Январь

I thank the Lord, who took away my iniquities and cleansed my sins and revived me all through the communion of the Divine and life-giving Mysteries during the late liturgy in the Duma church. I thank the Lord, who has repeatedly had mercy on my soul, which repented of the internal sins I had committed, who has taken away confusion and oppression and bestowed life-giving and sweet peace. I thank the Lord even now late in the evening, when He gave me tears of tenderness and repentance for my misfortune - deafness, and revived my soul before the gift of hearing. I will wait for His mercy in opening my hearing organs. I thank the Lord, who pacified, freed and made me glad in the communion of the Divine and life-giving Mysteries - the Most Pure Body and Blood. I thank the Lord, who saved me from the violence of dishonor, the destruction of my passions, when I cry out to Him heartily. So, today I was saved from evil despondency and envy of sister Anna K., who rests with me without difficulty with her chicks and servants. For this I condemned myself. The rush of evil to the heart was strong - the flood. I thank the Lord, who consoled me, an indecent one, with the communion of His holy, life-giving Mysteries. Paraskeva Ivanovna, sister of the stove-maker Kovrigin, gave me a lesson yesterday, saying that any good deed, if done without love, in enmity, is not accepted by God, and I, damned one, often did this, for example, in relation to my wife’s sister Anna K. and to some beggars. The right thing is done right. Yes, and your father. Chernyavsky once told me at a dinner in front of everyone that my alms weren’t worth a penny. And it’s true, another kind of alms is like this, because I give with embarrassment, rumor, ardor, reluctantly, contemptuously. Correct, God of mercy and bounty! Lord Lover of Mankind! I thank You for the consolation, freedom, spiritual space that You sent to me in the communion of Your most pure, life-giving and terrible Mysteries. The last fortieth mass for the repose of Pyotr Grigorievich Sidorov. God! What should I do? So, every time I come home, the daily inaction, the daily laziness of my freeloader, Anna K., comes to my mind and weighs heavily on my heart, and I am indignant in spirit, and I have no peace and no love in my heart. Judge, Lord, between me and this sister. Or [hand over] it to me completely according to Your will, for Your admonition and punishment! For now I cannot [see] idleness calmly. Or do I see the mote in my sister’s eye, but not the beam in my own eye? Or is this a dirty trick of the devil, seeking to bring enmity into our house through my impatience? Intercede, save, have mercy and preserve us, O God, by Your grace. Give me love that endures everything, that covers everything, that is long-suffering. And You, Lord, are patient with me daily! And in laziness I spend and waste my life. God! Improve our life. Teach us to do the greatest work in life - a work of mutual love, patience, mercy, envy, benevolence, humility, non-covetousness. In the morning I ate black bread and butter, and this had a bad effect on my heart: it was extremely paralyzed and weak for prayer, subjected to despondency and timidity, while the prayer service served immediately after the early mass at Kalmykova’s, on an empty stomach, was served with strength, calm, and boldness. This is how harmful excess in food and drink is and how beneficial abstinence is, especially the communion of the Holy Mysteries. The cross marks and seals everything, the cross covers and protects us all, the cross is our strength and glory. All Sacraments, sacred clothes and all sacred things, all rituals are imprinted and celebrated with it. Man is the fallen image of God and the restored one; This is the main idea in worship, prayers, chants, and rituals. In the divine service all Old and New Testament history, all church history, all dogma, all morality. It is necessary to pronounce more firmly: servant of God N servant of God, in order to impress upon those who are getting engaged and getting married who they are and that they must work unceasingly for the Lord. Christianity is a wise system in which there is a wonderful unity and connection based on the goodness, truth, wisdom, omnipotence and faithfulness (immutability) of God, on prophecies and events. You will be with Me in Paradise [Lk. 23, 43]. Paradise is the land of desires. With which he was girded [Jn. 13, 5]. About the holy belt worn by priests. Why am I grasping at the sins of others, even Anna Konstantinovna? Am I going to be responsible for her? I mourn my own sins, but I won’t even see strangers. An unclean heart tempts me in everything. A holy deed - even that tempts me for my sins; a most holy face, a holy one - even that tempts me! Woe to me, wretched one! Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a right spirit in my womb [Ps. 50, 12]. How miserable is the person who is abandoned by God for the sake of sin! (Oh, meat-eating! This is the trouble for my soul!) Then he is left to his own weakness and his own sins and fierce demons; he shakes from all sorts of imaginary fears, like an aspen leaf; does not have any hardness and durability, like reeds, it bends in all directions, wherever the wind blows; his heart is bound, crushed, darkened; there is shame and dishonor on his face; He has no word, he does not open his mouth! How difficult it was for me to serve yesterday at mass (with vespers) in the Duma church, and then at the all-night vigil! For a long time there was hellish sorrow and oppression in me, until I cried out at the litany to the Most Pure Mother of God, to all the armies of the heavenly powers, to all the apostles, prophets, hierarchs, martyrs, saints, unmercenaries and all the saints for help and intercession. Then my heart was relieved, and I could say the prayers: Hear us, O God... and the Most Merciful Master! (and the money in his bosom morally interfered and killed!) And the temptation came for what?.. For gluttony the day before and earlier at Nikolai Sidorov’s dinner. The thorns of passions within me have grown terribly, and I am careless, I do not correct myself, I overeat and drink. My soul, never forget the greatest mercy to you of Christ God, who quickly heard you in the hour of crampedness, sorrow and sadness and took away from you the heavy, cruel, unbearable yoke of sin. I breathed freely when the Lord, through a heartfelt prayer of repentance, tore my bonds apart. Glory to Thee, Lord, hope of the unreliable. I thank the Lord, who showed His inexpressible mercy to me in the service of the Divine Liturgy and in the communion of His Divine Mysteries. The voice was weak, difficult, unclean - due to my sins, due to the impurity of my heart. Coldness throughout the whole being. The prayer service was served under extreme incitement and flattery from the enemy. I overcame it with prayer and calmed down. God is great and quick to obey all who truly call on Him. Glory to my Lord for this! In the evening I fell into a grave sin - I beat a beggar for importunity, pulled out his hair several times and pushed him until he fell; I became painfully angry, he seemed drunk to me. But whether he was drunk or not, I shouldn’t have raised my sacred hand against a person and beat him, but walked calmly on my way. We must respect the image of God in every person, although he bears within himself the wounds of sins, like each of us, and the title of Christian, or member of Christ. We must show ourselves to all who sin, not irritable, but meek and kind, patient, for the anger of man does not create the righteousness of God [Jas. 1, 20]. Moreover, when we rage and offend others, we first and most of all offend ourselves, outrage, scourge, scorch with hellish fire, weaken, and kill. I marvel at the compassion and long-suffering of the Master, that He, the Lord of my life, the Judge and my God, accepted repentance for sins on this day and from a sinner like me, and gave me the depth and sincerity of repentance, tenderness with tears. From now on I see that there is no sin that overcomes God’s love for mankind, that it is immeasurably greater than all our iniquities, that not a single sinner should despair of mercy from God, if only he repented with all his heart. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance [Matt. 9, 13 ], rivers of the Lord. Glory to Your long-suffering, O Lord! Pagans, Mohammedans, Jews sin, experience all the disastrous consequences of sins and passions, and they have no sacrifice for sin, no cleansing, no healing, because they do not believe in the Savior and Doctor of the soul and body common to all people. We also sin, and we sin gravely, but we are blessed in that we have an all-good and all-powerful Doctor, and through faith and repentance we are constantly cured of all mental and physical ailments; We have an all-powerful Intercessor and Prayer Book before God - the Mother of God, Mother by grace of the entire Christian race, and saints. Oh, how grateful we should be to the Lord and the Queen Mother and all the saints, but also how carefully and holy we should behave in order to be worthy of the mercy of God and the intercession of the Mother of God and the saints of God, not to remain stuck in sins, but to immediately repent and correct ourselves, for the most severe judgment is for the unrepentant. Oh, glory to Your bounties and mercies, O all-merciful King! Strive to enter through the strait gate, for I tell you, many will try to enter and will not be able to. When the owner of the house gets up and closes the doors, then you, standing outside, will begin to knock on the doors (of mercy) and say: Lord! God! open to us; but He will answer you: I don’t know you, where you come from [Lk. 13, 24 – 25]. Thank God for everything! The Lord has also given me life from the dead this day in the communion of His holy, heavenly, wonderful, life-giving Mysteries! Even with the assistance of the Lord, victory over passions and hell was won! Oh, what a burning poison hell poured out in my heart, inciting me to anger and malice against the sexton for the extraordinary singing of the worthy (I thought that he himself had composed a new tune) and for the imminent end of the sacrament! Because of such unimportant things, because of letters, signs, voices, how much evil! Truly, I myself don’t know why I’m embarrassed - such a charm of sin! But I thank the Lord, who conquered death in me and gave me sovereign life. The Lord gave me life, for the Son, like the Father, wills and gives life. This is the most tangible proof of the Divinity of the Holy Mysteries of the Body and Blood! Let God rise again, and let His enemies be scattered [Ps. 67, 2 ]! May the miracles of the Divine Mysteries be known to all people, especially to all Christians who have the good fortune to partake of them! Glory to Christ our God! God! Let me loudly glorify You in the conversations that begin! Every minute, every hour of my life is marked by God’s mercies towards me, and in gratitude for this, I must do good to my neighbors every hour, at every step according to my strength, from my family to the last beggar, to the last enemy. I ask the Lord for this strength of firm intention and strength [action], for God works in us both to will and to act according to His good pleasure [Phil. 2, 13]. I must constantly go against the passionate, false dispositions, aspirations, impulses of my self-loving, carnal (that is, attached to the goods of this world) heart, I must be an enemy to myself, hate my soul; living on earth with body, mind and heart to live in heaven, preferring to everything the love of God and neighbor - the image of God, a member of Christ and His Church and my member; to live for your neighbors, and not for yourself, and consider this your bliss and main goal, not to be burdened by any expenses, any worries and labors for the benefit of your neighbor, even if unworthy. For who is worthy of the gifts of God! I am the first unworthy and a parasite, although, apparently, I bother and work. I accept everything from the Lord, I eat and drink, and, moreover, everything that is best, pleasant, and healthy; I don’t dress well, and in several clothes that are colorful, beautiful, decent, and warm; I have spacious chambers, clean and healthy; Here I use both my good name and good fame, and here I receive silver. How willing is it not to give alms to the poor, how not to willingly provide for one’s own, even though they are idle and sinning! I will leave it to God to judge them or to dispose them towards what is good, just, true, honest and to have mercy on them, while I myself will endure and be forgiving, for I myself need the forbearance towards me and the long-suffering towards me of the Lord and men. My thoughts sometimes rush ahead of my heart, and that’s why I don’t utter words. Lord Lover of Mankind! Forgive me the secret, devilish dissatisfaction with my condition and my family, my pride and arrogance, my dislike, which seeks pretexts for discontent and enmity, and take away from me this disastrous and false direction of my heart, grant contentment, tranquility, trust in Your gracious, constant providence, and mutual love, and a heavenly, carefree life doing the work of a pastoral calling, the celebration of the Sacraments, the preaching of the Word of God and the government of people, or their direction to one thing that is needed. For every day I languish and worry from dissatisfaction with my family, and only in repentance do I find my peace and in sobriety from the vanity of life. (January 8, 1873. Evening.) The Church in its worship focuses the attention of those praying on the most essential, most vital subjects that every person must constantly keep in mind: on God’s creation of the world and man in the image and likeness, on the commandment given to him, and failure to observe [it] through negligence; on the destruction of sin, which gave rise to curse and death in the human race, on expulsion from paradise, or the place of the blissful dwelling of the first people; on the need of repentance for every person, on the promise of the Savior to a perishing world and on the coming of the Savior; on His birth in poverty, on His hidden life, on His open service to people, on preaching and miracles, on His fulfillment of all the righteousness of the law; His suffering, death, resurrection and ascension. All worship [of our Church] was wisely established, Divine! I thank the Lord for the great and wonderful victory of His Holy Mysteries over my passions and over the ethereal enemies who raged within me, scorched and oppressed me; I thank you for the great and rich mercy of the Lord towards me, unworthy. Sweets make the enemy's arrows unusually hot. I thank the Lord, who listened to my prayer of repentance at home, when the malice of hell overcame and tormented me at the thought of the idleness of sister Anna K. He saved me from the torment of passions. Is it not greed, is it not anger, is it not envy that is acting in me? What do I care about idleness and generally about the sins of my sister-in-law? She herself is aged, she herself is a scientist, she herself is a mother (let me first remove the log from my comb [Matthew 7:5]). Goodwill, respect and respect, service, love, affection that we show to our neighbors return to ourselves, bringing us grace and peace, just as ill will and envy, disrespect and contempt, unhelpfulness, hostility and malice, gloominess and rudeness shown to our neighbors return to ourselves, causing harm, anxiety, languor, shame and dishonor to our souls. These are the laws of eternal truth. So, give everyone their due. The general idea of ​​the conversations is that we are created in the image of God, that we are all of one blood and are all one, that we are all sinners and need salvation from sin and mutual help. The saints rejoiced when they saw their flesh withering, for then their spirit flourished, but we, the damned and blind, rejoice when the flesh flourishes and plays, forgetting that through this the soul dies spiritually, deprived of the grace of God and becoming the dwelling place of unclean spirits. God! Grant me this, so that I can joyfully nourish and give rest to my sister-in-law, Anna, and her children, and not grieve that she lives idlely and spoils her children. Be her leader yourself in raising her children; Be yourself their educator, these little ones, in Your image and likeness. Yes, I remember that their angels in heaven always see the face of My Heavenly Father [Matt. 18, 10]. January 12, 1873. Our good parishioners. Lord, have mercy on them, Your sheep. on Wednesday morning, with medical drops put into my left ear the day before for deafness, this ear pained me, and something that I had long feared happened to me, that is, I lost my left hearing, which was the only one that was still intact; scrofulous matter came out of it. Because of carelessness and haste, this misfortune befell me due to my sins, that is, that I damaged my left ear. At the beginning of the Nativity Fast, I remember, I was washing myself in the morning and very hastily dug my finger into my left ear, there was a sound like a shot inside, I felt a painful shaking, and immediately began to hear poorly, and after forty-odd days matter came out of my left ear, from which it had not come out for at least 25 years, for before there was also matter coming out of both ears, but through the prayers of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, the left the ear was healed. God! Have mercy on me! Heal the damaged organ of the name for Your sake. I thank the Lord, who revived me through the communion of the divine and life-giving Mysteries at the early liturgy. Great was my sorrow and distress, great was my despondency and my illness from the drilling of pharmaceutical drops into my left ear. Look, I'm all pus. And isn’t every person rot, earth and ashes? And everything beautiful in it is the work of God’s artistry: God adorned His image, the crown of His creation - to Him is honor and glory and wonder! His holiness, wisdom, goodness, omnipotence. You are near their mouths, but far from their bellies [Russian: their hearts] [Jer. 12, 2] – says about God. The same can be said about the saints we call upon, and about people living and dead, for whom we pray out of habit or for money. They are near our lips, but far from our hearts. In vain do we call upon the saints in this way, in vain do we pray in this way for the living and the dead. It is not in vain only when they are close to our hearts, when we sincerely correct our prayer. How I sinned, often praying insincerely, without faith and love! I thank the Lord, who solemnly delivered me from the snares and snares of the enemy in me, from the fierce violence of demons and who divinely revived me through the communion of His most pure, life-giving and terrible Mysteries, who gave me peace, lightness, freedom, and boldness. But he soon angered the Lord upon leaving the church with anger at the multitude of beggars, with grumbling that there were no numbers of them, that not only were they in the church, they were standing by the fence in dozens; Having arrived home, I was even more irritated by the sight of some of the household, sleeping for a long time, doing nothing and just chilling and sybaritizing, and devouring everything that was chosen and best on the table. This particularly stung and often stung me. I don’t feel sorry for the working people, but I feel sorry for the lazy and idle piece of work. However, maybe I’m wrong here too, maybe my dislike, envy, greed, malice, covetousness, pride, lust, etc. are at work here! May the Lord Himself enlighten and correct us all. I repented of this to the Lord, and my soul became easier. Drinking a lot of tea the night before is very harmful to the heart: it drowns the enemy’s soul, especially in very inclement weather. Submit your sister-in-law to the will of God with all her sins and shortcomings, as well as good qualities, and do not let the devil rule over you! He doesn't care about us! Before his Lord he stands or falls [Rom. 14, 4]. Envy, envy away. Who has been given more by God than you? Every day you partake of the Divine Life, the Divine Body and Blood, and you have eternal life within you, with all its unimaginable honors, beauties, sweets, treasures, and bliss. And you are jealous of perishable things. When celebrating marriages, as well as when performing and administering any Sacrament, cast selfishness aside so that it does not slow down and seal the lips of your heart, does not confuse and disgrace you. Be all a servant of God, all of God, without remainder or division. You, Lord, have already stepped in and saved me through the secret voice of prayer raised to You on my bed. Come at the very time of the wedding. He created all wisdom ecu [Ps. 103, 24]. You have wisely ordained the union of husband and wife, from which the human race spreads. The betrothal and wedding prayers are also wisely composed, they are holy and sublime. Everything is fine here without us. I thank, sing and bless my Lord Jesus Christ, who cleansed me, renewed me, revived me and confirmed me with the communion of His holy, immortal and life-giving Mysteries. I felt blessed during the liturgy and at the end of it. Wonderful myrrh, fragrant for the soul - the Divine Body and Blood, wonderful and strengthening food and drink. January 12. The disembodied enemy dares to abuse the Sacraments and the word of God through us when he brings confusion, fear, apprehension, and dumbness to us. The priest, as a warrior of Christ, must cheerfully and boldly, with hope in God’s help, come out to perform secret prayers and rituals, boldly looking everyone in the eyes, speak rarely, expressively, heartily, especially rarely and expressively pronounce words that signify the power of the Sacrament for everyone. What if the priest, succumbing to false fear, had not uttered the words of the Lord during mass: Take, eat... Drink from it, etc.? Would it be a depot? The influx of evil and nasty and fearful thoughts into the heart can be repelled by faith, prayer to the Lord and fasting. God! Remember the grace You gave me when I was ordained as Your priest, and heal what is weak in me, and replenish what is lacking. All kinds of evil overcome me, especially on special days, when I solemnly serve You in church before many! Protect me, overcome those who fight me, help me to serve You with boldness and a sincere heart for Your people. January 12, 1873. Five and a half o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord, who heard the prayer in grief and spiritual misfortune, in the violence of the evil brought to the Lord over me, and who, with His mercy and bounty, delivered me from the evil and inner calamity that was pouring out in me and gave me peace with spiritual freedom. Grant me, Lord, to perform with boldness, without stumbling, the marriage of Your servants Gregory and Vera in the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker (at the Navigation School). When you go with your opponent (sin) to the authorities, then on the road try to free yourself from him [Lk. 12, 58]. I celebrated the wedding in the Shturmanskaya Church of the Georgian princeling officer of the Exemplary Regiment Grigory Paltivi with Zverkova (Blinova): and it was sad, fearful, and extremely difficult for me during the ceremony and reading prayers, as well as during marriages in general. I prayed for a long time to the Lord, the Mother of God, St. Nicholas the Wonderworker - all the same diabolical violence; True, I calmed down, but when I began to read the betrothal prayer, I immediately became timid and could not utter the words known to me from the devil’s embarrassment and violence: the youth of the Patriarch Abraham descended into the midst of the church, sending his master Isaac to marry his wife and open the betrothal of Rebekah through the intercession of the water-bearing... And then in another prayer of many words and dismissal. While betrothing the bride, I slipped in my thoughts, and began to write down the enemy’s insolence, the enemy’s fear. What kind of rider? What kind of restless one, what kind of rapist? My nerves were weak from cod and tea and bread. You often betray the Lord in the person of your neighbor, for example, because of some household disorder you become angry with your family, or when you envy the constant peace of your sister-in-law, who eats and drinks everything good without labor; when, due to the corruption of the air, you seethe with indignation and enmity towards her; when you get irritated with the poor and allow them to starve and freeze. Early liturgy. I thank the Lord, who pacified me, an indecent one, during the storm of the devil, when I turned to Him, my Lord, in the tightness and groaning of my heart (I realized that all the indignation against my household for their faults is only a pretext, provided by the devil, for enmity with my household). I thank the Lord, who pacified me through the communion of His holy, immortal and life-giving Mysteries. I thank the Lord, who pacified my spirit in the storm of demons (again due to mistakes at home), when I cried out to Him in repentance for salvation and peace. Now, Lord, my prayer is to You, teach my household to live not without work, for jealousy consumes me: I am busy all day, but they are idle all day and don’t want to do anything useful, and they don’t even remember the one thing they need. But if my other jealousy or zeal is envy because of the food and drink they consume, and because of their laziness and pranks, then grant me not to be irritated, but to endure everything patiently. Thou shalt admonish them and reprove them, O Lord, for they do not listen to my voice. God! Look, everyone is presented to me in a blissful form by the devil’s malice and abomination. From now on, Lord, grant me to look at everyone simply and with love. Grant me to love my sister-in-law and not be burdened by her idleness as an excuse to enmity against her; grant me to caress and take care of her always. Wake up! Apparently, she is sad that she does not have her own place and that she lives with us. Maybe my sometimes gloomy approach bothers her - after all, she is subtle and insightful, she understands everything that is happening around her. God! I thank You, for You do not cease to have mercy on me, who repent of my malice. When will I get rid of it? Take away the excess of malice from me, Lord, and grant an excess of goodness of heart. Out of the abundance of the heart, it is said, the mouth speaks. I am poor in heart. People have false thoughts that underlie bad deeds and various omissions; for example, they say: doing business at home, pleasing your husband and family in general is also service to God, although indirect, and therefore you don’t have to go to church for divine services, or that it doesn’t matter whether you pray to God at home or in church - we’ll pray better at home. Resurrection. With my unworthy heart and lips I thank my Lord, who made me worthy to celebrate the late Divine Liturgy and to partake without condemnation of the Divine Mysteries for the revival of my dead soul. After mass there is a prayer service with blessing of water, christening, unction with communion and confession of the sick Anna Morozova. During dinner at home, I sinned - I was upset when I learned that my wife broke my favorite glass, from which I always drank tea. I acted neither philosophically nor Christianly, because of dust and earth I lost peace and love and angered my Lord, of Whose I was a partaker. The philosopher Diogenes used to throw down his wooden glass when he saw a commoner scooping up water to drink with his hand and drinking by the handful. Didn’t Christ the Lord teach me the highest wisdom?.. Didn’t he teach me to despise things that are lower and to value above all things above all? Didn’t he teach you to love God above all else and your neighbor as yourself, to the end, unfailingly, unfailingly? Lord, have mercy! This prayerful voice is the voice of fallen creatures. This should teach us humility and constant repentance. The Gospel about the blind man of Jericho, about spiritual blindness, which is pride, envy, ill will, malice, anger, hatred, greed, ambition and pride, gluttony and greed, intemperance, fornication, despondency, murmuring, cowardice, fear, despair, laziness. This blindness removes us from God, the Source of life, forever, this blindness does not see the path of salvation, it amuses itself with ghosts and its bandages. During mass today, and before, I noticed that meat-eating, and overeating in general, extremely deadens my soul and removes me from God and His grace. Post and post! Woe to me that I did not keep the Nativity Fast - the thorns of voluptuousness have grown extremely large in me. Many have become alienated from God and the church from lies; in the church we are appropriated to God and heaven, just as in houses and spectacles we are appropriated to the world. May God grant that everyone belongs to God. Wake up! Do not flatter yourself under the pressure of the charms of the passions of this age, Christians: you are betraying and crucifying Christ again. The glutton, the sensualist, the polyvorous and the drunkard crucify Jesus Christ many times (I, the accursed); the lover of money daily crucifies Christ (I, the accursed); the fornicator daily crucifies Christ, the unrighteous judge crucifies Christ; a thief, a robber crucify Jesus Christ, and so on. Morning. Smoking tobacco is a fad, and it is from the devil (smoking causes pain in the legs, loss of nerves), I experienced this most especially today; His influence, dark and evil, intensified in me today to the extreme: he, I felt, nested in my sides and in my heart and persistently resisted me, preventing me from pronouncing litanies and prayers, frightening, weakening, upsetting me to the point of passion. With this smoking, an evil spirit enters a person. During the pronouncement of the litany of the august and others, he instills in me disrespect and coldness towards the anointed of God because of some of his shortcomings, which I have often heard about. But who am I? I am a worm, a nonentity both by birth and by my countless sins. What is the distance between me and him who sits on the throne to which God has subjected millions of people? Should I judge him? - No, God alone judges him. And I need to pray with love to God for God’s anointed, kind, meek, and merciful. Grant, Lord! The enemy upset me extremely today and offended me, and through his offense I also offended some, such as the reader (former guard Nikolai) and the beggars. So Father Paul or Matthew were not in the church, but everything turned out badly. You know, it’s not them who are causing the embarrassment. The false idea that anyone is to blame for my embarrassment is myself and the devil, and most importantly, me. I thank, extol and glorify the power and mercy of my Lord Jesus Christ, who miraculously raised me and revived me from spiritual death, burned the thorns of my sins, and plucked out the sting of Satan from the depths of my spirit! Oh, what grace, what peace, what lightness, joy, joy settled in me after this devilish storm, crampedness, fire! But I sinned before God - at home I was again carried away by greed and ate and drank excessively: fish pie, roast veal, cabbage soup with black bread, porter, large sweet coffee. Bread and cabbage soup would be enough. Remove luxury from food. Today I read in classes about St. John Kushchnik 84. What a wonderful lesson! Why don't I follow him? O blessed fathers! How beautiful you are in your life! How much you loved God! And we, the damned ones, loved ourselves, our many-passionate, corruptible flesh, our passions. We are idolaters under the guise of Christianity. Well what does this mean? I eat, eat, drink, drink, and all that comes out of all this is pus, pus, stench, stench. How long until I understand this? How long will I work for decay and decay? Where is the work of incorruption? How long will we have these funny lights, I mean cigarettes and cigars? There is no other way to look at these things. How many pieces of bread, boots, and clothes do they take from the poor? They simply make you starve, strip you of your clothes and take off your shoes. And how many different things does each of us have lying or hanging, standing, walking and shaking, pouring, drinking, eating for fun? How much injustice, then, is there against one’s neighbors? But we keep condemning the poor, saying that they are parasites, drunkards, slackers, lazy people. Doesn't an arrow fired often return to us, a stone thrown at others doesn't fall on us? The judgment that strikes others does not strike us first of all? Or are we not aware of this? Even worse, it means that we have lulled our conscience, burned it, killed it, drowned out the voice of reason through the intensified actions of passions, and become spiritually dead. Where is one body, one spirit? Where is the Head, where are the members? I sinned this evening - I got angry with a beggar who was dissatisfied with a handout (10 kopecks), and in a vehemence I hit him on the cheek. Is this how a priest needs to use his hand? Am I created in the image of God, am I a member of Christ, am I not Christ Himself? Decay is following on our heels, but we think that it is far from us. Eat bread and water and nothing else - then the scrofula will go away little by little. January 16. Morning. Last night there was a strong flow of scrofulous matter from the left (recently healthy) ear, almost all night there was pus. The deafness is quite severe. Lord, have mercy, as you had mercy on Job. (Scrofula and deafness are aggravated by meat and dairy foods.) How can I appear to the Prototype, the First Principle of everything, having offended His image in myself and others, the souls created in His image and likeness, His members? In secular newspapers and magazines there is nothing instructive, moral, or nourishing for the soul, especially in cheap newspapers and magazines. Everything is vain, empty, something that we often don’t even need to know. God! I thank You for You healed the stream of nasty, evil and blasphemous thoughts that came to me when I called out to You. Stop the flow of my ears also, granting me clear hearing, for I lost my hearing through the scrofulous flow due to my sins. I thank the Lord for reviving my damned soul and body with His Divine Mysteries. I thank the Lord, who has granted me to feel the life-giving fire of the Divine Mysteries and to be revived in spirit and body. Glory to Your renewal, working in us and in me, the accursed one. God! My left hearing hurts badly, festering with scrofula; heal him in the abundance of Your compassions. I have eaten Your hand and Your word, and I will be healed. Four o'clock in the afternoon. Will we really accept good from God, but not evil? [Job. 2, 10]. Blessed be the name of the Lord! [Job. 1, 21]. The old leaven of the sins of youth is still raging within me, and there is also a new, huge leaven of sins that followed my youth and the present life. How can I not endure illness, sorrow, how can I not gratefully and graciously accept the punishing right hand of God! May the will of the Lord be done. January 18. So, all human beauty, with which we are so captivated, is pus, decay, dust! True. And every day we are mistaken about the beauty of the face and portliness, every day we are seduced by seeing beautiful faces. Primordial, incorruptible, eternal beauty - let us love God with all our hearts, so that we may be worthy to enjoy the beauty of His face forever. We are impatient - we immediately want to be delivered from illness or sorrow, but we are told: You need patience so that, having fulfilled the will of God, you will receive what was promised [Heb. 10, 36], - it means that one must endure and endure until illness and sorrow do their work, bear their fruit for the sick and grieving person. Any punishment, of course, at the present time seems not joy, but sadness; but afterwards he brings to those who are taught the peaceful fruit of righteousness [Heb. 12, 11]. Why do I not give up greed until now? Why do I eat more, drink more than what is needed to maintain my life, health, and strength? How long is unreason and madness with reason? Lord help me! Freedom from the skills of unreason! May we be freed from all sorrow, anger and need... This reminds us of the duty of sympathy for our neighbors, those in need, and of helping them. If you see someone who is grieving, comfort them; if you see someone in need, help them from your wealth; do not be proud, thinking only about yourself, about your enrichment, about your pleasures, the comforts of life. Remember that we are members of one body, the body of Christ. I thank the Lord, who showed His hand on me this morning, girding me with power from on high to make all my prayers without stumbling. I felt instinctively that the flow of matter from the ear was beneficial for the body. I feel lighter and freer after this discharge, unnecessary and harmful phlegm comes out. I thank the Lord, my Creator, who has made me wisely. With my frequent excesses in food and drink, I filled my body with rubbish and pus. The Lord sweeps me, cleanses me, renews me, but I thought that I was in trouble. I will sing to You of mercy and judgment, O Lord [Ps. 100, 1 ]! For You righteously punished me with deprivation of hearing, as if I had lost my ear for the poor, of whom I miss and neglect so many. Many doctors, however, have lost their minds; they don’t know what they are doing. Forbearance and patience towards households, both servants and family, as well as towards everyone. The Lord has condescended to all of us and condescends immensely, endures without number. There is nothing crazier than our human rage and anger. We get angry over trifles and lose our temper, but over important mistakes we turn a blind eye to them. Glory to faith, glory to the power of Christ - like a bridle, it restrains the wild impulses of our passions. See if the lamp of your heart has gone out from not doing good deeds. Candles and lamps in front of the icons and on the throne mean that God is the purest light and there is not the slightest darkness in Him - the purest light, or the brightest light, and the eyes of the Lord are ten thousand times brighter than the sun and look at all human paths and penetrate into hidden places [Sir. 23, 27 – 28 ] throughout the world, in every soul; that the holy Angels and saints of God, by the grace of God, are also light and there is no darkness of sin in them, that they constantly see in us all the innermost thoughts, feelings, desires, intentions, deeds, they hear everything that we say or each of us says throughout the whole world, that they are also the fire that burns everything unclean. And you, a Christian, are a child of light, and all your thoughts, desires, feelings, intentions, words, deeds should be light, not darkness. Walk as children of light [Eph. 5, 8 ] [...]. Our sins, this darkness, hellish darkness, are as follows: self-love, malice, enmity, hatred, envy and ill will, wickedness, hypocrisy and pretense, greed, gluttony and drunkenness, fornication, laziness, unbelief, freethinking, self-will, stubbornness, lies, slander, murmuring, despondency, cowardice, fear and cowardice, despair, dissatisfaction with everything, confusion of spirit... And what darkness it can be! - Impenetrable darkness, completely hiding the light of God from us, mortal darkness, removing us from true life and introducing spiritual death into our entire being. But listen, Christian: you can and must be light, and woe to you if you become darkness through your superstition and negligence; Here are your judges - all the saints who were servile people like you, but in the light of the word of God, with the help of the grace of God, with their diligence and zeal, they became light and pleased God, the Prime Light and the Prototype. (The fragrance of the censer.) For a Christian, a church is the center of light, grace, peace, the life of God, sanctification and holiness, spiritual and bodily renewal, strength, and spiritual wisdom. Here the unceasing currents of Divine life flow, here flows the source of immortality, here is the Cup of Life and the Bread of Life. Come, prepare yourself, your soul, and eat and drink the bread of eternal life and the source of immortal life, heavenly; take off your ugliness and the stench of sin and be renewed as much as you want: to a believer, everything is possible, and to one who wishes with all his heart; drive away the darkness of your passions and be illuminated by the Ever-Essential Light, the Most Luminous of the Triradiant Trinity. Draw Divine strength for your weak nature, take a spiritual girdle, take spiritual armor - it is ready for everyone; As each person needs, take everything he needs: gifts are given from God to everyone without envy. But in the church there is an abundance of spiritual gifts - and there are no people willing to accept them; here is Divine life, Divine light, Divine power, Divine peace, Divine holiness - and there are no recipients. The saints pleased God with unceasing abstinence, vigil, prayer, contemplation of God, and purity. Oh, what Divine peace, what freedom of spirit they had, avoiding gluttony, covetousness, impurity, malice - this almost common illness of people living in the world, from which we all suffer! What fullness of the Spirit is in them! What light! What fiery love for God and neighbors! Here we take advantage of the sweet and delicious fruits of their godly life - their godly scriptures, their hymns used in the church, examples of their heavenly, pure life, filled with all virtue, their experience and spiritual wisdom, contained in the church liturgical books and in their various writings, left to us, their children, as an inheritance. It is not in vain that they are called luminaries on earth! Oh, what majestic luminaries these are! God-blessed ones! Dispelling the darkness and stench of passions and leading to the true, heavenly path! Weak, fallen, man created in the image of God! Here is your treasure - the church. Everything is here for you: restoration, renewal, strength, cleansing, light for your darkness, strength for your weakness, incorruption against your corruption, life against your death, light against your darkness. Church clothes. The Lord covers with His grace the ugliness of my soul, disfigured by sins, and even - ole 85 mercy! puts on the garment of glory, the first garment (with which I was created), the wedding garment of honor and glory! Here, in the church, is the book of books and the sun of books and all minds - the Gospel, from which all minds draw their light. I thank the Lord for the immeasurable mercy towards me, a sinner, revealed yesterday and today in the communion of the holy, divine, immortal, life-giving and terrible Mysteries of His Most Pure Body and Blood. The Lord of my life pacified my soul, freed, distributed, purified, sanctified, enlightened, strengthened, filled with boldness, courage, strength. Glory to His love for mankind! (At home at the table, because of the word snout (where you have a snout - at Rufina), Anna's sister-in-law became confused - ignoble, they say, don't speak.) I repented in my heart to the Lord that I was offended by Anna's whim, and calmed down. What to do? These are the concepts people have. Respond to evil with good, to anger with meekness and patience, to claims with silence, to hatred with love, then you will be a true Christian. But until now you are not yet Christ’s, because you respond to evil with evil, to a flash of anger with the same flash, to annoyance with vexation, to claims with irritation, to hatred with hatred, to adversity and sorrow with murmuring and cowardice. Satan would be ready to stop all worship and tear down the altars, if he could, and erect his altars everywhere (theaters, clubs, taverns, gambling houses). And then he gets terribly angry; woe to intemperate and worldly Christians, especially clergymen. Good for those who are self-controlled and love the church of God. The fire shines and burns: a lesson for you - be a burning, shining lamp, enlighten and warm those who need enlightenment and fire of the spirit. Darkness and coldness are the lot of many souls. Be flaming in spirit; Serve the Lord [Rom. 12, 11]. I came to bring down fire to the earth, and how I wish it would already be kindled! [ OK. 12, 49]. The love of the Church is all-encompassing, everlasting, and cares for us beyond the grave. Where is this in other non-Orthodox Churches? Human weakness, blindness, and limitations have now taken their toll in the fall of the Churches. Oh, most blasphemous spirit! It intensifies to mock someone or something in me during worship, inflaming me with their fiery arrows and weakening me with false fears. Today, during the all-night vigil, I felt afraid while reading the Gospel and weakened my spirit so much that I could not read many words in several places. I didn’t need to sleep, and especially to drink a glass of vodka before dinner unnecessarily and eat meat and milk jelly in immoderate quantities. This weakened me in spirit. The heavenly and earthly Church in the procession. The spectacle is touching, touching, instructive and edifying! on Saturday, by the grace of God, I performed the liturgy completely without stumbling, and the royal persons spoke everything out, both the pulpit, the dismissal, and received communion for good and sweetness. I rejoice and triumph in spirit at these words: The Lamb of God is eaten, take away the sin of the world, for the world’s belly and salvation. The sacrifice has been made for me. I'm saved. I thank the Lord for burning the hellish thorns in me with the life-giving fire of the Holy Mysteries (sweet tea). Here, in the church, a true man, a Christian, a citizen of heaven is developed (and who is developed in the theater?). As much as we are partial to earthly things - food and drink, money, clothes, to various conveniences and comforts of life, we become so cold towards God and our neighbor, so hard-hearted are we towards the poor, so ardent towards pleasures. And therefore woe to the world from addiction to pleasure. Sweets strongly hinder the purity of the heart. Since during mass the rebirth of a sinful person takes place, the rebirth of a person who has become inveterate in sins and strengthened by passions, which is difficult and cannot do without illness, hence there is always pain and death during the celebration of the liturgy. Because of vanity and in vain I have been angry and angry for so many years, although at times, at my household and at my fellow servants in the church. I repent of this. I spoiled myself with a sweet diet, and its consequences entered my brain, bone, blood and heart. Out with cream, sweet tea too, coffee too, vodka – especially so. I think that for eating meat, and for lust in general, the Lord deprived me of my left hearing, for when I had a very sore throat, then I made a promise in my heart to God not to eat meat in the future, and did not fulfill the promise. What good did meat serve me? To an increase in the impurity of my heart, to spiritual powerlessness. So, pus and brokenness of the ear are the fruit of my madness. You often say in ministry: Lord! straighten our steps to do Your commandments, but you yourself do not correct yourself, you do not follow God’s commandments, you often allow self-indulgence, malice, envy, enmity, quarrel, grumbling, cowardice, impatience, gluttony, intemperance, covetousness, vanity, vanity, partiality, laziness, negligence, omissions, reproach, abuse, internal fornication, seduction and injury by someone else's beauty, etc. Correct your feet. Love the One God with all your heart as the Prototype, as the Primary Beauty, as the source of life and holiness, as the most perfect, eternal Being, from Whom is alpha and omega. Resurrection. I thank the Lord, who sweetened and pacified me with the communion of His holy, immortal and life-giving Mysteries; I thank the Lord, who despised and washed with His Blood my countless sins, my anger at the poor, my cry of irritation, for which I brought repentance. During the baptism at customs, a feeling of pride and vanity slowed me down, confused me, and punctuated my words. I have sinned before God! And always, even when performing the Sacraments, I should not belong to myself, but entirely to God, I should be entirely in God and not dream about my flesh, about the ruddy and lusty appearance of my face. It is a passing shape, a passing image, a passing shadow. Be jealous of the simplicity of your soul; God is a simple Being. Be one spirit with the Lord, like the saints. Oh, what an advantage Christians have! Both they and I do not value this! And we value dust and rot. Deplorable delusion of hearts! How addicted we are to decay! They're just addicted! We suffer from it, but we don’t want to fall behind! The more we get used to something, the worse the captivity and captivity; the repetition of sensual stimuli makes them necessary and irresistible. What an ineffable, heavenly gift this day has been given to me by my Lord in the communion of His divine and life-giving Mysteries! The Lord had mercy, cleansed me from sins, pacified me, made me happy, delivered me from the violence of the devil, from his all-destructive malice (at the watchman Timothy, who looked at me during mass). I recognized the enemy’s malice, my madness, and repented. I thank the Lord for the indescribable gift! We have been granted by the grace and bounty of God incorruptible and immortal life after this corruptible and transitory life. Therefore, our direct and primary duty is to despise corruptible things and our most soul-destroying flesh, because of which curse and death, temporary and eternal, occurred. And soar in spirit to imperishable life, in it awaiting resolution and satisfaction of all spiritual needs. To cling to perishable life and not think about incorruptible life is insane. I didn’t prepare for the class - and it was rubbish. January 23, 1873. Love your neighbor as you love yourself, and love babies as you love yourself, that is, caressing them heartily, as you were once caressed, please them, as you were pleased, do not despise them, just as you do not want this for yourself; they are the children of God, their angels in heaven always see the face of my heavenly Father [Matt. 18, 10]. Treat all people with a perfect heart, not having in your heart any hostility or envy or ill will, rancor or malice, remembering that at every moment we are before the eyes of God, who see all the innermost folds of our heart. Saturday. I thank the Lord, who heard my tearful prayer and gave me the grace to perform the Divine Liturgy without stumbling (except at the great entrance) and to partake of the life-giving Mysteries without condemnation for the wonderful cleansing of sins, for sanctification, revitalization, strengthening of the soul, vigor and boldness. And they gave me a good lunch and [...] money. I also didn’t want to serve; I was thinking about it in the evening. Thank God for all good things! The funeral service was held for Maria Ilyinichna, the daughter of the customs chief Ilya Nikolaevich Yakovlev, who was married to mechanical engineer Ilya Nikitich. She died suddenly, [...]. And dancing is to blame, by the way. How life here quickly passes and is suddenly cut short! But he’s itching: all the fun and laughter, parties and drinks. Rather for the soul! For abstinence, for prayer, for fasting, for the word of God! This is the only thing needed. The Cross is a four-pointed force (canon of the Cross), which means a cross has four ends; the cross is a three-edged sword, which means again: the cross has four or only three ends. Against schismatics. Yesterday on Saturday I sinned before the Lord, before the Most Holy Theotokos, before the Holy Guardian Angel and the holy saints of God in that at the funeral service I drank wine and ate meat, and at home after the service I drank too much coffee and tea and burdened my stomach, depriving myself of the lightness and clarity of the Divine purity of heart received in the Holy Mysteries. In the evening, I sinned by intemperance before the early mass - I ate hazel grouse and thereby again burdened myself and, as it were, became dirty with cronyism. I couldn’t read the whole rule - sleep overcame me. In the morning I finished my rule with tears. Resurrection. I thank the Lord, who has vouchsafed me to perform the terrible sacred rite of the liturgy and to partake of His life-giving, divine, life-giving Mysteries and to perform prayers to the Lady without stumbling. I thank the Lord, who has made me worthy to perform a marriage without stumbling after Vespers, a requiem service, and a baptism. Deliver us from the evil one and all his endeavors. The devil begins, he is the instigator of all sin, great responsibility falls on him in everything before God, for man is weak and receptive to sin. From eating meat and wheat cookies, scrofula and earaches in my ear multiply more strongly, and most importantly - uncleanness of heart, frivolity, spoiling the enemy's heart, my weakness, inappropriate laughter from empty thoughts, vanity, vanity, hypocrisy - in a word, spiritual death. And I, as if I don’t understand, don’t see that trouble is on the horizon, I remain uncorrected, I continue to be voluptuous in food and drink and allow myself excesses: while visiting I drank vodka, a glass [of kemmel] and another sweet wine with a decent snack, and at home I ate cookies, which I shouldn’t have done, and I drank tea with cream after coffee while visiting with crackers. Abstinence, abstinence and abstinence in food and drink against the ferocity of corruption, spiritual and physical! The regent of the choirboys Bogoyavlensky is smart. While you still can, begin to mortify the raging flesh through abstinence, prayer, and fasting. Every minute vigil over yourself is necessary. Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. The glory that the devil wanted to steal from God, desiring to become equal to God, which he tried to persuade us to do and is inclining all today's wise men and freethinkers, we give justice to God and will give back until the end of the world, and then forever and ever. Do not ascribe anything to yourself, no glory, and do not sacrilegiously steal it from God - you are from nothing and nothing, everything in you is from God; do not take away glory from God and in visible nature, do not say that the world was formed by itself. Glory was not accepted from man - glory from the only God, the righteous Judge and knower of the secrets of the heart. What food has been previously deprived of from the generous Providence of God? - Nothing. We thank the all-wise and all-good Providence. Anna Konstantinovna is one of your wife’s family, her sister. Your duty is to provide for her in orphanhood and widowhood. God will not leave you for this. Above your life, value the commandments of your God - the Creator, Savior, Benefactor, Provider, Judge of the all-good, wise, omnipotent, faithful, true, unchangeable; repent immediately, sincerely, deeply, firmly; hate all sin and love righteousness. He loved righteousness and hated iniquity [Ps. 44, 8]. He who loves God hates evil [Ps. 96, 10]. Yesterday evening, with great boldness, the Lord granted me the gift of marriage - I thank the Lord - but until I became upset with the sexton, that is, instead of the sexton who performed the reading, there was a former Jewish guard. Here there was extreme weakness in the heart and fear. He also performed baptism in Murashov’s house with boldness. God bless! The laws of the Lord are firmly preserved by all the angelic armies, they are strictly and precisely followed by all the saints in heaven and the saints known to God on earth, all nature, all the worlds strictly obey them - fulfill them strictly, too. Thou hast commanded Thy commandments to be kept strictly [Ps. 118, 4]. If you want to enter eternal life, keep the commandments [Matt. 19, 17]. For the sake of God, for the sake of the image of God in you, for the sake of purity of heart, abstain from meat and fish and wine, especially grain. Drink and eat in moderation. How long is it dumb to burden yourself with food for you, a daily participant in Divine food and drink - the Most Pure Body and Blood of Christ God? You should not eat worldly food at all, for you are always full of Divine food. For My power is made perfect in weakness [2 Cor. 12, 9]. Where there is weakness, there is the power of God—wonderful things! Do not be discouraged when you are weak in spirit and body: where your weakness is, there is the power of God. Again today he gave me evidence through a simple man that His power is made perfect in people through weak ministry. (Ivan Andreevich Morozov - tanner.) It is time for you to turn from corruptible to incorruptible life, from the work of the flesh and belly to the work of God (you cannot serve God and mammon [Matthew 6:24]), from the search for the honor and glory of this world to the search for the honor of a heavenly calling, from the search for corruptible wealth to the search for incorruptible, incorruptible, eternal wealth; It’s time to separate the image of God from the dust, cleanse it, renew it. I suffer from weakness of will and determination. You need to bind yourself with vows, force yourself to fulfill good intentions, for example, to fast, to not eat meat and fish. Early mass. I thank the Lord, who revived me even today, when I was dead in soul! Oh, what a sweet revival I felt in my being upon receiving the Holy Mysteries, what a light, subtle, life-giving fire that burned away my sins! What a world! What sweetness! What tenderness! Glory to the Lord for everything! Meat food is very difficult for the heart - it languishes, aches, and becomes coarse; insensibility and uncleanness affect him more and more because of animal food. I thank, I thank the Long-suffering and Many-merciful One, who once again deigned me, indecent, evil-tempered, to partake of the divine and life-giving Mysteries for peace, deliverance and sanctification. Again the life-giving fire in the mouth and inside - in the heart and throughout the whole being, again the bliss of divine union! But again I fell many times into wickedness and malice! And after repentance in them - again the mercy and forgiveness of the Lord of my belly. At the morning, at 12 noon, memorial service at Nikiforova’s, the Lord solemnly delivered me from anger towards my sister, sister-in-law Anna, accepting my sincere inner repentance. She has not done me any harm now, except for some disturbances in the house. But unrest must be endured without anger: anger will not correct unrest, but love, which covers everything, can conveniently correct it with meekness and patience. We say: we leave our debtor, but how many, including me, a sinner, harbor a long-standing grudge against someone for insults done long ago, and this malice arises in the heart at every meeting with that person, at every word he says, which sounds to us like insincerity, deceit, resentment, even if there is not a shadow of all this in all his words! How, therefore, we lie before God and before ourselves and before people when we read these words every day! A great thing is kindness! For one kindness, the Lord will forgive many sins of kindly people, and will condemn those who are evil even with good deeds to Gehenna, for if... I am not an imam of love, I am nothing [1 Cor. 13, 2]. How many times have I been entangled by the evil of the devil at the initiative and assistance of the devil, how many times have I sincerely repented, and again been carried away by this madness, defiled by this stench! O holy saints of God, glorified by kindness and all virtue. I am as distant from you as the earth is from the sky! You are light, I am darkness, you are fragrant flowers, I am the stench of hell, you are truly great, I am low and vile. O my wicked soul! O obscene, evil-smelling flesh! How long will I not hate you with all the fullness of hatred? How long will I crucify you? How long will you, strangers, insult my God? How long will I be with you? How long will there be evil and the charm of passions in my sides and at the bottom of my heart? How long will Satan ride? I constantly glorify God’s love for mankind, but I myself hate other people. What kind of madness, what kind of insolence? I glorify God’s bounty, but I myself am stingy, greedy, and hard-hearted! I wear a cross on my chest, but I have not yet understood the mystery, the power, the mind of the cross, I have not yet entered into its spirit - into the spirit of boundless love, into the spirit of patience, self-sacrifice, submission and devotion to the will of God, into the spirit of God's truth, into the spirit of eternal judgment! Until now I daily crucify Christ within myself; Instead of crucifying my flesh with passions and lusts, I crucify Christ in my neighbors, depriving them, out of hardness of heart, out of addiction to self-interest, of what is necessary for life; I myself live in luxury, but I don’t give them even what they need, although they ask me for what they need before the gates of the house, and I despise, condemn, and revile them. The cross has ceased to remind me of the immeasurable self-exhaustion of God's love for my salvation and the salvation of the sinful world, of the terrible torment of the cross, of the indescribable shame, of the extreme shame suffered for the sake of me, the indecent, by the Son of God, of the necessity for me of self-denial for the sake of my salvation, kindness, humility, patience, abstinence, obedience; he became for me only a sign of vanity - a terrible thing! - instead of always looking at him with fear, love and gratitude! Today, during a memorial service, he distorted my prayer, the work of prayer for the repose of the soul of the deceased; Instead of crying about my sins, I sobbed a crafty, lustful laugh and because of what? - Because of the pectoral cross. I imagined that Father John Tsvetkov was paying special, surprised attention to my pectoral cross, which was different from the usual ones, and it became funny to me, and, like a trunk, the devil began to move, excite, and confuse my heart with laughter! Damn this inappropriate laughter, this senseless play of a smile on my face, this dragging of the devil's tail through my insides - this painful laughter! Oh, how the all-crafty enemy doesn’t laugh at me! Now inappropriate fear, now foolish laughter acts in me, now pride, now malice, anger and envy, now fornication, now impatience, grumbling and despondency, now laziness, now covetousness, now gluttony and gluttony and drunkenness, now lustful movements. I curse the many-faceted and many-headed sin, although I am carried away by it involuntarily. The glutton curses Christ in his members, for, while he pleases the belly, he does not care to please God: while he cares about the belly, he does not care about the spirit; does not care about the hungry, poor, naked, sick, unfortunate neighbor, for he thinks absurd and nasty things, speaks and does empty things, because he has made himself incapable of sublime thoughts and deeds. Does a glutton serve God and stand at the throne of God - and here he is a slave of the stomach, and here it inclines his thoughts and feelings, aspirations, hopes to the earth and tears him away from heaven. Woe are our hearts, he says, and he himself was the first to bow his eyes to the vanity of the world. Woe to those who have become accustomed to gluttony, greed, satiety, greed, and lust! They are slaves of the belly and the thing that moves on the belly and the breasts, and not servants of God! Again to madness, madness, to the mistakes of your neighbor, your gravest sin - anger at the sinner! Anger never acts so strongly as when I am fed up (noticed many times)! All saints and all Christians are one, not many; everything in God and Christ is one, and everything is in the image of God, although with the wounds of the passions; everything is from one man, everyone has one God the Father, everyone has one hope. Just love each other, and calling on the saints is not far away. A satiated belly, a lustful belly, is my and God’s worst enemy: it makes the heart nasty, blasphemous, wicked, lazy, fearful, laughter-loving, and prodigal. John Kushchnik († 450), venerable, came from a rich and noble family of a Constantinople nobleman; He labored first in the monastery of the vigilant in Bethany, then in Constantinople in a bush (tent, hut) built at the gate of his parents’ house; was recognized by his parents after his death from the Gospel, which was given to him by his parents and which lay with his body. His memory is January 15 (28). 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