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I thank the Lord for the everlasting life that I received, indecent, in His Life-giving Mysteries and so tangibly, peacefully, sweetly revived me. I came to Matins late, during the canon, and read the 3rd book of Ezra at home. I spent my classes calmly. But at home I sinned - there was plenty of cabbage soup, whitefish with horseradish and jelly with almond milk. I repent before the Lord, as if I was dying of madness. When will I leave greed? (The cabbage soup was modest, yesterday’s). God! I thank You for Your immeasurable mercy towards me on this day, for in the communion of the Divine Mysteries You powerfully took away from my heart and from my body the tightness, sorrow, illness, and pricks that pierced my soul, and You gave me perfect peace, space, health, boldness, holiness, taming my violent thoughts. And how cramped it was! Censing, fire, singing in the church. There is thunder, fire, smoke in Sinai. I thank the Lord for the gift of tenderness at the all-night vigil. But because of the holes in my purple woolen cassock, the enemy embarrassed me, the vain one, at the very end of the all-night vigil, not allowing me to do (pronounce) all the release and ask for forgiveness from those present. It was bitter for me to be defeated by the villain at the very end. The path by which one goes to the theater is a wide one, and many follow it; The path leading to the Church is narrow, and few people find it. Laugh there, cry about sins here; there the word is a toy and man is a toy, here the word is an instrument of the glory of God, an instrument of prayer, praise, thanksgiving, repentance; there actors and actresses speak from the world, and the world will listen to them, here - God’s words, and those who know God will listen to us, and those who are not from God will not listen to us [1 John. 4, 5 – 6]. There, human nature is desecrated and ridiculed, and this is called the correction of supposed morals - here, in the church, you see it in all its god-like grandeur, in its deification; there the goal is to get for money something pleasant and funny for the flesh, here it is to get something pleasant and useful for the soul and at the same time to become sanctified, filled with the grace of God, enlightened by the soul, to become a conqueror of sin, to be established in virtue; there is the worldly and transient with this world, lying in evil, and plunging souls into worse evil, here is the heavenly and eternal, that which gives grace to those who hear and makes them better, which leads to true, heavenly, eternal life, for which man was created. What does the scent of censer mean? – The favorability of common prayers offered to God by those praying, the grace of the Holy Spirit filling the hearts of the faithful, overshadowing them, that the saints have become a fragrance to God, that you too should be a fragrance before God through virtues. Resurrection. Before mass, I felt extreme tightness in my insides, as if the bonds of the devil, from yesterday’s dinner (unusual and inappropriate: I ate quick soup and black bread with butter), and I was weak from satiety; the voice is extremely difficult, hoarse, unclean; I served mass with extreme effort; at the great entrance, I could not pronounce the name of the empress from embarrassment and fear of the devil; I made the exclamations with effort and difficulty. But when I partook of the Holy Mysteries and especially when I consumed them after mass, I felt completely free, revitalized, and at peace; the voice became pure and clear and light. I thank the Lord, who took away sorrow and tightness and gave joy and space to the heart! A new monument to the miracles of the life-giving Mysteries! But from now on, God forbid me to have dinner before the service of the Liturgy, and especially during Lent to eat a light meal in the evening. The tea is empty – and that’s enough. I also thank my Lord for allowing my repentance to serve the most divine, most holy, most heavenly, terrible, life-giving, wonderful, universal and worldly liturgy and to partake of the same Divine Mysteries and for their premium fruits in me, a sinner. I pray to the Lord that in the manifestation in me of the power of the life-giving Mysteries, He, the all-good and all-powerful, will open my hearing, which was accidentally damaged by me, on which (the left ear) was my only hope in priestly service, and may He not deprive me of this gift of His goodness for the perfection of my service, for I do not know without hearing what measure of voice I should use during priestly service. To prove the truth, unity, holiness, conciliarity and apostolicity, the salvific nature of the Church by the fact that it embraces everyone - the saints in heaven, those living on earth and the dead, heading everyone in Christ, according to which the church itself is divided into three parts: into the altar, meaning heaven, the church, meaning earth, and the vestibule, meaning the underworld. In this divine, wise and saving structure, everything is divine, wise, saving, comforting; members of the Church help each other achieve salvation and bliss in God: members of the heavenly Church - to the earthly, living - to the dead; the most complete, living connection of some with others, while among Lutherans this connection is broken, there is no veneration of the saints and their spirit-bearing, life-giving remains, there is no thanksgiving sacrifice for the saints, no propitiatory sacrifice for the dead - the dead are left without help, do not enjoy the care and love of the Church, abandoned to their own devices. What does the ritual of blessing the censer mean? What does the sign of the cross mean? And I will betroth you to Me forever, and I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and judgment, in kindness and mercy. And I will betroth you to Me in fidelity, and you will know the Lord. Hosea 2, v. 19, 20. Thus the Lord betrothed me to Himself, and thus betroths to Himself every soul that seeks the Lord! December 4, 1872 (I found this text miraculously: I searched for a long time, and the Lord Himself suggested where to find it - an instant insight came.) Our disembodied enemy, knowing all the harm that comes from dividing a person into himself - spirit into flesh and flesh into spirit, man with man, family member with other members, citizens into citizens, members of the Church with members, society, tribes, peoples with societies, tribes and peoples - from the very beginning introduced into the human race the poison of division and duality in the soul and body, separating people from God, the Source of their life, and then introduced enmity into the very family of Adam and Eve, arming brother against brother, which was, so to speak, the beginning of people's enmity against each other. And so divisions between peoples and nations, with many beliefs and denominations, appeared everywhere on earth. God Himself, healing similar things, divided the nations during the Babylonian pandemonium and separated Abraham from other people infected with idolatry, as well as the Jewish people from other nations of the earth, in order to preserve the knowledge and veneration of the true God in the chosen people. This destructive division exists to this day and will exist until the end of time, for some for the good - separating lies from truth, rotten from healthy, and for others - for destruction, cutting them off like rottenness from a healthy body, like lies from truth. From now on, five in one house will be divided, three against two, and two against three [Lk. 12, 52]. And this is according to the original prediction of God in paradise: I will put enmity between you and your wife and between your seed and that seed. This enmity operates daily, hourly and every minute in ourselves, in each of us, especially in the pious. She daily and constantly shows us what we are more inclined to - to good or evil, to passions or to virtues, to the world or to God, to flesh or spirit. A man of God must completely despise the flesh and the world with all their ungodly deeds and desires and love the one God with all his heart. We must be one with God, one spirit, and since our many-passionate flesh constantly resists this blessed unity, we must mercilessly crucify it with passions and lusts, killing it with fasting, vigil, labor, contemplation of God, obedience, patience, almsgiving, etc. It is a sad phenomenon of the present time that the ancient Churches of the East, from where our faith shone, are divided with each other friend. God! Give us peace. You are a warrior of the king of earth, I am of heaven. I also have a helmet on my head, like yours. You carry a sword at your hip, of course not without your mind, and I wear a sword at my hip, and, without a doubt, not without your mind, for I, like you, am honored in mind from the Source of reason and wisdom. And, I dare say, in other ways there is more than you, for, I will say with the Apostle, we have the mind of Christ [1 Cor. 2, 16]. You have a girdle, and I also have it - I am girded with power from above to perform the heavenly Mysteries and to shepherd the verbal flock. You have a shell and armor - I have an epitrachelion and a chasuble; on top of the incorruptible garment I am clothed in a cross, and on top of this cross (epistrachelion and belt) I am clothed in a robe, as in spiritual armor. This is my spiritual all-armor, for during the priesthood I am a warrior of Christ my God and take upon myself the arrows of invisible enemies, which I repel with the cross and the name of Jesus; I am a single combatant fighting against the spiritual Goliath for the people of the Lord; my victory is your victory, my fall is your fall; invisibly we are closely connected with each other, for we make up one body: the head conquers - and the members conquer, the head falls - and the members. Communion of the Divine Mysteries raises us to primitive simplicity, expelling from our hearts all the deceit of sin. Accept forgiveness... In the simplicity and purity of God, and not in the wisdom of the flesh [living] in the world... So that... your minds are not damaged by straying from the simplicity that is in Christ [2 Cor. 11, 3]. The frequent cry: Lord, have mercy... To you, Lord... Grant, Lord... reminds, firstly, that we all stand before the face of the Lord, who listens to our prayers; secondly, that we are His servants, obligated to fulfill His will and constantly breaking it and deserving strict punishment. Bowing your heads to the Lord shows that we are before the face of the Lord and humbly surrender to Him. About rituals. For rational people, who understand, all words and actions have meaning, and an important meaning - especially in the Church, from pure meaning, all images have an important, spiritual, instructive and edifying meaning. It’s not Christian, not evangelical, in a word, I act badly, inhumanly when I respond with coldness to the caresses of my wife, not trusting their sincerity, responding with coldness to coldness, not knowing, however, whether she is really cold, for she apparently caresses me, and this is enough for me - a person who is not given to see the inner, for what would happen if other people saw everything that is inside me, what the ugliness and impurity of manifold passions? We must also respond to the coldness of our neighbor with fervor, according to the Gospel: constantly love one another from a pure heart [1 Pet. 1, 22], or: love your enemies [Matt. 5, 44]. This must be done in relation to other household members and to all people. Oh, woe to us that we are not vigilant over ourselves and allow this Divine fire of love to dry up within us, bringing into the heart an alien, devilish fire - love for ourselves, for our flesh and for the blessings of this transitory world. We are zealous servants of the womb, and not of the Gospel, not of Christ, our Savior and God, not doers of His will, but lusts who know only our sinful will. But when will there be a change for the better? When will self-love change to Christian love filled with self-sacrifice? There is freedom for the free, heaven for the saved. This proverb is expressive. If, that is, you have fallen in love with your own depraved will and you do not want to know the holy will of God, then follow your will and perish with it and from it, but know also that he who does the will of God and rejects his will is destined for paradise, eternal bliss in heaven. I thank the Lord, who revived me yesterday with the communion of His divine and life-giving Mysteries during the early liturgy and who took away the terrible tightness of my soul and body with the granting of divine freedom, peace and space. The tightness came, it seems to me, as much from my sins as from eating cod in moderate amounts with quick butter (it is heavy food), from eating strawberry jam and from drinking milk under the pretext of weakness; I thought that it would be useful, but it turned out to be extremely harmful - it embarrassed me completely, my voice was difficult, unclean, as if coming from under a dung heap; my stomach was strong, it was unclean, clogged. Vespers was served cheerfully. We know from experience that [sinful] poison is deadly, that it is extremely dangerous to joke with hellish fire, however, due to inattention to ourselves, due to lack of common sense in this particular case, when it comes to sin or our favorite habit and passion, and due to bad skill, we daily play a dangerous game with sin, and when it stings and crushes us with its hellish shackles, we rush from corner to corner, we groan, we fall to our knees and with painful groaning we pray to our Judge and Savior to have mercy on us, take away our cramped conditions and restore our former peace and spiritual spaciousness. The merciful Master, seeing our groans and tears with sincere repentance, forgives us and saves us, giving peace and great mercy to our souls. But why serve sins again after this? After all, you can completely die from it. After all, the barren fig tree is cut down, because the evil workers who do not give the Lord the fruit of the grapes are given over to an evil death: these evildoers he will put to an evil death [Matt. 21, 41]. Some boss or husband, out of waywardness, pride, arbitrariness, impatience, demands obedience in something from his subordinates or his wife, and when he does not see obedience to his waywardness, he becomes angry, angry, annoyed, and hostile. The wife, like a dumb animal, must serve the whims of her husband, be an instrument of his pride, self-will, voluptuousness and the like, and should not have her own will and reasoning. What crude despotism, trampling on the legal right of a woman, created in the same image of God as her husband. A wife should be an adviser and helper to her husband according to the Christian law, and not a slave, for she is a joint heir of the promise of God, and she is a child of God and a member of Christ God. In general, we must respect the rights of every person. Give everyone their due... to whom fear, fear; to whom is honor, honor [Rom. 13, 7]. I thank the Lord, who revived me with the Divine communion of His Body and Blood and took away my great distress. He was dead and came to life and was healed. I thank the Lord, who repeatedly accepted my repentance for my malice, healed me from it, drove away the tightness of hell and granted me freedom with divine peace. We often haughtily and very sternly reprimand beggars who ask for alms that they do nothing and therefore are not worth alms, although many of them, although ready for work, do not find it. But what are we doing? Do we pay attention to this? After all, to be fair, we often do less than they do, despite all our visible activity. Each one consider his own affairs impartially and do not judge the poor. Keep yourself low and don’t forget that you yourself are the first parasite. What unchangeable freedom of spirit, what peace, what unchangeable space have the holy saints of God achieved! And we, on earth, are in constant slavery to sin of many kinds, in constant confusion, in constant almost constant oppression of sin! Oh, vanity of vanities! Let's be jealous of the saints. Let's work hard for God. Whoever wants to be the greatest of you must be a servant of all and a servant of all, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many [Matt. 20, 27 – 28]. After this, you, man, are stupid and senseless if you are burdened by the fact that every day you have to provide up to a hundred beggars with necessities and that the beggars chase you and demand alms everywhere. The more you serve them, the greater your reward from God. Just don’t grumble, don’t be insolent before God and before people or before the poor when too many of them surround you, but do things with zeal, silently, willingly, with meekness and compassion, and without condemning or reproaching! Anna Konstantinovna pleased me yesterday at evening tea, guessing my desire to take a piece of sugar that was missing. She slipped it in herself. I saw Pyotr Ivanovich Tsepov in an extremely humble, insignificant hut (and he gave me advice to give half a ruble to the beggars so that they would leave me alone; he called them drunkards), and for some reason I was [assigned] to him; “I was traveling somewhere, I was afraid of him, like a robber,” he explained, guessing my thoughts. Read the 58th chapter of the book of the prophet Isaiah more often - you really need it, the Lord Himself reminds me of this place. We must thank God that the essence pleasing to Him has been revealed to us [Rom. 1, 20]. Where is it? Where in Scripture? Do the known will of God. I thank the Lord, who has granted me the greatest mercy and this day to celebrate the Liturgy and partake of the life-giving Mysteries for the cleansing of sins, for the sanctification of soul and body, for revival and renewal. But still, I have not changed in my heart and remain an old man: still the anger in me has not died, I cannot remain indifferent, seeing the anger and pout of my family, to whom I give reason with my severity and gloominess - I still try to respond to annoyance with annoyance, to insult with the same. God! Give me kindness. Grant me to feel sorry from the heart for everyone who is angry with me, and not to become angry, grant me gentleness. Have mercy on Anna, my sister, Thy member. In her youth, in her maturity and into old age, let her work and please You, so that she will be pleasing to people too. Give her simplicity, humility, kindness, obedience, low-mindedness, non-judgment, self-will, carelessness, lack of vanity, and hard work. In the evening, he lost his temper, with indignation and anger, answering his wife’s question about where I was, that I was there... lying to himself madly and impudently, and then he was angry with his wife for unanimously with her sister (as if) arming herself and deceiving me. Shouldn’t we rather pray with love for them and not have anything against them?.. If we love those who love, what gratitude do we have for that [Matt. 5, 46]?.. But my wife is not without love, and my sister-in-law is not without goodwill. Quiet our life, Lord, have mercy on us, our house... All enmity nesting in our hearts, quench your name for the sake of the grace of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Peace to all... Have peace with all people, especially during divine services... Leave us our debts... let us leave our debtors [Matt. 6, 11 ]; When you stand in prayer, forgive if you have anything against anyone, so that your Heavenly Father may forgive you your sins [Mk. 11, 25]. I thank You, Lord, for softening the heart of my wife and encouraging her to turn to me with words of forgiveness and peace... Your address to your husband [Gen. 3, 16]. I thank You, Most Merciful, for the peaceful and sweet fruit of the prayer You gave me this morning... The saints, like fragrant flowers, are fragrant before the Lord with various virtues: faith, hope, kindness, love, humility, purity, abstinence, non-covetousness, patience, obedience, courage. We must imitate them, for we bear the same high title and have been awarded the same gifts from the Lord, the same strength for life and piety. Marvelous are the works of God, the works of the wisdom and omnipotence of God: in rot, stench and destruction He laid the beginning of renewal (through the release of scrofula, in rot and destruction of the bodies of all the dead who will rise incorruptible). For behold, through the expiration of scrofulous purulent matter, I am renewed, youthful, stronger, and receive freedom from the bonds and illnesses that bound me. Glory to my all-wise, all-good, all-powerful Creator! Do this in remembrance of Me [Lk. 22, 19, etc.]. Without the Sacrament of the Body and Blood, without the liturgy, the greatest work of love, wisdom and omnipotence of our Savior could be forgotten, the fruits of His suffering could be lost, therefore He commanded to create the Sacrament of His Body and Blood in remembrance of Him, and not only in remembrance, but also in the closest communication with Him. This universal Sacrament is performed loudly and loudly throughout the world. Its fruits are holiness and incorruptibility and eternal life. I also thank the Lord, who has made me worthy to perform the Liturgy, this universal Sacrifice, and to partake of His life-giving Mysteries for my revival. At home, as a result of morbid irritability, I was upset with my wife for stopping me from going to my room, where baby Rufina was sleeping, and at the table I seriously reckoned with her for various embarrassments to me. I admit, I am proud, whimsical, and capricious. In the future, if the Lord wills, I need to be careful and put aside all whims, and live in mutual harmony, peace, silence, and gentleness. My wife spoke the truth, but I said otherwise unfairly. Our faith is filled with the wonders of God’s goodness, wisdom and omnipotence; extremely much has been given to human nature in this life, and what has been given to us in hope in the life beyond the grave surpasses all description, for no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and it has not entered into the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love Him [1 Cor. 2, 9]. And how senseless and ungrateful we are before God, how absurdly attached we are to the perishable blessings of this life! How negligent they are in fulfilling God’s commandments! Tell me, theater lover, with what disposition you come to Church, how you look at the entire furnishings of the church, how you look at the clergy, how you listen to reading and singing, how you like the frequent Lord, have mercy, you, who are accustomed to consider yourself, through pride, an excellent and innocent person; How do you like the very language of worship after the language of actors and actresses? Or will you say: the theater is in itself, and the church is in itself! Let's face it, but is it possible to serve two masters? Isn’t it rightly said that a person will love one and hate another, be zealous for one and despise another [Matt. 6, 24; OK. 16, 13]. The worship of the Jewish church was organized according to the image shown from God on the mountain; and much has entered into our Church from the Old Testament Church, because both are one. Grant me, O Lord, to walk in the midst of my house with a gentle heart [Ps. 100:2], despite the turmoil at home, to honor in them Your image and our own flesh and blood, for we are many and are one body [1 Cor. 10, 17]. But, Good Shepherd, who searches hearts and bellies, reprove, punish and admonish them yourself, for in my house I am dishonest, they do not listen to my voice, being self-righteous and arbitrary. Let me not heed the enemy’s slander against my family: they are not my enemies, they feel the good that I do to them (both my wife and my widowed sister-in-law with children and servants). God willing, they will be correct in their deeds. By God I will be strong against them, against their disorder, with good, not evil, with meekness and humility, and not with anger and pride. Wake up! Resurrection. Mass in the Duma. I thank the Lord, who has made me worthy, despite my deafness, which recently (about a week) happened to me, to celebrate the Divine Liturgy and to be enlivened by the communion of His holy, heavenly Mysteries. I thank the Lord for calling me to prayer, for two prayer services invited me to serve: at Popov’s and at Toluzakov’s, and for the prayer of gratitude with feeling and tenderness. Do we honor the Ever-Virgin Mother of God and the saints of God in vain? Is it not through their prayers that we are healthy and prosperous? Do we honor the Mother of God and the saints in vain? Was it not through them that our corrupt nature was exalted, ennobled, sanctified, deified? Was it not through the Ever-Virgin that we were delivered from corruption, curses, and eternal death? Was it not through Her that we received countless mercies from God: purified, sanctified, deified, brought back into paradise or into heaven itself, awarded countless blessings (in hope), seated on the throne of the Divine? If we glorified the Lady all our lives day and night, then we would not bring Her benefits commensurate with Her greatness, goodness, bounties of glory and thanksgiving. Thus, glorifying Her and the holy saints, we glorify our own nature, so enlightened, blessed, awarded through them countless blessings from God, and through this we naturally and gracefully become better ourselves, for with whomever you turn from the heart, you yourself accept the morals of that person, you become like him. You see that our own spiritual benefit necessarily requires the glorification of the saints of God, especially the glorification and thanksgiving by us to God Himself, who infinitely and unceasingly benefits us, preserving, saving, healing, merciful, reviving, loving, glorifying! Early mass (forty-morning) in the Duma church. Satan killed me during mass because of an empty chance: the deacon did not kiss the hand of the serving priest not once, but twice - I lost my boldness, I was embarrassed, I was deeply wounded, I was amazed, I was lost, I could not utter words; I became darkened, horrors attacked me, and throughout the mass after that I had no boldness, although after that the deacon already kissed my hand. This embarrassment probably came from yesterday’s dinner: fish soup and fish with black bread, and maybe because yesterday in the same house I drank wine and ate sweets, although not much, and because I didn’t go to matins, but at home I read prayers for communion. It’s not the deacon’s fault – it’s my fault that I was greatly embarrassed because of such trifles. Oh, how harmful satiety is! There should be no dinner, just tea. I still feel the excess in my sides and the pus there, the pricks are sharp. There is no need to eat fish - it strengthens you. We often remember the Most Holy, Most Pure, Most Blessed Mother of God, like children caressing their Mother, like faithful servants glorifying the Queen and Lady, worthy of all praise and the highest of all praise. Hallowed be Thy name... But do you really, sincerely want the name of God to be glorified through you and in you? Is it not blasphemed by you? Thy Kingdom come - do you sincerely desire it? Thy will be done - but do you really want to do the will of God? Don’t you prefer your own whims to the will of God, and so on? The church is the place of your rebirth, anointing, repentance, and communion. How can one not love this place in which such gifts are imparted? A place of enlightenment, [tenderness]. He who does not gather with Me, does not pray in My church, scatters [Matt. 12, 30]. In the Church everything is wise, holy, divine, life-giving, instructive - here the streams of life flow, here there is peace, joy, freedom. Why not love her? Even if earthly mothers, evil beings, know how to give good gifts to their children and strangers, how much more does the Mother of God give good things to those who ask Her [cf. Matt. 7, 11]. I thank the Lord with all my heart for the success during the service of the Divine Liturgy and for the non-judgmental, most peaceful, blessed, all-saving communion of the Divine Body and His Blood. Oh love! Oh, indulgence! Oh simplicity, oh wisdom! Oh, the omnipotence of my God! We are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones [Eph. 5, 30]. From many I hear praise for my ministry, but I attribute this solely to the grace of the Lord. Glory to Your grace, Lord! Through the comparison or through the combination of the Old Testament inspired writings with the New Testament during the service, the Holy Church depicts the Lord’s faithfulness to His promises: to send a Redeemer and Savior to earth and through Him to give people countless benefits, as well as the faithfulness of all the predictions of the Lord, which will certainly be fulfilled in due time, and at the same time show our unfaithfulness to the Lord, inattention, drowsiness, carelessness about one’s salvation. Israel will receive His servant, remembering His mercies, as He spoke to our fathers, Abraham and his seed forever [Lk. 1, 54 – 55]. The Bible is completely true from the first to the last word, that man was created in the image and likeness of God, that man fell, but God wanted to raise and save him; that He Himself came to find the lost drachma, or to seek and save the lost [Matthew, 18, 11], having taken upon Himself the nature of perishing humanity; that we are deified in the person of the God-man, we must cherish our nobility and not be defiled by sin, hate evil and sin, walk worthy of our calling [Eph. 4, 1]. Light and censer: that God and His saints are the light and eternal fragrance of the Holy Spirit. I thank the Lord with all my soul and with all my thoughts, for He revived me, deadened by sins, after communion of the Life-giving Mysteries, and with His power I defeated my invisible enemies, who fought me hard with anger against my father the deacon. I thank the Lord, for today this day has mercifully accepted the repentance I have repeatedly brought for the sins of my malice and my cruelty towards the poor and has had mercy on me, giving me peace. The greatest Sacrament of God on earth was performed and is being performed continuously, and one must have a cheerful and sober, understanding soul, lofty thoughts with the rejection of worldly lusts and addictions, in order to somehow [comprehend] the love of Christ that surpasses reason for us sinners. Matins and Liturgy are a constant spectacle of these miracles of God. I thank the Lord with all my saved soul for reviving my unworthiness with the most pure, divine and life-giving Mysteries and, after crampedness and confusion, for a supremely peaceful, spacious and joyful state of spirit. Oh, incessant miracle! Oh, Divine Life, always flowing with a living spring from the Divine Body and Blood! I thank the Lord, who saved me in high school through looking to Him. By desiring more, that is, many of these insignificant blessings, the enemy intensifies to distract us from the love of God, to cool us towards God and our neighbor, and even plant in our hearts enmity towards God and our neighbors, for friendship with the world is enmity against God [Jas. 4, 4]. Don't wish for much, be content with what you have. Love your spouse fervently, and you will love other people fervently, for if you do not love this flesh and blood of yours fervently, then who will you love? Why don’t you pronounce some of the names of saints and sinners during worship? - From lack of love for them, the saint. Love - and you will speak freely. Pay attention to yourself and do not allow the sting of the serpent's envy, pride, covetousness, lust, intemperance and greed, anger and contempt to hiss in you. My actions in the house are arbitrary, self-righteous, filled with pride and contempt, and resentment. Rufina said: pompous dad. Who is this for? You need to listen to the angelic voice. I thank the Lord, who has now performed with me the wondrous miracle of His mercy and life, peace and freedom through the communion of His glorious, divine, holy, life-giving and terrible Mysteries. I thank the Lord, who destroyed sin and death in me, who burned up the thorns of passions and enlightened and renewed everything in me. (I was embarrassed by the desire to buy a second, cheap pectoral cross for a change, for glory and beauty, according to the word of Scripture.) We all suffer from a strong, deadening addiction and attraction to earthly, perishable goods. They turn our heads and hearts and turn us away from the love of God. But it is extremely surprising that we are not captivated or attracted by the future incorruptible, indescribable or unspeakable blessings promised by the unfaithful God. Check yourself carefully: is there in you the holy love of Christ, long-suffering, merciful, not envious, not arrogant, not proud, not outrageous, not seeking its own, not irritated, not thinking evil, not rejoicing in unrighteousness, but rejoicing in the truth, covering everything, having faith in everything, trusting everything, enduring everything and nothing else? falling away [2 Cor. 13, 4 – 7 ] ? Why are all your thoughts often aimed at harming your neighbor who lives with you? Why do you watch all his steps, words, deeds? Why do you want to catch it in word or deed? Why are you hostile against him and provoke him to hostility? Why are you jealous of him? Is your part small? Why do you see everything bad in him? Why do you slyly hate the good? Why do you look only at one, worse side of the coin and not look at the other, better? Pray fervently for every person and for yourself, so that the Lord will have mercy and correct everyone and grant everyone mutual love and peace, for this is the greatest good from the Lord. If you love the Lord, cling to Him with all your heart, with all your mind and with all your strength, and turn away with all your heart and with all your thought and with all your strength from all sin. Remember that just as you eat and drink for free when visiting someone, and those who treat you respect and love you, so your sister-in-law, living with children and a servant, is as if visiting and using God’s gifts given to you; Do not be burdened by her and your children and servants, but feed them with joy and peace for the sake of the love of Christ. For the sake of the coming great holiday of the Nativity of the Lord Jesus Christ, for the sake of the poor, in this week before Christmas, with zeal and joy, in the simplicity of your heart, supply us according to your strength, for you yourself once lived in poverty. The Gospel sayings and parables of the Lord, the prophecies of the Lord are being fulfilled feature by feature, word by word. Notice the modern spirit, modern customs. We pray for the sovereign, because he is the shepherd of the people, and the people are sheep, and he needs a lot of wisdom and strength in order to shepherd so many sheep well! I, the shepherd, sinned... and these sheep, what did they do? [ 2 Sam. 24, 17] (words of Saint David the King). What pleases the Lord in our prayers for our neighbors, living and dead? – Love with faith and hope in His mercy. So, we must always pray with love, in simplicity of faith, in firm hope. God! Help! December 17, 1872. Sunday. The important meaning of these words: The blessing of the Lord is upon you through His grace and love for mankind... Having come to us in the flesh, the Lord destroyed the curse pronounced on us and bestowed the blessing of the Heavenly Father. Those who believe in Christ, the Son of God, are no longer cursed by God, but blessed. May we be worthy of this blessing. Those who do not adhere to the Church and do not come to church for prayer and to participate in the Sacraments will, without any doubt, perish, for sin will swallow them up, just as the waters of the flood once engulfed the human race. Early mass. He served with extreme difficulty, there was tightness in his chest, his voice was difficult and unclean, his sides were tight, his stomach was clogged. Drinking cream in the evening (raw) instead of the intended benefit brought harm, moral and physical. I felt sick. How many times have I cursed non-observance of fasting and praised, after victory, fasting and abstinence! And I keep getting carried away by savory dishes, that is, milk, cream, butter! The Church is a spring of living water, or grace. Who wouldn’t resort to such a spring? Why don't many people come running? Convict. Above all, love, above all, peace among ourselves. If someone accidentally broke something, if someone damaged something of ours, if someone is faulty in life, for example, he is idle, lazy, does not eat your bread, or is arrogant, proud, disobedient, stubborn, faulty in his service, drunk - do not be irritated, but endure everything with meekness; remember that you yourself are a person, subject to all sorts of infirmities, and you yourself have done this many times, you yourself have needed and need the condescension of others. And therefore, as you want people to do to you, do so to them. For example, your lamp was broken accidentally - don’t be offended by those who broke it, take the sin upon yourself, imagine that you broke it, and just as we judge ourselves, punish ourselves very leniently or willingly forgive ourselves for big mistakes, so let us forgive others and settle everything amicably, cover it up and, as it were, not notice it, if we don’t see someone else’s fault, or carelessness, or damage and loss of a thing harming others, for example, temptation, grievances, etc. This is what it means to love your neighbor as yourself, that is, to treat your neighbor in his faults condescendingly, dissolving judgment with mercy, to take care of his welfare as if it were your own. Blessed be God, and Hallelujah. We, Christians, and Orthodox Christians, will take advantage of the benefits of our calling and our position for ourselves and for others. The Holy Church, our immaculate and pure Mother, is completely close to God and has great boldness towards Him; she can beg Him for everything, every prayer of hers is fulfilled by God - pray to Him sincerely and purely with her, and most of all, live purely, and everything will be for you. Other Churches, as those who have deviated from its truth, cannot have the same boldness before Him that our Church has. My house is a house of prayer [Isa. 56, 7]. Coming to the church, we seem to ascend to heaven, leaving everything earthly behind us, at least this is how we should enter the church. At home, many things distract us from prayer: household chores, small children, etc., but in church everything inspires us with reverence and prayer: the throne of God, and the faces of the Lord and the saints, and the image of the Life-giving Cross, and the Gospel on the throne, and the [royal] doors leading to the altar, to this earthly heaven, and the very sight of the altar, elevated above other parts of the church, and reading and singing, incense, and burning lamps, and sacred faces the servants, dressed in holy clothes - everything, everything inspires you with reverence and prayer, everything inspires you that you are in the sanctuary of God, face to face with God Himself. The church contains all the best, highest, spiritual, holy, eternal interests of a person; here he sobers up from passions, here he recognizes his own image and likeness (of man). Collect the remaining pieces so that nothing is lost [Jn. 6, 12]. For me, Lord, You said this, for are You concerned about pieces of bread or fish? Is it not about the salvation of human souls? Are you hungry for their repentance and salvation? - So You thirst for my salvation when You proclaim on the cross: I thirst [Jn. 19, 28]. So You curse the barren fig tree in order to strike with a curse my barrenness and carelessness regarding the salvation of my soul. All Your words, O Word of God, are deeply significant and mysterious! Teach me Thy wisdom, especially teach me the wisdom of works. Yesterday, at a memorial service in the Kudryavtsevsky wing, with a large crowd of people, the enemy did not allow me to pronounce some words of the litany for the sake of drinking a lot of sweet tea at home; my heart was captivated by him, in his clutches. Oh, how annoyed I was that I could not utter words because of the dirty tricks of the enemy. Then you remember that this same kind comes from nothing but prayer and fasting [Matt. 17, 21]. If I had humbled my flesh with abstinence and fasting, my soul would have been strengthened and triumphed over the tricks of the enemy. In addition, I felt lustful movements and feelings in the flesh because of the same sweets. And I dare to think that when I don’t eat fast food and drink sweet tea, I’m fasting! How could it not be! Sweet tea is not a fast, but a delicacy. And a delicacy is a grave sin, because it greatly revives and cherishes the sinful flesh. December 20, 1872. My life hitherto has been self-love, self-indulgence, for I was voluptuous, greedy, ambitious, people-pleasing, irritated, angry, offended and offended, quarreled, hated, envied, despised, looked at faces (display of persons), prayed carelessly, not from the heart, often, was lazy in preaching the word of God, carelessly blessed the people of God in the name The Lord, he was stingy, fell into despondency, grumbled, was insolent in adversity, blasphemed, was fornicated in heart, loved vanity, cared little about the salvation of the souls, the verbal sheep entrusted to me by God, and even his own soul, for he was carried away by the satisfaction of lusts. I am so sinful, so unrighteous, that I cannot boast of a single virtue, for I have not acquired one. With what, with what soul will I appear to the Lord, burdened with so many sins? The Church in her prayers, supplications, petitions, thanksgivings, psalms and singing and spiritual songs is higher and higher, and I am lower and lower, and I cannot grow up to her, catch up with her; everything that is natural and completely easy for her is, as it were, unnatural to me, that is, to my old, sinful nature, and difficult! Do not trust your vile flesh in anything: if it is dissatisfied with something or someone regarding the external, regarding things, do not trust it; whether she is disposed towards anyone or anything carnal and for the sake of pleasing the flesh - again, do not believe. If he is angry at anyone or what, curb him; if he craves for sweets, bliss, peace - curb him; if he begins to be consumed by envy, covetousness - crucify him; if it shows impatience and cowardice - reject it; If you are inclined towards laziness and inaction - overcome its attraction and turn to work. The lesson of today and yesterday evening, in which I drank a lot of strong sweet tea, and this morning I had a snack and also drank tea. Never drink a lot of lean strong sweet tea: it extremely irritates my internal nerves - today I could not speak the litany at home and the funeral litany on the street: no matter how hard I tried, I could not. Belial laughed at me, like entangling me like a bird, or like a spider - a fly. This is because I cruelly scolded him yesterday - so he scolded me cruelly, devilishly. This evening I was extremely upset, embittered and internally cursed my sister-in-law and children for their dirty tricks (for defecating) in my bedroom, which they moved into from theirs because they were cleaning the floor. He should have endured out of love, but he did not have love and became upset, and punished himself more than everyone else, or, better yet, did not punish others at all, for he did not reprimand them anything. O addiction to sinful flesh! I condemn you! I condemn myself, damned sinner, alien to love, self-loving, self-indulgent! The church is a place of purification and illumination of our souls and bodies, a quiet refuge for souls, a place of peace and deliverance from the storms of passions, a place of renewal, strengthening, spiritual enlightenment, a place where we came to know our high origin and spiritual nobility and we learn to value this nobility by fleeing the baseness, impurity and ugliness of sin and attachment to idolizing virtue. The lamps burning in front of the icons mean that the Lord is an unapproachable Light and a consuming Fire for unrepentant sinners, and for the righteous - a cleansing and life-giving Fire; that the Mother of God is the Mother of Light and She is all - the purest, unflickering light, shining throughout the entire universe, that She is a bush, burning and unburnt, having unburntly received into Herself the Fire of the Divine, the fiery throne of the Almighty, together with the fire that scorches the wicked and life-giving for the pious; that the saints are lamps burning and shining to the whole world with their faith and virtues, which they all accomplished as one; that they are also fire, burning those who do not honor them, for the Holy Spirit, who sanctified them with eternal sanctification and inseparably abides in them, is Fire. So, sinner, tremble the faces of the saints because of your sins and see that no scorching fire comes out from them, and honor their faces with the honor due to them as consecrated images of God Himself, His Most Pure Mother and His saints, as His friends and faithful servants. This is a benefit for yourself: if you diligently honor them and remember their lives and deeds, then you yourself will change for the better, you yourself, to the best of your ability, will become like them, for example, in faith, hope, love, abstinence, purity of life, in meekness, humility, kindness, compassion, mercy, submission to the will of God. The Lady is the Pillar of Fire, leading humanity into the highest life. The predictions of the Old Testament prophets and forefathers were fulfilled - in the New Testament we see their fulfillment; everything predicted regarding the future fate of the Church of Christ and the whole world will come true; the hour will come when the great angel will say: it is done! [ Open 16, 17], for the Lord is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end [Rev. 1.8], faithful witness, firstborn from the dead and ruler of the kings of the earth [Rev. 1, 5]. (Glory to Thee!) December 21, 1872. For gluttony and satiety and drunkenness, yesterday (December 26) was [...] defeated. exhaustion, shame during morning, afternoon and evening services; I hadn’t eaten all day and only at the end, after the fiery temptation, did I feel life-giving grace in my heart. So, gluttony and satiety have always brought and bring weakness, fear, illness, shame. Fast! I need a post. A good sign from the Lord for me, Mikhail Feoktistovich Lassky. December 21st. I want, Lord, that the good that I do to sister Anna Konstantinovna be truly good, from the heart, done with love, and not with coercion, not by force, not with bitterness and annoyance. You constantly do me good, Lord, but I use Your mercies unworthily; if my sister Anna Konstantinovna takes advantage of me unworthily, as if she is idle and does not want to raise her children in generally accepted rules and spoils them, admonish her yourself and have mercy, as you have mercy on me. Let me love her like a sister, for until now I had no feeling of brotherly love for her. God! Warn me about this! Warn her too, for we have long been weak and sinful. December 24, 1872. As a result of my intemperance and omnivory, two misfortunes happened to me in the almost past post: firstly, damage to my left, healthy ear and pain in the secret member, due to the outpouring of the night from incontinence. I have sinned greatly and grievously before You, Lord! So last night I had an adulterous emission from gluttony the day before and from an adulterous thought in the evening! Have mercy, O Lord, on Thy creation, and if I have hope of salvation, if Thy love for mankind overcomes the multitude of my iniquities, be my savior 82 . Amen. How skillfully and accurately the enemy instills in me enmity towards my sister Anna Konstantinovna! Because of everyday excuses, that she does nothing, that four souls weigh on me! But has the hand of the Lord become weak for me? Is it not she, but I, who will give the answer for her failure to do so? Isn't she quite old? And shouldn’t I save everyone who is lost through prayer, but not through a feeling of hostility, which is a grave sin? Love! Love! Love! Revive me, O Lord, to Thy love, O Lord, be born of a Virgin! [...] Child Rufina called me “kaka” yesterday - I was upset: this means that I really had sinful feces and at night in a dream I saw confirmation of this when Archpriest Trachevsky was scraping some feces from the cross on the wall. I thank the Lord, who made me worthy to perform Matins and the early liturgy on this worldwide and all-saving holiday, although in weakness of spirit and body; I thank the Lord, who once again made me worthy to receive the divine and life-giving Mysteries for my purification, revival, renewal and confirmation. In relation to my sister Anna K. and my wife, sometimes I myself don’t know what I want from them, some claims, restless and sinful for myself, appear in me, leading only to enmity and hostility. Lord, have mercy on us. A person sometimes and often does not know what he wants and what he is doing - so do I. Take a closer look at your life and see how vain and stupid it is! Why? Because it is not established on the Gospel and on the statutes of the Church. The purpose of explaining worship is to make people fall in love with worship and the statutes of the Church. Yesterday I ate five soft-boiled eggs with bread, in the morning I drank tea with bread, then I ate salmon at the merchant Karpov’s, had cheesecakes and cabbage soup at home, then game at Palyanov’s and a glass of porter - and what came of it? – Stomach upset, relaxation of nerves and chest; I could not speak the litanies today, the enemy overpowered me in my weakness. The weather is unfavorable for health - extremely warm, the rain has driven away all the snow. By this satiety I offended the Lord who was within me after communion of His Divine, life-giving and terrible Mysteries, for, of course, I had to abstain. Have mercy, Lord! Where, besides You, can I take refuge with my sins? Today's life is subject to disastrous changes from calm to confusion, from joy to sadness, from truth to sin, from contentment to poverty, from health to illness, from the favor of those in power to disfavor, from friendship to hostility, from success to failure; and the future life is not subject to change - eternal wealth, eternal joy, eternal peace, eternal light, eternal mercy! Let us strive for this life unceasingly. It is said to you that it is fitting for you to do, it was said to the Apostle Paul [Acts. 9, 6]. You see, the Church is the proclaimer of the desires of the Lord Jesus Christ. Honor the Church, her commandments and statutes and teachings. I am with you always, even to the end of the age [Matt. 28, 20]. Inner sympathy of pious souls, inner attraction, understanding, sympathy: the soul gives voice to the soul. Grief from intemperance and drunkenness: today Matins was for me a time of extreme struggle, tears, cramped conditions, fear, especially due to the drunkenness of sexton Kamnev. At the Great Litany he lost his way, but recovered, returning to the point where he stumbled and doubted. (The troubles of drunkenness are heavy!) During worship, we give room to many idols of our passions and think of serving two masters. But if you chase two hares, you won’t catch either. You cannot serve God and wealth, or covetousness, lust, or ambition. From the case of my father’s entry into the income book, I learned that he, and people in general, are not as evil as I thought: they just don’t know what they are doing, and they don’t know us. You will explain to them regarding their hostile actions against us, and you will see that they acted badly towards us out of ignorance and, having learned the essence of the matter, again favor us. Thanks be to the Lord the Benefactor. Let us ourselves avoid all evil and think no evil. Lord, Lover of mankind and Savior! I turn to You with my earnest prayer, not only as God, but also as a person who has been tempted in every way in my likeness, except for sin: heal the infirmities of my soul and body, quench my sorrows, kindle my enemies, remove from Your church the drunken readers who do not want to listen to admonition and do not want correction, so that there will not be a great temptation due to drunkenness, and I do not give myself the disastrous example. It is saving and life-giving to have one God in your heart and to renounce everything earthly, to trample on everything like rubbish. It is murderous to have an addiction to anything, especially during prayer; the corruptible and the incorruptible cannot be united. Daily experience confirms that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, and corruption does not inherit incorruption [1 Cor. 15:50], that is why all the saints left the corruptible. The liturgy is the best touchstone of our spiritual state: whether we are alive or dead, what nests in us, what passions, what spiritual weaknesses. Oh, with what care one must always prepare for the performance of this heavenly, terrible, life-giving Sacrament, this universal Sacrifice, the Sacrifice for the heavenly, earthly and underworld. The church is divided into three parts to indicate that thanksgiving and propitiation are constantly offered in it for the heavenly, that is, the saints, the earthly, or living, and the underworld, or the dead. I thank the Lord, who has deigned me to celebrate the Divine Liturgy and to partake of the revival of my spiritually dead being. Mortify the much-passionate flesh, so that otherwise it does not kill you completely; and death intrusively invades my entire being, as a result of my carnal knowledge. Alas for me, careless one! And truth will be... the girdle of His thighs [Isa. 11.5 ] - achieve this. In gluttony, covetousness, ambition, self-love, vanity, vanity, in love for the world we make progress from day to day, but in love for God and neighbor from day to day we grow cold, stumble, and fall. Sons of humanity, how long are the hearts heavy; have you always loved vanity and are looking for lies? [Ps. 4, 3]. And I am the first, damned one. Nature is content with so little, but I am greedy and seek so much! Nature is simple, but I am so crafty! God! Give me time for repentance and correction and do not take me away from here, unprepared! December 28, 1872. The church is the threshold of heaven and paradise and, as it were, heaven itself, for in it is the throne of God, the ministry of Angels, the frequent descent of the Holy Spirit, the performance of heavenly life-giving and terrible Mysteries, the cleansing of sins, the giving of shrines, the communion of the Divine Body and Blood, [...], the deification of earthly beings. Great and holy was the church of the Old Testament, but greater, more holy is the church of the New Testament, for there the Lord appeared in a pillar of cloud and fire, here he is seen and touched and tasted in the Theanthropic being, in His very being; there is the Ark of the Covenant with purification, manna, tablets, a rod, here is the heavenly Bread Himself - Christ, here is the Divine Gospel, here is the Life-giving Cross. Sinai was terrible because of the descent of God on it and the terrible signs of the presence of God - thunder, lightning, earthquakes, trumpet sounds, the tabernacle was also terrible, from which fire came out to defeat the rebellious; The Christian church is also terrible - not with thunder and lightning, but with the terrible and tangible and visible Mysteries of Christ God, the personal coming and presence of God Himself, the Divine Fire of the Spirit descending on the offered Gifts. With what reverence should all of us enter and pray in it, especially us who approach the very throne of God and perform and use such Mysteries! With what a fiery soul to pray! In the world, in the theater there is vanity, in the church there is Truth itself; in the world there is confusion of passions, service to passions, in the church there is peace and silence of the Divine Spirit, service to the eternal Truth; Spiritual death is constantly at work in the world, in the church - Divine life, eternal life, renewal, enlightenment, sanctification, deification. In the world we die, in the church we come to life; in the world we are defiled, in the church we are cleansed and sanctified; In the world we waste our mental and physical strength, in the church we collect and renew it. Damned me - I die from sweets and continue to indulge in voluptuousness. I mortify my flesh and passion, because it tears my spirit away from God, the Source of my life and my immortality, mortifies it, weakens it, darkens it, defiles it, deprives it of faith, hope, boldness, sincere love, all priceless virtues, all the immortal treasures of my immortal soul. Woe if I do not kill my body and do not enslave it, and it is good if I do, for then I receive spiritual strength. And Jesus returned in spiritual strength to Galilee [Lk. 4, 14] after fasting. I thank the Lord, who deigned to revive me, strengthen me, cleanse me, and sanctify me with the communion of the life-giving Mysteries - so it became easy for me after a terrible hardship. I was reborn, healed, revived; I felt lighthearted all day and easy to serve. Glory to Your Holy Mysteries, which never fail. Glory to their unchanging power, their strength and glory! I thank the Lord, who miraculously revived me through the communion of His life-giving Mysteries, but I again turned out to be unfaithful, greedily eating meat at dinner and at one widow’s. We pray, and in heaven the holy Angels and saints pray for us. We call and glorify the saints, and they intercede for us before God day and night. Oh, what a wonderful order of Divine mercy and Divine truth! I thank the Lord for the heavenly peace given to me upon communion of the Divine Mysteries during the Liturgy in the Cathedral. I had a real bitter day because of the treachery of Archpriest and Deacon Al. Taratina: the first one arbitrarily took this deacon from the Duma mass, and the last one did not notify me that he would not serve in the Duma. I could not suppress my grief and annoyance during the mass for the deacon and archpriest, and therefore my soul completely weakened, I became embarrassed, and could not speak. Through my intemperance in food and drink, sin confused me on Sunday, December 31, during mass, which I served without a deacon. Disobedience to the archpriest, who asked me to serve alone without a deacon, was also an obstacle for me in my service: the enemy confused, weakened, scattered, and killed me. Grant me, Lord, to see the good in people, not the evil; Grant us to sincerely love our neighbors and not think evil about them. So, I read Sushkov’s book about Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow, in which he praises him all the time, and I was annoyed that he kept only praising him, and I began to remember bad rumors about the late metropolitan, about his despotism in his diocese, about his nepotism 83, or the passion to replace the places of clergy and clergy with his relatives, and I was angry at both - at the author and the late His Eminence Metropolitan, and my heart felt vague and tight; but then I repented before God of my pessimism, changed my view of His Eminence Philaret - and it became easy. I thank both the benevolent and gracious Lord. Prayer “As in Thy Terrible...” from the follow-up to Holy Communion. Nepotism (Nepotismus, from Italian nepote - “nephew”) is a designation of the custom by virtue of which many popes, starting with Innocent VIII (XV century), provided the most profitable and honorable places to their relatives. Now this word generally means “concern for one’s loved one” when appointed to positions. You might be interested in: