Июнь

Saint Justin the philosopher 109. I thank the Lord, who had mercy and healed and cleansed me, indecent, after communion of the most pure, life-giving Mysteries during the early liturgy in the Duma church. As much as the bodiless enemy upset me during the liturgy, oppressing me, so much did the Lord comfort me after communion. Glory to the Lord, long-suffering and abundantly merciful! And yesterday, too, I was greatly consoled by the Lord after receiving the Holy Mysteries. Thank the Lord! (As soon as a person realizes his guilt in the depths of his heart and repents of them, saving grace immediately appears in him and absolves him from his sins.) June 2. I thank the Lord, who mercifully heard the cry of my heart, confused, dejected and shaken by the slander of the enemy, fearful, devoid of hope. The Lord had mercy on me, forgave my sins, pacified my soul, healed heart ulcers, girded me with power from above and granted me, without stumbling, with boldness, to consummate the marriage of Nikolai Nikolaevich [V...] and Maria Irodionovna. The engineering officers were at the wedding: [E...] Petrovsky and others, there weren’t many people. Rain. I was at the wedding feast for a short time. I was extremely indignant with my wife and widow Anna K. Tsvetkova for the extreme feeding of my children, without any measure, as if they were feeding piglets, or calves, or chickens for the slaughter of these children, who have since become outrageously fat, as if I had no measure of wealth in my house. They pour ten eggs into a cup and feed them to the children, then day and night they almost incessantly itch them with milk, lunch in itself; but they are pampered and indulged by everyone and by all means, which is why the boys have already become extremely capricious and restless. May the Lord bring reason to all nannies and mothers. I have not seen widows leading their children like this. The Lord soon showed the madness of the deeds of the verbal Anna K. on her husband, and will show her madness on her children, in retribution and ridicule of her vain carnal wisdom. Take away from me, Lord, vain jealousy, grant me not to care about the flesh and everything carnal and corruptible, but to be diligent about souls, things more immortal, grant me to love my family, to be patient with them, to be lenient towards them, to cover their shortcomings. God! Teach them piety and Thy fear! Today I heard confirmation of my accusatory words to Anna K. that she is a scolder, because today she boldly scolded monks, and high-ranking ones at that. Let her go, Lord: I don’t know what she’s doing. Evening, 11 o'clock. I thank You, Lord, for You crushed the head of the evil serpent in me through the prayer of my repentance from the depths of my soul. For a long time he tormented, oppressed, tied me up, keeping me depressed and relaxed. Finally, by the grace of Christ, he suddenly disappeared, and it became so easy, easy! I want to heal others, but I myself am covered in ulcers; I want to remove the mote from my brother’s eye, but I myself have a log in my eye. I am damned and mad! Despise the belly and that which is for the belly, for it will soon be abolished. Soul, heal soul quickly! I also thank the Lord, for I, ungrateful and ill-natured, have been vouchsafed to perform the Liturgy (to the thirteenth in a row) and to partake of the revival of the most pure Mysteries and to see in myself the fruits of peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Saturday. In a strong struggle with passions I stood at Matins in the Cathedral. According to the extent of God's gifts, each of us will be exacted from us by the Lord if we did not use other gifts of grace or material for salvation and for our own good; Thus, much and strictly will be exacted from priests and bishops, for they have been given grace that is abundant for the salvation of them and the faithful; The noble and rich will be asked whether they used their power and their wealth for the benefit of their neighbors or whether they lived only for themselves, for their own enrichment and pleasure. The harshest judgment can prevail. The mighty Lord is a fighter for us - who should we fear, what enemies, visible and invisible? With Him the apostles, hierarchs, martyrs, saints, holy fools, the righteous, all the saints conquered. With Him the armies that fought for righteousness conquered, and the opposing armies conquered as one man; So, in our days, to the surprise of the whole world, the Germans defeated the Franks, with Him all faithful Christians defeat their enemies. Take heart, people of God, for He will defeat the enemies, for He is omnipotent 110. The akathists glorify the abyss of God's mercy and the countless benefits of God to the human race, revealed in the incarnation, teaching, suffering, death and resurrection of the Son of God for us - benefits for which, if we brought as many songs as there are grains of sand on earth, then we would not adequately praise and thank Him. The Lord draws us to heaven, and the devil chains our hearts to earthly things: to sweets, wealth, honors, fun and entertainment. Hence the struggle, the war of true Christians. in the evening, with a clear sky and calm weather, there are many high pillars of dark mosquitoes in the air. Towards a good harvest, as it was four years ago. I also learned from experience that drinking a lot of strong tea and milk is very harmful both morally and physically: firstly, because of this excess, I hardly slept at night and felt itching in my body, especially in my legs; secondly, during the early liturgy I felt extremely bound in my soul, so that it cost me great efforts and tears to beg the Lord to have mercy on me, who is so passionate; thirdly, the voice was extremely unfree and difficult. But I thank the long-suffering Lord, who has made me worthy to partake without condemnation, to my revival and reconciliation of His most pure and life-giving Mysteries. I thank the Lord, who made the heavens beautifully and adorned the earth with all sorts of flowers and animals, and who repeatedly makes me heaven through the communion of His Divine Body and Divine Blood! God! Tune me, have mercy on me and give everything abundantly to my satisfaction and those who are with me - glory to You! God! Manage our life and make it peaceful, loving and prosperous. June 3, 1873 Eating the Body and Blood of the Lord - the Source of life, what earthly food and drink will I covet or begrudge my neighbor? Having clothed myself with Christ God, what clothing shall I take care of? Why am I worried? What am I jealous of? What is unfeigned love? – When we love our neighbors, regardless of the face - whether it is a relative or a stranger, high or low, rich or poor, beautiful or ugly, old or young, man or woman, friend or foe, a person useful or not useful to us; whether someone devours and robs us, or to whom we owe our everyday needs, a boss or a subordinate, a Christian or an infidel, righteous or vicious, sick or healthy, strong or powerless, smart or stupid, quick or clumsy, good or evil - when we love everyone for God, who loved us all with immeasurable love, is patient with everyone, has mercy on everyone, feeds, clothes, enlightens and calls most often a lover of humanity. We add honorary crosses to our crosses, but do we double or triple our love for God and neighbor, self-sacrifice, humility, kindness, non-covetousness, mercy, compassion, patience with people, patience with sorrows, illnesses, failures, human contempt? On the contrary, with us, with honor, with exaltation, most often these virtues fall to zero. And the more honorable and adorned someone is, the more proud, the more inaccessible, the more angry, the more ambitious, the more covetous, the more unjust. Of course, there are exceptions. But honores mutant mores 111, someone noted. Do not desire honors, lest a man become a beast. I have everything from the Lord (as yesterday I was convinced by the grace of God during the wedding of Belinsky with the engineer-colonels), - I give tuna [yes]. And during the liturgy I am often convinced of this. The state and the Church are the ship, the tackle, the sails, the stern. Each person is likened to a ship - the stern, the helmsman, the tackle, the sails. Who and what? On the 4th of June, in the night, a great sin happened to me from satiety with halibut and drinking too much wine, very sweet tea, milk, cold water - an unclean night dream, the discharge of semen; when I woke up and the lustful excitement was strong, I intensified this sweet irritation and, 22 years later, I committed masturbation for the first time, thinking with pleasure the inappropriate thing. This is what immoderation in wine, milk, halibut, cold water, braided hair means (I usually don’t braid it, but then I braided it)! I sinned grievously before God! How will I atone for my sin and earn God’s grace again? – Through tears of sincere repentance, almsgiving, fasting, labors of preaching and physical labor. Remember, constantly remember that your souls are in the image of God, and most of all in this corruptible world value your immortal soul, and also remember that it is fallen, darkened, disfigured, weakened, wounded, killed by passions, and with all your might, with the help of the grace of God, rise daily from your fall, save, hedgehog 112 in the image and likeness, restore the splendor of the image God, his power, holiness, truth, heal ulcers with the all-healing medicine of prayer, abstinence, repentance, communion of the Holy Mysteries, rise from the dead, according to the Scripture: arise, sleep [Russian: sleeping], and rise from the dead, and Christ will illuminate you [Eph. 5, 14]. I also repeat, treasure in yourself that which is dearer than the whole world - your immortal, rational, free soul, in the image and likeness of the Lord. If you do not passionately love the Lord God as the Creator of yours and the whole world, as a Provider, Savior, Benefactor, then love Him at least out of self-love, that is, out of love for yourself, or for the soul that is so akin to God, as His image, as His likeness. Do not love the voluptuous and multi-passionate, corruptible flesh, which will soon pass, which flatters you incessantly, just as the devil, who deceives the whole universe, deceives, destroys you, removes you from God and eternal life and from that which is the only thing needed. You admire the beauty of corruptible things - often imagine the incorruptible, incomparable kindness and beauty of the face of God, who left the imprint of His beauty on all creatures that decay, the incorruptible beauty of the holy Angels and holy human souls, rejoicing in heaven before the throne of God and enjoying the inexpressible Divinity. You are seduced by earthly sweets for momentary enjoyment and, because of your addiction to them, you abandon the spiritual, grace-filled, eternal sweetness, the sweetness of the union of the soul with God, from whom it came, and you forget eternal bliss in heaven. To cool the soul to temporary pleasures and joys, remember the spiritual, eternal, incomparable pleasures that come from contemplating God in light and glory and from union with Him. The promises of God are true and immutable, for all the promises of God are in Him “Yes” and in Him “Amen” - to the glory of God, through us [2 Cor. 1, 20]. Do not cling to the vanishing, love the eternal. Food is for the belly, and the belly is for food; but God will destroy both. But the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body [1 Cor. 6, 13]. From overeating, the heart weakens and coarsens, and the soul weakens, and the body becomes decrepit, restless nights, heavy sleep, pain in the lower back, getting up in the morning is heavy and lazy, an unclean heart, a restless conscience, a lazy disposition of spirit and body, premature old age, excellent natural talents perish. You don’t need to eat especially at night, you don’t need to eat. June 10, 1873. I thank the Lord for the gift of repentance and tearful tenderness during the all-night vigil on Sunday: the Lord did not yet reject me, a sinner, but had mercy on me, a repentant one. At the end of the all-night vigil, I cried out internally to the Lord. The fruit of the tearful prayer of a repentant sinner - a priest, may sinners turn to You; If you bestow this gift on me, the worst of all, grant it to everyone, attract everyone to You, just as You attract me. I served Mass with extreme inner weakness, with a lack of boldness, for the sake of my many sins, especially the mortal sin of gluttony and internal fornication, and also because of bodily weakness. The day before, I drank strong sweet tea and Madeira at Major Petrov’s, and at home I ate a little fish soup and roast fish. Tea especially harmed me, because I drank it before the all-night vigil and after the all-night vigil. There was extreme weakness in the sides, the voice was rattling, the nerves were in decline. After communion, he became revived and strengthened in soul and body and spoke the sermon quite well, with some boldness. You are still indignant at your family, especially at Anna K., for not doing anything, but are you yourself sufficiently devoted to internal work, which is more important than external ones, do you correct your heart, do you firmly cut off your passions: pride, malice, anger, hatred, fornication, gluttony, covetousness, laziness, envy, deceit, murmuring, waywardness, disobedience, etc.? As for the idleness of the household, they will answer to God for it, that they lived and ate bread, and besides, perhaps their idleness is apparent, perhaps they are doing without you, and if not outwardly, then inwardly, perhaps some are grieving or, perhaps, praying for you - in any case, God Himself will pay you for them, for they are orphans. So, do your inner work: love, regardless of any carnal pretexts, be forgiving, patient, do good, and leave them to God, He will teach them. I thank the Lord that the sixth grade students did well in the exam today. And I was afraid that some would get cut off. Somehow we will answer the world test, where God Himself will be the Tester! My God! My God! How terrible Your Judgment will be - everyone will tremble, every person. Blessed is he who carefully prepares his deeds for judgment! And let the wife work for her salvation and response to God’s judgment - let her raise, without spoiling, her sister’s children with her help. For this she will be given a reward. We do not consider gluttony and delicacy, daily satiety and drunkenness to be a sin - we are so accustomed to sin [and other sins], but these are grave sins, equal to idolatry and extremely angering the Lord, who gave us birth to an incorruptible, spiritual, heavenly life and has the power to abolish the belly and waste! Blessed is God, who gave us birth to a living, incorruptible hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. All sins are strengthened by their repetition, and weakened and destroyed by opposition and non-fulfillment, therefore we must immediately cut them off so that they do not strengthen, take root, become stronger and destroy our soul. All extraordinary and rapid transitions to strong passions, all extraordinary, amazing, terrible phenomena in the moral world occur with the participation of spirits of evil due to the passions hidden within us. Many see this, are amazed and perplexed, why, for example, such and such a person suddenly became a drunkard, a thief, a fornicator, why he became a suicide. If you eat and drink more, you create more pus for yourself and harm your ears. Citric acid in significant quantities is harmful to me - my nerves relax, my limbs tremble, scrofula intensifies, leakage from the ear, painful irritability in the body, weak, intermittent voice. The same goes for lean foods, especially vegetable oils. Vinegar is also harmful, mustard too. We need fast, good food. I thank the Lord, who accepted my repentance of the devil’s malice, who took away the tightness and sorrow from my heart, who removed the sting of the serpent from my passionate heart and who gave me peace, freedom and good [this] and light burden during the liturgy, and who made me worthy to partake of the holy, divine and life-giving Mysteries for the removal of sinful death and for Divine revival and update. I thank the Lord for the new miracle of His mercy and generosity and for the miracle of His omnipotence, for deliverance from the new devilish malice, when, after the liturgy, I came home, went into my kindergarten, in which there was a nanny with a little one-year-old Lisa and, having greeted him, asked for her hand, in which she took the earth and threw it to me; I imagined evil in her and was upset with her, and when I came home, I was angry with my wife because of my sister, because she never asked me for permission to live in our house. Oh, how cruelly the enemy laughed at me even now, after my new renewal with the life-giving Mysteries! How he stung me, with what triumph he entered my heart! And it was necessary to go to serve a prayer service on the ship to Dipper; I prayed, I came to my senses, I recognized my madness, my delusion, my stupid pride, my absurd pretension - and I prayed at home, falling on my knees before God, and on the way to Dipper, and in his apartment, and going from him to the ship - bot, and just before the trial the Lord took away my leprosy, healed the heart ulcer, took away dishonor and shame from my face! I gave my word to watch over my thoughts and over my heart and never, for any reason, be angry with anyone and not do the will of the enemy - the devil. May the Lord help me to fully fulfill the vow of my heart! May the Lord grant me to be a gentle lamb and to be kind to everyone. I consumed roast fish, fish soup, and a glass of milk afterwards at about eleven o'clock in the evening, and at night I had insomnia, a strong erection, pain - from excess. There was no need to eat anything. Oh, greed! Oh, meaningless life! Sinful! Wednesday. Second week of Peter's Lent. God! I thank You with all my heart, for even now You have honored me with all-forgiveness, purification, renewal, peace, boldness and freedom through the communion of the Divine, life-giving and terrible heavenly Mysteries of Yours, and You have not put me to shame from the hope of Your mercy. I thank You, for my iniquities have not yet prevailed over Thy goodness, holiness, righteousness and forbearance. It was sweet to me after communion of the Divine Mysteries; I felt a light, life-giving fire in my soul after communion of the life-giving Mysteries! Glory to the miracles of goodness, condescension, omnipotence, wisdom and immutability of Your advice for us, Lord! Black bread with cow's butter and a glass of Bavarian beer is excellent for the chest and very beneficial for the voice. June 14. I curse intemperance, it strengthens the flesh and passions, makes the soul powerless to fight the enemy’s attacks, clouds the spiritual eye, defiles it in dreams with unclean ghosts and produces discharges. Yesterday I drank wine and beer with my father Alexander Perov to celebrate the end of exams. At lunch I ate small meat (I sinned), in the evening I ate fish and some black bread with butter. My voluptuous life! I have sinned before the Lord! The body weakens from the discharge, which means that eating sweets leads to weakness, and fasting strengthens both soul and body. I thank the Lord, who has made me worthy to successfully and easily perform Matins, a prayer service on a military ship, the monitor “Sagittarius”, and the liturgy and to partake without condemnation of the holy, most pure, life-giving and terrible Mysteries of His Body and Blood for the revival of me, mortified by sins, for purification, sanctification, pacification, health and salvation; I thank the Lord for the successful performance of the Sacrament of Baptism in the house of Jacob Alex. Murashov from a soldier who was released indefinitely, so his successor Eduard Borisovich Rodde was captivated by the grace-filled prayers read during the spell and baptism. I thank the Lord for the unexpected gift of His mercy and generosity, sent today for the poor in the amount of one hundred and fifty-five rubles from Alexei Vasilyevich Lozhkin, who was here [...]. I thank the Lord for the ineffable mercy - for the grace during the service of Matins and Liturgy, for the success in the service and for the non-judgmental, so to speak, daring, communion of the Divine saints, life-giving, immortal, heavenly Mysteries for the purification, sanctification, confirmation, pacification of my soul and body. God! Keep me in Thy holiness, take away from my side the inclination towards sin, gird up my loins, so that they will not relax against sin and iniquity, so that I will always be like people who wait for their Lord when he comes from marriage and knocks to immediately open it for him [Lk. 12, 36]. God! Grant me the courage to continue and complete the work of charity that I have begun. Care for the poor should be opened and put into action. God! May it bear fruit a hundredfold. From lust to lust the transition is not far: for example, from drinking wine to lustful thoughts, views, lust, from smoking tobacco also to lustful behavior: smoking itself is fornication, for it is a perversion of the purpose of the lips and eating. Does smoking nourish? - No. Doesn’t lust violently excite, kindle, inflame? Isn't it just a thorn in the flesh? Sin's sting? To her! Yesterday evening, June 16, I drank beer, sweet tea, ate herring, and at night - the strongest tension of secret oud and fornication visions haunted me: only thanks to the power of the cross and the half-awake, half-asleep state, deliberately maintained, I was not defiled by the fornication outpouring. But how voluptuous, gluttonous and unreasonable I am! I ate, drank a lean, albeit stupefying drink, and I imagine that I did not break my fast! He violated it - more than if he had eaten milk and bread with quick butter, cream, although, of course, quick food should not be touched unnecessarily! God! Forgive my great sins! I know that my heart and my flesh are prodigal and nasty, repugnant to God, and I do not care about abstinence, indulging in incontinence! Oh, laziness towards piety! Oh, negligence! I thank the Lord, who did not reject my repentance during the all-night vigil yesterday and gave me a peaceful and enthusiastic prayer of tenderness with tears, although few; I thank you for the gift of tenderness and tears during the evening standing while reading the canon and akathist to the Lord, the akathist to the Mother of God and the Guardian Angel. Grant me to be completely attuned to You, O Lord! Appropriate to the Lady Theotokos, the holy Angels and all the heavenly powers, the Forerunner, the prophets, the apostles, hierarchs, martyrs, the saints, the unmercenaries, the pillars, the holy fools for Christ's sake and all the saints. June 17. I thank the Lord, who helped me throughout the week in performing Divine services, who enlightened and delighted me with Divine readings, chants, and prayers! I thank my Joy, the Lord of glory, for He did not deal with me according to my iniquities, He rewarded me less for my sins, but He dealt with me according to His mercy. I glorify the Christian Orthodox faith, through which Christ our God has given and continues to give me countless benefits, cleansing my sins, taming passions, renewing me, who had been promised and decayed by sins, through repentance and Divine communion of the holy life-giving Mysteries, sanctifying, pacifying, cheering my spirit, enlightening and confirming me in goodness, giving me heavenly hope, boldness and glory. I thank the Lord, I thank the Most Holy Virgin Mary for the indescribable mercies towards me! How many times has a single view of the Lord and the Most Holy Theotokos with short inner prayer saved me from deceit, confusion, oppression, the hellish fire of passions and my bodiless enemies! How successful was my verbal prayer in the church as a priest! I will look to the Lord and the Mother of God - and my enemies will crumble! I thank the Lord, for he has also vouchsafed me, the multi-passionate one, to partake of the Divine Mysteries and to perform the Divine and terrible Liturgy. I felt great spiritual and physical sweetness during mass. I slept badly that night because of beer and herring. The Lord blessed me with one hundred and twenty rubles for the benefit of the poor. This is for my orphans. He sent it to me, because if I give the poor the money sent to me, then my money will remain for the benefit of my household. I glorify the Providence of God, which constantly takes care of us. Why am I, a bubble, and not a person, puffing up, out of wordless habit, at my sister Anna, the widow, and becoming embittered with her, resenting her hostile, temporary relationship with me, the cause of which was I myself! Why am I not angry with myself, why am I not embittered? Why am I not angry at the demons of malice, as the first culprits of all evil? Or because your own shirt is closer to your body, and they know how to hide their tails? Oh, they are prodigal demons, evil, envious, proud, blasphemous, unclean, crafty, desperate, arrogant, rapists, ugly slanderers! I renounce them and all their pride, impurity, and malice! I am in harmony with my Christ and with every good deed: humility, meekness, gentleness, purity, self-control, non-covetousness, compassion, etc. God! Instill in me humility and kindness with abstinence, for for the lack of these virtues I suffer cruelly. Let me sincerely consider myself lower and worse than everyone else and be, according to my strength, a servant of everyone. Whoever harbors hostility and hatred towards his neighbor in his heart does not see the ugliness of his soul, which really needs to be hated for its passions, for what we hate our neighbor for is found in us purely 113, as the Lord said: What do you see, O hater, you bitch who is in your brother’s eye, but the log... in your eye, do you not hear? [Matt. 7, 3]. We must cover with love the sins of our neighbor, as if not noticing them, and love him for the sake of the Lord and the common Master, who loved us, although we are sinners, and as a member of Christ and a fellow member of ours. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the devil’s malice through evening prayers. God! Teach me to constantly watch over myself. Where extreme weakness, suffering, dishonor for the humanity of our Lord appeared, sin for our sake, that is, on the cross, there, on the cross, His and our strength appeared and was revealed (for He accomplished everything for us), our healing and our joy and bliss, our glory. Glory to Your cross! Glory to Your free exhaustion, Christ! I thank the Lord for the consolation given to me, at His inspiration, by my sister Anna Konstantinovna and my wife at her farewell to me, when I went to St. Petersburg to stay with the Vetvenitskys; before this there was a strong struggle, especially in the Engineering Garden. When I was at the Country Hospital, Vladyka Metropolitan consecrated the summer premises of the shelter for poor children of the Humane Society, built by the St. Petersburg merchant Ilya Fedulovich Gromov; then he had dinner with him. A home for the mentally ill, established by His Imperial Majesty, the heir, Tsarevich Alexander Alexandrovich 1870 - 1871. The mentally ill are divided into violent and calm (and I am violent due to deep passion), into neat and unkempt. Some have strange combinations: one imagines himself to be a cousin of the Shah of Persia and, using a genealogy table, will prove this to you in the same way as that two and two make four; the other imagines that he is the Lord of Hosts and that he, that is, the mentally ill, should be worshiped by everyone, and since mosquitoes and flies do not stand on ceremony with him and, sitting on his face, forehead, neck, hands, bother him, then he does not stand on ceremony with them and, if he does not manage to kill them with his hand, he often uses a chair or a mug to chase them; the third imagines himself as Jesus Christ during His hidden sojourn among people and imagines that he will soon be baptized in the Jordan and then appear to the world as the Redeemer of people. The fourth imagines himself to be the Holy Spirit; another allows himself to eat unusually much, so that if he were served, he would not stop eating until his stomach hurt. All patients can be accommodated at one hundred and thirty. The heir donated 70 thousand rubles to set up the hospital and annually donates 20 thousand. An excellent example for Russians of the hope of the Russian people. And this example did not remain without good consequences. One Moscow merchant donated 20 thousand for the construction of another larger wooden building to house the mentally ill, since the previously constructed buildings, ten in number, turned out to be few. In addition, the St. Petersburg merchant Ivan Feodulovich Gromov is a regular donor to this hospital and a member of the commission for the care of this charitable institution; Not far from this establishment (a mile away) on the Pargolovskaya road, he built several houses on the land of the appanage department for the summer placement of poor children of the shelter of the Imperial Humane Society. It was consecrated on June 19th by His Eminence the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg. Returning my thoughts to the mentally ill, by the way, I will note in passing that there are more and more mentally ill, or crazy people, every year. This is evident both from the annual multiplication in double and triple proportions of the insane in the capital and from the need for new and new premises for them, and from the fact told by one Voronezh governor, Prince G., that when he arrived in Voronezh for a post, there were only fifty insane people in the local city hospital, and when he left there six or seven years later, there were already two hundred and fifty; So, their number is increasing everywhere. It's a pity! For what is more valuable than anything in the world, like a sound mind in a sound body! Gratitude and thanks from every kind, compassionate person to the benefactors and friends of their suffering brethren! But God forbid that our crazy people do not increase, but decrease, and for this we need more normality in upbringing, in life, in customs, habits. It goes without saying that a person goes crazy, like cars derailed, not from the correct and calm flow of spiritual life or mental work, but on the contrary. Such misfortunes must be prevented in time. Are there any insane people in Kronstadt? God grant that they don’t exist, that everyone has a sound mind in a sound body. But we also desperately need one charitable institution. This is a home for the poor and church public care for the poor, both to provide them with the necessary needs of everyday life, and especially for the healthy ones to work. This would be no less beneficial for them as a home for the mentally ill, even much more so, for in a home for the insane there are people who are mostly lost to themselves and to society, but here they are not yet completely lost and can bring benefit to themselves and society and are only waiting for participation, help and a beneficial push from their wealthy and influential brothers. To prevent or stop debauchery, drunkenness, ultimate laziness, severe poverty, illness, premature death, to make them useful members of society - this is our business and that of all social activists. I again invite you to take part in the opening guardianship. It will be open soon; We need to elect a chairman only at the suggestion of the diocesan authorities. But since a meeting of members during the summer time, when so many have gone to their dachas or are busy with the hottest business, is very difficult, I offer the title of chairman privately during meetings to some merchants, known to me for their sympathy for their charity work, and some of them refused, but the merchant Ivan Fedorovich Osetrov did not refuse to accept the title of chairman if the members are not against him, and I know that many want him to take on the title of chairman. I declare this in print, and if anyone is against him and not for him, let him deign to indicate another, ready and more zealous for a good cause. I have the honor to ask all the [honorary] members, whom I invited a year ago to be members of the brotherhood, to remain so invariably, and whoever did not deliver the agreed amount for distribution to the poor, let him deign to deliver it. According to the approval of the Church Guardianship by the highest authorities, it will be announced in the “Kronstadt Bulletin”, and then it will soon be opened after due prayer in the meeting of members. At the same time, I declare that the mites that I collected from some parishioners were immediately distributed to the poor, down to the penny, and with the small number of donations, there was nothing left over. Priest John Sergiev. During the all-night vigil, a thought came to me with a special strength of conviction in its truth, that the soul, created in the image of God, gives such beauty to the body that priority attention should always be paid to it, and not to the beauty of the body, which is perishable, that we must be amazed at the ineffable beauty of God and the Lord, the author of all beauty in creatures, and in order for us to be truly and eternally, and not temporarily only beautiful, we must constantly strive to unite with Him through the fulfillment of His the most perfect will. Father Alexey Tsvetkov and Avdotya Alekseevna, his mother, strongly accused me of not keeping the fast and attacked me strongly; Father Alexey called me a nihilist; he and my mother said that I was setting a bad example for the parishioners, that my ears were hurting from not keeping the fast. I have been exposed worthily and righteously; I accept this [authoritative] reproof as from You, Lord: I am worthy of it. Have mercy! All doctors and observant and experienced people in general recognize that it is surprising how little food and drink a person needs to maintain life and strength, said Father Alexey. And I thought the same thing, because I experienced it myself. That’s why we get sick because we eat fast food during Lent, said Father Alexei. His Eminence Metropolitan Isidore of St. Petersburg distributes daily alms up to thirty rubles (Father Konstantin Ivanovich Vetvenitsky); He does a lot of business every day and values ​​every minute (father Alexey Ivanovich Shchipunov). I thank the Lord, who gave me understanding about my master. Fyodor Vasilyevich yesterday made it very clear to me that we must pray especially earnestly for the sovereign and the royal house because he is entrusted with such a burden that is inconvenient for an ordinary person to bear without the special help of God, that he is exposed to many temptations of all kinds, for example, the luxury of worldly amusements, flattery, sneakiness, cunning, envy, ill will, etc., that his life is often in danger from many enemies. So, out of love for him, as our head and our ruler for good, we must always pray fervently for him, and especially because the word of God commands us to pray for the king and for all those in power, so that we may live a quiet and quiet life [1 Tim. 2, 2]. When eating fast food, there are no incitements to sin from our flesh that we feel so strongly when eating fast food. Good post. And sleep is easier during fasting. Tested. So, I sinned gravely before God because I consumed milk, cream, and cow’s butter during Lent, supposedly for health, but in fact on a whim. Remove the veil in your heart when speaking to your neighbor, and speak completely sincerely, as if speaking to yourself. (Feodor Vasilievich.) How can a priest, a servant of such a good Master as the Lord Jesus Christ, be evil towards anyone, how can he be hostile, hate, envy, covet, etc.? Or does he forget that he is a slave of his good Master? Don’t internal punishments often remind you of this? Oh, malice! Oh, negligence! And how many shortcomings he himself is full of! And I, an insignificant worm, unclean, corrupt, weak, dare to hate and despise a brother created in the image of God, a brother like me in every way, a co-redeemer of Christ? Doesn’t do anything, why is so-and-so eating my bread for nothing? Not he and not she, but you, you are alien to spiritual work and turn anger and contempt on yourself, and not on your neighbor, you have become extremely impoverished spiritually and do not see it; Are you filled with all sorts of sins - and raise an eyebrow at your neighbor? Your neighbor, if he tolerates your pride, anger, sulking, rudeness, swearing, threats, he is doing a lot without doing anything in the eyes of the Lord, who looks at the inner, and not only the outer, work. Due to yesterday's drunkenness and satiety (June 23) at Karpov's dacha on the occasion of his father's funeral, I felt very hot in the evening, and at night, with the chimney open, I caught a slight cold. Due to yesterday's intemperance and a slight cold, I served with extreme weakness and without boldness, I hesitated, but received Holy Communion with boldness. After mass I slept; After sleep I was extremely angry and suffered within myself. I, the accursed one, became the culprit of the current storm because of a fast pie, made contrary to my desire that it be a fast one (Pharisee, hypocrite). Aren't peace and love higher than fasting? Why didn’t I eat, as if I didn’t know, a quick pie in order to preserve love and peace? Because I had previously had indignation and enmity in my heart against my wife and sister-in-law, because they do not go to church, do not observe any fasts, live mostly idly, abandoning all work; Anna Konstantinovna reads only novels and, being a young widow, knows only how to eat sweetly, sleep long, read novels, judge everyone, scold everyone who she doesn’t like for some reason, put everything on her own and not listen to her elders. So, my heart had already sank before, looking at the unrest, idleness and laziness of my family, and I wanted to speak out, and I was just looking for an opportunity to do so. This case presented itself, a carnal case, and I burst out with anger and indignation, and I told my wife and sister-in-law that they were living idle, without worship, without the Sacraments, and when my sister-in-law said that the one who told me about them was unprofitable, she wanted to choke as soon as possible - I could not stand it any longer and got up from the table, having just started dinner, and left the house, because this seemed extremely bitter to me The expression is about my colleague, and it’s also true about me. I am guilty, Lord, I am guilty that I did not curb my zeal over an indifferent thing and gave free rein to embarrassment and the selfish movement of anger and envy, for I myself envied their sweet, savory dinner and savory pie. Therefore, I pray to the Lord, having enlightened and punished us all, to enlighten, reconcile and have mercy on us and not allow us to live in enmity; To indicate to my sister-in-law a position and a place, so that she may live like a young, strong and healthy woman, by the labor of her hands, for this is righteous. What guided me in today’s quarrel with my family? - Enemy envy of the contented, labor-free life of my wife and sister-in-law. I blame myself for this. But I should rejoice as a father that my family, without worries or labor, are well-fed, clothed, contented and calm, even though they have weaknesses, and are arrogant, and over-judgmental, and slanderous, and malicious! And evil to them, and good to them! I must also be merciful to them according to the word of my Lord Jesus Christ: be merciful, just as your Father is merciful [Lk. 6, 36], for He commands His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust [Matt. 5, 45 ]; and if you love those who love you, what gratitude do you have for that? for sinners also love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what gratitude is that to you? for sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to get it back, what gratitude are you for that? for even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. But you love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing; and you will have a great reward, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He is good to the ungrateful and the wicked [Lk. 6, 32 – 35]. How can I still believe the enemy, who transforms himself into an Angel of Light and incites me to hate my sister-in-law for idleness and laziness? Has the enemy ever wished well for any of the people? Doesn't he very strongly wish evil to everyone and does evil? Is he hiding behind plausible pretexts so that his intrigues are not immediately discovered? Doesn't he constantly seek to create enmity and envy between members of the family, partnership, society? Truly so. So, let us not be offended by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his intentions [Russian: for we are not unaware of his intentions] [2 Cor. 2, 11]. God! Keep us in Your holy name! It is remarkable that the presence of the enemy in me, after drinking wine (sherry) yesterday at the funeral of a rich and unmerciful merchant and after smoking tobacco at home, turned out to be a painful hiccup in me before the Cherubic Song itself and then before the communion of the Holy Mysteries, after which this hiccup passed; the nerves were in extreme decline, the voice was interrupted, trembled, and weak; After mass, I had diarrhea from a cold at night (or in the evening in the garden). I have had hiccups several times before. How should our love be expressed if not in forgiveness of offenses caused to us by our neighbors and in sincere prayer to God for them, for we all sin a lot. So today I sincerely prayed to God, the knower of the heart, for those who offended me with disobedience and impudent curses at home, and the Lord gave me peace - oh, if only they too! And when I was possessed by the spirit of indignation, enmity and revenge, then there was no peace in my bones because of my sins [Ps. 37, 4]. God! Establish in me a disposition of love and peace towards those who offend me. Otherwise, how will I prove my faith in You, obedience to You, love for You? He who says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, is a liar: for he who does not love his brother whom he sees, how can he love God whom he does not see? And we have this commandment from Him, that whoever loves God should also love his brother [1 Jn. 4, 20 – 21]. Deny yourself daily, that is, your heart when it wants to work with passions, and your sinful will, that is, anger, envy, pride, hatred, fornication, self-interest, gluttony, gluttony and drunkenness, waywardness, human labor, laziness and the whole multitude of sinful deeds - and follow the will of God in everything. What right do I have to tell my sister: get out of here tomorrow? Am I the king of the house? – Isn’t it God? Didn’t He decide for her to live with me for the time being? The time will come and she will leave the house. And why am I hostile because of her inaction and negligence in worship? She will not deliberately do anything to spite me if she wants to. You cannot force someone to love God's service if there is no disposition towards it. Offer to God a daily sacrifice of domestic love and peace - this is worship, for deeds of love are true service to God. What if, through their love for each other, your wife and her sister please God before you? Leave it to the Lord to judge both your wife and sister-in-law, and judge yourself strictly, for you will give an answer to God for yourself, and they for themselves, for in perfect reason, they are not unintelligent babies. The devil undermined the heart, planted a spark of enmity and went to reign. But may Your Kingdom come, Lord, the Kingdom of truth, love and peace. Want. Remember that with every act of violence against your conscience, it becomes weaker, more elastic, more compliant. Take care of it, firmly preserve the Lord’s statutes, especially mutual love, on which love for God depends, for without love for one’s neighbor one cannot love God. God! You incline my heart to true and unfeigned love, you destroy the enmity in my heart and at home. I see now clearly that the devil is slandering my sister-in-law, that she does nothing at home and does not go to church, and for this purpose he incited me to be angry with her in order to create mutual enmity, hostility, and quarrel in us. From now on, by the grace of God, I will not listen to his evil suggestions. I deny you, all-evil Satan. I am united with You, all-merciful Christ God! Receive me and my wife and my sister. We surrender to You, Christ our God. Amen. Yes, I also know that through intemperance in food and drink, demonic malice occurs; intemperance is the door to all passions, and abstinence and fasting are the bridle of all passions. I didn’t keep my post and opened the door wide to the enemy: he came in and commanded me a lot. Christ, I again turn to You: I have sinned, have mercy on me. Give us all Thy understanding and Thy fear, and give each one his own task. This night I did not sleep because of the languor of the enemy of my soul and for the sake of yesterday’s dream. How is it that I work every day for the enemy, or passions, and do not diligently serve my Lord? What kind of deceit is this enemy? Let me work diligently for the Lord, for the time is near, the end of everything is near, and there will be either eternal reward or eternal punishment. There is no need to go to funerals, especially to the rich - there is drunkenness there, and their sins fall on us with extreme burden. It is extremely disgusting to the Lord that we feast on the graves of the hard-hearted rich. I, I alone am to blame for yesterday’s quarrel, and because of what? Because of the piece, it was a fast one and not a lean one. I am a scoundrel, a villain - it’s not my family’s fault, I needlessly embarrassed them. God, have mercy on me. June 25. Morning. Otherwise I’m to blame, but I’m sulking and angry at others, as if they’re all to blame. This is the deceit of sin - blaming others for everything, and not yourself! Woe to us sinners! Due to Father Alexei Tsvetkov’s reprimand regarding fasting and the disobedience of my family in this regard, I was placed between Scylla and Charybdis 114 - close from everywhere, therefore I sinned by violating love. May the Lord Himself subdue my household and teach them unity in food, as the Holy Church commands, or may He separate those who disobey, so that there will be no temptation and confusion. And I have been given the throne in the Church - may I be worthy of it, first of all I govern myself, my passions. There is a quarrel over bread; there is peace over bread. So it was by the grace of God with me now and with my household. I thank the Lord. I thank the Lord, who deigned me to perform the liturgy and partake of the revitalization of the soul and body of the Divine Mysteries; the voice was weak from too much tea and from the sweet pie with raspberry jam. Anna Konstantinovna acted nobly with me, and so did my wife, soon making peace with me. Establish, Lord, peace between us. How easy and good it was for my heart when I fasted and did not drink wine and vodka, but ate oatmeal and cold fish! But how hard it became when I drank wine and vodka and ate sardines at Nikolai Mikhailovich Semenov’s after the all-night vigil in his house! Lesson! My heart became fat and lustful, and I slept restlessly at night. They say: you don’t have to fast on Peter’s Fast, but I will say - on the contrary, you need to fast especially during the summer fast, because in the summer our body requires less food, and the lightest food. I ate and drank without any urgent need. How little I need and how greedy and damned I am when I eat and drink often without need! Fasting in the essence of our nature! If you want to feed your hardworking people and please them, clothe them, and provide them with space, what kind of gratitude do you have for that and what special things are you doing? And the pagans do the same, for they also love, respect and reward those who work hard and diligently serve them. And you feed, clothe and provide housing for the idle and lazy, but for the poor and your own, and if they do not listen to you when you ask them to work, leave them and pray to God for them. He will enlighten, convict and guide them on the path of salvation, but you yourself remain calm, for God will be your reward. Blessed will you be, for you have nothing to repay [Lk. 14, 14], even through labor and service. I thank the Lord, who made me glad today in His house of prayer in unstumbling service and communion of the Divine, holy, life-giving and terrible Mysteries, for the Lord raised me from spiritual death and made me alive from the dead, reconciled me, revived me with life-giving fire, expanded my heart, previously oppressed by sins, bestowed sweet tears of compunction, sublime thoughts and feelings. But, oh, my woe! From such bliss, from such holiness, I fell into the depths of evil through my own fault and through the disobedience and rudeness of my household - my wife and sister-in-law, a widow. For I sinned, I became jealous, seeing my wife’s incessant, here and there, completely out of place fussing and fun with her sister’s children, babies, and complete inaction regarding my household chores (so that I had to give everything to the side), and in this zeal I forced my wife to sew buttons on the sleeves of the shirt that I was wearing. They both became agitated and angry against me and began to tell me reproachful and offensive speeches, and I began to defend myself and also show their disorder and bad qualities. And there was a quarrel for a long time: both sides wanted to raise more black sides, there was no concession: both the wife and the sister were extremely embittered against me, and neither of them consoled me with a single word with the slightest concession, on the contrary, the young widow wanted me to give in to her, making a good start; and this meant that I had to indulge them in everything and admit that my demands for services on their part were unfair. God! I am completely before You - behold, I have received, among the righteous, extremely unfair reproaches! For the righteous I offer You thanks, and from unjust reproaches, deliver me, O Lord! How long, Lord, will they call Your priest to battle and revile in the person of Your anointed, the performer of Your most peaceful, bloodless Sacrifice? How long will they be enemies of Your name? Behold, Lord, I told them the truth, and they did not want to submit and, like snakes, hissed against me. Humble them, Lord, enlighten them, Lord, curb them, Lord, fill their faces with dishonor, fear and horror for what they have done, destroy their advice and subvert their unrighteous intentions, let not every insolent word be spoken on high - as if without difficulty I will always be a queen, I will collect my support from all the churches. And forgive me, O Lord, with Your usual mercy my sins, which are without number, and forgive me this day my malice, and the malice of my household, always admonishing them with authority, but let them never boast of disobedience, their rudeness and their slander, for their tongue is a sharp sword and the sting of the serpent, when they begin to [blaspheme] people and us, Thy anointed ones: he would choke, My sister-in-law said about Father Matthew, “for what?” Because he supposedly encouraged me to denounce them. I denounce myself mercilessly that out of passion, and not for the sake of goodness, I forced my wife to immediately do what was pleasing to me and thereby irritated her and her sister. For I could easily have done without repairs this time, when she was busy with the children whom she loves jealously. I became embittered with them for what seemed to me to be disorder, I restricted their freedom, I affected the feelings of their natural affection for children - and a storm arose. But change and unite our hearts again, Lord, so that the rest of Satan may not boast about us, may Your name be sanctified in us, may Your Kingdom come again, may Your will be done, but not ours and the enemy’s. Otherwise, 115 humble and subdue, O Lord, the disobedient. I myself, the accursed one, asked for, so to speak, curses, ulcers, that is, spiritual ones, the troubles of hell, and how much I was comforted in the morning by the Lord in communion of the Holy Mysteries, how much I was sanctified, pacified, so saddened, embarrassed, and defiled by the enemy in the evening! Ole damnation! If you don't hurt yourself, no one will hurt you. We offend ourselves, we are multi-passionate. We should laugh at all our stupidities or stupid passions, and not quarrel over trifles. I thank the Lord, who has vouchsafed me today with boldness to freely, loudly and happily celebrate the Liturgy and to partake of the Divine Mysteries with boldness and, moreover, to be enlivened by them. Yesterday I was cruelly, cruelly scolded by my family and scolded by them myself, and confusion, melancholy, oppression, shame and dishonor attacked me. I came to the church, fell in contrition of heart to the throne of God, was moved, cried, and oh! All-merciful and all-generous Lord! You have had mercy on me, You have taken away dishonor and oppression. And I went to give a prayer to the mother in labor quickly and cheerfully, read the good, and went to talk with the kind, pious wives Ekaterina and Paraskeva, and then with Leopardov! And as I said! Wonderful! Lenten food makes my nerves subside, my hands ache, my hands shake, I get irritated and get sick all over. One must eat fast food, as if one were sick or infirm. (And passions are no less active.) I did not, brethren, hide the gifts of God in perishable treasuries, but tried to share my strength with my poor brethren, not forgetting, of course, to provide for both my household and my poor relatives. But my family is not accustomed to luxury, I do not give expensive gifts to anyone in order to show off them in front of people or to lie unused in closets and chests of drawers, knowing that my neighbors have urgent, crying needs that require constant satisfaction. True, sometimes beggars deceived me, but this did not happen often; I gave alms with consideration, and forgive me if I admit that sometimes I gave to the persistent poverty, and maybe the crafty one, with grief, and sometimes I sharply scolded him, because it was annoying to deal with many beggars every day, sometimes young and healthy, and sometimes not entirely trustworthy, - after all, I am a man, and a most sinful man, but I did not want to often and unworthyly deprive a small alms, so as not to offend him or so that someone who seems only unworthy is not deprived of alms unjustly, for all of us, gentlemen, are short-sighted in judging our neighbors: we do not judge ourselves, but others willingly and easily. I thank the Lord, who successfully averted my misfortune from the imprudent consumption of cloudberries in the evening, and then sprats, salmon, beer and tea, and the indigestion that followed; I thought that I would fall from weakness or vomit, but everything went well by the grace of God, and I received communion for the revival and boldness of the life-giving Mysteries. Glory to the mercy of the Lord! All earthly blessings are a mirage, a deception, and are not worth attention to the extent that they contribute to the achievement of eternal, heavenly blessings. Today pleasure - tomorrow or immediately bitterness and disappointment; for a minute pleasure - for an hour, for a day sorrow; today rich and noble, tomorrow poor and insignificant, or on the one hand, from the side of the body, rich and noble, from the side of the soul, in the eyes of God, poor and poor; today a nobleman is tomorrow the last of the people, or they barely even honor the name of a person, they liken them to senseless and bitter cattle. These are the blessings of the earth! Why chase them to madness, forgetting the eternal? (Stop reading worldly books and take up spiritual ones.) Justin philosopher († 166), martyr. Outstanding apologist of the Ancient Church. Dogmatist “Worldwide glory...”, voice 1st. “Honours change morals” (lat.). Plutarch. Hedgehog (Church Glav.) – that (pronoun), which. Purely (Church Glorious) – doubly so. Scylla and Charybdis are two monsters in Greek mythology who lived on the coastal rocks of a narrow sea strait and killed all sailors passing by. The expression “between Scylloi and Charybdois” means: to be between dangers threatening on both sides. Obache (Church Glav.) – however, only, however. You might be interested in: