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I thank the Lord, who made me worthy to perform the Divine Liturgy with a firm voice (milk and veal the night before) and to partake of the Divine and life-giving Mysteries without judgment (less need to be dissolved). Grant me not to live for myself, but for You, Lord, not to work for selfishness, but to love You and my neighbor. I thank the Lord, who breathed His life-giving breath into my heart through the prayer of my sincere contrition and repentance through His merciful and enlightening grace, who had mercy and strengthened me to unfailingly and cheerfully perform a memorial service for the deceased servant of God Varvara Goremykina (general), in concelebration with Father Porfiry of Nadporozhsky, in the presence of officers and ladies, military officers. Remember what you heard from Father Peter Petrovich Preobrazhensky regarding the spirit and direction of the students of the navigator or technical school, in which he teaches the Law of God and the Russian language, and keep this in mind how they look at us, the clergy, at the Law of God, at worship, at the church, at religion. Extremely ridiculous and sad. Oh, spirit of the century! Oh, materialism! I thank the Lord and the Most Pure Mother of God Mary, who allowed me to perform three daily services without stumbling. Grace of the Lord, intercession of the Most Pure One. Amen. We prayed and saw this help. O quick-to-hear Lord! Glory to You! O quick-hearing Mother of God, glory to Thee! Amen. I thank the Lord, who showed me His wondrous help during the service of Matins, Liturgy and Vespers in a stumbling-free service and who gave me a clear and strong voice. I thank my Queen, the Most Holy Theotokos, my speedy Helper. He served early after Matins in a row. Forgive me, Lord, for my feelings of hostility towards my sister Anna K. Let me be lenient towards her, as You are lenient and patient with me. Who is without sin? I am the first sinner. Plant, O Lord, All-Merciful, plant in my heart love that is long-suffering and covers everything. Let my wife, having no children of her own, spend time with her sister’s children: they are children of birth, children of God; This is a godly thing, so long as ten nannies’ children don’t go bad, so long as the mother, eating extensively, doesn’t die alive, doing very little, and I don’t die alive, eating extensively. Have mercy on us, Lord! My wife is a selfless, loving wife and woman. I'm not like that. She is much, much more worthy than me in many ways. Glory to the Lord! May 3. Morning. I thank the Lord, who showed me His extraordinary, gracious help during the service of Matins: I served without stumbling, with a firm voice (the day before I drank beer and ate herring with white bread). During the liturgy I felt extreme violence from fornication-like thoughts, tickling, embarrassment, and tightness. At the great entrance, only one heir was remembered, and he was not mentioned by name and the words may the Lord God remember... - the enemy became weak. Then I came to a great feeling of repentance, tenderness, self-abasement, and tears occurred that flowed until the end of the mass; received communion into the world, purification, sanctification and renewal, the face was enlightened, adorned with the radiance of the glory of God. Thanks be to Him who transforms bread and wine and me, a sinner! At night and during the day, especially in the morning, I felt extreme lustful excitement and tightness in my sides, in the repositories of semen. This is from herring and beer or from excess. You don’t need to eat at night, or just a little. Strengthen me in love, Lord! Destroy and purge hostility. I thank the Lord, who showed me help during the service of Matins. The chest seems to be clogged. This is because last night I ate quite a lot of bread with quick butter and drank tea (and then two glasses of milk). There was no need to drink tea - just a little oil. I thank the Lord, who has granted me help from above to perform all three daily services without stumbling and to partake of the Divine Mysteries without condemnation. (From eating a sufficient amount of thick food (meat and bread) the day before, the voice was very difficult and unclean.) Because of the belly, because of the belly, or stomach, how much hostility, enmity there is on the family or on one of the family, sister Anna, who, however, became very modest and humble and helpful and affectionate towards me, despite my hostility (may hostility disappear)! And the womb, this ruler of ours in this life here, so short, will be abolished and destroyed by God - this cauldron will no longer exist! Why are we fighting? Why do we lose love, the essence of Christianity? If... I am not an imam of love, I am nothing [1 Cor. 13, 2]. Why do we envy the extensive nutrition of others, living with us or not, luxurious clothing, freshness and thickness of the body and face, etc.? It's all dust. The only thing needed is God! And we leave Him. On May 5th, before waking up at five o'clock, I saw in a dream the holy relics of Metropolitan Philip, who said: I clearly heard them speaking; the saint seemed to awaken and, in response to questions from some pious woman, began to speak to her; Fear took over me. It was on some kind of trip (wasn’t it everyday?). During the journey, a rumor or a dispute arose over something. She asked: who was to blame for it? He blamed some women. I told him to ask about himself, what he would say about me - he blamed me very much. Only I could not clearly hear what I was saying, and others did not hear clearly, only one thing they heard was that I was guilty of a lot, and at that time I was aware of various sins in myself. This aroused me to repentance and tenderness. Another time I approach the relics, I see them again open and speaking, I see the very face of the saint, senile, fasting (the nose is somewhat humped), handsome. I want to speak, and, as if on purpose, my voice is lost, as if an evil spirit is preventing me from speaking. I barely said in a whisper: Saint Philip, pray to the Lord for me. Soon I woke up. Ukha and boiled fish strengthen me greatly: today I feel heavy; Why was I greedy yesterday - I ate white bread, drank tea and beer! How fortunate it is for the holy saints of God, I thought, - they worked hard, fought in this life, and now they rest and will rest for endless centuries! Why am I dozing, sleeping? Why do I cleave to this here, to this multi-passionate flesh, corruptible in myself and others? What about awards and money? God forbid you ever eat fish soup and fish and drink tea at night: they terribly strengthen your stomach and weigh it down. I thank the Lord for the easy service of the liturgy and for the gift of union with God in the Divine Mysteries, for peace, freedom, joy, spiritual sweetness. I was in class at the gymnasium, serving my debt in the second grade of the first department for Thursday. When Christ comes, will he find faith on earth? [ OK. 18, 8]. That's where it goes. Now they don't understand faith. All faith is good. Indifference in faith is the same as unbelief. (Meeting the Shah of Persia: performance in Russia in honor of his pagan custom - the slaughter of a ram.) Where there is constant satiety and drunkenness, there is also no faith. Where there is faith, there is abstinence. Where there is anger and malice, where there is envy and strife, there is also no faith. Where there is faith, there is meekness, kindness, humility, sincere goodwill to everyone. When I walked this evening and looked at the sky, the wonderful harmony of the whole world of God came to me, I was raised in thought to the Author of all God, I imagined His greatness, originlessness, infinite goodness, wisdom, omnipotence, holiness, indescribable beauty, endless peace, endless light, endless bliss, immutability, and then I thought: if in everything In the world of God there is such wonderful harmony and beauty, due to the most exact, strict compliance of created things, great and small, with the laws of the Creator, then why is there no harmony in the moral world on earth, between people, the most perfect creation, this small world? Why is there so much moral ugliness in it, so many disasters, disorders, untruths, for example, the seizure of earthly wealth by some and the complete poverty of others, or mutual hatred and envy, pride, luxury, gluttony, drunkenness, fornication, lewdness, etc.? And I find the reason for all this in the initial non-observance of the creative commandment: you shall not take it away from him [Gen. 2, 17]. The cause of all evil is a person’s pride and greed and an exaggerated opinion of himself. Most live only for themselves; many, many live like gods, idolizing themselves and demanding that others adore them. Harmony in your soul can be restored through observing the commandments of the Gospel. Come to Me... and I will give you rest [Matt. 11, 28]. Having arrived at the sea, I looked into the distance and saw the light of a lighthouse, shining brightly with the purest light. From this light I ascended to the incorruptible, eternal, spiritual light with which the Lord eternally shines, with which the holy Angels eternally shine, the holy saints shine and will shine - and I thought, why am I still clinging to this temporary, corruptible light, to this aging, empty life? Why do I fall into the darkness of sin and passions, why am I darkened so often and so insanely sinful darkness - and I decided: it’s time for me to move from darkness into light, from passions to good deeds, from anger to love, from intemperance to abstinence, from earthly, corruptible, unclean love to heavenly, holy, incorruptible, from hypocritical and selfish to unhypocritical and selfless, from the love of creatures to Creative, Trinity love. God! Grow my young garden! Grow the gymnasium garden, the garden of poor children. Grow this material garden, which the villager planted for me today (these birch trees). I thank the Lord for the gift of tenderness during the Sunday all-night vigil (on May 6th, Sunday of the Samaritan Woman), given to me through my prayer. I vividly imagined that I was standing before His throne together with the Angels and saints, before the eyes of God, all the more dark than His brightest eyes, because I was completely naked and declared before His eyes. Again I prayed sincerely for His sheep, according to His grace. (When reading in colloquial language the Gospel of the Resurrection, out of embarrassment and fear, at the end he did not utter the words: for it is not in the Scriptures that it is fitting for Him to rise from the dead [John 20:9].) Do not have faith out of sight [James. 2, 1 ], but on souls, which are the same for everyone.) From eating veal and coffee with cream and tea with special pleasure and from a second sleep during the day, I was inflamed with an unclean fire of prodigal... but soon I woke up, raised my eyes to heaven and asked the Lord for mercy and cleansing. It is dangerous to enjoy food and drink. From church services, take away the consciousness of the unity of all people, especially all Orthodox Christians (from the litany, litia, stichera, canon), and love each other, help each other, take care of each other, encourage each other to do good deeds. The Lord performed extraordinary, wonderful, amazing, terrible things for our salvation: He became incarnate, suffered, died and rose again, and ascended into heaven; Heaven and earth were horrified at this and were completely amazed... 101 Everyone must always remember such deeds of the Lord, thank the Lord for them, be edified and comforted by them, and be inspired by them to do good deeds. What did the Church do for this? For constant remembrance and edification, she depicted them on icons, in daily, weekly and annual services, as if on a map. Do this in remembrance of Me [Lk. 22, 19]. The words of the evangelists: let what was spoken by N... the prophet be fulfilled, and the words of the Lord: it is done! [In. 19, 30 ] - show the close connection of the Old Testament with the New: what was predicted in the Old Testament was fulfilled in the New... That is why the Old Testament and New Testament scriptures are read and sung in the church, and that is why the antiphons... The deep wisdom of the Christian faith and worship, the deep immutable truth! Alas for me! I became the plaything of various passions: now hostility, now anger, now fornication, now intemperance, now contemplation, now vanity. Out of habitual greed, yesterday evening I drank three glasses of milk with black bread, after I also drank two glasses of sweet tea from one parishioner, and ate two oranges, and half a fluffy tavern pie. Soon I felt a cooling towards prayer and towards God; I could not read the akathists with warmth, as well as the canons. And in the morning I felt especially burdened in my heart and insides from yesterday’s satiety with milk, and could not pronounce many words due to the heaviness and tightness of my heart. He cursed intemperance, and today he again indulged in the same intemperance. Oh, the skill is evil and stubborn! Oh, free madness! I hate my sister-in-law Anna K. for her cunning that she secretly eats and drinks a lot, but says that she can’t eat anything - but don’t I do the same thing myself? Don’t I eat and drink a lot, and sometimes secretly, thinking that my wife and sister-in-law have many different foods and drinks of their own? I am irresponsible. Is it possible to quarrel over food and drink? Do not destroy with your food the one for whom Christ died [Rom. 14, 15 ]; The Kingdom of God is not food and drink [Rom. 14, 17]. Abstinence, abstinence is extremely necessary for me: because of intemperance, I am carried away by all sorts of passions, I become cold towards God, toward eternal life, and my soul and body become burdened, flabby, weaken, and my energy disappears. I need to take the point of view in relation to my sister-in-law that the characters of people are extremely different, depending on birth, upbringing, the environment in which a person was brought up and grew up, the character of parents (an apple is always not far from the tree), various everyday circumstances, acquaintance with famous people, happy or unhappy marriage, etc. In relation to myself, that is, to me, I must also have a correct view, not to spare yourself, not to cover up your shortcomings, but to imagine them in their present form and to blame yourself more for all your griefs and temptations, and not to others, placing all the blame on them. Indeed, there are so many bad sides in me: whims, waywardness, despotism, stubbornness, tyranny, guile, pride, envy, pride, anger. We must willingly serve our household and consider them our masters, according to the word of the Lord: whoever wants to be more than everyone else must be a slave to everyone and a servant to everyone [Mk. 9, 35]. God! Grant me the grace to always look upon my wife and sister-in-law and her children and household servants as Thy members, although weak, just as I myself am burdened with weaknesses, and treat them with meekness, tenderness, love, forbearance and long-suffering to them, if they sin in any way. Wake up! Grant, Lord, to treat everyone this way. Wake up. Grant, Lord, that I may never, even for a moment, have hostility toward anyone, except the enemies of Your name. Grant me to be sick, to feel sorry, to pray to You for all those who hate and offend me and for all those who have a cold and cause harm to me. May I abound, O Lord, in the love of glory for Thy name's sake. Grant me to always carry Your commandment in my heart - love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind... and your neighbor as yourself [Matt. 22, 37 – 39]. Until now I was dozing, sleeping, not understanding, being senseless. From now on let me be awake and sober, let my loins be girded and a burning lamp [Lk. 12, 35 ]; May the oil of love and mercy, meekness and kindness, obedience, patience, self-sacrifice not become scarce in me. I want, Lord, help me. Amen. How meager I am in self-sacrifice! Today my family dined without me, contrary to their promise to wait for me until I went out for a while, and I was indignant at this and fell out of love! I have sinned before God! I repent. Rule, Lord, our life in peace, guide my wife, her sister and my (for her and more for You) Anna towards harmony, so that she may not resist forever. Carnal wisdom, or manifold passions, act strongly in me and confuse me every day, and - a strange thing, despite myself, I submit to them, like a slave. Even though at the ninth hour you tasted death for our flesh, put to death the wisdom of my flesh, O Christ God, and save me 102. God! I thank You, for my wife came to me with a word of peace and love, and after her, sister Anna, also with a word of peace, humility, and love. This is Your grace, Your dispensation, Your providence! I thank Your miraculous hand! I thank the Lord, who has made me worthy to celebrate the liturgy today, although with great spiritual labor and weakness (from the abundance of mammals), and to partake of revival and renewal. At the thanksgiving service I could not pronounce the words in the Gospel: having returned to give glory to God [Lk. 17, 18], and in the prayer of thanksgiving the words: always bring thanksgiving, and be worthy to speak and sing praises 103. The enemy ate, weakened sin for my sake, for the sake of rudeness and the burden of my well-fed heart... Do not count it as a great thing that through your labors you nourish and give rest to sister Anna K. with her children and her servant—the Lord generously sends you light, easy, and abundant food, and besides, your labors are useful and life-giving for you. Everything costs you nothing. Rejoice that through you, family and blood relatives and many poor people rest in peace. For everything, give thanks – and I thank – the Lord. And for your sins, which are countless, cry - and cry - Lord, have mercy! I believe in one God - in the Holy Trinity, in the Holy Church, I confess baptism and the tea of ​​resurrection to the life of the next century; I have come to know the Lord - but I live unworthy of knowledge, unworthy of the most holy faith, not as it requires, I do not live worthy of the calling to which I am called. God! Teach me to live worthy of the title of Christian! I sinned before God today: today I had hostile feelings regarding Governor Kazakevich for what seemed like a careless response to my greeting. Forgive me, Lord! (Meeting in the garden.) Letter to Father Pavel Vladimirovich Mikhailov. To the grave of Ratch Alex. Because of the face, because of the outline, because of the mine, I, a sinner, sometimes will hate a person, and again because of the face, because of the pleasant outline, beauty, I will love the person carnally. This is how the devil plays with me, playing in me with the faces of men, equally created in the image of God, like toys, adapting them according to my pride to my personal carnal interests (lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and worldly pride [1 John 2:16]) and thereby extremely humiliating the godlike dignity of human nature and its affinity with God. Love your neighbor for God, not for yourself or for man. Do not idolize, do not idolize yourself. I thank the Lord, who showed me His great mercy to perform the early liturgy in the Duma with ease of soul and body and to partake in the renewal of the soul and body of the Divine Mysteries. The voice was clear, loud, free. I thank the Lord for repeated deliverance from sins through heartfelt prayer and for success in the word (in the gymnasium) and in everyday affairs. If someone praises someone with the intention of humiliating you, and the person being praised did not have those commendable qualities for which they are praised (for example, a wife) or actually did, then do not be offended by this, but rejoice as a brother and out of Christian duty that there was such a good person or still exists, or in general there are such good people, even if they praised you as a reproach; thank God that there are good people, for people are not demons. You, throw away your petty and jealous pride and humble yourself, admitting to yourself that you really are not like that. (Anna K. today praised her late husband that he took care of her and was not angry with her, but was angry with the servants, whether she was guilty or not; but if so, the deceased was wrong, for he was partial to his wife.) Regarding the misconceptions of the servant Anna K. Maria, my sister-in-law Anna blames her for everything. God! You see who is to blame and judge for yourself. But it is true that she drove away several servants from her, and I heard from Maria how Anna Konstantinovna cursed... If Anna Konstantinovna wants me to take care of her, that is, to let all her pranks go to her, like her late husband, and thus indulge her in everything, please her vanity, caprice, self-will, pride - then I do not agree to this, for it is ungodly and harmful. God! Grant me to correct her with meekness and a spirit of love. One thing I notice about myself is that when I see the shortcomings of my sister Anna K. or hear about her untruths - arrogance, pride, self-will, arbitrariness, I myself do not express meek regret for her or calm feelings and reflections, but flare up with anger and malice at her and even at her children, which is very unfair and reveals my own moral illness and makes the words applicable to me: doctor, heal yourself! Oh Lord! Heal me myself, who suffers from grave sins, take away my anger and give me kindness, patience, generosity and meekness; under the guise of zeal for the salvation of the lost and perishing - let me not hate Anna Konstantinovna, who was some of the causes of spiritual destruction, but let me worry about everyone and let me pray warmly for everyone, so that Satan does not laugh at me. You see, Lord! At Your sight, may my sins melt away, and may all sinful darkness flee far away. To the doctor! Heal and have mercy on me. Saint Nicholas completely turned into fragrant myrrh with his body. This is a sign that he was completely freed by the grace of God from the stench of sin and was completely made holy by the fragrance of the Holy Spirit. What a wonderful lesson for all of us who reek of the stench of sin! I am used to being indignant at my family and being dissatisfied with them for unimportant disorders, but I am extremely mistaken: I need to constantly be indignant at myself, and not at them for my grave sins of youth and for the real sins of pride, self-love, effeminacy, envy, willfulness, stubbornness, gluttony, satiety, heavy drinking, murmuring, insolence, disobedience, blasphemy, hard-heartedness, reproach, cursing, stinginess, covetousness, laziness and negligence, partiality and rancor, ill-will and many other all kinds of sins. I need to constantly mourn myself, put myself lower and worse than everyone else, humbly serve everyone with joy, readiness, humility and submission, fast and pray and thus correct myself and make amends for my sins, and not think evil about my family and constantly look for excuses for discontent or hostility towards them and thereby torment both myself and them, comfort the devil and the Lord, the Lover of Mankind, who commanded above all mutual love, always anger. So, let me always be dissatisfied with myself, indignant and angry with myself, but I will leave my family to their own understanding and the grace of God, for they are not without reason. The enemy has completely robbed me, as he often robs me during divine services, tearing sacred words from my heart, from my thoughts, from my tongue, as today on vacation and when reading the prayer to Christ, the Light... You don’t need to eat caviar and cheese at night, but yesterday I visited N.M. Semenov (May 8) ate. God! I thank Your immeasurable goodness, for yesterday before the All-Night Vigil you saved me from hostility, when I internally repented, going to the Duma church and in the church itself. The same hostility has invaded this day (May 9): pluck it out 104, Lord, and heal me, grant me peace and freedom of spirit through the prayers of Thy saint Nicholas. And give understanding to my household, so that they will not be like animals, like dogs or cattle and horses. You are now leaving God and His holy church, holy worship, and you do not feel your orphanhood without God, His impoverishment in your hearts - but, pathetic! you will feel all the misery of the orphanhood of your souls without God at the hour of your death and after your death, when all the vain pleasures that intoxicate your souls now are suddenly taken away from you, when all the charm of worldly blessings for you disappears and you will be brought face to face with your soul, with its nakedness, ugliness, poverty, helplessness, with its eternal misfortune, with its falling away from God, with impenetrable, eternal darkness, with an unquenchable, fierce fire that does not shine forever and ever. (To those leaving the service.) I thank the Lord, who made me worthy to perform the Liturgy on the day of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker on Wednesday and to say the word with boldness, and today who granted the grace of preliminary repentance and tenderness when reading the rules for communion, to cheerfully, with boldness, with a clear and sonorous voice, to perform the Liturgy and to partake of the uncondemned life-giving Mysteries. Three and a half o'clock in the evening. I thank you, most merciful Lord, for you have heard my prayer, that you may take away from my heart the hostility towards my sister and the sorrow, the oppression and the inner fire. You immediately showed Your mercy - I got rid of hostility, fire, oppression and sorrow and became peaceful and free. Plant and strengthen in me, Lord, love, meekness, and patience. Because of my words, which were not at all offensive, Sister Anna was offended by me and even shed tears. And she herself made many cry bitter tears and allowed one, and maybe more than one, girl to become depraved. May this not be a sin for her. God! I do not judge: You are a righteous Judge. She said: believe that everyone enjoys living in their own corner (and I was ready to cry). Before and during lunch, Anna K. was very affectionate, but I was silent and stern. Sinful. I had to respond with sincere affection to her affection. But I thought that she was very forgetful and dreamed of living forever on the labors of others for nothing and in every possible way pampering herself and spoiling her children in every possible way. This thought, like a nightmare, often torments me. But it is a lie, a slander of the devil, aimed at the destruction of mutual love and peace. The disembodied enemy armed me against my father-in-law, and now he is arming me against his daughter, my wife’s sister and mine. Away! Brethren! According to the duty of the priesthood, I must tell you that our stupidest passion in this sinful life is our addiction to earthly, [transient] goods and pleasures and complete indifference to heavenly, eternal ones; We all tend to eat and drink well and, it seems, hardly consider ourselves not in heaven if we eat for lunch according to our taste or dress in the latest fashion, for example in black velvet and flowing braids, or put on ribbons of red, red or dark red, dark red, and especially blue, blue - I don’t know where we are then: in heaven or on earth, but rather, it seems, on earth, for earthly We were created from the earth and we will all go back to the earth 105 All this, brethren, is perishable, but where is the spiritual? Today I sinned gravely before God, before my wife and before people: on a whim, I ordered my wife to cut off the hem of her cassock, which was tattered, although there were other intact cassocks, but she resisted, and when I began to insist, she began to swear; I began to insist even more, and when she persisted, I ordered the servant to do this - my wife began to swear and scream even more; I called her crazy, and I myself was very indignant and so went to class; On the way, he repented and calmed down, but when he arrived home, he was again embarrassed and angry with his wife for extremely rude and sarcastic curses. My wife offered peace, but when I began to give her instructions, she did not want to accept them and began to reproach me; I soon offered her peace, but she did not accept. I myself am sinful in this matter as a boss: I started this out of jealousy, envy, willfulness and stubbornness - it was easy to do without this cassock, I didn’t like it at all, but I wanted my wife to listen to me, but she began to persistently make excuses and, in addition, scold and reproach me with beggars, that I give everything to them, but supposedly I don’t give her anything. I repent before God and people. Oh, what a blessing I have lost - love and peace! What are you angry about: because your wife left you to live for your sister and her little children? So what? Glory to God, it means that the time has come for you to fulfill the word of the Savior about leaving your wife for the Kingdom for the sake of God [Lk. 18, 29 – 30 ]! And let him leave - live for God alone, and to deny yourself and live for God and for the good of others unselfishly, out of one love (oh, if only for love!) means living not for yourself, but for Christ, and this is the greatest happiness. So, leave the rage, the rage of your wife, who does not want to obey you, instigated by the enemy, bear it calmly and pray for her. Remember that she was often kind to you, remember that she also has her own pride, her passions, a sense of her dignity - in a word, that she is not without weaknesses. Believe that she is not arming herself against you personally, but against your passions, against the evil that is in you, for when you are kind, she does not know how to caress you. Thank God that, at my invitation, my wife humbled herself, repented, showed me submission and, what is surprising - such is the power of grace - bowed at my feet four times, asking for forgiveness. This is due to my internal repentance before God and before her and as a result of prayer. Yes, she loved me again, hugged me. Have mercy on her, Lord! She sincerely admitted her guilt, and as great as her rage and anger towards me had been before, she was now so meek and kind. Glory to the Lord, our Benefactor! Glory to the holy faith! In our faith, the Lord has granted us countless blessings, which we must remember and correspond to with deeds, and yet man is very prone to forgetting, especially everything related to true faith and reverence for God, or the Law of God. The Church reminds us of these blessings and our responsibilities through worship and the Sacraments, sacred rites and holy icons. Churches, holy icons, worship are the embodiment of faith. I thank the Lord, who reconciled me with my wife and gave her amazing repentance and humility. Just as to consider all actions, both good and bad, indifferent means to be immoral or to have no morality, so to consider all religions or faiths the same means to have no faith. There is one truth - and there is one true faith. What is the thought of the Holy Church when depicting the faces of saints, when invoking them during prayer? – The one that the saints and we are one Church, one body, one members; they help us with their prayers for spiritual kinship with us and sympathy for us as half-blooded ones. This membership of ours with them obliges us to imitate them. Every Christian has his representative in heaven: either St. John the Theologian, or the Baptist, or St. Nicholas - let us remember that there is eternal life. Early Sunday mass. I thank the Lord, who did not allow me to relax and fall during the liturgy, but who gave me help from above, strength and boldness to complete the entire service and with the general prayer service without stumbling. I thank the Lord, who revived and strengthened me through the communion of the Holy Mysteries, and when the enemy instantly confused and wounded me after communion through grief at the deacon for his haste, then, through the prayer of my repentance, soon by the power of the same Divine Mysteries, the same Most Pure Blood of His, shed for the world and for me, he healed, pacified and revived me, so that I I was comforted and rejoiced in His swift and strong mercy. Glory to Your power, Lord! Glory to Your life-giving Mysteries, in whose image You manifest great mercy and strength in me over my sins and invisible enemies. ([Noted], meat hardens the heart and is incapable or incapable of faith and love.) They want to do without the Church, without church marriage; Society, they say, has developed the belief that it is better to live in a civil marriage: take a girl, and even live with her, if you don’t like it, get rid of her. (In the District Court, a bailiff.) In general, officers and scientists consider the Church to be a superfluous institution and do not go to worship. Attack it, denounce it. Show the most harmful consequences of this. To love each and every one is a safe thing, a good, reasonable, beautiful thing, but to hate is a crazy, thieving, ugly, bad thing. Hatred comes from extreme pride, greed, and satiety. A Christian needs fasting to pacify his multi-passionate flesh. This post is useful for everything. As I expected, this is what happened: yesterday I drank a lot of sweet tea, in addition, I ate cheese (in the evening, and at lunch there was meat and enough salad), and this resulted in an excess of seeds, strong excitement at night and a prodigal outpouring in my sleep. O greed and intemperance! How long will I, foolish and ungrateful, trample on the words of the Gospel? How long will I sleep? When will I be sober and awake? What a spoiled, envious heart I have! I was carrying out a dead body and met Father Porfiry Nadporozhsky, who was carrying out a baby: what? - I was stung with envy that, here, a visiting priest was correcting the needs of other people’s parishes, taking income away from his fellow men. But then he realized his sin, his addiction to earthly things, his vanity, his dislike for his neighbor, self-love, carnality, pride, passion for self-possession; brought to mind the brevity of life, death and the answer at the Last Judgment - and was touched, and begged the Lord for mercy - and was pardoned! Oh, how little we need and how much we desire, we are greedy! This is how I sin at home regarding my sister-in-law and her children, just as outside the house I sinned regarding Father Porfiry. Same feeling. And for whom does the Lord have mercy on me? - For widows, orphans, beggars, poor relatives. My wife is kinder than me. I am angry, indecent, fickle, crafty, suspicious, envious, partial, amorous, contemptuous, capricious, stubborn, murmuring, sad, cowardly and timid, voluptuous, money-loving, evasive, deceitful, conniving and servile, flattering, hypocritical, disobedient, disrespectful, impudent; lascivious, obstinate, unpeaceful, unfriendly, grumpy, impatient, vindictive, vindictive, sometimes gloomy, lazy, careless, inaccurate, cold, gluttonous. I have an abyss of sins! Oh, if it were not for the faith of Christ, if it were not for the Savior correcting the aspirations of my evil heart, I would have perished long ago, my soul would have entered hell. Glory, Lord, to Your long-suffering! Ascension of the Lord. I thank the Lord, who accepted my service, unworthy before His inscrutable greatness and goodness, and who made me worthy to partake of His divine, immortal and life-giving Mysteries and to speak the word with boldness. I thank the Lord, who, through my intense prayer, delivered me from the worst despondency after a day’s sleep during late mass. Two prayer services: with Chekalin (Prokhor Florovich) and Alexander Antonov (Petrovich), the navigator, were very timely and useful for me - I was healed of mental and physical illness. After the prayer service, I ate a meat pie at Alexander Antonovich’s and drank a glass of sherry. The consumption of milk and cream on Wednesday morning (May 16) and the resulting nocturnal emission resonated heavily, heavily in me. During early mass it was extremely difficult for me: my heart was cold, dead, powerless for sincere prayer, for love, crampedness and sorrow weighed on it; I have repeatedly fallen to the throne of mercy in repentance and prayer for mercy, healing, revival and confirmation; I was in the mouth of Belial, I felt it in my heart. Finally, the prayer of faith and hope broke the strength of the enemy - he disappeared, ran away, damned, seeing strong opposition to himself, and I performed the Liturgy from the celebration of the Sacrament to the end without stumbling and received Holy Communion with boldness, into peace, purification, sanctification, renewal and revival. Glory to the infinite mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. Strong is His power to forgive sins and crush the strength of the enemy, to break his weapons in which he trusts. The Lord is truly strong and mighty, the Lord is mighty in battle [Ps. 23, 8]. Oh, may the power of the enemy be crushed throughout the world! God! The world is Yours, because it exists through You. Save him, depending on fate. Look at the enemy who flatters the entire universe, and crush his deceits. God! Destroy the blasphemers of Your name, Your God-inspired Scripture, who preach the eternity of the world, matter and space, who reject the Creator of the world. Hasn’t the time come, with the general unrest in the Christian world, with the general corruption of morals in the Christian race, with the impoverishment of faith, to take away the Kingdom of God from it, to transfer the treasure of heavenly faith to the tongues that produce the fruits of the Kingdom of God? For Christians in their lives have now become true idolaters, and worse than idolaters. Read the second letter of the Holy Apostle Peter, the place where he speaks about Christians of the last time, what they will be like. They really are like that now, that is, they have reached extreme unbelief and wickedness. Where is the holy faith? Where is its effect on the hearts of people, on morals? Alas! The lamp went out. Everyone lost interest in her. The noble, rich and noble and learned of this world are not in the church of God. He is considered the property of some commoners. The world develops its own corrupt, crooked rules of life, not wanting to obey the direct rules of faith and the Church; The adulterous and sinful world is tired of obeying the Gospel, which curbs its destructive passions; it wants to be governed itself. But woe to the zealous horse that has thrown off its bridle! He will rush from the rapids into the abyss and will break and die. And don't we see this? – We see and hear almost every day. I must learn not to trust my old man, that is, the vague, passionate movements of my heart, and not to fulfill his lusts, for trusting him and fulfilling his lusts leads to destruction. Drinking beer and sweet tea is very harmful to the heart and to the flesh: it hurts to commit adultery, especially at night, in your sleep. This is what happened to me on the night of May 19th. The enemy came in the form of a maiden and let’s kiss me. Prodigal excitement is the strongest, most annoying. I thank the Lord, who made me worthy to perform the early Divine Liturgy without stumbling and to partake of the Holy Mysteries without condemnation. My flesh is greatly enraged by eating too much and drinking too much sweets; I became angry and irritable and prodigal in my heart. Lord, have mercy! To abstinence! Eating meat is harmful for me, because it is too nutritious, but I eat it; Drinking cream is harmful, but I drink it. I, many-passionate, am upset and offended that a three-year-old child, raised by me, my dependent, turns away from me when I caress him, pushes, kicks his legs on the floor, because he is spoiled; and I myself gave him some reason to be unkind to me, for I myself irritated him. Am I the only one who loves those who love? Don't the pagans do the same? I must love those who hate, according to the word of the Lord [Matt. 5, 44]. Am I the only one who wants to be kind to those who are grateful? But the pagans also do the same. I must be kind to the ungrateful and overcome evil with good. And what is special evil in a child? The evil in me is what needs to be eradicated in every possible way, because it destroys me, it undermines my mental and physical life. May I acquire kindness through the grace of God. God! Change and raise this baby Rufina yourself, whom his mother and her sister, my wife, do not know how to raise. I thank the Lord, who yesterday during the all-night vigil took away the confusion and crampedness of my anger towards my family, who pacified my soul and gave me the grace of peaceful, pure, fiery prayer, and especially when people kissed the Gospel. (Painful irritation in the body and pain in the head, due, I think, to drinking cream and eating veal with fatty salad, or due to an excess of vital seeds, strongly asking to be released and not allowed in (I did a great deal of violence to myself), or from drinking beer the day before.) You are overwhelmed by passions - come here, to church, here there is a tried and true remedy against them: psalms and chants and spiritual songs that drive away passions and evil spirits from us, just as the psalms of David once drove away the spirit of malice from Saul, who suffered from melancholy. You like a civil marriage - but this is a marriage of the flesh, and not of the spirit, a union of the flesh, and not of the spirit, a very weak, ungrateful, selfish union, because it exists for the sake of one carnal pleasure, a union that does not give the strength or grace to love your girlfriend holy, spiritually, in Christ - a union, I will say in one word, adulterous, animal, demonic. Resurrection. Late mass. I felt extreme tightness and pressure in my sides and in my womb. I think it was from eating cream, meat, milk - in a word, from satiety, and even from eating greens - my stomach was poorly cooked. But everything is numb, despite the cramped conditions! Sinful habits from their frequent repetition turn into nature. It is all the more necessary to take strong measures against them. Happy is he who observes the fasts established by the Church. The womb will have no violent power over him. There is no truth in my heart; it constantly sins and strives for evil and impurity. Whether I serve a prayer service, or even read the Gospel of my Lord Jesus Christ, my heart sings its unclean or evil song, inhibiting my reading; Whether I perform the Liturgy, Matins, Vespers, sin confuses, oppresses, weighs me down, freezes me, and only then am I free from it, when with all my heart and with all my thoughts and with all my strength I cleave to the Lord, when in tears of tenderness I pour out my untruths and passions before God. There is no truth in my heart even when I treat my family at home, for there is no sincere, ardent love for them, and for some I have direct enmity, and long-standing, for various dislikes, for a proud and arrogant tone, for harsh, insulting words ever expressed in a quarrel, to which I, perhaps, gave rise to due to my impatience and pride, and for an idle life. But, Lord, give me the grace not to judge my household harshly, for with whatever judgment I judge them, so will You judge me, for I too can be idle and lazy, and I can be proud, angry, irritable, envious, money-loving, and unclean in heart. God! Grant me to be content with all my household, or to be patient and content with what I have, for You have not provided me and continue to provide me with all the gifts of Your goodness, and I lack nothing. Tame and always tame my heart, and give me grace and strength to love incorruptible and eternal blessings and strive for the future life by virtuous living. If anyone is a parasite, it is me, and not my sister-in-law A.K., with whom I am angry for living for free with my children and servants. And why be angry? If I am offended by living with me against my will and dependent on me, then God is for the offended person and God is against those who offended me, but to torment myself, to bother myself with the idea of ​​idleness, laziness of my sister, with the disturbances from her and the children in the apartment is reckless, because to other disturbances is added disorder in my own soul, torment, death. It’s better to give up on everything and give up your life to Christ God, Who is able to reward a hundredfold for shortcomings and to reprove and admonish your family. If you give alms to someone, it is a due thing, but living with your family in love is also a necessary thing. This is what the Lord commands. It’s a strange thing that when I’m fed up, I become more furious, angry with my family, and especially after the Liturgy, which means that I unworthily partake of the life-giving Mysteries. But what is more blessed and dearer than communion of the Holy Mysteries? For the sake of the Holy Mysteries, for their sake alone, I must neglect all earthly things and live in mutual love. Not to mention the fact that I am full and satiated with everything, satisfied and satisfied. Oh, all-evil, greedy, insatiable, evil, stingy, envious, sad flesh. Be gone, you damned one! God! Pour out love. Rejoice that you are not alone, but in a family, that your wife is not bored with her sister and children, do not bring upon yourself the wrath of God by internally driving away your wife’s sister and children. If you don’t have your own children, help raise your sister-in-law’s children, they are children of God. God will reward you for them, just as He rewards you. I thank the Lord, who saved me with great salvation through my inner prayer, when I was tormented by anger at my sister-in-law Anna and, at the same time, envy of her free life. But is it not for nothing that I live? I myself live idlely, I only please my passions and do not despise myself for that, but I hate my sister for her idleness. God! Grant me the gift of loving my sister and children and nourishing them, just as You love me, loving me and loving me, despising my sins. Thank You for liberation from evil and the tightness of hell. I sinned before the Lord and before myself by eating greedily after a walk to the cemetery; I went moreover to get more exercise after a hearty dinner (four eggs), and when I arrived, I again could not restrain myself from excess. Sinful, irresponsible! Oh, anger, madness, hellish, swift, violent! Who am I, passionate, not embittered with? It even happened, against his mother, because of some trifles: because of an awkward manner, because of an unsmooth, unbookish word, because of an unattractive face, etc. - and against his wife, too, because of empty things, and although he later realized, in hours of spiritual sobriety or in moments of torment, his madness, but then, by some evil habit, he was again subjected to the same hostile feelings - and the All-Good Lord endured everything to me. And now I’m again angry with my sister-in-law and her children for living with me, at my expense. What ridiculous reasons! Instead of rejoicing, seeing the contentment of my family, I am sad that they live with me and are happy with everything; Instead of treating them kindly, so as not to sadden them in any way, I address and speak with some kind of hostility, having a hard time living and talking with them, and getting irritated by all sorts of disorders that are inevitable with children. I blame myself mercilessly for all this and have the will to improve. I thank the Lord, who made me worthy to perform Vespers and the Sacrament of Marriage without stumbling (after a walk to the cemetery). Before the wedding, while talking with the deacon of the Church of the Epiphany in the altar, my head began to spin, and I almost fell - was it because I drank three glasses of coffee that the blood rushed to my head?.. The Lord cast out seven demons, seven major sins, from Mary Magdalene; and the gifts of the Holy Spirit are seven. I see a mote in my brother’s and sister’s eyes, but I don’t see a log in myself—that’s my wickedness! God! Raise me from earthly addictions to the heights of Christian love. Let me see Thy members in my neighbors and love them for Thy sake, denying myself. With what thought does the Church depict holy icons, commemorate them, ask for their intercession? All is one body in Christ - a body in which the members love each other, respect each other, help each other and save each other. During the service, prayer is offered to God for such important objects that all care and thought must be abandoned about extraneous earthly objects, as unimportant. In Church and at home we often glorify the eternity of God, so that they remember the eternity that lies ahead and awaits us, and that they themselves may be awarded eternal life. If you desire earthly blessings in church or even at home, your soul will be wounded and confused, sorrow and distress will overcome you, the fire of Gehenna will burn you. Do you strongly desire heavenly, spiritual blessings - peace, truth, and your soul will be pleased, pacified and spread. This is the true element of the soul, which is of heavenly origin as the image and likeness of God. In the presence of the District Court, at the end of it, I desired a reward for the work of being in the District Court for a whole day; I was angry that they were forcing us to work for nothing, and I was cruelly hurt and embarrassed. I barely prayed during the Saturday all-night vigil. O adulterous love of this world, get away from your heart. Love the Lord and the eternal blessings of heaven, love virtue, humility, meekness, kindness, patience, chastity, abstinence, mercy. The Lord repeatedly saved me in court from bad movements of the heart. I thank the Lord. What greater honor is there than to be daily at the Last Supper of the Lamb of God together with the Angels and Saints and to eat the Body and Blood of the Lamb of God at the Lord's Table, to be cleansed of sins, to be sanctified, to be deified! What earthly or heavenly honor can still occupy us after this honor? Oh, we, unreasonable, senseless, ungrateful, are looking for the corruptible glory of this world, a passing shadow, when we have, so to speak, the eternal glory of God in our hands. Through gluttony, satiety, passion for finery, for earthly distinctions, for gambling, and self-interest, the taste for heavenly blessings is finally completely dulled, the Christian spirit is extinguished, a spirit is formed, a purely pagan character, life takes on the exceptional character of vanity, emptiness, aimlessness (no goal), unreason, instinct. And it is precisely we who, during our short earthly wanderings, must refine our taste and love for heavenly blessings: truth, virtue, humility, purity, faith, hope, and love... I admit my untruth in my anger at my family because of broken dishes with wine between the doors, because of my wife and sister-in-law not securing the doors with hooks. I see that anger is vain and insane and only torments me more than anyone else, while my family remains indifferent. God! Let me always turn my anger towards myself, towards my old man, and not towards people. Wake up! I thank the Lord, who has made me worthy to celebrate the Divine Liturgy and to partake without condemnation of the Divine Mysteries into peace, joy, purification, sanctification, renewal, boldness, affirmation, and health. I thank the Lord, who soon saved me from being angry with my family because they were faulty in many ways, did almost nothing, and allowed the shelves of wine to fall apart between the doors, causing them to spill. The Lord had mercy on me as soon as I admitted that I myself was guilty of many things and worthy of such a flaw. He served Vespers by the grace of God peacefully and without stumbling. Again, the Lord saved me through my prayer from evil against my family for the extreme pampering of Rufina’s child. He pleaded guilty to the fact that I chase other people’s small untruths out of pride, voluptuousness and malice, but I don’t chase after my own big ones and let them pass by, such as: self-will, self-love, pride, envy, cruelty, gloominess, despondency, jealousy, rancor, laziness, idleness, lust, love of money; negligence about the salvation of human souls, negligence in performing prayers and the Sacraments, man-pleasing, partiality, hypocrisy (I observe fasting and prayer, but do not correct my heart); disrespect, rudeness, overeating, delicacy, drinking, idle talk, inappropriate laughter, condemnation, reproach and abuse, beating, disorderly and evil screaming; suspicion, distrust, deceit, bad and blasphemous thoughts, insolence, disobedience, concealment of other people's property, giving alms sometimes from other people's money, not from one's own. The Lord was strong in deed and word, as were His apostles, hierarchs, martyrs, confessors, reverend men and reverend wives, but I was strong in neither word nor deed! Alas for me! And I seem to be strong in words, because I speak a lot. But this word is an empty flower without fruit, without action and life. Anna K.! You are a smart and kind woman, although you are characterful and capricious! I rely on your mind, your reasoning and your heart: live as God instructs you. And you are in the image of God, and you are a member of Christ, a sheep of the heavenly flock, a rod from the vine - Christ. I want to respect and love you - make yourself worthy of it. Behold, God is among us! I don’t want to think evil about you, but don’t be evil and careless. All saints are one spirit with the Lord, and each of us who cleaves to the Lord is one spirit with the Lord, according to the Apostle and according to the words of the Lord Himself, abiding in Me, and I in him [Jn. 6, 56]: let us come to him and make our abode with him [Jn. 14, 23 ]; I will dwell in them and walk in them; and I will be their God... and you will be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty [2 Cor. 6, 16; 18]. I thank the most merciful Lord, who saved me from a stormy, destructive influx of anger after an evening nap in the garden before drinking coffee and tea; Anger at my sister Anna K. drowned me and hurt me; In addition, I was extremely dissatisfied with the fact that tea was made in the garden. Walking to Vespers and suffering mentally from the anger that forcibly seized me, I prayed strongly to God inwardly and, having come to church, I also prayed, not wanting to enter the sanctuary of the altar with malice in my soul, and I thank the Lord - He accepted the prayer of repentance, took away the anger that drowned me, freed me from the bonds of hell and gave me the grace to peacefully and without stumbling to perform Vespers. I thank the Lord, who consoled me, touched me with the communion of His Holy Mysteries, changed my soul for the good and healed me in soul and body. I felt extremely weak and sick and irritable before communion. May 23, 1873. Wednesday. Talking with Stepan Petrovich Sverlov, I learned that in a society of eccentric people there is an opinion that the Lord Jesus Christ is a simple man, only of high life - an intelligent man, born of the flesh, not of the Holy Spirit in a supernatural way; that a person is material - he will die and will not exist, that grass, a tree, etc. will grow from his body and there will be no resurrection. I cut it off. Thursday. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the malice of the enemy before mass and gave me the grace of tenderness and non-judgmental communion of the Holy Mysteries. The apostles, hierarchs, martyrs, saints, unmercenaries and other saints are living examples and proof of how saving and heavenly our faith is and how ungrateful, careless and lazy we are in the matter of salvation. All of them are witnesses of the truth and salvific nature of the Christian faith and our accusers, but also prayer books for those who call them with faith. Before mass, I became angry with my wife because she did not listen to me - she did not fulfill the insignificant desire to sew a button on a cassock and a knit on another; This means that I selfishly only love my wife (and my sister-in-law) for my own benefit and services, and not as my own flesh and blood, not as a member of Christ and a joint heir of the grace-filled life. Woe to such lovers! And really woe to me! Crowding, darkness, sorrow, internal shame! After Vespers, I was again in the strongest agony of anger and struggled for a long, long time and, struggling, prayed to God. Whatever you say, passions, and especially anger, are at war in us from satiety. And I am often fed up, greedy; Today I ate a lot of veal's head jelly and coffee, and drank a lot of tea with cream, and raw. Oh, how I have angered the Lord with greed and malice! But I received everything freely from the Lord, and what I have is God’s and the property of my parishioners, disciples, wife and widow, sister Anna Konstantinovna and orphans, and not mine. Why do I hate them at the instigation of the devil? God, correct me and have mercy! I thank the Lord, who had mercy on me during the all-night vigil at Eve. Ivanov (birthday on May 25th). He treated me well, cordially and generously. I thank the Lord for the cheerful, light service of Matins and the early liturgy and for the great tenderness and sweetness upon communion of the Divine Mysteries. Oh, how the Lord consoled me with His holy, Divine and life-giving Mysteries! However, during mass before Worthy and Righteous, I carelessly, out of nervous shock, scattered parts on the paten, which, together with the air and the star, fell to the floor; I raised the star and the air, and asked Deacon Peter to pick up the parts. Remind the archpriest about the singers. Anna Konstantinovna has a truthful, although harsh, character; [loves] to judge everyone, but only praise herself, point and order everyone, while she herself sits on everything that is ready for nothing. She has a masculine character. After a tearful prayer at night at two o’clock, I fell asleep and saw our good king standing with me, talking graciously to me; By the way, I asked him for Alexey’s brother, so that he would have a place at home; and I saw the queen and had the good fortune to walk with her. I will watch how my family - my wife and sister-in-law - will behave: will they do the work, will they help me for my daily labors for them, and moreover, I will not give them money, but I will send them to the heavenly granary, like the righteous Philaret 106. God! Grant me the grace not to upset even the gloomy and cold appearance of my family for their misdeeds, but to endure everything with the good will of my heart, for my flesh and the bodiless enemy present many empty excuses to me, only to arouse enmity and disrupt peace and love. Rule my household yourself, O Lord, so that I too can calmly manage your affairs. Walking very fast is harmful - the lungs become very tired, it is difficult to serve prayers or perform other services. Today I experienced this on Trinity Day, from the 2nd sailor wing on my way to Nikolai A. [Turkin] to Sinebryukhov’s house (May 27). And he served very loudly with the sailors; about three hundred people were allowed to the cross. He was greatly hurt by dislike and contempt for the unrequited and innocent baby Lisa, daughter of Anna K., when they met on the morning of the Holy Trinity. Repented. All children of God. I am satisfied with everything and satiated. I have been given and given by God daily the priceless, ineffable blessings of the Lord - the most pure Body and Blood of the Lord, eternal life, bread, clothing, home, name. The Lord is good to the ungrateful and evil, as for example to me, a sinner, and he gives us all the good things, and I must imitate the Heavenly Father, feed and water the ungrateful and idle and evil and scolders. Otherwise, what reward will I have for my good deeds if I feed and water my friends, and those who work for me? From the bottom of my heart, sincerely, willingly, I must do good to people who are hostile to me, whether from my own or from strangers, and not remember evil for the sake of the Lord, who forgives me everything, and for the sake of His Most Pure Body and Blood, given to me almost every day, for the sake of countless spiritual and physical benefits given to me from the same Lord, for the sake of future ineffable benefits prepared for us from the Lord. May I despise all everyday squabbles, all petty everyday calculations, may one love reign. Holy Trinity Day. I thank the Lord, who took away the tightness of my heart during the liturgy and gave me the grace to partake of the Holy Mysteries in a life-giving way. In an instant, I felt a wonderful change in my whole being, as soon as I partook of the Holy Mysteries; Divine life poured into me and took away the tightness and deadness in my heart. Glory to the Holy Spirit, life-giving, reviving me through the sacred Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. I read the prayers heartily, with tenderness and with boldness. But as soon as he came home, he became upset at Sister Anna K., sitting cross-legged on the floor with her children and amusing themselves with them, not going to any services. I was extremely upset because I treated her unkindly on such a great holiday, and all day I was somehow dissatisfied with her and her behavior. What is yours like? Am I not upset with myself?! We must look carefully at our instrument, through which we relate to others and evaluate their qualities, that is, our heart: is it good, kind, pure, humble, kind, unselfish, selfish, lustful, evil, envious? And it often happens that the viewing glass is incorrect, dim, and we think that the objects are incorrect, that is, the people with whom we are treating. We are extremely often mistaken about this and, instead of blaming ourselves or considering ourselves sick, evil, blind, we consider others as such. Regrettable! Whatever evil you see in people against you, for example, intrigues, gossip, curses, do not be indignant at anything and do not take revenge for anything with a word or a look, but resort to God and entrust your work and the affairs of others to Him. And I instruct. Remember the exploits of the saints of God and deny yourself, imitating them. Behold grief. There is your Fatherland, your help, your treasure. Despise earthly love. Don’t be upset if your family doesn’t love you, if they leave you, if they slander you. Don't take revenge for yourself. God will take revenge, just please Him and be kind, humble, simple-hearted, and non-covetous. I have been living with Anna K. for almost 18 years, and when did I love her sincerely? And now the evil towards her is growing more and more. What is the reason? She and I have opposite characters or the same passions. Vyatkin: awakened instincts of my youth. I'm disgusting. Abstinence, fasting, avoidance of sweets, tears. The enemy is fighting me terribly and arming me against everyone. Oh, how bitter is anger! This is hell! The abundance of bread and the abundance of wine among the inhabitants of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah brought down on them the terrible wrath of God, because from this abundance they were corrupted. You, too, are full of bread and full of wine almost every day, and you have also become corrupted in heart: proud, angry, envious, prodigal. The wrath of God is close to you too. Hurry to tame passions through abstinence and prayer. The Holy Church hastens to you with her help: the apostolic fast is near. You eat and read well in church, says the devil. Let me now sing my song in you, or you sing in my own way from my opera: anger, envy, pride, etc. - and I, the damned one, sing, without wanting to, the devil’s song. Woe to me, wretched one! Because of my sins, he will take me, pick me up, carry me, and there is no one to deliver me from him. Only deep repentance will help get rid of him, from his hellish song, from his hellish torment. Why don’t I like it when people stop me from doing something, like not knocking on doors for the sake of my children? – From vanity, pride, willfulness, stubbornness, anger. I sinned. Whit Monday. I thank the Lord, who once again surprised me with His mercy through the communion of His Divine Mysteries at the liturgy I served. The enemy fought and confused me, but faith prevailed, and the Lord defeated the enemies. The voice was clear and loud throughout the mass: before mass it weakened. This is useful. Raw water produced this. You need to drink it. During Matins I sang stichera in praise of the Holy Spirit. The voice is clear and sonorous. I thank the Lord, who gave me peace with my family, and myself, for I did not feel peace and love for them yesterday; suffered because of this and prayed to the Lord in repentance to grant peace. And he gave it. A strange incongruity: we do not fulfill the most perfect will of God and every day we violate it a thousand times and in a thousand ways, but we willingly fulfill our own will, evil, passionate, absurd, and want others to fulfill it, and if they do not fulfill it, we become angry and are ready to take revenge for it. Such am I, the last of men. I marvel at the wisdom of God in the structure of the universe in general and its parts in particular; I marvel at the luminaries, planets, their laws, their distances, their enormity, their steadfastness (until a predetermined time); I marvel at the elements of the earthly planet and their harmony with mutual opposition, I marvel at the nature of the waters and their multitude and the countlessness of its inhabitants, the transparent and easily mobile air, spread in such abundance and found everywhere in the water and on the earth and in it; I am amazed at the countless variety of plants, so wisely, usefully, expediently, proportionately arranged; I marvel at the multitude and variety of insects, reptiles, birds, four-legged animals and, finally, most of all I marvel at the crown of creation - man, gifted with autocracy, reason, tender feelings, willpower, and especially his deification in the person of the God-man and in the person of a Christian. Wonderful are Your works, O Lord, You have done all things with wisdom 107. Who is God as great as our God! You ecu God work miracles [Ps. 76, 14 – 15]. And who is as close to us as our God, according to the Scripture: Am I God only near, says the Lord, and not God far away? [Jer. 23, 23]. St. Isaac of Dalmatia 108. I was in St. Petersburg and at a free dinner with the St. Isaac's Cathedral clergy. I thank the Lord. But just as freely, I always eat and drink at home and with good people in Kronstadt, and dress, and rest in good rooms. I thank the Lord and good people, the king, and the bosses. Why am I still persecuting my Lord in the person of my sister and wife (Anna)? - Because Tune lives on everything that is ready, that is, on what God sends me. But there is moral labor to live on someone else’s ready-made bread. Doesn't want to work? - But what are you doing and what have you done? Is it not from morning to evening devoted to passions: pride, malice, envy, anger, negligence, laziness, absent-mindedness, gluttony, intemperance, gluttony, drunkenness, lustful thoughts and lusts? despondency, murmuring, idle talk, laughter, deceit, partiality, blasphemy, lies, failure to fulfill a given word, false shame, confusion, fear, disobedience, waywardness, contempt, evil suspiciousness (thinking evil); impatience, stinginess, love of money, cruelty, condemnation, rage, cursing, vanity, ambition, conceit, humiliation of neighbors, a bad opinion of them, servility, man-pleasing and man-reliance, and many other sins? These are your deeds of darkness, for which you are worthy of a thousand punishments, eternal torment, and not those gifts of God’s goodness, which you abundantly enjoy from the good God. Those who live with you on your bread are a thousand times more worthy than you of the gifts of God, for they do not have such and such sins. You are not worthy to live with them, to eat and drink with them, for you have the disposition of Judas, greedy, evil, cruel. Households are engaged in raising young children. This is an important matter both in the eyes of God and man, but what are you doing? You're sinning. So, humble yourself every minute before God and do not consider yourself worthy of even a piece of bread for your sins, not just all kinds of sweets; dungeons - not only spacious and clean rooms, hair shirts, not silk clothes; a wooden, heavy, unbearable cross, and not a golden, beautiful one. Remember how the great saints of God were saved, what they ate, what they dressed, what they slept on, where they lived. Who are you in front of them? The stench of sin, and you also eat generously and dress in soft clothes, and sleep on soft clothes and live generously, and you are also angry, and proud, and envious of everyone, and butting heads, and swearing. ABOUT! Remember your last - death, grave, judgment, hell, Kingdom of Heaven. Are you eternal on earth? Try to leave behind a good memory. (Regarding the sinful grief towards Anna Konstantinovna.) Give up the grief. Willingly and joyfully, humbly serve your household, as Christ Himself, although they may be ungrateful, idle, lazy, and evil. What gratitude will God give you if you receive reward here? If you endure while doing good and suffering, this pleases God [1 Pet. 2, 20]. With your meekness teach them meekness. Most often and most of all, the disembodied enemy instills in me an addiction to earthly goods and through this anger towards my neighbors, with whom I must share these goods involuntarily. Cut off attachment and there will be no malice. See the grief and love everyone with the womb of Christ. Theatre, amusing, brilliant lights, costing huge sums of money [...], card games, etc. – fun with its passions and, therefore, with its deaths. Some are amusing themselves - others are crying from hunger and cold; Some people are extravagant, while others don’t even have a penny for bread. Oh, the untruth of this world! Irmos of the 9th song of the Sunday canon at Matins, tone 8. Prayer “Lord Jesus Christ our God, God of all mercy and generosity...” from a prayer service of thanksgiving. Yu (Church Slavic) – her pronoun. Ikos “Thou art the One Immortal...” from the funeral service.. Filaret the Merciful, the righteous († 792). Having inherited a huge fortune from his father, he began to help the poor so generously that he soon lost a significant part of it, and the invasion of the Arabs completed his ruin. But soon Philaret’s granddaughter was chosen as the wife of the young emperor, and he again became rich, but did not change his life and continued his charitable activities even more energetically. Memory 1/14 December. Opening Psalm from Vespers Isaac of Dalmatia, reverend († 383). From the life of the Monk Isaac, who lived in Asia Minor, it is known that he received a vision from God, in which he was ordered to go to Constantinople to fight the heresy of Emperor Valens (364 - 378), an adherent of Arianism. According to ancient historians, he was very bold for his faith before the emperor and predicted his death. In the capital, the saint had many disciples, and one of them built a modest dwelling for him on his estate, and then transferred the rights to all the adjacent lands. Here the Dalmatian monastery arose, located outside the city, whose abbot was the Monk Isaac. You might be interested in: