. 4, 5] and accept the answer from us about every word and deed? Oh, woe! Woe! Woe to us who bear the name of Christ and do not have the spirit of Christ in us, who bear the name of Christ and do not follow the teaching of the Gospel! Woe to us who do not care about such salvation [Heb. 2, 3 ]! Woe to us who do not have Christian faith, hope and Christian love! Woe to us, who have loved the present age, feigned, temporary, and who do not care about the improvement of that age, which follows the death of our corruptible body, behind this carnal veil! For all the idle sounds of instruments, people will give an answer to God on the Day of Judgment. The capitals [Russian: how many] ... voices are in the world, and not one of them is voiceless [1 Cor. 14:10], that is, for the proclamation of the glory of God. Judge by yourself how great a man is: God abides in him, and that in God, so that in a pious Christian it is as if it were not man who lives, but Christ Himself: it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me [Gal. 2:20], because the whole soul becomes Christ’s, like iron in hot coals, everything becomes fiery, as if it were a burning coal - everything is fire, everything is light, everything is warmth. If from one word from a teacher or head of a school: “Quiet!” - many disciples suddenly become silent, then from one word of the Creator: “be still,” addressed to the nations, will not all nations become silent? From the words: calm down, waters, calm down, disappear, illnesses, go away, death, come, life, or: come, peace, and let your place be found no more, - won’t the waters calm down (he said to the sea: be silent, stop... and there was a great silence [Mark 4:39]), won’t they subside, won’t illnesses pass, won’t death give up their victims, won’t life come, not will peace come? (The former heaven and the former earth have passed away. Rev. 21:1) - Truly. Glory, glory, glory to Thy almighty, Lord! On the Week of the Relaxed. We are all real paralytics: not for thirty-eight years, but all our lives we live in relaxation - in the relaxation of wickedness, frivolity, idle talk and laughter, doubt and lack of faith, laziness and idleness, varied amusements and petrified insensibility, impatience and irritability, hatred, enmity and malice and vindictiveness, envy, love of money and stinginess, deception, theft, covetousness, various forms of carnality, satiety and drunkenness and adultery, pride, arrogance, ambition and vanity, cowardice, sadness and despondency, fear and despair, untruth, bribery, unrighteous oaths, lies and deceit, man-pleasing and human hopes, false shame, inattention to prayer, to worship, to the Sacraments, to holy holidays and to sacred times of fasting, then grumbling and blasphemy against God, then blasphemy against the shrine. We are all weakened because we do not have in ourselves, due to our distance from God and addiction to earthly things, the strength of our souls, the strength of faith, hope and virtue that God gives. We are all paralytic, because the devil, who is pure powerlessness for all good and all power for all evil, [reigns] in our hearts. (How can you speak good when you are evil?.. out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks [Matthew 12:34].) So, who is our strength? - My strength is the Lord. I will love You, O Lord, my strength: the Lord is my strength and my refuge [Ps. 17, 2 – 3]. This is Whom all souls weakened by sins should turn to. One must prepare for the teaching of the Law of God no less than for the celebration of the Sacrament, for teaching is precisely God’s sacrament. We must teach with all our hearts, with all our zeal, just as we try to pray with all our hearts. We must remember that we are only associates of the one Teacher - the Lord. We only say that He teaches Himself internally. Let us see that we do not despise even one of these little ones, for in every little one the Lord, in every one, the Heavenly Angel in heaven always sees the face of My Heavenly Father [Matt. 18, 10]. One of the weaknesses of the human spirit is inertia in faith and laziness in the knowledge of the truth, especially the truths of faith and piety. What do young men and even adults and elders learn most inertly and lazily? - the truths of faith and piety. Countless experiments testify to this. So that you honor and love every person and do not be proud or arrogant in front of anyone, the all-wise Lord gave every person his advantages - natural and grace-filled, many of which you do not have. Thus, each of us must involuntarily admit to one or another weakness and humble ourselves before God and people. God! You Yourself spoke with Your most pure lips: be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect [Matt. 5, 48]. I want to be perfect. May You be all perfection for me. For You said: without Me you cannot do anything [Jn. 15, 5]. All prayers presuppose the great poverty and wretchedness of our fallen being; they also assume that the Lord is the ever-flowing source of all perfection, all good, that He is our inexhaustible treasure. We must have poverty of spirit in our prayers and at all times. Blessed are the poor in spirit [Matt. 5, 3]. What kind of respect for the Holy Scriptures did the Lord Jesus Christ have and what kind of respect do Christians have? What are they reading? I remember - God, who dwells in me, remembers. I pray - the Holy Spirit prays. Praying with the Holy Spirit [Jude. 1, 201 Maintain a meek and peaceful disposition towards your brother even when he insidiously or cunningly or somehow unintentionally deprives you of your last ruble. This is where you show that you love the image of God in your neighbor more than anything earthly and perishable, that your love never fades away. Do not demand back from the one who took what you have... whoever wants to sue you and take your shirt, give him your outer clothing too [Lk. 6, 30; Matt. 5, 40]. May the enemy not put you to shame by trusting in the dust of the earth, such as money and bread, more than on God, but may he himself be put to shame by your strong trust in God and His holy word. For man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God [Matt. 4, 4]. Note: in every word. For every word of the Lord Creator can support your life, just as every word can create and transform thousands of creatures. For He said - and it became. He commanded - and the creature appeared. Thus, with a word He brought from non-existence into existence myriads of heavenly immortal armies and, having sanctified them with the Holy Spirit, strengthens and supports them in existence. Do not foolishly degrade the dignity of your immortal spirit to the vain hope of the dust of the earth. Say: God is my hope; or: My hope is the Father, my refuge is the Son, my protection is the Holy Spirit, the Holy Trinity. And how many of us get irritated and lose our temper when they are deprived not of their last ruble, but only of some small part of their far from last property! How much indignation, anger, bile, bitter reproaches, grumbling, and sometimes curses! Good God! And this dust, called money, or this water, called food, tea and sugar, can create such a storm in our Christian souls, in us, when we know the word of our Sweetest Savior: do not worry about your soul, what you will eat and what you will drink, nor for your body, what you are wearing. Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns; and your Father in heaven feeds them... Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you [Matt. 6, 25 – 26, 33]. Or: a person’s life does not depend on the abundance of his possessions [Lk. 12, 15]. My God, what have we come to! How are we better than the pagans given our way of life? Where is our faith? Trust in God? Love for God and neighbor? Oh, satanic captivity! Oh, our shame! Heavenly Father! You, the leader of what we demand, the giver of our petitions, have mercy on us, unfaithful, ungrateful and malicious! We hear Your merciful word, Master: I will never leave you nor forsake you [Heb. 13:5], but, seduced by earthly blessings, we daily transgress it and violate Your will! Do not be afraid of physical deprivation - be afraid of mental deprivation. Do not be afraid, do not be cowardly, do not be irritated when you are deprived of money, food, drink, sweets, clothing, housing, even your body itself - be afraid when the enemy deprives your soul of faith, hope, love for God and neighbor, when he instills hatred, enmity, addiction to earthly things, pride and other sins in your heart. Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul [Matt. 10, 28]. Be patient with everyone, just as the Lord is patient with you. Love is patient [1 Cor. 13, 4]. Try to have peace with everyone and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord [Heb. 12, 14]. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you [Jn. 14, 27]. Remember that the Lord is everywhere and in everything. Christ is in all things and in all [Col. 3, 11]. Say more often: O Sy! Lord Jesus, have mercy on me. You are the same ecu [Ps. 101, 28]. It speaks of the immutability of God. ABOUT! If you, a person, were always the same - today, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow and so on - and did not change in thousands of ways, like a kaleidoscope. ABOUT! If only you were always equally peaceful, kind, simple, kind, patient, hardworking, friendly, generous! But you can be like this if you unite with the Unchangeable with your heartfelt faith and love. I am the Lord your God, and they will not change [Mal. 3, 6]. I do not preserve My servants by giving in to the worst, for I am the source of goodness that does good to those who serve Me worthy. Canon to the Archangels. Peace is wholeness, health of the soul; the loss of peace is the loss of mental health. I praise You, God my Savior, in the Trinity of the glorified Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who quickly saved me through the sign of the cross with three fingers from the oppression and despondency of the evil of the devil. O our God, God of salvation! Glory to Thee, for You have mercy on me, a sinner, and save me tirelessly and without slumbering. Glory to faith in You, our life! Glory to the sign of the cross, which works so many miracles! May 1st day, 1862. With whom can you be angry, against whom can you open your mouth, the most sinful man of all? Aren't you the most sinful against God and people? Shouldn't you consider it happiness only to [...] see a person and talk to him? Shouldn't you have been imprisoned with mad dogs, because you love to jump on people and bite them with the action of your passions, like with your teeth? with wolves, because you are fierce and insatiable; with bears because you are bloodthirsty; with foxes, because you are crafty; with cats, because you are cunning and cunning; with roosters, because you are proud and prone to offense! With pigs, because you like to wallow in the mud of vices, and so on. And you still live in human society, you are still respected by many! Be, brother or sister, sincere lovers of every person. Respond not only to love with love, but also to the hatred of others with love. Be the most humble of all, as you are the most sinful of all, and love humiliation, as worthy of all contempt. If you love those who love you... [Lk. 6, 32]. Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled... [Lk. 14, 11,18, 14]. What is this? Your hobby? Is it possible to write and not perform? A? If you know this, blessed are you when you do [Jn. 13, 17]. Those who remember His commandments to do them... [Ps. 102, 18]. What excites and nourishes carnal voluptuousness and all passions? – Sweets of taste: pleasant food and drink, also tobacco. Delicious food and tasty drink will inflame 103 passions, hot firewood to ignite them. Thus, the one who has eaten a delicacy becomes more misogynistic, and greedier for money, for food and drink, especially for tasty food, and stingier, and prouder, and more impatient, and irritable, and envious, and more malicious, and lazier in any deed, especially in a good deed, and in general more inert in faith, in hope and love. The devil usually tempts us to sin with objects of our affection or our aversion. Thus, he tempts the voluptuous with delicious food and drink, the irritable and impatient with some obstacles to the fulfillment of his intentions, the adulterer with beautiful faces, the money-lover with money, and so on. Oh, among what and how many networks we walk! Take heed to yourself that you are passing through the midst of nets [Sir. 9, 18]. Reverence with all the powers of your soul before all the Sacraments and speak within yourself about each Sacrament before performing or accepting it: this is the mystery of God - I am only an unworthy leader of it or a participant in it. Otherwise, our proud mind wants to explore the mystery of God, and tries and intensifies to explore it. And if he cannot examine it, then he rejects it as not fitting the insignificant standard of his mind. If one royal word is the cause of great deeds in his kingdom: he will say - and the work will begin and be completed - then the word of the King of every creature, material and spiritual, visible and invisible, the Almighty and Wise King, will not accomplish everything that only He desires? He speaks - and will he not do it? He speaks - and will he not abide? O Almighty Power, who can accomplish everything in one moment, do not forsake us for our sins, especially for our lack of faith and despair, to torment us with our own weaknesses, so that we may not be crushed like meager vessels 104. Grant us to believe with all our hearts in Your almighty power, so that we may not doubt the fulfillment of every good request of ours. All visible nature, all its parts - great, small and the smallest - tell us every minute that everything came from the Lord and exists and moves through Him, that everything stands or comes into being through Him, and every moment everything obeys Him. Oh, our nature, deeply fallen to poison! Oh, most damned Satan, who through poison plunged us into thousands of evils at the beginning and is now plunging us! O poison, O food and drink, which seduce us so much now! How long will we be enticed by you and place our life in you? Until we deeply imprint on our hearts the words of the Savior: man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God [Matt. 4, 4 ], and will we not carry them through our entire life and activities? How long will greed and delicacy, satiety and drunkenness last? How long is vile stinginess? How long is the love of money? How long will there be pride, enmity and anger towards one’s neighbor because of money, because of clothing, housing, food and drink? Thousands of Satan’s deceptions through food and drink, clothing and money have been revealed before our heartfelt eyes, and we still continue to be carried away by his charms as something real, useful for us, and we are jealous of nothing less than a destructive dream and our own extreme mental and physical harm. Do not believe, brethren, the enemy even for a moment when it comes to food and drink, no matter how plausible it may seem. Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you [Matt. 6, 33]. Do not pay attention to bread, but take heed to yourself [Russian: beware] from the kvass of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy in matters of faith and piety [Lk. 12, 1; Matt. 16, 11]. Pay the greatest attention to faith and piety. Do not strive for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you [Jn. 6, 27]. Give the last one if need demands it. Remember the words of the Savior: whoever wants to sue you and take your shirt, give him your outer clothing too [Matt. 5, 40], that is, give the last of what you have. What attracts the brethren to you? Thy gracious condescension and their own love. We don’t go to those we don’t like, or we try to go to them as little as possible. So, receive the brethren with love. Why are they talking to you? From the abundance of the heart, from love. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks [Matt. 12, 34]. And sometimes you get annoyed that your own people talk to you. He became satisfied with them and became proud before them. Oh, the master's pride and pompousness! Yes, [those nourished] by you are your benefactors, for the Master will reward you for them, for all your goodness to them, and not you are their benefactor. For you do good to the material and do not do good to the soul. Be kind with humility and love! You benefit not from your own, but from God’s gifts. Therefore, if you gave away all your possessions and did not have love, it would not benefit you at all [1 Cor. 13, 3]. They will heap up for themselves teachers who have itching ears [2 Tim. 4, 3]. Isn’t this what secular people and even many spiritual people are doing today? Haven't they themselves chosen teachers who please their ears? They study not from a single Teacher - Christ from His Gospel and not from His Church, but from secular journalists, feuilletonists, novelists, poets, actors and they say: ah! how entertaining it all is, how moralizing it all is! And if not in words, then in deeds they say: we do not need either the Gospel or the Church with its worship, the Sacraments and the preaching of the word of God - we have such good, pre-moral teachers! Lord Jesus! What have we come to! They have rejected Your words. Honor your father and mother like some earthly gods. Al rekh: bozi este [Ps. 81, 6; In. 10, 34]. They are earthly gods because they gave you the existence of the Lord God, because they are your breadwinners, your lovers, your educators. If you, who have both money and bread, are tempted by worries about food and drink, or by your greedy belly, then remember the Savior’s forty-day fast in the desert - and not in human society; remember how He, having become hungry after the forty-day fast, rejected the flattering offer of the devil to turn stones into bread; how He placed little value on the body and bodily needs and placed his trust in God, for He was also a man - and with this disregard for the body, this trust in God, he shamed our enemy, who for so many years has been seducing us with poison and encouraging us to place our hope in it, and not in God. How He taught you by this to be seduced by any waste and to place your hope in God, in His holy word, for He said: man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God [Matt. 4, 4]. Remember that you cannot gain spiritual strength without fasting, for extensive nutrition inevitably relaxes the soul, making it carnal and pampered. For the glory of the Lord Christ God. I lost the key to the booth. They searched and searched everywhere where one could expect to find him, but they did not find him; They left the search, relying on tomorrow, according to the proverb: the morning is wiser than the evening. It was evening. They began to pray to God; At the end of the evening prayers, it was necessary to take from the icon case the sacred cover from the relics of St. Nikita of Novgorod and the mitten from the relics of St. Mitrophan of God. But it's locked. What to do? And you need to get the sacred utensils to place them on the head of the sick wife. In this extremity, I remembered the words from the akathist to the Savior: Jesus, the finding of those who seek, and began to pray internally: Jesus, the finding of those who seek, give me the finding of my key; He said these words three times, then suddenly, as if mechanically, he reached out his hand into the glass bookcase, onto the bottom shelf (the third from the top), to the place where the Trebnik lay, moved the Trebnik away - and immediately found the key behind it. How I rejoiced at the Lord’s obvious mercy towards me, at the speedy hearing of my simple prayer! So in everything we must resort to the Lord, for He is everything to us. Do not be discouraged and do not fall into despair when you feel in your soul the murderous breath and fermentation of malice and wickedness, impatience and blasphemy, or relaxation from unclean and nasty thoughts, but fight them relentlessly and endure courageously, with all your heart, calling on the Lord Jesus, the conqueror of hell. Humble yourself deeply, deeply, admitting from your heart that you are the number one sinner, unworthy of the human community, and the Lord, seeing your humility and your struggle, will help you. Call for help and the most swift Intercessor, the Most Holy Virgin Theotokos, thus saying: heal, Most Pure One, my many ailing spiritual scabs and even the enemies who are constantly fighting with me. Teach your disciples the Law of God patiently, meekly, humbly, kindly, as a nurse tenderly treats her children [1 Thess. 2, 7], remembering what you teach, about Who and what you are talking about. You [are] just like you’re in church. Always firmly remember that with family members you must always be affectionate, kind from the heart; that you need to warm them with love, like milking your children. I and my neighbor are one, and we are all one. All people were created by the Lord from one person, just as all the diversity of the world was created by the same Creator from one substance at the beginning that was ugly, that is, without an image. All people were contained in Adam, like seeds in a fruit. This means that all people, no matter how many there are, are one multi-branched tree. People are members of one body. We, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another [Rom. 12, 5]. Example: here in front of me is a father and mother, surrounded by children. These little people were not in the world until very recently, because they were still in the loins of their father. But God combined husband and wife into one flesh, and made whole flesh from the two halves; from their union, indicated by the Lord, the male seed was transferred to the wife, this, as it were, the earth that produces the human race. A child is born from a wife in due time (nine months after conception), then after a certain period of time - another, there a third, and so on, and all people live in the soul 105 [Gen. 2, 7], in the image of their parents. Here is a sample of the descent from one blood of the human race [Acts. 17, 26]. These children, or their seeds, were first in the father, then in the mother, completely one with them: the father carried them within himself, then the mother - they were one with the father and the seed; and even now, after their birth, they are one with them in the sense of the unity of their nature and especially in the natural, invincible feeling of love of parents for children and children for parents. Transfer this to the entire human race. The human race is precisely one great, many-branched tree. The root of this tree is Adam and Eve. So, learn what it means: I and my neighbor are one. But the main basis of the unity of the human race is their origin from one Lord: all people are the breath of God; The goal of our life is union with the Lord, from whom we came. May they all be one, just as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, so may they also be one in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me [Jn. 17, 21]. After this, it is worthy and righteous to love every person as yourself: love your neighbor as yourself [Mk. 12:31], - for all people are from one God and from one man and are all in one God, especially all those who are saved in Christ - are one according to their Head, Christ, and according to the one Spirit of God who animates them. If you truly call God your Father, then trust in Him as the only Father, all-good, all-powerful, wise, unchangeable in His love and in all perfections. Trust in Him regarding the blessings of this present life, but especially regarding the gift of future blessings in Christ Jesus. Imprint deeply on your heart the words: God is my Father. Our Father, Who is in heaven! But since, through the love of the Heavenly Father for you, you yourself were made in some way by God, as from Him [...] having reason and free will, then you must certainly use your efforts to achieve the blessed and eternal inheritance of heaven; you must know and always remember that you are a fallen being, and just as you fell, having reason and freedom, by your own will, then with the same reason, enlightened by the light of the word of God and the insights of the Holy Spirit, with the same free will, supported by the grace of the Holy Spirit in Christ Jesus, rise from your fall and go unceasingly to the heavenly, infinite belly, despising everything earthly as corruptible and fleeting, especially without being attached to silver and gold, to food and drink, to this poison, because of which the entire human race has fallen into such depths of evil. Do not unaccountably believe this flattering friend - your flesh, its urges for food and drink and bodily intercourse. She often demands to eat and drink, to copulate when it is not necessary, when it is not only not useful, but even very harmful to health and contrary to the law of God. Be patient and you will see for yourself. Don’t tell me about natural impulse, don’t tell me that [...] you are supposedly fulfilling the dictates of nature, that you are a member and slave of it along with all other animals, unconsciously obeying its demands, [...] and you, like them, must in everything [obey its demands; a] remember [that] your being is fallen, [sinful], united with the deceitful nature of demons. [...] Let not Satan, says the apostle, tempt you through your intemperance [1 Cor. 7, 5]. So, be extremely moderate and prudent in the consumption of food and drink and, if you are a spouse, in allowing bodily intercourse, and if you are not a spouse, do not allow it to yourself at all. Do not be afraid: chastity, combined with moderation in food and drink and with a hard-working life, has never made anyone sick. Do you want to acquire a living, undoubted, unshakable faith in God and in all His works? Fast and pray - you will receive. This kind (speaking of demons) cannot come out except through prayer and fasting [Mk. 9, 29]. This means that it comes from inattention to prayer and from incontinence in all its forms: from incontinence in food, drink, clothing, from incontinence in sexual pleasures, in social pleasures - in parties, theaters, clubs. The essence of the saints is holiness: not their own, but the Holy Spirit. When invoked in prayer, the saints are as close to us as their names are to our hearts and lips. I thank my most swift Intercessor, the Most Pure Lady Theotokos, the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, who twice through my heartfelt prayer saved me from the gnawing and oppression of the devil: the first time - in the apartment of the customs official Ilya Nikolaevich Yakovlev, and the other time - in the apartment of the city mayor Alexander Ivanovich Neustroev, an hour and a half after the first time. I looked at Her with the eyes of my heart in the Holy Spirit, present everywhere and filling everything and simple, I looked as if existing at [my very] heart, and cried out to Her: Most swift Intercessor, Lady Theotokos Mary, save me from the reproachful enemy! - and immediately, in a minute, She saved me according to the faith of my heart, according to the trust of my heart in Her. And so the crampedness, the fire, and the heavy despondency fell away from the right side. We only need to imagine and firmly believe that the Holy Spirit is everywhere, in every place, and is a simple being, that in Him the whole heaven is close to us, at a glance, with all the Angels and saints, that we only need to call upon with all our hearts, with clairvoyant faith, the Lord or Lady Theotokos or a saint with heartfelt repentance for the sins with which we are bound by the enemy or by which we bind ourselves voluntarily – and salvation will immediately shine forth. The salvation of the Lady is marvelous: so it flows into your soul, like a healing balm or like aromatic, life-giving air or like calming water - just look at Her with the eyes of your heart with hope in Her goodness and benefits. But this is where the work comes in - to look to Her with heartfelt, clairvoyant faith, as well as to the Lord or to the saints: the enemy intensifies in every possible way to become a solid, high and dark wall between your soul and God or the Mother of God, the Angels and the saints. The accursed one does not allow the eye of the heart to see the Lord or His saints; it darkens the heart in every possible way, dispels faith, oppresses the insides, burns, darkens. All these actions must be considered a dream, a lie, and through this dreamy wall one must break through to the Lord or to the Mother of God and to the saints. As soon as you break through, you are immediately saved. Your faith will save you. Why is stinginess in itself severely punished? Because stinginess, or stinging the blessings of the Lord for oneself and one’s neighbors, is the soul’s falling away from God the Giver of Life and its clinging to corruptible earthly blessings, on which it places the hope of its life and which then become its idols. Moreover, because the stingy, being hard-hearted, like his silver and gold, does not give due respect and love to his neighbor, to this image of God, and is, like a sponge, imbued with pride and contempt for the ignorant, the poor and beggars of this world, for he respects only money, humbles himself only before silver and gold. That is why the apostle says: Exhort those who are rich in this present age not to think highly of themselves and not to trust in unfaithful riches, but in the living God, who richly gives us all things to enjoy [1 Tim. 6, 17]. The miser, with his hardness of heart, prevents other children of God who are equal in rights with him from sucking the breasts of Divine goodness and generosity, for all spiritual and material blessings are God’s breasts. The Lord, like a true mother, opened the breasts of His nourishment for all His children, but they close and, so to speak, lock God’s breast. (Take likewise what is said and take it likewise, and not in the thing itself.) To the stingy God says: you have left all things to Me, the source of living waters, and have dug for yourself treasures of brokenness [Russian: broken], which cannot contain water [Jer. 2, 13 ]? Oh! A greedy miser is worthy of a thousand executions, especially one who, countless times in his life, has known in his heart that only God is sweet—his sweet belly. Servant of God Uliyaniya Mikhailovna reminded me several times today, seeing with her pure soul the illness of my heart, that we only need a handful of earth, and most importantly, to have love for God and for our neighbor. Perspicacious servant of God. In some way one can say about her the same thing that the Samaritan woman said about the Savior: come, see a man, who told me everything that I have done [Jn. 4, 29 ]! Wonderful maiden. Now she teaches others, now she regrets the world, adulterous and sinful, horrified by its iniquities, now she prays, looking with her heartfelt eyes to the Lord and Lady, now she grieves and cries about her sorrowful path, now she is in the delight of the Holy Spirit, now she predicts or says what happened to you and what is happening. Wonderful maiden! I say: a virgin, because she was not married and, having wandered for almost forty years in various places pleasing to God, she serves the one Lord with all her soul, focusing all her thoughts on Him and rejecting all worldly cares. Her character: extraordinary simplicity and directness of soul, fearlessness and indifference to faces - a sure sign of the Holy Spirit resting in her heart. Speak in your heart and with all your heart: the Lord is everything to me; I am nothing, I am powerlessness, weakness. Without Me you can do nothing [Jn. 15:5], says the Lord Himself, for I, one might add, am everything for you. Be convinced of this from the bottom of your heart every minute of your life and run resolutely to the Lord in everything, hoping to receive from Him everything that is beneficial for your salvation and even for your temporary life. If the Lady Theotokos, by unity with the Divine and by Her boundless service to the Lord of all, quickly becomes everything for those who ask with faith and love for Her intercession, delivering them from all evils and giving them all the petitions for salvation, then isn’t the Lord Himself even more so? Just don’t have little faith, don’t be cold in soul towards Him and insensitive as a stone, but kindle in yourself faith, gratitude for God’s good deeds, a sincere feeling for your sins and great love for your Savior, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, who loved you with immeasurable love. When praying to the Lord, the Mother of God or the saints, always remember that the Lord gives according to your heart (the Lord will give you according to your heart [Ps. 19:5]): as the heart is, such is the gift; If you pray with faith, sincerely, with all your heart, unfeignedly, then in accordance with your faith, the degree of fervor of your heart, a gift from the Lord is given to you. The colder your heart, the more unfaithful and hypocritical it is, the more useless your prayer is; moreover, the more it angers the Lord, Who is the Spirit and seeks those who worship Himself in spirit and truth [Jn. 4, 23 – 24]. Therefore, whether you call on the Lord, the Mother of God, Angels or saints, call with all your heart; whether you pray for someone living or dead, pray for them with all your heart, pronouncing their names with warmth of your heart; Whether you pray for the granting of some spiritual good to yourself or another, or for the deliverance of yourself or your neighbor from some calamity or from sins and passions, bad habits - pray about this with all your heart, desiring with all your heart the requested good for yourself or another, having a firm intention to leave behind or desiring for another liberation from sins, passions and sinful habits - and the Lord will give you the gift according to your heart. If you want it, ask, and it will be done for you [John. 15, 7]. You see, you must definitely want what you ask for - [then] that’s all you’ll get. Pray for one another so that you may be healed [Jas. 5, 16]. Prayer is the breath of the soul, like the natural breath of the body. We breathe the Holy Spirit. We cannot say a single word of prayer with all our hearts without the Holy Spirit. When we pray, we talk mouth to mouth with the Lord and, if we have mouths of our hearts open in faith and love, at the same time we seem to breathe in [...] spiritual blessings. [...]. Be prosperous in heart, word and deed at all times to serve others, without the slightest annoyance or irritability, remembering the words of the Savior: whoever wants to be great among you must be a servant of all [Matt. 20, 26; Mk. 10, 43]. Believe firmly that at all times the Lord is everything to you: during prayer He is your strength and the fulfillment in the Holy Spirit of every word you say, your light, peace and delight of your heart; during pious conversation He is your living water, the fiery stream of your words; He is every good thing for you at all times. Be carefree with your Lord: He has enclosed you in Himself from all sides, penetrates you completely and knows all your thoughts, needs and dispositions of the heart, and if you stand in Him by faith and love, then no evil will come to you. The Lord is near. Worry about nothing [Phil. 4, 5–6]. God, as one, omnipresent, omnipotent, simple, can create and imagine everything in one instant, as was the case with the miracles of Egypt. The simple do simple, the omnipotent can do everything. Out of masterly or, better yet, monetary and grain pride and malice, we do not want to honor the speech of those who feed from us often, we are hostile towards them, instead of us being more humble before them, as their servants, according to the word of the Lord: whoever wants to be great among you must be the servant of all [Matt. 20, 26; Mk. 10, 43], in order to thereby aggravate the reward of the Master through sincere, unfeigned service to Him in the person of His lesser brothers! O meek and humble-hearted creator, life-giver, redeemer, nourisher and preserver, our Lord Jesus! Teach us love, meekness and humility by Your Holy Spirit and strengthen us in these virtues that are so dear to You, so that our hearts are not puffed up by Your rich gifts, so that we do not imagine that we feed, satisfy and support anyone: You, the common breadwinner of all, nourish, and satisfy, and preserve; everyone is content and at peace under the wings of Your goodness, generosity and love for mankind, and not under ours, for we ourselves need to take refuge in the shadow of Your wings every moment of our lives; our eyes are directed to You, our God, as the eyes of slaves are directed to the hand of their masters... until He has mercy on us [Ps. 122, 2]. Amen. No matter how quick and easy the thought of something is or how easy it is to say something, so it is convenient for the Creator to create everything - great or small, without distinction, for for Him everything is insignificant. To that speech, and it was: To that commanded, and it was created [Ps. 32, 9]. Believe firmly in the perfection of every word, especially during prayer, remembering that the author of the word is God the Word, that our God Himself, worshiped in the Trinity, is expressed in three words or names: Father, Word and Holy Spirit; that to every word there corresponds [being], or every word can be being and deed. Treat your word reverently and treasure it. Remember that just as the Hypostatic Word of God - the Son of God - is always united with the Father and the Holy Spirit, so in the word of Holy Scripture and in prayer or in the writings of the divinely wise, the Father participates in His omnipresence, the Father, as the supreme mind, His creative Word, and the perfecter - the Holy Spirit. Therefore, no word is idle, but has or should have its own power, and woe to those who talk idle, for they will give an answer for their idle talk [Matt. 12, 36]. With God no word will remain powerless [Lk. 1, 37]. This is generally the property of the word - its power and perfection. This is how it should be in a person's mouth. As the infinitely supreme One of all and Himself simple, God can create or transform everything in an instant, for everything is insignificant before Him, everything is subordinate to His infinite power. No creature can resist the Creator or be equal to Him. Will the clay say to the potter, “What are you doing?” [Is. 45, 9]. Does not the potter have power over the clay... who can resist His will? [Rom. 9, 21, 19]. We must be especially attentive to what we hear, lest we fall away [Heb. 2, 1]. Do you hear? We must be extremely attentive to the word of God, to worship, to the teachings of the Church, to prayer, to church decrees or institutions, so that we do not fall away from the faith through inattention. For the world, the sinful flesh with its wisdom, the devil with its continuous wiles, strongly draw our hearts towards lack of faith, inattention and disregard for faith. I am the only One who exists, infinite. If I want something to be, it will be; if I don’t want it, it won’t be, for I am the only Existing One, and only by My will can anything exist. Remember: I am the infinite, the first being, the Being of beings, from Whom are all beings. I am a simple being, everything is from Me and everything is in Me and nothing is outside of Me, for nothing can be outside of Me, the only Existing, infinite. I hold the devil in the bonds of darkness, and pitch darkness under My power, and all the torments of hell. All things are from Him, by Him and to Him [Rom. 11, 36]. If we ourselves receive rubles for free, then this is nothing - it should be so, but if a beggar, apparently healthy, receives a kopeck or three kopecks from us for free - it’s a disaster: where does pity, bitterness, indignation and some kind of anger come from in us. A parasite, we think, and sometimes we say. Oh, proud people! O blind men! Oh, evil ones! Where is your faith? Where is Christ in the face of the beggar? O hypocrites! O Pharisees! And people say: the richer you are, the happier you are. If people willingly serve others with what they can serve, give what they have, then how much more the Heavenly Father, how much more the Most Holy Theotokos, the highest of all creation, the holy Angels and holy men? And what kind of wealth is theirs? – The Lord’s wealth is immeasurable and His bounties are innumerable. The Lady is also rich in all perfections; Angels and saints also, by the grace of God, possess very many spiritual treasures, always drawing them from God. Just ask with all your heart - and a beneficial gift will be given to you. The Holy Spirit performs all powers and miracles. To another is given powers by the same Spirit, to another the actions of powers [1 Cor. 12, 9–10]. Just speak with faith - the perfection of the word is not your concern, but the Holy Spirit's. I thank the Lady Theotokos, the most swift Intercessor, who, through my prayer, saved me from my great spiritual distress in the apartment of Grigory Yegorovich Osminin after reading prayers to his wife, who was relieved of her burden by the birth of two babies, named Konstantin and Elena. In the Holy Spirit, I looked at Her with the eyes of my heart, just as if she were alive and standing at my very heart, and She saved me, the Most Merciful One. I took my misfortune out of the church after the liturgy. The enemy stopped me from receiving communion. Ole (Church Slavic) - about; interjection expressing surprise or sorrow. Greatness on the Sunday of Antipascha. Irmos of the 6th song of the prayer canon to the Most Holy Theotokos, tone 8. Vegetates (Church-Glav.) – grows, produces a shoot. Antiphon 1st at Matins, tone 6th. The fatness of selected earthly blessings - the best earthly gifts. Lepotny (church glory) – beautiful, graceful. Take revenge on me (church glory) - protect me. Canon of prayer to the Most Holy Theotokos, kontakion. The student of the abyss is a hellish abyss, the depths of hell. The zeal of malice (Church Glorious) - constant commitment, service to sin, evil. Adamant (obsolete) – diamond. I am known (church glory) - I manifest, I shine. Thin (Church Slavic) – here in the meaning “empty, empty-handed.” Korchemstvo (obsolete) – secret production and speculation in alcoholic beverages. Clay (Church Glav.) – dust of the earth, clay, dirt. Port (Church Slavic) – undershirt. Yuzhe (Church Slav.) – which. Skudelny (Church Slavic) – clay, that is, fragile, fragile. I live in the soul (church glory) - living souls. You might be interested in: