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I thank You, Lord Jesus Christ, my God, for through the prayers of You who gave birth to You, You miraculously and heavenly pacified me after receiving Your Divine Mysteries, and at the end of the Liturgy, You took away my sins and turned them into nothing. I thank You, Most Holy Lady, my Quick to Hear! Teach me, Most Immaculate, until my last breath to live worthy of my high title of Christian and priest, to stand before the throne of the Lord with integrity of heart and with boldness and worthily partake of the Divine Mysteries of the Body and Blood of the Lord. Man, as the image of God, has the gift and right from God to talk with God as if a man were talking with a friend, or father, or king; so it is with the Mother of God, so with the Angels and with the saints, in whom He rests forever, whose life, holiness, peace and bliss is the same Lord, who created with Himself the One Church of Angels and men. Various knowledge, not related to the correction of the heart and life, deprive the heart of moral strength, just like gluttony, satiety, love of money, love of games, pleasures, etc. This is why very learned people are without faith or fanatics, immoral. All of us Christians constitute the house of God, the family of God; the entire vast universe, all of heaven is the one house of God, and everything in God: the Mother of God, holy angels and holy men, as well as earthly people, Christians and even non-Christians - are close to us like a family living in the house of one father, and Jesus Christ, the Son of God, with God the Father and the Holy Spirit is always with us: I am with you always, even to the end of the age [Matt. 28, 20 ]; The Mother of God is always with us in church, at home, everywhere; holy people too. How should we live, members of such a family, members of Christ? The nature of present life is war, the fight against evil spirits, against passions, the culprits of which are evil spirits and our lack of faith and vanity, inattention, negligence, ingratitude. So, are you fighting internally every day? If you fight, then you are a good warrior of Christ, if not, you are not a warrior, not His servant. And all ascetics abstain from everything (1 Cor. 9:25), especially from food, from gluttony, satiety, and drunkenness. For wine is food for all evil. Carry complacently and patiently the inner cross that is imposed on you either by nature (bad weather and a heavy foreboding of it), or by your flesh (toothache, headache, illness in general), or by the fruits of your sins, for example, satiety, etc. Endure everything as a well-deserved punishment, humbly, without complaint. Be like a rock in the midst of an angry sea: endure calmly, with firmness all the storms and disturbances of the sea of ​​life, raised by adversities like a storm, in hope in the Lord, in His strength, in His grace and wisdom. The flesh is my stupid enemy, the opponent of the laws of God and man, the opponent of love for God and neighbor. But always remember, man, that we are all one spiritual body, and the flesh and all earthly goods are earth and dust, everything goes to the earth. Look: the rod becomes a serpent by God's omnipotence, and a man (Lot's wife) becomes a pillar of salt for the sweetness of her worldly passions. Know this wisdom: Christ is all and in all [Col. 3:11] and: I count everything as loss [Phil. 3, 8] - in both cases, do not take into account everything without exception (in the first case, evil in people), as a dream. October 18. Lord Jesus! I thank You, for You have taken away my sins through the communion of Your Divine Mysteries and have pacified my heart with them. The more you have mercy on your neighbor, the more God will have mercy on you and help you. Give mercy willingly and with joy. I thank you, my Most Holy Lady Theotokos, quick to hear, for you have heeded the voice of my prayer and with a cheerful heart and firm speech you have granted me the power to pronounce the reigning house by their names, when I was previously unable to do so due to embarrassment. You are a simple eye, a simple sun, Lady, seeing the simple hearts of everyone and mercifully looking at the requests of hearts. Look at all the many different sins 1) as the product of the devil’s dreams, 2) as a foreign thing and completely alien to you. As a rational, thinking spirit, who has completely perverted his pure spiritual nature, and as a free, strong, active spirit, he 1) constantly dreams and cannot help dreaming, that is, inventing absurdities, corruption or perversion of the God-established order, God-established laws, 2) he constantly acts with his evil, perverted power to plant his absurdities, his abominations in minds, hearts and into human life. Hence the duty and obligation of every person, especially a Christian, to resist false thoughts and heart passions implanted in the heart by the devil, and not to put these passions into action, in general to resist vice and any sin that acts in the heart and demands for itself space in life, the fulfillment of one’s plans, one’s dreams. Thus, look at pride, malice, envy, stinginess, greed for food, for money, gloating, malice, lustful thoughts and deeds, blasphemous thoughts, confusion, despondency and despair, coldness and aversion to the Gospel, to all spiritual scriptures, to worship, to free-thinking, to stubbornness and Ave. The entire Old Testament and New Testament history is depicted in the worship of the Orthodox Church. Point this out to students. Master Lord Jesus Christ, my God, on this day, the day of my namesake, I confess to You Your great mercies, which You have surprised and are constantly surprising on me. I thank You first of all, because You brought me from non-existence into existence, because You made me from the simple to educated, from the humble to noble, like a priest, from the poor to the rich; I thank You, for hitherto You have been my light, my shrine, my strength, my boldness in this great service. I thank You, because from the countless multitude of my sins, my passions - pride, malice, wickedness, greed, stinginess, love of money, nasty and blasphemous thoughts and from carnal impurity and from lustful thoughts, You mercifully and constantly showed me the hand of Your salvation; I thank You for all the strength that You have shown to me, the accursed one, with mercy and power. I thank You for your love and disposition towards me and the charity of all my relatives and friends; I thank You for Your truth, for Your moral judgments, which You showed on Your opponents and the corrupters of Your property, on the wombs of the unmerciful. I thank You, for until now, through Your great compassion, You have endured me and have not destroyed me with my iniquities. I thank You, Lord, for my mother, for my father by my wife, for You have given me meekness and quietness; for my wife, who loves me, the indecent one, and for my wife’s sister, who exposes my iniquities, as for her sake I know the passions of ugliness operating in me. But teach us love and humility, Master Lord, so that we may always live by Your commandments and thus please You, our Heavenly Father, and Your great power. Complete us to the end, Lord, be patient with our madness, our untruths, our passions. Wake up! October 19th, 1865 Remember, Lord, my deceased father Elijah and forgive him every sin. Rest his soul in a place of light, in a place of peace, from where illness, sadness and sighing will escape 52. Sin is a disease, madness, madness of some kind. Thus, it is maddening to be furious when another sins - one must feel sorry for him or not pay attention to his sin, or meekly, with respect and love for his personality, notice to him that he is doing something wrong. All despotism and tyranny must be abandoned as completely incompatible with the dignity of a person gifted with reason and freedom. As humans, we are all equal and have the same rights. Having not served the creature, it is said about the three Jewish youths in Babylon, more than the Creator, but the fiery punishment was manfully corrected 53. And we serve the creature more than the Creator! What creature? - Sweets, belly, amusements, money, false mind and false spontaneous education. The heart becomes more and more coarse from delicious food and drink, so that sorrow is necessary so that the flesh does not prevail over the spirit. I am a polyphagous sinner. Now many run away from secret confession, ashamed to reveal their sins to their confessor, a servile man, and when at the Last Judgment the sins of sinners are exposed before the whole world and before the Angels, the shame and fear from this revelation of their sinful deeds will be terrible: sinners will say to the mountains: fall on us! and the hills: cover us! [ OK. 23, 30]. Isn’t it better to reveal your sins here a thousand times over, repent of them and henceforth avoid them in every possible way? Confession is necessary 1) as evidence of the awareness of one’s sins and their responsibility, importance, falsity, madness and 2) as a punishment consisting of suffering the shame of one’s bad deeds. By depicting the sign of the cross on ourselves, we thereby confess that we were crucified for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ, for the whole power of the propitiatory sacrifice lies in the suffering and death on the cross for us of the Son of God, which means that all the power is in the cross. “Let us not be ashamed to confess the Crucified One,” says Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, “with boldness... let us depict the sign of the cross” 55. Whoever does not depict the sign of the cross well on himself will be considered guilty 1) against the Savior and 2) against the teacher of the law, as disobedient, and 3) he will be deprived of dinner. You, teachers, who abolished corporal punishment for children, had in mind when destroying this pedagogical measure only the natural dignity of man, but you forgot that man, both rational and child, is a rational, free being, corrupted by sin and constantly suffering from this moral corruption, and that against the overflow of this corruption, corporal punishment is necessary: ​​the flesh is sinful, let the flesh suffer, suffering punishment. Those who are punished here will not suffer punishment from God if they reform, and those who are not punished here will be severely punished there. In addition, the students punished in the institution will learn from it good rules of life and will get rid of many passions and stumbling blocks in life, which bitterly punish a person, for there are no worse scourges than the scourges of passions and vices: evil punishes itself terribly, and it is from this evil that teachers must protect youth. Lest spoiled children, pampered at school, bite off your noses, gentlemen, gentle teachers, or break their own necks for your falsely humane or, better, in Russian, vague upbringing. Enemies turn us to God the Savior, so that we know only our Savior and acquire the habit of turning to Him in temptations, sorrows, troubles and illnesses. So I cried out to the Lord for salvation from my enemies, and He delivered me from them, and when they were gone, they ran away and recoiled like arrows. I am calm, free. The love of God created and appointed everything for man, and our evil nature and the demonic malice that operates in us strives to take everything away from man and appropriate everything only for itself, whether it needs it all or something from it all; ready to consider everything our property, although we have absolutely nothing of our own. We must consider each other, especially those close to us, as one another in Christ Jesus our Lord, and let us love each other as ourselves. We violate God's commandment about love for our neighbor when we joyfully hear about the fall of our neighbor, when we listen indifferently about the misfortune that has befallen someone or about someone's loss of something important, when we do not rejoice [truly] in the well-being of our neighbor, especially when we grieve for his well-being, when we feel sorry for our neighbor for something perishable, necessary or necessary for him, etc. The more we delight the flesh, the more it will grieve us; the more hot, the more it will cool us towards God and neighbor; the more we wish to strengthen it by eating a lot, the more it will relax the spirit and body; The more extensively we nourish, the tighter the soul becomes. The more we assimilate ourselves to food and drink and to perishable goods in general, the more internally we distance ourselves from God and our neighbor. Eat, drink, and be merry after this to your obvious destruction. The soul that feeds in space is alive and dead [Lk. 12, 19]. A storm of passions comes over me, it comes over my neighbor; in this state (of being in a storm), both he and I are worthy of pity and help, especially words of love and greetings, and not bitterness, as is most often the case with us. Love your enemies [Matt. 5, 44]. In what breadth of spirit does a person live who is not attached to earthly goods, and in what narrowness of spirit does he live who is attached to the blessings of temporary life! Oh, sweetest name of my Lord Jesus Christ! For Your sake, the Heavenly Father has mercy on me and forgives me many and serious sins; For Your sake I receive peace and freedom of soul and body. Glory to Thee, Lord! Oh, how sweets hurt us! But who is our sweetness? - Christ. God! You bore on Yourself the sins of the whole world - how can I not endure, not endure the sins of my neighbor, when these sins are so small in comparison with my sins, which You bore on Yourself, which You forgive me daily. How proud and impatient we are! The slightest malfunction of our neighbor irritates us and embitters us. What can I say! - The apparent, only apparent, malfunction of it embitters us. Oh dream! O delusion of the heart! And all this happens at the instigation of the devil and because of our pride and addiction to ourselves. Serve our neighbor as much as possible and as accurately as possible - while we ourselves serve the Lord God little, and lazily, and hypocritically, and far, far from accurately. Beat, crucify, constantly crush your intelligent beast - the old inner man, united with the devil and having the same will with him and, at the same time, resisting Christ and the work of His redemption in every possible way. Hate yourself with all your heart and do everything opposite to what your old man, your corrupt heart, wants. Surrender yourself completely to Christ. Strive for the love of God and neighbor with all your might, unceasingly. Understand the power of words: Our God is also man, the image and likeness of God. Oh, that we would continually hold the power of these words in our hearts! How we would love God! How you would love your neighbor! How much they would have condescended to him, they would have forgiven him for the fact that he is the image of God, whose weaknesses and sins Christ God Himself took upon Himself, suffering for him and dying for him! How much we would forgive him, how ready we would be to sacrifice everything for him, even our lives, remembering that the God-man laid down His life for him! We would not then dare to be angry with him, to be proud of him, to envy him, not to submit to him, remembering that by offending him, we would offend God Himself, by sinning against him, we would sin against God Himself - just as, by pleasing him, we would please God Himself. Why was humanity united with the Divine in the Savior? In order to unite humanity with the Divine. I sinned before the Lord, I was upset with my wife, I defiantly and bitterly contradicted her: the more I cohabit with my wife and my family, the less I value them, whereas I should value them the more as my members, especially as Christ’s, with whom everything is common: table, clothing, housing, pleasures, and everything. I’m ready to reduce them to nothing. The holiness of our spirit produces deep peace in the soul and body, or a sweet harmony of mental and physical forces. Therefore, if you sin in any way, immediately repent with all your soul to the Lord who is with you and you will receive forgiveness of sins, peace and freedom of spirit. Christians are heavenly citizens on earth, therefore they should not care about earthly things, that is, have no addiction to food, drink, sweets, money, clothes, or housing. Here is the wisdom of a Christian: eat and drink less and more simply, for needs only, and not for pleasure. Do not do the evil that perishes, but do the evil that abides in the eternal life which the Son of Man will give you [Jn. 6, 27]. The corruptible thing, when we use it greedily and immoderately, hardens us and turns our hearts away from God and our neighbor. Through the mind and in the bodies of the saints, God dwelled, says Saint John of Damascus 56. If God rests in the bodies of the saints and in their smallest particles, then is it not much more so in their very souls? The Most Holy Theotokos united God the Word with people through Her Nativity—wasn’t God, who created the eyelids, united with Her? The results of secular education, very unfavorable for the fatherland and the Church, should convince the government that the matter of education is not proceeding as it should, that it is not proceeding in the spirit of the faith of Christ and the Orthodox Church, but in a pagan spirit. If you did not smoke tobacco, but lit a lamp in front of the holy icons of the Savior or the Mother of God, then at least you would remember and remember more often that God is light, life for everyone and you, that you yourself should be light and a living image and likeness of God, that your spirit should burn with love and gratitude to God. And now you give everything to your stupid belly and your body, corrupted by sins, and you have no sacrifice to God - you don’t give to the poor, or to the church of God, or to the image of your Savior. If only you could remember what your Savior did for you, what torments he endured. Look at the sin operating in you or in others as something alien, extraneous, having nothing to do with us, and despise it, do not be embarrassed by it, do not sympathize with it, but tell the alien spirit: this is your business, you will answer for everything, for all the intrigues. Have pity on those who sin, as those who are inexperienced in the fight against sin. To act this way is to deny yourself. The enemy incites us to sin by all means: at home, in society, in church, especially on deliberately solemn days. Do not pay attention or calmly tolerate these incendiaries. Do you like it when they give you work that is beyond your strength and overwhelm you with it? No. Why do you give your belly and your body too much work, taking food and drink immoderately? You suppress him with your intemperance, and if only he would be gone, and your soul at the same time. Unreasonable and crazy. Instead of rejoicing at the increase in the well-being of our neighbor, we, the damned, envy this increase in temporary happiness and grieve about why the measure of his well-being is great, considering ourselves alone worthy of this measure or greater, although we ourselves, perhaps, work less than our prosperous neighbor, have less of his ability to do business, and are younger than him in years and official activity, etc. Or, on the contrary, instead of grieving over misfortune, ill-being neighbor and sympathize with him, we remain insensitive to his sad situation and even in our souls rejoice at his misfortune, while we must also feel sorry for the enemy when he is in grief, for aren’t we all of the same nature, aren’t we all subject to sorrows, troubles, misfortunes, and many different temptations? And what if everyone turns away from us when we ourselves are in trouble? Then we will recognize our delusion, our gross pride, our coldness towards our neighbor. October 22nd. Today, the Lord convicted me several times with punishments and admonished me not to care about anything earthly, to count it as rubbish, not to cleave to anything, but to cleave with all my heart only to Him, the source of life and all good things, to place all my trust in Him alone, to diligently fulfill His commandments; also not to care about the perishable world, to love your neighbor as yourself: to feed the hungry, to clothe those who are worn out in clothes, to pay the rent, not to be irritated with anyone, to comfort the wretched, not to be offended by the words of others: if they are unjust, then they are nothing, if they are fair, take note and correct yourself in every possible way. To obey the authorities, to teach the ignorant, to guide the lost on the path of truth, honor and goodness; careless about your flesh, about its pleasures. If the enemy confuses you with anger at one of your neighbors because of some material, apparently plausible excuse, for example, prosphyrna for bad prosphora or in general because of food and drink, do not believe him, but bear some material disadvantage on yourself for the sake of God and for the sake of love for your neighbor, remembering the words of Scripture that the Kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit [Rom. 14:17], and the words of the Lord Himself: I did not speak to you about bread: beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, that is, from hypocrisy, or from hypocritical service to the Lord [Matt. 16, 11]. A person who is wise in Christ rejoices when, willingly or unwillingly, he must endure some kind of carnal deprivation or when he receives a small, unsweetened, stale, and ugly piece. Because the greater the hardship for the flesh, the greater the profit for the spirit. Everywhere we need patience, calmness, kindness, that is, when encountering all the faults of others, with all the obstacles to a certain task: this is required by prudence and our own benefit, for 1) impatience, haste, embarrassment and embitterment upset our spiritual and physical strength; 2) impatience, haste, embarrassment and anger do not improve the faulty matter at all, but on the contrary, it becomes more faulty, more confused with a disordered state of mental and physical strength. Love your neighbor as you love yourself, and love the image of God in your neighbor; Consider the sins of your neighbor as a dream of the devil and pray that the Lord will enlighten his heart’s eyes to the knowledge of the charms of passions and evasion from them. Always carry in your heart God’s commandment to love your neighbor. And watch yourself carefully, how, with what kind of heart do you treat those at home who live in your care and on your (actually, on God’s) bread, are you simple-hearted? Do you treat them with respect and love and condescension or insincerely, with pride, disrespect, envy, gluttony, stinginess; Haven’t these tares grown, haven’t they taken root in your heart, don’t they butt you daily, don’t they deprive you of peace, freedom, spiritual space, boldness before God and people, don’t they humiliate your spirit? If all this is in you, immediately turn to prayer to the Lord Jesus Christ and beg Him to remove from your heart these tares of self-love, pride and malice and to plant in it love for your neighbor more than love for yourself, humility and kindness. Then notice how, with what heart, right or wrong, sincere or double-minded and selfish, humble or proud, you treat people you know, relatives, work comrades and all people in general: are you truly respectful of them as images of God, as children of God, as Christians, as those descended from the same blood as you - from the same ancestor Adam; Do you sincerely wish them all the best, do you care about their passions, errors, vices, do you wish them deliverance and freedom from them, spiritual enlightenment, turning to God, walking in His commandments and eternal life for which people were created? If not, if you feel that you are treating them disrespectfully, without love, craftily (not simple-hearted), coldly, proudly, not as if you were your own members, but as if they were some alien beings, then again immediately, with all your heart, pray to the Lord and ask Him for the grace to treat all people sincerely, with respect, with love, meekness, kindness, patience, with all purity, and Try all the days of your life to treat them the way you want others to treat you. My Lord, I know that I am sinning when I do not sympathize with my brother who is in trouble. But have mercy on me and teach me to sympathize with him. Teach me to sympathize with decrepit old age, for everyone who is sick, teach me to have pity on those who err, to have mercy on those who sin, to bless those who slander, my scoffers, to love those who hate me, because they are Your images, although they bear the wounds of sins, because they have the same soul as me, inclined by natural corruption to sin and vices. They do evil to you, they irritate you, they drive you out of patience - be kind and if anger flares up in you, immediately try with all your might to suppress it. Remember that anger is a pestilence on all people and on you. God, my Savior, I thank You, You are merciful and generous and long-suffering, for yesterday, in addition to many other cases of salvation, You saved me from dislike for my brother Alexei, from stinginess and pity on him for the blessings of this life. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life operate in us every day, from morning to evening. Woe to those who are satiated: in them it is especially intensified, this threefold lust (1 John 2:16). We are the masters as if we were alone: ​​we have to eat and drink more, better, sweeter than everyone else, and our henchmen are just our leftovers or something worse. Sinful wisdom - we must love everyone as ourselves, we must desire for everyone what we desire for ourselves, in a good way. Pupils and students of educational institutions all work with their heads, their minds, not their hearts, while the heart is the source of life, and the mind should be the guardian of the heart, its lamp, its leader, according to the thought of the Creator. While in young people only the mind works, not the heart, but the heart, feeling - the church of God, the altar, the holy of holies of man, remains neglected, the devil takes advantage of this and sows in the heart, as on idle land, his tares, various vices: conceit, pride, freethinking, unbelief, disobedience, rudeness, passion for earthly pleasures, covetousness, anger, envy, stinginess etc. The guard, the servant, is not with the heart, that is, the mind enlightened by the light of the Gospel: he has made himself master, deceived by the enemy - and now the enemy does in the heart what he wants, sows weeds as he pleases, puffs up the very mind and heart with empty much knowledge, the vain wisdom of the world, which is foolishness before God. If any of you thinks to be wise in this age, let him be foolish in order to be wise (1 Cor. 3:18) and let him consider the wisdom of the world as rubbish. The Jews demand miracles, and the Greeks seek wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block for the Jews, and foolishness for the Greeks (1 Cor. 1:22-23). Woe to the scribes of this age, the scientists of this age, for their learning is in contradiction, contrary to the wisdom of God, the Gospel. When the world, through its wisdom, did not know God in the wisdom of God, it pleased God through the foolishness (simplicity, ignorance) of preaching to save those who believe (1 Cor. 1:21). And rightly so! We proclaim, says the Apostle, not in words learned from human wisdom, but in words learned from the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 2:13). So, do not be surprised at the arrogance (or madness) of learned people, their lack of faith, coldness towards the Church, laziness towards prayer, their pride, arrogance, disobedience, freethinking - these are the rotten fruits of the learning of this world. Just as the sweets of this world fight against the love of God (and scientists are especially voluptuous), so is the fussy, complex and vain scholarship of this age - for all is vanity that does not lead to eternal life. How many of the scientists of this age are truly pious? During prayer with a neighbor in whom we have noticed great weaknesses (and in us, perhaps, they are greater), the enemy has the habit of slandering him in our hearts and saying: he or she prays hypocritically and only maliciously watches your actions, movements, facial expressions; or: he prays, but he or she thinks evil about you - and, instilling such false thoughts, cools and instills hatred and contempt for your neighbor. Therefore, you should not at all for a moment listen to the enemy, and if such thoughts and feelings begin to confuse and oppress your soul, then you must immediately pray to the Lord inwardly, so that He will give both you and your neighbor sincere prayer, one heart and one mouth. If a truly neighbor were hypocritical in prayer, then even then one would have to pity him more as a sick, weak person, and make special reasonable efforts about him, filled with love, in order to correct him. We don’t have love - that’s the problem! All pride and pride and self-praise: I, they say, are better than this and that and the third, the fifth and the tenth. And what about yourself? Stench, living dead! God alone can correct a person, but we corrupt more with our suspicion and bitterness. We must pray for his correction, just as we pray for our own. Lord Jesus! I thank You, for in Your sovereign and all-saving name You saved me twice in Strelnikov’s apartment at the entrance to the apartment and at the table and then when brother Alexey entered there. In grade too (in seventh and third). The more we value earthly things, the less we value heavenly things. The more we sympathize with earthly things, the more insensitive we become towards heavenly things. For man - the priceless, most beloved creation of God, do not spare anything, for everything is for him: you have subdued everything, it is said, under his nose [Ps. 8, 7]. Look, for him God the Father did not spare His Only Begotten Son and for him gave Him up to suffering and death on the cross; The Son of God shed all His blood for him; The Son of God is not ashamed to call the brethren people, saying: I will proclaim Your name to My brethren, in the midst of the church I will sing praises to You [Heb. 2, 11–12]. Look: into what close unity the Lord accepted humanity with Himself, what was done to one’s neighbor was done to Christ Himself: just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did it to Me [Matt. 25, 40 ]; look at the close unity of Christ with believers, that two - Christ and a believer - are one flesh: and the two will be one flesh. This mystery is great; I speak in relation to Christ and to the Church [Eph. 5, 32 ]; Christ is the Head, believers are His body and members. How can one doubt after this, to lay down one’s soul, one’s life for one’s friends? Also: what a love the Savior has for His members - He considers them His flesh and blood, dwells in them, abides in them and they in Him! What mother loves so much and can love her children as much as the Lord loves us? How do we repay Him for such love? - Mutual enmity, that is, to each other, brother to brother, anger, pride and contempt, envy, greed, stinginess or pity on one's neighbor for soulless dust - money, food and drink, clothing necessary to cover the nakedness of one's neighbor, a shelter where to lay his head. So we almost completely lost faith in God and hope in God, although He never abandoned us with His all-good and generous providence; have lost love for God and for neighbor, the image of His ineffable glory, although bearing the wounds of sins! Alas for us! Alas for us, blind and maddened by will! Heavenly Father! Again I sinned before You: You saw the wickedness and malice and stinginess of my heart: forgive me, Generous Father, in our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son! I have sinned against my earthly father! From now on, wish to give him and, if possible, give him more than what he usually uses. May he be pleased with everything you have. October 28 days. 1865. God! I thank You, for even today You have been my salvation, and cover, shield, and fence, and peace, and affirmation. Oh, how tangible was this to the inner man? But forgive me, Lord! And although I don’t want to, I sin almost constantly before You. God! You see the flattery of sin, you see my passions, my weaknesses, my damnation, my poverty, my misery, my blindness and my nakedness! Do with me what you want. I am all Yours, I offer my head to You: execute me or have mercy on me. God! You see everything, You see how the enemy flatters and fights my soul, how he relaxes my insides, how he scorches me! You see my weakness, and my laziness for unceasing and fervent prayer, and my lust, and carnality, and covetousness, and nailing to the ground. Have mercy on me, Lord, have mercy on me! Who will harm you if you are zealous for good? (1 Pet. 3:13). I experience this myself every time. My disciples are all obedient to me, like sheep, when I am in the Lord, and when the enemy nests in me through some passion, then my disciples become wicked animals, crazy, disobedient, stubborn, and evil. You do idle things and say: I have nothing to do. How do you have nothing to do? Do you call yourself a Christian? Have you fulfilled the commandments of Christ? Have you become a new creature? For whoever is in Christ is a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). Have you put off the old sinful man? Have you come to know yourself, your sins, your passions, and have you corrected yourself from them? Have you acquired a pure heart? Crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts? Have you given up your addiction to earthly things? Have you loved with all your heart the hoped-for life of the future age and the Father of the future age, Jesus Christ? No, no and no. How dare you do empty things? How dare you say: I have nothing to do, I don’t know how to kill time? You have a lot of the most important things to do: so, you have no time for playing cards, no time for tobacco, no time for eating, drinking, and dressing, no time for almost daily pleasures, no time for feasts. You face a strong, persistent, long-term struggle with sin, with your flesh, with its many different passions and the devil working through the flesh. You must be a faithful soldier of Christ all your life. They are engaged in various secular sciences primarily before Christian sciences, they are engaged in sciences that serve only temporary life, and even then often do not serve - but all this is an extraneous matter, secondary for a Christian, often, often vain, leading only to the corruption of his mind, heart and will, as we see many examples of this. About such people we can say: those who preserve vain and false grace have left this mercy to nature 57 . Or: those who write write deceit. What are all sciences if there is no pure heart? What is all science if there is no humility? What are all sciences if there is no love for God and neighbor in the heart of a scientist? But these simple things are hidden from the wise and prudent of this age for their pride and are revealed to infants. How often do we anger the All-Good One with our malice, the Most Generous One with our stinginess, the All-Benevolent One with ill will and envy, the Holy and Righteous One with our iniquities, impurities, and our incessant untruths! We know that His will is righteous, holy, good, perfect, life-giving for us, and yet we do not fulfill it or fulfill it only partially and at a certain time under favorable circumstances, but not under unfavorable circumstances, because we do not want to fight sin, because we love ourselves very much, and not the law of God, not our neighbor. For example: who willingly shares his goods with his neighbors? Who willingly endures the slander and pride of his neighbor? Many of the scientists or literate people need to be asked questions more often: are you doing the will of the Heavenly Father? Are you worried about its fulfillment, are you jealous? And everyone needs to ask this question more often. Otherwise God knows what everyone is doing. Another question: does your soul have a wedding robe - a robe of humility, purity, mercy, obedience, etc.? Say to God's enemies: you will be God's footstool. I will make Your enemies Your footstool [Ps. 109, 1]. Don't eat or drink early in the morning, especially when you've had a good snack the night before. Do not eat or drink in the morning, when there is cloudiness and some kind of heaviness in nature and when the atmosphere is saturated with water - then be as moderate as possible. Now I want to talk with you, brethren, about the illness of the soul that has especially intensified now - self-love, and about the impoverishment of works of mercy and about the need to give alms. The self-love (egoism) of Christians has now reached the highest degree: everyone cares only about himself, worries only about himself, he has no concern for his neighbor, the poor, the orphan - and they would only bother about the things they need - no, almost everyone worries about satisfying their whims: about how to eat and drink more deliciously, to dress smarter, to clean their apartment more elegantly and luxuriously, to smoke expensive tobacco, buy luxurious vanity for this vanity - silver and even gilded, in order to carry the object of your whim - cigars and cigarettes; to drink more wine and commit mischief, or to drink good wine. And all this is at the expense of whom? At the expense of the poor, yes - at the expense of the poor: those who allow themselves to indulge in luxury in this way offend the poor and do the greatest untruth to Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, Who is the Head of the Church or of every Christian, which means the poor, and Who squanders His generous gifts to people not for luxury, but for their mutual assistance to each other. How? You smoke expensive fragrant cigars, but you don’t want to give the poor a penny for their daily piece of bread? You smoke several stinking cigarettes a day, thus burning the means of bodily life given to you by God and thus not adding to your life at all, but on the contrary, shortening it, and you don’t want to give a penny or a few kopecks to your poor brothers, sisters, children, so that they can buy themselves a piece of bread and pray for you to the common Heavenly Father of all, who gives us everything abundantly for pleasure? But do you know, tobacco smoker, that you burn several beggar's lunches a day? O Christian brothers, selfish ones, woe will be said to you by the terrible Judge, from whose presence heaven and earth will flee: I was hungry, and you did not give me food; I was thirsty, and you did not give Me something to drink, for inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me. Depart from Me, you cursed, into eternal fire. And these, these selfish, carnivorous people will go - where? - into eternal torment [Matt. 25, 42–46]. Hey, amen. Do you know, I’ll turn to you again, tobacco smoker, that if you abandoned your empty and harmful whim and provided, like a true Christian, for your poor brothers who are shaking from the cold, not having boots and clothing that protects them from the cold, then with the money saved from this whim you could clothe twenty beggars and even more? And now all this is going to your empty whim, to sinful, multi-passionate flesh, which will, perhaps very soon, become food for worms and then dust. I appeal to your common sense: are you acting wisely, not to say, are you acting like a Christian? Why do you live a special life, completely separate from your poor brothers? Isn’t it your duty to provide for them according to everyone’s means and strength? Are they not members of the body of the Church? I appeal to other luxury people: do you every day allow yourself to enjoy sweet tea and coffee with a tasty snack or a delicious lunch and drink wine, sometimes expensive and beyond measure, but you regret giving the poor a penny or a little more so that he can satisfy his hunger with simple bread and vegetables? Do you know, brother and sister, that if you were content with a simple table and did not unnecessarily drink wine and various delicacies, then you could feed several poor hungry people every day and earn great mercy from Christ God both in this life and in the future? However, why should I exclude myself? Now we work only with our greedy, voluptuous, multi-passionate flesh. Brothers and sisters! I warn you: we will have to repent of our voluptuousness, but it will probably be too late when the Bridegroom comes, and the wise, ready virgins will enter with Him for marriage into the eternal Kingdom of Heaven, and the doors of heaven will be closed. Remember what is said in the Gospel about the wise and foolish virgins: The foolish [Church-glory: holy fools], it says, took their lamps, but did not take with them oil [Church-glory: oil]. The wise, together with their lamps, took oil in their vessels. And as the groom slowed down, everyone dozed off and fell asleep. But at midnight a cry was heard: behold, the groom is coming, go out to meet him. Then all the virgins stood up and trimmed their lamps. But the foolish said to the wise, Give us your oil, for our lamps are going out. And the wise answered: so that there is no shortage for both us and you, you better go to the givers and buy for yourself. And when they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and they that were ready went in with him to the wedding, and the door was shut; Afterwards the other virgins came and said: Lord! God! open to us. He answered and said to them: Truly I say to you, I do not know you [Matt. 25, 1 – 12]. Wise virgins and holy fools are Christians, lamps are our souls, oil is alms, the groom is Jesus Christ, marriage is the Kingdom of Heaven. So, let us all stock up, brothers, with oil. It is enough for us to indulge in voluptuousness and collect only for ourselves, and not to become rich in God: everything will be earth - our bodies, and our sweets, and our money, and our houses; one soul is eternal, like the image of God, we will try to decorate it. You know how the Judge will be merciful to the merciful, you know what boldness before the Judge gives mercy in judgment - take care of almsgiving. I will not stop repeating this to you until I see jealousy among you for this great virtue. Consider alms a necessity of your life, like breathing, like self-nourishment. Amen. The one all-sufficient principle of our life is God, and whoever sincerely believes in Him and hopes in Him and cleaves to Him, for him there is nothing pleasant except Him - the Lord God, neither in heaven nor on earth. He alone is the treasure of his heart; he does not cleave his heart to anyone or anything else but Him. But whoever loves his flesh, the blessings of this world (which means not the only source of life - God), he chooses in his blindness many imaginary, insufficient sources of carnal life - food, drink, clothing, housing, home decoration, dishes, etc., and therefore he is often worried, worried when either he is called to work, or when they will not give him pleasant food and drink, or smart clothes, or when he does not have enough his apartment, or furniture, or dishes, etc., to his taste, for he chose many false principles of life. When he realizes the wrong direction of his heart and repents with all his heart of his madness and cleaves entirely to God, then suddenly his heart will calm down, because God is the true and endless source of life. Nothing: neither the rude and proud words of your neighbor, nor resentment, nor malice, nor his envy, nor stinginess, nor stubbornness - let nothing separate you from the love of your neighbor - but the more you see him afflicted by these and other sins, the more pity him, for, in fact, all the sins, weaknesses and delusions of man should arouse in us pity, and not bitterness towards him. This is what our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, wants, saying: love your enemies, bless those who curse (scold you), do good to those who hate you... that you may be sons of your Father... If you kiss 58 your friends only... what grace is there for you [Matt. 5, 44–47; OK. 6, 32–33 ]! Love conquers everything, makes enemies friends, vicious people pious. Man is a Divine Vegetation. The vegetation of nature is pure and beautiful, all the more pure and beautiful is the vegetation of God - man, the image and likeness of God. Do not doubt for a minute to love every person, although he has passions: he is the image of God, although he bears the wounds of sins; about his sins as if they were your own, mourn and weep that God’s kind creation, through the envy and malice of the devil, was covered with such stinking scabs of passions; the pain of his passions, illnesses, the sorrows of his sorrows, for he is your member, for him Christ died, he is a member of Christ. Fight against the enemy’s coldness towards God and prayer, dullness of thoughts and callousness of heart. It is impossible to describe how much we lose for the spirit both in this life and in the future due to addiction to earthly goods! How strongly the disembodied enemy fights against us because of our addiction to the earthly gifts of God is also impossible to describe: so strongly, so fiercely, so constantly! Blessed is he who cleaves wholly to Christ and counts everything as rubbish to Him. Remember: through gluttony and satiety, the flesh greatly strengthens over the spirit and the devil over our soul. In the person of the Mother of God, how closely the Divinity was united with humanity, the Prototype God with His image - man! How closely the Divinity was united with humanity in the person of the holy apostles, prophets, saints, martyrs, saints, righteous, unmercenaries and all saints! How closely the Divinity is hitherto united with humanity through the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, received with reverent faith and love by Christians! Glory to the Lord for this! What shall we render to the Lord for all the inexplicably great gifts of His goodness? – Let us walk and live worthy of the calling to which we have been called with all humility. Oh, sinful corruption, oh, gluttony of the flesh! I saw that another was eating and drinking sweetly, and I was jealous: why does he eat and drink as well as me, or better than me (especially if he is a person serving me), instead of rejoicing in his contentment and well-being. Well, weren’t you always full, weren’t you provided for by the Lord God, O envious man? Are you the only one who wants to take advantage of God’s gifts? What are you worth for your unfaithfulness to God? Isn't it just one moldy piece and plain water? But here you are, enjoying yourself every day and still feeling unfulfilled and dissatisfied. Remember that the earth is the Lord’s and all that fills it, that we are all sheep of the Lord’s pasture, sheep of His hand [Ps. 23, 1; 73, 1; 94, 7 ], no one has anything of our own; It’s nice when you yourself eat and drink sweetly, why are you upset when someone else eats and drinks sweetly? After all, he is your member and has the same nature as you! But remember that the end of all ends is pus and ashes. October 31st. God! I thank you, for through my prayer you have vouchsafed me to perform the early Sunday liturgy without stumbling and, according to the liturgy, I prayed to the Iveron Icon of the Mother of God with the blessing of water and the entire royal house and the entire prayer of the blessing of water was said to the end. Glory to Your mercy, Lord! We say in prayer: Lord! God! Meanwhile, in fact, your Lord is your many-passionate flesh, and you obey it, and not the Lord God, you are a hypocrite in prayer. Crucify the flesh with passions and lusts, leave behind delicacy, satiety, drunkenness, love of money, pride, envy, malice, stubbornness and other passions. Learn humility, meekness, abstinence, benevolence, and patience. Let there be one God, both in word and in deed, as your part, 59 He is one, your Lord; die to sin. Prayer sobers up from the intoxication of passions, cleanses and enlightens, pacifies and strengthens the soul, but eating and drinking sweets, and immoderate partying, and long sleep, and empty conversation - plunge it into spiritual intoxication, impurity and make it easily inflamed from any passion, darken and weaken it and deprive it of the peace of God: there is no peace in my bones from faces my sin [Ps. 37, 4]. Restrain your neighbor—the rebellious flesh—daily. Do not be jealous of a slave in her indulgences and in drinking sweets: you are a priest, you should preferentially philosophize before her on high, and not on earth - she has not learned to philosophize on high and is an ignorant person, from whom less will be exacted than from you. Look, the Lord has revealed all His secrets to you, enlightened you with the light of reason, the light of the Gospel and many useful teachings. Do not be jealous of your household in their indulgences and in drinking sweets - and they are more ignorant in spiritual matters than knowledgeable. Ask earnestly the holy men of God, who fought courageously and diligently and victoriously for their flesh against the world and the devil, so that they will enlighten you and with their prayers and assistance strengthen you in this stubborn struggle and help you receive the crown of victory from the Hero of Jesus Christ. The Church teaches us this when she performs her daily services in honor of the saints of each day, asking for their intercession for us and help us in the battle against the enemies of our salvation. Study these services according to the Menaea and Octoechos and the Followed Psalter. Despise sweets in spite of the flesh and the devil, who dreamily attribute extreme value and importance to them, consider them the same ground on which we walk with our feet, the same rubbish that we disdain. Let not the eye of your heart be deceitful at the sight of certain sweets purchased and distributed to the guests who have come to take advantage of your hospitality, and do not say to yourself: this is a luxury, why waste money on jam and other sweets? Because 1) you yourself love, you want to be treated well, 2) because all the sweets from the Lord are given to man, His beloved creation, with which He, out of His great love, wants to delight His children, so that they see His fatherly love in action and remember about future sweets, which the eye cannot see and the ear cannot hear (1 Cor. 2:9), 3) because they are guests and must be pleased them, 4) because in sparing sweets to your neighbor, your pride and dislike for your neighbors are shown. If this was bought for you as a guest, then that would be fine, but for others it would be bad. Do not spare anything for your beloved priceless creation of God: everything is for him, everything is subdued under his feet like rubbish, and he is infinitely more precious than anything in the world. Arrived at the house. At first they are like guests in the house, then little by little and without noticing it they become autocratic masters, that is, when they are full of good food and proudly and sometimes sideways look at their roommates, who, in their opinion, use this and that immoderately, although the one who came to the house does not exact anything from himself for his immoderation and forgives himself everything; finally, they think that everyone in the house is indebted to them, and become terrible egoists: everything is not according to them, they are offended by everyone (every awkward look, movement, word and deed of others) to the point of disaster! What is the remedy against this tyranny? – Humility and the conviction that it is not others who enjoy our favors, but we who daily enjoy the favors of our relatives and neighbors. Oh, if only we would always add internal mercy to external mercy! Oh, that our mercy would always be a free disposition of the soul and would always be done for God and for the sake of high respect for our neighbor as His image, a member of Jesus Christ. I thank You, Lord, for through my earnest prayer you saved me from my evils and, having taken away my sins from me, you pacified my soul for the sake of Your immeasurable merits, for the sake of Your suffering on the cross and death. But confirm Your gift in me, Lord! For without You I cannot do anything, without You I cannot stand in goodness, not a minute, not a moment of time. I see, Lord, I see that You alone produce and accomplish and affirm everything good in me, and without You I am an abyss of sin. November 1st, 1865 How can anyone enter the house of a strong man and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? and then he will plunder his house [Matt. 12, 29]. Through sin, people became vessels of the devil, filled and saturated with him. It was necessary to bring satisfaction to the truth of God, offended by the sin of human disobedience, and instead of man to show perfect obedience to God, to fulfill all the truth of God, all the statutes of God: this was demanded by the most perfect truth and holiness of the being of God and the infinite love of the Lord for His boundless perfections, this was demanded, so to speak, by the idea of ​​God, the most perfect Being - and the Lord fulfilled all the truth of God for us. Before baptism, He says to John: leave it now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness [Matt. 3, 15]. Next, it was necessary to endure righteous punishment for human sins, so that sin in the punishment itself would receive retribution for itself and, so to speak, would be crushed, turned to dust like Aronov’s calf turned to powder, and the Lord would suffer punishment for all human sins. It was necessary to petition people for forgiveness of the countless sins they had committed in life - and it was petitioned for under the condition of their faith in Him, and forgiveness was granted to the prisoners of hell; and it was necessary to intercede for them eternal bliss - and it was interceded, and the prisoners of hell were brought into heaven. But future generations of people, until the end of the age, will always sin, even after they are reborn in the font of baptism by water and the Spirit: they must be enlightened, they must be disposed by punishments or mercy and in various ways to the consciousness of sins, to tenderness 60 in sins and, as a result of repentance, to grant them forgiveness of sins - and this is done constantly: those who repent receive forgiveness of sins precisely because of the merits of the Savior and by faith in His merits. But those who have repented and purified themselves must be supported and strengthened in virtue, otherwise they will again immediately fall into sin and even deeper - this is also given: those who listen to themselves, constantly remembering the name of the Lord Jesus and breathing prayer to Him stand in virtue precisely by the Lord and do everything good precisely by the Lord - but as soon as they forget Him, they immediately fall into sin and from sin to sin. This is what the Savior did for us, and how dear the Savior is to us, and how necessary the Savior is to us! Christians are children of Christ, sick patients of Christ. The Church is a doctor’s clinic, and it is also a granary, because in it the true bread is made and taught – the Body and Blood of Christ. Look at sin and human passions as a pestilence to which, willy-nilly, everyone, like the children of Adam and you yourself, are subject to it - therefore, be lenient towards sinners, especially those at home with whom you constantly live and in whom you see the same sinful habits and passions. Is this how Christians live, waiting from heaven for our Lord Jesus Christ and for the transformation of their body in accordance with the body of Jesus Christ? Is it drunkenness, fornication, covetousness (covetousness - cards), gluttony, malice, envy? We humans have everything in common - sins, infirmities, and corruption inherited from Adam; common and Savior, common and Church - mother-guardian of our salvation; the common font of Baptism, the common seal of the Holy Spirit, the common cup of the Covenant, the cup of Blood poured out for all. The general and identical structure of the body and the origin of the soul from God; common gifts of nature, common light, air, food, drink, common clothing and housing from God’s earthly gifts; the gift of reason, thoughts, words, common to all, everything is common - they should all be one. We are one body of many (1 Cor. 10:17). Drive the old dreams of the heart - pride, anger, envy, stinginess, covetousness and other passions - far away from you. Will we still be divided by enmity, envy, and stinginess? Will we still be proud of each other? Prayer to the God of spirits and all flesh... from the requiem service. Irmos of the 7th song of the canon of the Most Holy Theotokos, tone 4. Obsequious (church-glory) - a person similar to us, with the same passions and infirmities. Saint Cyril of Jerusalem “Catechetical and Mystical Instructions.” Lecture 13, paragraph 36: “Let us therefore not be ashamed to confess the Crucified One; Let us boldly depict with our hands the sign of the Cross on our foreheads and on everything: on the bread we eat, on the cups from which we drink; let us depict Him at entrances, at exits, when we go to bed and get up, when we are on the road and when we rest. He is a great protection given to the poor as a gift and to the weak without difficulty. For this is the grace of God - a sign for the faithful and fear for evil spirits, because through it He defeated them, bringing them to shame with boldness [Russian: authoritatively subjected them to shame] (Col. 2:15). When they see the Cross, they remember the Crucified One. They are afraid of the dragon who crushed the head. Do not neglect this sign for the reason that it was given to you as a gift, but for this reason honor the Benefactor all the more.” Venerable John of Damascus. "An Accurate Statement of the Orthodox Faith." Book 4, ch. 15: “That through the mind God dwelt also in the bodies of the saints, (about this) the Apostle says: Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit living in us (1 Cor. 6:19). The Lord is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17). And if anyone corrupts God’s church, God will corrupt him (1 Cor. 3:17). Therefore, how can one not honor the animate churches of God, the animate dwellings of God? The saints are alive and stand before God with boldness. The Lord Christ gave us the relics of the saints as saving springs, which exude many different benefits and pour out incense myrrh. And let no one doubt this!” Irmos of the 6th hymn of the canon of Great Saturday, voice 6: I was fast, but was not kept in the breasts of the whale Jonah, who bore your image, Who suffered and was given burial, as if from the palace of the beast came out, inviting the custodians: those who keep vain and false, left this mercy to nature [Russian: Was absorbed, but was not kept in the belly of the whale Jonah, for, prefiguring You, Christ, who suffered and was given over to burial, he came out of the beast as from a palace, and cried out to the guards at Your tomb: “You, who hold on to vain and false things, have lost Mercy itself.” Kiss (church glory) - greet. Part (Church Glav.) – share, allotment, fate. Tenderness (church glory) – sadness, contrition. You might be interested in: