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July 27 after the cathedral liturgy Oh, what my bliss comes from the communion of the most pure and life-giving Mysteries of my Lord! I feel so good! Glory to Thee, Lord! And before the liturgy, the enemy stopped me and wounded my heart with pity for my brother’s corruptible food and anger at him. For a long time I groaned in my heart and prayed to the Lord and His Most Pure Mother, and finally the Lord had mercy on me. I firmly imagined and acknowledged in my heart that everything before my Lord, Who is the only Existence, is nothing, and all food and drink, all the riches of the world and its pleasures are nothing, the whole earth and its fulfillment [Ps. 23, 1 ] - as nothing and that in Him alone, who brought everything into being from non-existence, we must hope completely and expect everything from Him, for He is always with me, He can do everything; that to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace [Eph. 4:3] with the brethren is my life and that of all people, that this unity of spirit should not be divided by anything other than the obvious sins of a brother, for in this case division is necessary so as not to be in the same mind of wickedness and not fall into opposition to the Lord: The Lord Himself says that He came to separate in this way even a father from his daughter and a son from his mother, and to defeat a man in his household [Matt. 10, 35–36]. The Lord allows the devil to tempt us to awaken the sleeping forces of the soul, our zeal for God and zeal for piety, therefore for those experienced in spiritual life, for those strengthened in faith and hope in the Lord, the temptations of the enemy serve as a blessing. Glory and thanksgiving to my most swift Intercessor, the Lady Most Holy Theotokos: Most Merciful, She delivered me from the oppression of the enemy through my prayer before Her all-honorable Kazan Icon. It was heavy in my heart, I felt some kind of separation of heart from my family with a hostile spirit, some kind of tightness and heaviness - all this was, as I know, the work of the enemy who occupied my heart. But I prayed to our Lady, as if alive and in front of me, I read: Undefiled, unglamorous... then: Diligent Intercessor... and: Diligent to the Mother of God... - and immediately it became easy, easy to heart, and the unity of love settled in my heart, sympathy for my family, and I became a man, as they say. And often there happens to me some kind of incomprehensible, heavy, for me, murderous apathy towards others, towards everything, even towards myself - all this is the work of a murderer, relentlessly seeking my sadness and destruction, captivating me in all possible ways into his dark power, but especially with stupid pride and apathy towards others; he is trying to form in my heart a constant dislike towards my neighbors - I see this clearly; but he, the all-evil misanthrope, will not be able to do this: I hope for the omnipotent goodness and grace of my Lord, who will not allow the enemy to instill dislike for my neighbor in my heart; I pray to Him about this and will continue to pray about this. The villain outrages and shakes the hearts of my family with malice towards me - I see this; I do not misunderstand his plans, but he will not succeed in dividing the hearts of my neighbors: there is a greater one who is in us than he, who is active in the world and deceives everyone [Russian: He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world] (1 John 4:4). The Lord and His Most Pure Mother, the holy Guardian Angels and the holy saints of God will intercede for us. Moral teaching. Whenever you are in a bad mood, when apathy towards people and towards every cause takes possession of you, know firmly that the enemy is in you, and do not remain 69 in this disastrous state, but now pray to the Lord that He will deliver you from the enemy through the prayers of His Most Pure Mother, and often beseech Her Herself, the Mother of love and peace. Be careful in every possible way so that you are not upset by the look, word, or deed of your neighbor and do not for a moment harbor a hostile disposition towards him; Do not harbor dislike or dislike for your neighbor for any reason: neither because of food and clothing, nor because of housing, nor because of anything material, knowing that the soul of a brother is infinitely higher than everything material, that only the enemy humiliated and destroyed us through the food of the tree and is now in every possible way seeking to destroy us through the lure of the five senses and all possible pleasures of them, that only the disembodied enemy has trampled us and is ready with our addiction to food and drink will destroy us for eternity. July 27th day, 1861. Do not give in to despondency and a gloomy mood, knowing that it is also from the enemy: rejoice, I will say with the apostle, and again I say: rejoice [Phil. 4, 4]. We, Christians, have something to rejoice about constantly, for we are children of the all-good and all-powerful God, we are promised an ever-blessed Kingdom: He who promised is faithful, the Advocate is reliable, the deposit of the Spirit in our hearts is also faithful - but why lose heart? Some demons tend to become despondent: undoubted eternal torment awaits them, into which they in every possible way want and strive to involve us; but they will not succeed, for our Lord is with us. Whoever has dislike or enmity against his brother is in captivity of the devil. Having eaten a hearty meal at home and soon being accidentally invited somewhere to have a snack again, do not dare to do this and do not be tempted by food and drink, no matter how good they are - this is a great sin before God, because this too is corruption of nature: everything that is consumed by human nature beyond the need and measure is a flagrant sin and removes a person from fulfilling the laws of the Almighty, for those who have transgressed the commandment It is easy for rulers to transgress it in small things and in large things, especially untimely and immoderate consumption of food leads to this. That is why the Savior told us: Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be burdened with gluttony and drunkenness and the sorrows of this life, and that day suddenly come upon you [Lk. 21, 34]. Why does the Lord suddenly visit? As punishment for frequent indulgence in the pleasures of the womb, for untimely and immoderate behavior, and for habitually binding oneself to the sorrows of life, to which the Lord did not foresee an end. My Spirit shall not abide in these men forever, for they are flesh [Gen. 6, 3]. The more spiritual a person is, so to speak, by rank, the more he angers the Holy Spirit with his carnal way of life and the more he will be exacted from him at the Judgment, for he had to show others an example of how to be filled with the Spirit and lead a spiritual life, to be the light and salt of the earth - and did not want and did not care to be spiritual. Thus, a priest who indulges in carnal pleasures is much more guilty than a layman and will be punished incomparably more severely than him. For gluttony and drunkenness, for the love of money, covetousness and stinginess, the priest will be exacted the more severely, the more he should, by his very rank, be abstinent, uncovetous and generous, placing his hope in the Providence of God. For the love of money and stinginess, the more severely he will be punished, the more comfortable his condition was, the more the Lord showed him the experiences of His non-abandonment and generosity in the previous and current life. For the love of money and stinginess, for gluttony and drunkenness, the clergy will be punished without mercy, while the worldly, subject to the same sins, will be punished more leniently, for the lesser, says the Lord, deserves mercy, and the strong will be severely tortured [Wis. 6, 6]. If someone speaks, especially if he prays, about the fulfillment of any virtue or the entire law of God and does not himself care and does not try to fulfill this virtue or the law of God, then he will be exacted more strictly than from others, as from a person who taught - and did not do it himself: not many should become teachers, it is said, knowing that we will be subject to greater condemnation [Jas. 3, 1], who prayed - and only talked idle and lied before the Lord during prayer. Through your mouth I will judge you, wicked servant! [ OK. 19, 22] – the Lord will tell him at the Judgment. So, we must speak - and fulfill, especially pray for the fulfillment of the commandments - and try to fulfill them with our very deeds. At morning prayers we praise the Lord and say: Holy, Holy, Holy ecu, God. We glorify the holiness of God, among other things, to remind us that we too must be holy, for it is said: be holy, for I [the Lord your God] am holy [Lev. 11, 44]. Here I have a new, perfectly decorated apartment, here I have new good furniture - but what do I need in all this without my Christ, without His favor towards me? What is this to me if there is no Christian hope in my heart, if I am not filled with faith and love? Only heaviness and tightness of the heart, confusion and collapse of the spirit, just as Solomon experienced 253. So, my brothers, do not be captivated by anything physical - all this is ghost and smoke. Let your occupation be most of all in spiritual, heavenly, eternal things, calming and elevating your soul and leading you from corruption to incorruption, and above all, 37 constantly remember the Lord Jesus Christ with faith and love. The whole material world is like nothing before God, only spiritual beings are like something, such as: Angels and men: those are only creatures and have a lasting existence that are close to God, have His image and likeness; the rest of creation pass away like a shadow: heaven and earth itself will pass away, but My words will not pass away [Mk. 13, 31]. We must constantly remember that the devil is constantly trying to clog our soul with his hellish rubbish, of which he has too much and which is too small and varied. So, is your heart's eye filled with enmity, with pride, with impatience and irritability, with pity for material wealth for a brother or for yourself (I mean stinginess), with covetousness and love of money, with the unpeaceful and offensive words of others, with despondency and despair, with envy, with doubt, with little faith or disbelief in revealed truths, with vanity? whether it is laziness in prayer and in every good deed and in general in the work of service - say in your heart with firm confidence the words: this is the filth of the devil, this is the darkness of hell, this is the stench of demons! With faith and hope in the Lord, with constant sobriety and attention to yourself, you can, with God’s help, avoid hellish rubbish and darkness. He who is born of God keeps himself, and the evil one does not touch him. 1John 5, 18. The temptations and corruptions of the enemy are necessary for Christians, for with them he awakens them from spiritual sleep and petrified insensibility and with them, like thorns and gores 254, forces them to constant spiritual sobriety and attention to themselves and to perfect correction in life. This goal of the enemy’s temptations is also shown by the Apostle James when he speaks about the enemy’s temptations like this: Count it all joy, my brothers, when you fall into various temptations, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience; But let patience have its perfect work, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing [Jas. 1, 2–4]. Before the Creator and the Lord, all material worlds are like nothing: He created everything from nothing and can transform everything into whatever He wants, even into what we cannot even imagine. Therefore, for the commandment of the Lord, for example, about love for God and neighbor, sacrifice everything material without pity. Why? Because God is the Creator of all matter and is infinitely higher than it, dearer than it, more dear than it, and the neighbor is the image of God the Creator, who himself creates many things according to the action of the image of God in him through faith in the Lord, and in comparison with the neighbor, every thing is insignificant. Your neighbor is immortal, but everything material passes away. Sometimes the inner emptiness and poverty of my soul, the petrified insensibility of my heart frightens me; but suddenly the thought illuminates me with light that my Master is all-good and all-holy and He can conveniently and suddenly fill the most terrible emptiness of my soul, warm my cold heart with sympathy and love for God and neighbor - and my damned soul is filled with hope and joy and says to itself: oh! I have not yet perished under such a Lord, there is still hope for me of rebirth and correction - and it becomes easy, easy in my soul. ABOUT! How life-giving and sweet are Christian faith and hope! Therefore, my brethren, no matter how poor you are in Christian love and good deeds, never become discouraged and do not despair: your Lord is omnipotent and all-good and from moral insignificance can make you great in the Christian faith and virtuous life, from children of the devil - children of God; just turn your hearts with faith and love to the Lord and say: Father! I have sinned against heaven and before You and am no longer worthy to be called Your son; accept me as one of Your hired servants [Lk. 15, 18–19]. How many examples do we know of turning from extreme corruption of the heart to the God of our hearts and receiving mercy from the Master! They became great righteous people. When praying, you need to have such faith in the power of the words of prayer that you do not separate the words themselves from the very deed expressed by them; one must believe that a word, like a shadow following a body, is followed by deed, just as with the Lord word and deed are inseparable, for He spoke, and they were made, He commanded, and they were created [Ps. 148, 5]. And you also believe that what you said in prayer, what you asked for, will happen; you praised - and God accepted the praise; you thanked the Lord - and God accepted your thanksgiving into the stench of 255 spiritual fragrance. – The trouble is that we are of little faith and separate word from deed, like body from soul, like form from content, like shadow from body; We are also in prayer, as in life, physically, without spirit [Jude. 1, 19 ]; That is why our prayers are powerless and fruitless. July 28, 1861. When we call upon the saints in prayer, then to pronounce their name from the heart means to bring them closer to our very heart. Then undoubtedly ask for their prayers and intercession for yourself, and they will hear you and present your prayer to the Lord soon, in an instant, as He is everywhere and knows everything. The name from articulate sounds replaces, as it were, the flesh of a saint or saint, and when at the proskomedia we commemorate the Lord Jesus Christ or His Most Pure Mother and the saints or the living and the dead, then the particle taken out represents and, as it were, replaces the body of the Lord or His Most Pure Mother or some saint or the totality of many saints, the flesh of the living or dead commemorated, and what is thought in the name represents and replaces the soul of the being called or commemorated. Thus, in a small form, in our mouths and in our souls, the beings of the high and low world are reflected, as it were, and all this is through faith in the Holy Spirit, Who is the only One, existing everywhere and fulfilling everything. When one of the strangers tells you that there are good rumors about you as a person of a strict Christian life, reject such a rumor about yourself in front of this person and tell him, pointing to your family: these people know better than anyone what I am like; ask them to speak impartially about me, and they will tell you what a passionate person I am, how every passion nests in my heart, how it torments me, and how some are often revealed. Strangers see only the bright, gracious side of me, but do not see the dark, sinful, carnal side and therefore think about me falsely. I am afraid that no one will think more about me than what he sees in me or hears from me (2 Cor. 12:6). I have two names: one name is weakness, sin and passion, and the other is the grace of the Lord (John). Forgive your brother who sins against you: 1) because he is the image of God, and God forgives you a lot; 2) because he is weakness, sin, just like you; 3) because everything in the world is insignificant in comparison with the soul of a brother and everything can be suffered because of it, just as the Son of God suffered the cross and death; 4) in particular, during prayer, forgive your brother because enmity with him separates the soul from God, our life, Whom we must love with all our soul and with all our heart always, even if it requires laying down our life; 5) because we need to forgive, because with enmity there is no peace, and therefore no life in our own being. All my happiness and unhappiness lies in the thoughts and dispositions of my heart. If the thoughts and dispositions of my heart agree with the truth of God or with the will of my God, then I am at peace, filled with spiritual light, joy, and bliss; if not, he is restless, filled with spiritual, choking darkness, heaviness, and despondency. If I completely change the thoughts and dispositions of my heart that are false and contrary to God into those that are true and pleasing to God, then I am again at peace and blissful. July 30th day, 1861. The beginning and guilt of verbal beings - Angels and men - is the Hypostatic Word of the Father with the Holy Spirit; every word of His is truth and life for them, as it is said: about every word that proceeds from the mouth of God... man will live, but not about bread alone [Matt. 4, 4]. Therefore, O people, agree with your souls with every word of the Word Co-original to the Father and Spirit - and you will live in your souls and bodies. Fight, if need requires, to the point of sweat and blood, with the enemy of God’s Word that is contradictory within you, the father of lies - the devil and his slanderers, stand firmly and courageously for God’s truth, as for your true life, and do not for a minute, not for a moment, give in to him mentally, having as your companion the Word of the invisible God, who revives all by His Spirit. Do not cling your hearts to anything earthly and material, do not live in lies, in malice and other passions, for whoever even thinks evil without putting it into action also serves the chief of evil - the devil. Alas for me! The entire host of saints condemns me for a careless, sinful, lustful, earthly life. The apostles, saints, martyrs, reverends, unmercenaries, the righteous and all the saints who have pleased God from all eternity condemn me, despising everything earthly like smoke, and crucifying their flesh with passions and lusts [Gal. 5, 24]. How can I call on them and ask for their prayers for me before God, when every day I indulge in sensuality and diligently caress my flesh? I am completely disgusted with them throughout my life. Satiety and delicacy are harmful to a person’s entire being in that they ground the soul and relax and darken it for spiritual work, burden the body, and make it prone to illnesses, especially stomach and head diseases, and colds. And moderation is useful for the soul and body: it makes the soul cheerful, light and clear, and very inclined to spiritual activity; the body is also made vigorous, light and healthy and not easily prone to disease. Oh, my cruel and stupid tyrant - my belly, how long will I be defeated by you? O my flattering friend! When will I get rid of your charm! Consider the day on which your neighbor comes to your table a happy day, for the Lord Himself, in the person of your brother, was pleased to come to you and use your services. Thy kingdom come... let there be... our bread... [Matt. 6, 10–11]. The Kingdom of God is no longer established in us because we worry a lot about food and drink and indulge in various passions for the sake of perishable wealth. In the church there is no time for cooking food - I mean boiling the food taken before the service with the stomach, but a time for raising hearts to God; This is not the time to philosophize about earthly things, but about heavenly things; think about our perishable food, and about the immortal food and drink of the Body and Blood of Christ. Woe to our soul without the light of Christ, without the light of His Spirit; it is good for us in His light. When I pray, I firmly believe that: 1) God is one and therefore He is everywhere and fulfills everything and, therefore, is at my right hand; 2) I am His image: my thought corresponds to His thought, my feeling - to His feeling; 3) He is the abyss of goodness and the source of all goodness; and 4) He Himself authorized me to pray to Him. Having received money or any material profit, quickly thank the Lord and confess Him as the giver of all blessings, so that the enemy does not bring his charms upon you through material acquisition and does not cleave your heart to it. Lutherans are anti-biblical: they do not have a priesthood, which Christ Himself clearly established. In addition, we must remember what the Lord did with Dathan and Abiron, who rebelled against the priesthood and dared to compare themselves and all of Israel with it! 256 During prayer, there is no time to feel sweat or cold: you need to deeply feel only your sins. Just as stones or pieces of wood or anything else thrown upward will certainly fall to the ground or into the water, depending on where they are thrown, so the words of prayer will certainly fall into God, and into the very, so to speak, heart of God, if they are spoken from the heart; and if not from the heart, falsely, then they fall into the serpent of the abyss, into the ocean of lies - the devil, who is the father of lies. The Lord often comes to you to test your love for Him and for your neighbor and whether you are partial to earthly things or not, whether you consider everything in comparison with God and with your neighbor, with heavenly bliss, to be rubbish, worthless. You cannot stand this test and find yourself tied to the earthly and perishable; You love God and your neighbor incomparably less than wealth, food, drink, good clothes, a comfortable, beautiful and clean home. - Pay attention to yourself. Out of self-love and pride, we consider our debts to God to be small and insignificant, but we always consider the debts of our neighbors to be too great and, out of self-love, ill-will and pride, we do not want to quickly and completely forgive them from the heart. But there is no forgiveness for those who do not forgive others. Torment you, malicious and vindictive: your own malice will corrupt you. If you were truly good and generous to some, then your goodness and generosity to your neighbor would still be infinitely less than the goodness and generosity of God, for God is good to everyone: the Lord is good to everyone [Ps. 144, 9 ], and you only to some; God is good unchangeably, constantly, without any shadow of change; with God there is no change and not a shadow of change [Jas. 1, 17 ], and you are temporarily good and generous and temporarily not good and stingy; God is good to the good and the evil, to the righteous (those who do the truth, the hardworking and others) and the unjust (those who do not do the truth, for example, to the lazy), and you are more good only to the good: you love those who love, you love to give more to those who can repay you, and you are not good to those who are evil towards you, you take revenge on the unjust for their unrighteousness towards you, although you yourself are unrighteous and especially not generous to them. How far is your goodness and generosity from the goodness and generosity of God! Meanwhile, we, the children in Christ of the Heavenly Father, need to become like God Himself in goodness and generosity. Be holy [Lev. 11, 44; 1 Pet. 1:16], be merciful, just as your holy and merciful Father in heaven [Lk. 6, 36]. The Lord often speaks to us about this in our hearts, reproaching and punishing us, but we pay little heed to His admonitions: we change for a while, and then soon we turn again to our unkindness and stinginess. We are crafty, self-loving, greedy and greedy for the material gifts of God and rely on them, and not on God, who is able (to abound in us with every goodness) to always enrich us for our truth and for our love for Him and for His image and likeness, what man is. We are often divided in spirit, we harbor hatred towards our neighbor because he often and undeservedly uses our property or, better yet, the gifts of God. The priest must be especially kind and generous to those who come, for he constantly comes to the immortal table of the Savior and eats His Body and Blood unworthily, according to the sole goodness and ineffable generosity of God the Savior, and the Lord especially provides for his material means, according to the word of the Lord: Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you [Matt. 6, 33]. And who, if not the priest, seeks first - at least, should primarily seek before everyone else - the Kingdom of God and its righteousness? First of all, he must place his hope in God, and not in decay, not in grass, not in earthly, perishable works. He must succeed more than anyone in unfeigned, selfless, unchanging, strong love. How much cunning, malice, and pettiness there are in Satan’s temptations! How, do you think, would the devil plunge my wife into despondency, into bitter and lasting despondency and upset me too? Regret over the loss of (voluntarily shaved) hair. After all, he cries, howls and does not want to be consoled, as if they are not [Jer. 31, 15; Matt. 2, 18], – stupidity, recklessness! But there’s no way to stop it – it howls, and that’s all! And after mass I came home so calm - and then came the attack! Whatever the enemy does not upset us, does not persecute us! Oh, devilish despondency! Oh, hellish envy! See, I was jealous that the Lord helped us to get along well economically. How? - speaks; This is how only my children live in this world, the children of lawlessness, coolness, luxury, joy. And here God’s servants live well. Why do they need such space, decoration, abundance in everything? After all, the essence of the glory of this world is given to me. So I will torture them like hell, I will tear out from their hearts the joy and feeling of contentment with God's gifts and their grateful feelings towards God - and in my wife I have achieved my intentions, the accursed one. Everything became distasteful to her, everything became a burden. The cut hair alone is cute. It is remarkable that one who loves abundant and tasty food becomes indifferent and cold to spiritual food - to reading spiritual instructive and edifying books, and with the development of the taste for material things, the spiritual taste is generally lost: when eating a lot of material food, you have the least desire to eat spiritual food, that is, the word of God, the writings of the holy fathers and prayer. When the physical side of a person is strong, then the spiritual side is powerless. That is why young people, especially girls and women, who love excessive clothes or a rich and very tasty table, are usually not inclined to pray or read spiritually edifying books. Be holy, for I am holy... (1 Pet. 1:16). When astronomers discover a new, hitherto unseen star in the sky, then they joyfully proclaim their discovery in the hearing of all people and describe its size, distance from the earth and the quality of its light. And now we have a new smart 11th star in the church sky, and we have already made a solemn proclamation about the discovery of this star and its appearance on the horizon of the Church, so that it may shine spiritually on all who seek light on the path to the Kingdom of God. Now a new clear star has been revealed to the eyes of all Orthodox Christians - St. Tikhon of Voronezh and Zadonsk 257 of Christ. Let us carefully look with intelligent eyes at this God-bright star, honor it with worthy glorification and borrow from it the spiritual light that abundantly shines in it from the all-enlightening and all-vivifying Sun of Truth - Christ, and then we will talk about the fact that we must all take care to be holy: be holy, for I [the Lord your God] am holy [Lev. 11, 44]. You cannot create Vlas alone... [Matt. 5, 36]. In fact, who could ever do even one hair for themselves or for another? - Nobody. Where there is no cross, there is no Christianity; where the cross is, there is Christ. Often we pronounce words in prayer without any force, just sounds. It is absolutely necessary to immediately curb the belly and trample on the taste, instead, give space to the heart weighed down by gluttony and worldly sorrows and develop spiritual taste. Wake up! Wake up! Eating and drinking in abundance, especially wine, and smoking tobacco serve to harden and petrify human hearts and remove them from God and everything spiritual and heavenly. Experience. It happens that someone, standing at prayer, becomes angry because others are looking at him while he is praying, and others even drive away those who are looking at them, if they are inferior to them. This comes from a lack of concentration in prayer and from a spirit of pride that does not tolerate others seeing our extreme humility before the Lord. You don’t need to pay attention to people, even if they have a thousand eyes looking straight into your face, but focus on God alone and the feeling of your sins, pour out your whole soul before God, without false shame. Let others look at us and be edified by our humble appearance in prayer, and whoever wants to be tempted - God be with him. When you ever regret food and drink or money for your neighbor, then remember that because of your sins you are not worth the gifts of God that you have, you are not even worth a day’s food, and another day you would have to endure without food and drink; and you, despite the fact that you are fed up every day, you also regret for your neighbor - not your own, but God's - gifts. It happens that sometimes for ten people it is not a pity, but for the eleventh, who has just arrived, it is a pity for food or money, and the heart is embarrassed and, as if it were on fire, and the tongue is tied. This means that at least twenty people came to your meal, there is no need to regret: this is God’s visit. The Lord tests whether you are stingy, whether you are covetous, whether you trust in God in everything, whether you are devoted to earthly things? Blessed if you endure these trials; your passion and hope for earthly things will greatly weaken. Notes on Sunday School Teaching. Making accessories - especially for tailors, shoemakers and blacksmiths. The tailors should say that people did not always wear clothes, that Adam and Eve walked naked and were not ashamed. What made people dress up? - Sin. The more sinful people are, the more they care about clothing, sophistication, and decoration. They recklessly place their honor in their clothes. But the Lord has always rebuked those who are vain in their clothes (the cry of the Pharisee [Matthew 23:5]) and care too much about them. What do you care about clothes? Look at the lilies of the field... [Matt. 6, 28]. Clothes for a person are good deeds; if there are no good deeds, then no clothing will adorn a person, but with good deeds and in torn, coarse and unclean clothes, a person is worth all respect. Sergius of Radonezh. How one traveler came from afar to look at him and, finding him in torn rags, did not believe that it was Sergius. Only people look at the clothing of the body, but God, Angels and saints look at the clothing of the soul. Shoemakers. Have people always worn boots? - Not always. We used to go barefoot. Why did they start putting shoes on their feet? From the heat, from the cold; and heat and cold began to affect man for his sins; A sinless person would not be affected by fire, as on the three youths, nor cold, nor water. What kind of boots can be for the soul? - God's commandments. Establish my steps in Your word [Ps. 118, 133]. Blacksmiths. Just as anything can be made from iron heated over fire, but without fire it is hard and incapable of shaping, so the human heart, melted by the grace of the Holy Spirit, becomes soft and capable of every good deed, but without the fire of the grace of the Holy Spirit it is hard, like an anvil, and is not capable of anything good. Forge it - then you won’t forge goodness out of it. Just as iron is thrown into the fire, so the heart must be put into prayer, and prayer is ignited by the Holy Spirit. Questions. Do you know whose children you are? - Heavenly Father. Do you know where your homeland is? – In heaven: Our citizenship is in heaven [Phil. 3, 20]. Do you know that the earth is our hotel? How does the Lord let us into the light? - Through birth. How does he take you to Himself? - Through death. Do all people go to the Father God after death? - Not all. (Who is not allowed to see Him? - Unrepentant sinners. Who is not allowed? - Demons. And who are demons? - Evil spirits.) Why not everyone? - Because not everyone is good and holy. But the wicked will not come to God, and the wicked will not abide in His sight [Ps. 5, 5–6]. Why doesn’t the good Father God have all good children? - Because the very first people, who were pure and holy and from whom we all come, sinned before God with disobedience, pride and delicacy. Did someone seduce them? - Devil. Who is the devil? - An evil spirit, which at first was good, like a person, and a light-bearer very close to God, which is why it was called Dennitsa 258. Why did he become evil? – From disobedience to God: he became arrogant, became selfish, proud and angry. He envied the happiness of the first people - the children of God - and by cunning persuaded them to disobey God. What is there not to obey? “God told people not to eat fruit from just one tree in paradise and threatened that if they did eat, they would die. But the devil said that God told a lie and that one must eat these fruits, that if they eat, they themselves will know all the good and evil and will be like all-knowing gods. And they listened to the enemy of God - the evil spirit, and ate what God did not command. And the Lord God retreated from them, and an evil spirit took possession of them and began to command them: you, they say, are now mine. I am your master, you gave yourself to me for the delicious fruit that God did not tell you to eat. And since then, the evil spirit has reigned over people, and people obey him more than the Lord, their Father, and they have gone far from their good, holy and righteous Father, and they have become evil, and ungrateful, and prone to all kinds of sins. And everyone who sins according to his own will is the son of the devil, and not the son of God. You are of (your) father the devil, and of lust... [Jn. 8, 44]. Since then, people have become weak in mind and unsteady in heart and health, they have become weak, and they began to get sick, and they began to experience various troubles and sorrows from all sides. And if they do not try to extricate themselves from sin and the devil, then they will perish forever, and after death they will suffer, because the soul of a person can never die: the body will die, but the soul will not, and in due time the body will rise, and together with the soul it will either suffer or rejoice. Has God left people to the will of the devil to torment them endlessly? - No. He promised to send the Savior, His Only Begotten Son, to earth. This Savior, children, is Jesus Christ. He who believes in Jesus Christ, who loves Him and fulfills His commandments, comes out of the hand of the devil and will not suffer for his sins, but will be taken to heaven, to where Christ, the Heavenly King, is in paradise, and will rejoice there forever. How to maintain your bodies? They must be taken care of, not to overeat, not to get drunk, not to defile them with the uncleanness of fornication, not to become inflamed with anger. Teach boys: 1) prayers; 2) commandments; 3) faith; 4) sacred history; 5) explain holidays; 6) service explain; 7) commonly used rituals; 8) especially the Sacraments. Explain New Testament history to Old Testament history. Where the matter concerns the common good, there one must abandon one’s self-esteem and put aside every slightest concern about one’s honor. You are a servant of God’s truth: why should you be embarrassed, fearing the inadequacy and unfavorable opinion of others about yourself? Let them think as much as they want, but you know your business. Remember that the spiritual judges everything, but no one can judge him (1 Cor. 2:15). No one will judge you. Explain the fifth commandment, instill in the artisans that they should be respectful to their masters, as to their masters, obedient in their work, and not be rude at all. By teaching in Sunday school, you serve directly the Risen One, you do the work of God, you serve the salvation of people. Do God's work diligently and holy. Sunday school students are spoiled by being given fairy tales and various empty books to read. Feel free to raise your voice against the corruption of students and against the wrongful actions of teachers. Despite their external poverty, the saints of God were rich inwardly in faith, hope and love, they were rich in instructive and edifying words, enlightening, calming, cheering and confirming human souls in true life - in a word, teaching to despise corruptible and fleeting wealth that prevents a person from acquiring true life in heaven. My neighbor is a being of equal rights to me, the same person as me, the same image of God; and since he is the same as me, then I need to love him as I love myself: love your neighbor as yourself [Matt. 22, 39 ], to observe him as my own flesh and blood, with love, to treat him meekly, kindly, forgiving his mistakes, as I willingly forgive myself, as I myself thirst for forgiveness from others or condescension, covering my infirmities with love, that is, so that they do not notice them, as if they did not exist at all, or notice them affectionately, meekly, kindly, kindly. The love of a shepherd for his flock is revealed by whether he loves or does not love his sheep; and he loves her when he is not lazy to teach them in church and in their homes in simple language - the language of the heart - about faith and the duties of a Christian; when he is zealous about the eradication of vices and bad habits and inclinations among the people, about the conversion of those who err in the faith to the truth of the faith; [when] he is ready to help and helps the poor and unfortunate, comforts the sad, quick and diligent and thorough in fulfilling their Christian needs. To truly love the sheep of the Lord’s pasture, you need to sincerely pray to God about it. There is no need for anything earthly to undead and soothe and lull your heart. For a grounded heart is not capable of sincere and true love, and is not capable of preaching. A priest should read not for curiosity, not for news, but to excite himself for preaching, that is, when reading books, he must keep in mind the spiritual benefit of parishioners. Therefore, keep all idle reading away from the priest, lest those who talk idle be judged at the Judgment. My God! What moral weakness I experience at times: there is nothing good in me, my heart is like a stump or a stone: no faith in God, not the slightest love for Him, as if He, the Benefactor, does not exist, as if He, the loving Father, does not exist, as if you have completely lost all meaning and feeling of the heart! And prayer runs away from the heart, there is no strength in the heart to pray sincerely, salt loses its strength completely 259. Oh, how necessary are temptations here for a Christian man in order to stir, awaken, warm, soften his stony and cold heart and knock out from him at least a spark of the grace of God hidden and suppressed in him by worldly lusts and pleasures! After this, please someone boast of something as if it were their own! Every slightest good in you is a gift of God’s grace: every good, bright thought, every feeling and tenderness of the heart, every good impulse of the heart, every advancement of the heart in faith and love! When the Lord takes His goodness away from us, we will remain nothing but soulless idols. Terrible thing! Then we have a soul, but not at all what it should be: an idol - a soul, some kind of earthly soul, without a spirit; a soul that, along with the souls of animals, strives only for food, drink, entertainment, jumping (dancing). ABOUT! How insignificant I am, how damned, poor, poor, blind and naked I am [Rev. 3:17], when the Lord, because of my sins or to test me, takes His Holy Spirit from me! May my soul humble itself before the Lord of blessings and gifts at every minute, moment of my existence, may it resort to Him alone with prayer for help, may it not rely on itself, on other people or on anything earthly, but may it place all its strength, all its breath, all its light in God, November 5th day, 1861. When you spare food and drink for someone, say an accusatory word to your heart: do you spare pus? Don’t you know that in a few hours this food and drink will be rotten and stinking? Don’t you know that the body itself, perhaps, will soon become food for worms? Thieves, like well-known nocturnal birds, see only at night, only at night seem to have acute vision (in the daytime, like those birds, they sit in houses and do not dare to show their eyes). If you have stomach blockages, don’t smoke tobacco, hoping to relax your stomach through it - you can’t expect anything but harm from tobacco: it will fix it even more, because the sulfur in tobacco has the property of binding. Experience. About temptations. When the husband is tempted, it is easy for the wife, and when the wife is tempted, it is easy for the husband. God's dispensation is wise and gracious! One is not tempted, but the other is tempted - and one can console the other, one can serve the other. With what someone sins, he is punished [Wis. 11, 17], and often whoever sins in whatever way dies. If you sin with your stomach, your stomach will hurt; if you sin by fornication and adultery, you suffer from them; if you sin with pride and ambition or vanity, it will bake you; love of money, stinginess, envy, malice, revenge - they will be fiery scourges and cramps and all sorts of trouble for you, they will poison all your joys of life; and what is terribly bad about passions is that because of one passionate movement of the heart, not restrained by us, all the pleasures of possessing earthly goods are poisoned: health, wealth, home furnishings, a kind and intelligent wife, kind children, relatives, friends, acquaintances, and in this case, something happens in the soul similar to what happens to a barrel of ointment into which one fly in the ointment is poured. What is in the ointment, they say, is the fly in the ointment, so is it here. The temptation of illness is strong: you become a burden to yourself, the light of God is unpleasant, people are unpleasant - you would hide from yourself, and from the light, and from people. It is at this time, when everything is unpleasant for a person, life itself, when illness seems to force one to impatience, grumbling and blasphemy against God, and the human heart is recognized, what it is like and what is in it: whether it is a good treasure or an evil one, whether it is established on the rock of faith, hope and love for God and neighbors, whether it is accustomed to patience, whether it has stocked itself with every virtue - or whether it is of little faith, sad, desperate, powerless for love, impatient, murmuring, naked of all virtue. For those good deeds that we do under favorable circumstances cannot be completely and in all fairness called such: they are completely good when they are done with patience during unfavorable times, during temptations. Now, if even then a person does not lag behind the works of faith, hope and love and carries them out with patience, overcoming the unpleasant, soul- and body-killing feelings brought on by illness, then we see in the person the triumph of faith and virtue. Another saint goes to divine services, gives pennies to the poor, and when someone poor and offended comes to his house and asks him, in his office, to assist the just court, to deliver from the unrighteous oppressor, then where does his kindness go: he scolds, threatens, almost fights; After this, go and believe in his piety and kindness of heart. And this often happens. Murashov. Distrust of oneself in speech and embarrassment are the same as the action of any passion in life. Everything is the work of the devil. One must always be a believer, or trusting, always be good-natured and not lose heart. When consuming food and drink and various sensual pleasures, look not at whether they are useful and pleasant, but at whether they remove the hearts from God. If they are removed, it is better not to use them, although they would be useful. Types of murder other than ordinary murder: 1) when mothers take various infanticidal compounds to kill the unborn baby; 2) when a baby, already born and baptized, is given some deadly compounds to drink in order to get rid of worries and worries and expenses; although the Lord protect the children [Ps. 114, 5] and takes away the mortality from the drink given to the baby, but mothers should be considered murderers, as having already committed murder with intent. Little-faithful, desperate mothers do not trust in the Lord, the Provider of all! 3) When mothers do not take care when they have babies in the womb; 4) when those born are sent to an orphanage and abandoned forever or thrown into other people’s homes; 5) when they simply kill them with something. Temptations: 1) when men or women of age seduce young girls and boys or boys into an unlawful union. Woe to him through whom temptations come; It would have been better for him if there had been a millstone... (Luke 17:1-2); 2) when they are tempted to apostatize from the Orthodox faith into an incorrect confession or into schism; 3) when they are tempted to violate an oath or oath, to neglect Christian duty, for example, confession, communion or going to services on holidays, to neglect public service. Fifth Commandment 261. Many parents suffer from disrespect, insults, rage and anger from their children. Bring some sense into it. Many pilgrims suffer from blasphemous thoughts. Bring some sense into it. Also from an unusually strong inclination to sleep. During prayer, each word must be pronounced with the heart with the power that is contained in each of them, just as medicines are usually taken with the medicinal power corresponding to each of them, given to them by the Creator. If we release the power, or essence, of the medicine, then it will not be valid and will only set one’s teeth on edge; so exactly, if in prayer we pronounce words without their power, without feeling their truth in our hearts, we will not receive any benefit from prayer, because true, fruitful prayer must be in spirit and truth. The words of the prayer correspond to medicinal compounds or spices, each having its own power and together making up a healing technique for the body. Just as pharmacists tightly guard the power of aromatic medicinal compounds, keeping them tightly sealed in glass bottles or some other vessel, so we must firmly keep the power of each word in our heart, as in a vessel, and pronounce it in no other way than with the power corresponding to it. When praying, you need to imagine the entire creation as nothing before God, and the one God as everything, containing everything, like a drop of water, acting in everything that exists and animating everything. Behold, those who are clothed in more glorious clothing and food are in the kingdom [Russian: Those who dress magnificently and live luxuriously are in the royal courts] [Lk. 7, 25]. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God! We know that these words of Yours also expose me, a sinner. Behold, Thy servant, the worst of all, walks in more glorious clothing, and lives in more glorious food, and in a house and dwelling similar to the royal one. Jesus, Son of God! Unbeknownst to myself, I do not correspond in my life to Your heavenly word. What did you go into the desert to see, You said to the Jews, partial to appearance: was it a man dressed in soft clothes? [ OK. 7, 25] - showing that Your follower, who rejected everything earthly, wore the coarsest clothes. But behold, Your unworthy servant is clothed in soft clothing, he is not jealous of Your Baptist, he does not laugh at everything earthly, as at dust, worthless, but he loved the earth and everything earthly, thinking little about the things above, especially in reality. What will happen to him, Lord! But before retribution follows him for his deeds, turn, Almighty Lord, his heart to You, take away from his heart the charm of earthly clothing, the charm of food and drink, the charm of richly decorated dwellings, and grant him, above all, heavenly wisdom, about the heavenly robe of light, about the heavenly, eternal, bright dwelling, about the undying, imperishable glory. Grant him, even with earthly blessings, his spirit of non-covetousness and contempt for earthly wealth, indifference to earthly glory, love for fasting, abstinence, for heartfelt prayer, for sighs and tears. Yea, Master, let it be done according to the word of Thy servant. Go into the depths of your heart and plunge the depths of your mind into prayer 262. The Lord, filling all creation that is before Him, like a drop of morning dew that falls to the earth, and like the shaking of a scale [Wis. 11, 23], containing it down to the smallest blade of grass and speck of dust in His right hand and not being limited to either the great or small creations in it, exists into infinity, completely filling everything, as if emptiness, for He is the only being, which is why He calls Himself Sy, that is, “I am the One Who Am.” Conscience in people is nothing more than the voice of the omnipresent God walking in the hearts of men. As the Creator and One of everything, the Lord knows everyone as Himself: all the thoughts, desires, intentions, words and deeds of people, present, past and future. No matter how I run ahead with my thoughts, my imagination, He is there before me, and I always inevitably run in Him and always have Him as a witness of my paths. His eyes are open to all the ways of the sons of men [Jer. 32.19]. Where will I go from Your Spirit, and where will I flee from Your presence? [Ps.138, 7]. No matter how small the substance may be, if it only exists, the whole Lord exists with it, fulfilling everything and containing everything, 263 for can it be that any matter exists, but the Lord, who created everything, is not with it? Ridiculous. Without Him, not a single speck of dust can exist in existence if it is left alone, depriving it of God’s presence and sovereignty. No matter how much we breathe, we still breathe air; Wherever we breathe, we breathe into the air and inhale from it; so, no matter how much we think, we think everything with God. More and more 264 miracles happened from the icon of the Lady of Kazan. I prayed to the Queen of Heaven to deliver my soul from the oppression of the enemy, and She mercifully extended Her all-powerful hand and removed the heavy burden from my heart - and suddenly it became easy, easy! Until then, I couldn’t find a place, I couldn’t look at people. With hope, as if alive, he prayed to Her, the Queen. After the Lady drove away the bodiless enemies from the heart, they did not act in the heart for quite a long time, and the long peace after the previous struggle and the anxious state of the soul finally and tangibly convinced them of the Lady’s mercy. But for negligence towards oneself and for inattention to one’s heart, later they again suffered from the machinations of the enemy. In order to receive what you ask from the Lord through prayer, you need: 1) desire, or sincere desire for the gift. Do you want to be healthy? [In. 5,6] – Freely: the Lord does not constrain us at all; 2) faith in the omnipotence of God: do you believe that I can do this? [Matt. 9, 28]. He who does not believe is a child of the devil, although perhaps it is not even noticeable to him: unbelief is a lie, slander against the truth of God, and the father of lies is the devil. About the miraculousness of the image of the Lady, called Tikhvinskaya. I prayed to the Lady before setting off on the sea voyage, so that She, Hodegetria, would arrange for me a safe journey; I took with me a small icon of Her Tikhvin Icon, carried it near my chest, prayed before it - and my journey was prosperous, despite the disposition of the time itself to bad weather and rain: it was clear, quiet, warm, whereas before the journey and after the journey there were heavy torrential rains. Other signs of Her mercy. In the second week of the Dormition Lent there were communicants. I had to read prayers for communion. Previously, it happened that as soon as you started reading, the opponent would immediately enter your heart and begin to oppress it, burn it, contradict every word of the prayer, and force it into silence. It always happened that my tongue turned around in my mouth with extreme difficulty, there was no sympathy for prayer in my heart, it was in spiritual paralysis, cold. Now, knowing my extreme weakness and powerlessness in the fight against the enemy when reading prayers for communion (and at this time the enemy strongly attacks the priest in order to force him to either hurry up and read them without a heart, or to completely shut up), I took and put in my chest pocket the icon of the Queen of Heaven, put a candle in front of Her local icon in the church - and so what? To my extreme surprise, I read the prayers easily, with heartfelt participation, and a burning spirit. The grace of God apparently rested in my heart. Glory to the Queen of all, the Virgin Mary. We must always carry Her image with us, especially in class, for the best, most successful teaching of the Law of God, because the enemy is vigorously fighting against the teacher of the law: after all, the teacher of the law resists the devil and destroys his destructive plans. The despicable creature: does not take any time to attack a person, no matter how important the matter is: in the classroom, in church during worship, during preaching, before communion, during and after it - everywhere it lies to you and slanderes God, the truth of God, oppresses, scorches, forces you to blaspheme the truth, binds the tongue, darkens the mind, confuses, hurries! May the Lady help me destroy all his machinations. You are wondrous, Most Gracious Lady, in Your prayers. Behold, I carry an icon of Your Tikhvin icon near my chest to class - and the wisdom of God flows like a river from my tongue; My heart is free and wide, my tongue is free too - not as before. Glory to You, Most Merciful! Guests come to you, and in the stinginess of your heart you say: there are no imams here, just five loaves and two fish - and you are ready to send your guests away. But the voice of the Lord is heard to you: the guests do not demand that you take 265 away from you - give them food [Matt. 14, 17,16]. Your Lord is omnipotent: He can quickly increase your wealth out of nothing, just like once there were five loaves of bread and two fish in the desert; offer without a doubt, with generosity, the gifts of God to the people of God and always try to have a communion of love with them; do not be stingy: stinginess is the work of an incorporeal enemy, who, carrying eternal poverty, wretchedness and misery in his spirit, instills in us thoughts of dissatisfaction with everything, imaginary poverty with material goods and teaches us to be eternally poor, stingy and greedy. In order to partake with undoubted faith of the life-giving Mysteries and defeat all the machinations of the enemy, all slander, imagine that what you receive from the Chalice is the One, that is, the only Existing One, that everything before what is in the Chalice is like nothing. When you have such a disposition of thoughts and heart, you will suddenly calm down, rejoice and be enlivened by the reception of the Holy Mysteries, and you will know in your heart that the Lord truly and essentially dwells in you, and you are in the Lord. Experience. Amen. 1861 August 12th day. As you want people to do to you, do so to them [Matt. 7, 12]. For example, when traveling around the world, you would like all foreigners and people of other faiths to receive you with cordiality and treat you with generosity and affection and not make you different from themselves, not separate themselves from you as from a Russian and Orthodox. Do the same with others, no matter who they are - Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans, Mohammedans, Jews or pagans: accept everyone with joy, do not be alienated from anyone. What God has cleansed, you do not consider unclean [Acts. 10, 15]. For such a way of life and behavior you will gain the great grace of the One who said: I pray... that they all may be one, just as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, so that they also may be one in Us [Jn. 17, 20–21]. Just don’t be united with them in thoughts that separate them from our faith and the Church. For communication in this sense is like-mindedness of wickedness. Now I have sinned before my God in that I was inwardly indignant at one Lutheran girl because she often comes to us, I inwardly alienated myself from her with pride and malice, I spared the good things I ate for her - and the Lord immediately punished me: my whole being became cramped. It’s a strange thing: I want to be one with everyone, but the enemy separates me with pride and stinginess! I do not do the good that I want, but the evil that I do not want, I do [Rom. 7, 19 ]! May Your mercy, Lord, intercede for me. With the measure you use, it will be measured back to you [Mk. 4:24] from the Lord in the present age and in the age to come. The more guests you have and the more hospitably you treat them, the more generous your reward from the Lord, who will send you people with gifts to you. This has been tested many times. Therefore, giving to someone out of Christian love and hospitality does not mean losing, but gaining - this is the law of the Lord, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort (2 Cor. 1:3). When your heart shrinks with pity for the earthly blessings of your neighbors, then remember that the earth has never become scarce for seven thousand years and that the Lord, for those who love Him and His neighbors, can turn the earth into bread or command the corvids 266 to feed them. When you pray to the Lady, you call Her the abyss of goodness and bounty. Be like yourself, to the best of your ability, in kindness and generosity, to those who need your kindness and generosity, and do not be angry with them, do not despise them, but love them the more, the more they need you. Reason lightly and sensibly, evangelically about their situation, putting yourself more often in their place, and the Lady will increase Her mercies towards you. Alas, what do I see? Here is a priest, who served the Divine Liturgy and received communion of the life-giving Mysteries (I don’t know how), goes or goes to visit a feast and here he becomes satiated and drunk, and this not once, not twice, but many times, almost constantly. Where is the Body and Blood of my Savior in it? Where is the attention of the unworthy servant of God to the Divine Visitor and Savior of our souls? Where is this union between me and the Giver of Life? Where are the feelings of gratitude? Where is the desire to please the most loving Savior? Where is the memory of His living words: Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be burdened with gluttony and drunkenness and the cares of this life [Lk. 21, 34 ]?.. My God! How neglectful we are of such an inscrutable gift of God! How we frivolously trample on the Blood of the Covenant! You will say different words: some will revive, and others will kill your soul and the soul, perhaps, of your neighbor; That’s why it is said: Let your word always be with grace, seasoned with salt [Col. 4, 6], that he may give grace to those who hear. Let no corrupt word come out of your mouth [Eph. 4, 29]. As our service to the flesh increases, our spiritual side weakens: the flesh subjugates the spirit, suppressing its heavenly aspirations. Let’s assume that you fasted for several days and felt in your soul all the benefits of fasting; But try to drink two glasses of vodka and have a good snack, then stand up for prayer - and you will see how far sincere prayer is from your heart, how far your heart is from God, how the flesh drags you down, how your heart has become white, or has become fat and fat and fat, and has forgotten God [Deut. 32, 15]. With satiety and drunkenness, the disembodied enemy enters the heart of a person - anyone attentive can feel this, especially during pious activities. And this is the reason why, with increasing drunkenness, the inclination to drunkenness increases so terribly (because the power of the enemy over a person increases), why such a force is noticeable in drunkards, which involuntarily attracts them to the satisfaction of passion, or an internal desire for wine. These unfortunate people have an enemy in their hearts. How to cast out the demon of drunkenness? By prayer and fasting [Mk. 9, 29]. It comes because people indulge in a carnal lifestyle, gluttony and do not pray; It is natural that it can come out of them from opposite reasons: fasting and prayer. Your faith has saved you [Matt. 9, 22] – not merits, not works, but one faith. Do not be proud, you who are being saved. The Lord bestows all his mercies on you for the mere faith in your truth, for the mere fact that you regard the suggestions of the spirit of lies as false and believe in the truth. And after death you are alive, saving forever, O Mother of God, Your inheritance. The death of a righteous man opens for him the field of extensive charity. The death of a Christian is a transition to another, better life. Remember that because of your attachment to earthly things, you cannot have ardent, firm and constant love for God, who benefits you so much. It's time to count everything on earth as rubbish, so that you may gain Christ and please Him [Phil. 3, 8]. The Lord is my life, my strength, my light, my peace, my wisdom. This is how the Lord holds and carries our souls, just as a mother holds and carries a baby. The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner: this is from the Lord, and is marvelous in our eyes [Ps. 117, 22–23]. This is what happens now with many people who, by the power of the Spirit of God, are made out of nothing glorious in the Church of Christ - to the surprise of the proud people of this age, who neglected the servants of God. The truth requires that I constantly say in my heart: I am nothing, everything is the Lord, in all good things His power is, - and crazy flesh puts crazy words in my heart: I am everything, not the Lord. The fool said in his heart: “There is no God” [Ps. 13, 1]. Everything is fine for a meek and humble person, although it is not his fault: as long as it is not contrary to God and his duties and title; he doesn't get irritated by anything; but a proud and self-loving person can hardly be pleased: the slightest thing is not like him - he is offended, irritated, speaks vaguely, biliously, hostilely. The meek and humble, especially before the elders or in view of his elders, considers it madness to get excited and irritated and say anything offensive and is always respectful and affectionate towards them, remembering the words of Scripture: Stand up before the gray-haired man and honor the face of the old man, and fear the Lord your God [Lev. 19, 32]. Just as air, light, water, food pass through the eyesight, mouth, nose, ears and pores of the body - each corresponding part of the body, so the Lord passes through the entire soul and body, without being limited to them, and sees at once all the thoughts and feelings and intentions of the soul and the entire structure of the body, all the deeds of a person, present, past and future. It is not for nothing that the Lord is depicted as an eye. He alone is the whole eye, seeing everything. Why for the Lord there is no present, past and future, but only one present? Because He is one, simple, indivisible Spirit - He. So undoubtedly believe that God sees you, just as you are sure that your father or someone else, standing face to face with you, sees you, with the difference that the Heavenly Father sees everything that is in you, what you are all about. And he sees all creatures - Angels, saints, us sinners, and all animals - at once, just as the sun illuminates everyone at once. However, the eyes of the Lord are ten thousand times brighter than the sun [Sir. 23, 27]. When you feel the presence of an enemy in your heart, a killer of the soul, then strengthen yourself to do everything opposite to what he wants - this is your life, your peace. Be afraid to agree with him for a minute, although he strongly forces you to do so. Do not expect works of the spirit from someone who is seduced by food and drink, do not trust his piety. The conversation of the Lord with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, with Moses, with Elijah, with the prophets is an image of the conversation of the Lord with all the faithful in their hearts; The closeness of the Lord to them is a demonstration of His closeness to us: as He is close to them, so it is to us, if we please Him through faith and virtue. You are with me [Ps. 22, 4]. He abides in Me, and I in him [Jn. 6, 56]. A living performance before the face of your Lord is a source of peace and joy for the soul; Doubt in His presence produces confusion, sorrow, and oppression. Heartfelt prayer is a source of peace of heart; heartless, superficial, inattentive hurts the heart. We must take great care of the purity of the hearts of adolescents and the incorruption of their bodies: with the body, the soul becomes terribly corrupted, love and respect for one’s neighbor fades away. The Lord gave me countless spiritual and material blessings out of His love for me alone - how can I hesitate, out of love for God and neighbor, to give spiritual and material blessings to those who demand? We are members of one another [Eph. 4:25], and my blessings are the blessings of my brothers who need them. The need for communion at least four or once a year. Our nature is corrupted by sin every day, hour and minute. This means that it is necessary to update it as often as possible with life-giving Mysteries, and certainly four times or at least once a year. Good clothing on a sinful person is a lie: it deceives others by the appearance of this person and inspires a good opinion of him. In accordance with the thinness of spiritual clothing, one must wear poor and shabby physical clothing. Do not be irritated and do not be angry in your heart - lest Satan bind you, and lest you become like a dumb dog, unable to bark [Isa. 56, 10]. You consider yourself alive, not dead. Are you really living, are you not a walking ghost? If in your heart there is faith and love for God and love for your neighbor as for yourself, then you live; if not, you are dead, you are no better than an idol. Rather, come to your senses, understand what our life consists of, and begin to live a true, human, Christian life. Collecting wealth for the pleasure of eating and drinking, and not just to quench hunger and thirst, is the most ridiculous - and not only funny, but criminal - business, a child's game at full age, an unexcusable game with oneself. We have turned our whole life into childish play, perverting everything about our Creator in ourselves and turning it upside down. We play - oh, grief and horror! – the very organs of procreation, these sacred organs of life, which the Creator made instruments of our existence and life; we laugh at life's greatest, most priceless gift; We, impudent creatures, senseless creatures, laugh at our Creator, the Giver of life, who said: Thou shalt not commit adultery [Ex. 20, 14; Deut. 5, 18] - and threatening adulterers with deprivation of the Kingdom and torment in unquenchable fire. We have turned our whole life into childish, blind fun: we have invented various empty amusements just to kill priceless time, which our Lord commanded us to greatly value when he said: for every idle word that people say, they will give an answer on the day of judgment [Matt. 12:36], watch, because you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man will come [Matt. 25:13], and the holy apostles, saying: Treasure the time, because the days are evil [Eph. 5, 16], walk in wisdom... 267 [Col. 4, 5]. Oh, we are unreasonable people, people who have become completely foolish by our own will... What will we say in justification to our Creator when the time of His Last Judgment comes? Yes, the Judgment will truly be terrible: how can the Judgment of the all-good, long-suffering, but also all-righteous Lord not be terrible? When you think about human affairs that are now taking place, you will involuntarily say to yourself: yes, there must certainly be a universal Judgment, and it must certainly be terrible, because people also terribly, devilishly insult the holiness, goodness, long-suffering and justice of God. My brothers! Turn from your crooked paths and make right paths with your feet. Lead us not into temptation [Matt. 6, 13]. Temptation here, of course, comes primarily from the devil when he shakes our faith, for example in the omnipresence of God or in some Sacrament, or when he kindles in us some passion, for example fornication, love of money, stinginess, envy, hatred, malice. It can be very difficult to resist the temptations of the enemy, which is why it is said further: deliver us from the evil one [Matt. 6, 13] – the tempter. Thus the Savior was led into temptation by fasting for forty days. His temptation was from the devil, and the devil tempted Him with food (lust), worldly glory (love of glory) and greed (I will give everything to You [Matthew 4:9]). This is how he tempts us. A sign of a person’s spiritual life is a living faith in the heart in God and in everything Divine, the compatibility of everything spiritual in the heart; a sign of a person’s carnal life is unbelief or lack of faith in God and in everything Divine, the inability of everything spiritual and heavenly in the heart of a person: My word, the Savior said to the carnal Jews, cannot fit into you [John. 8, 37]. What if the prevenient grace of God had not been given to us, if it had not suddenly [and unexpectedly] embraced our entire being after the sins we had committed and did not itself dispose it to repentance and tears? Experience. (Shakhov.) What if you could only get it through your own efforts? ABOUT! We would be damned people then: it would be a rare, rare person who could get rid of the burden of sins, for our nature is generally lazy towards strenuous labor, especially in spiritual life, and without help, without strong relief and pleasure from spiritual labor, we would abandon them and abandon the work of our salvation. Now the all-wise God and the gracious Father will either lighten and sweeten our spiritual burden, or sometimes aggravate it for our testing, to teach us patience and exhaustion of our evil, destructive flesh, wisely replacing one with another - and the work of our salvation, thanks to God, is always possible, not too difficult and very often pleasant for us. For those who do not believe in how the Lord Jesus Christ is everywhere, especially through His Mysteries, let us point out an example. How, for example, does a tree - a pine - exist everywhere, or, for example, grain plants, such as wheat, rye, exist both here and there? And wherever I eat them, everywhere they have their own taste, completely different from other fruits? If plants are in some way omnipresent, then how is it that God is not omnipresent? Yes, He is omnipresent, and with His indivisible Divinity He fills heaven and earth, and with His Body and Blood in a separate form, like ears of bread, fills heaven and earth and is taught to everyone in separate parts, however, He Himself is all in each part of Bread and Wine, just as an ear is an ear - a whole plant - everywhere. The ears of corn, despite the fact that they grow in different places, are all established on the same land. So the Body and Blood, wherever they are offered, are offered in the same Lord Jesus Christ, who is, so to speak, their Hypostasis, or omnipresent foundation, their life and power. (The forest is frozen, like an unearthed field, I am 268.) Blessed are those who have hearing hearts and listen to everything that is true and holy, such as, for example, the word of God, church reading and hymns and petitions of the poor and weak. For many, the hearing of the heart is closed by the enemy. When sinful, passionate flesh strongly entices your heart with some kind of passion, then hasten to immediately turn your heart’s eyes to the cross, to the Lord crucified for us, and say: Who at the ninth hour tasted death for us in the flesh, put to death the wisdom of our flesh, O Christ our God, and save us. Lead us not into temptation [Matt. 6, 13]. The Lord knows how difficult it is for our nature to endure temptation, and therefore teaches us to pray to the Heavenly Father: do not lead us into temptation. In fact, if we were to subject all people to temptation - not only the pious, who have already experienced temptations from time to time and have learned to partially overcome them, but also the ungodly, who live according to the spirit of this age - then a terrible picture would appear before our eyes. Many would find themselves captives of Satan, apostates from the faith, from God; many would have fallen into countless sins: fornication, adultery, theft, disobedience, blasphemy against God, hatred, malice, envy, stinginess, greed, love of money. The Lord in the Apocalypse makes it a sign of special favor towards His chosen ones that He preserves them from the time of temptation that will come to the whole universe to test those living on earth [Rev. 3. 10 ]. Temptations usually reveal what is in a person, what he is, strong or weak in faith or in pious living, or has no faith at all and is not at all pious; they show that we ourselves are often nothing more than hay and straw or a reed shaken by the wind, without a solid foundation of life - faith and virtue; like a church founded on sand, which is conveniently washed away by rains, rivers and winds of enemy temptations. Yes, temptations are difficult, and the righteous themselves prayed that the Lord would deliver them from every temptation: God! Deliver me from every temptation! ABOUT! Deliver, deliver us, Lord, from the temptations of the cunning and malicious enemy: woe to us when he darkens our lamp and in the darkness of hell draws us into his will, when he kindles his fiery arrows with sevenfold and shoots them into our hearts and with rain or whole rivers of thoughts contrary to God and blasphemous or nasty, he will drag our hearts into sins, each darker and more terrible than the other. ABOUT! O Lord, then eat Your hand to us, sinners, to help us 269, eat Your light and disperse the thick, impenetrable darkness of our hearts: may we not fall into a terrible fall, may our former faith, our holy thoughts and our deeds, which we tried to have and do for Your sake, not be broken and turn to dust, as it were, into dust. - Example. God tempted Abraham, Job through enemy attacks, the apostles Peter, Paul - especially Paul - with various sufferings, but he [Paul] overcame all temptations, so that he said with complete truth: what, that is, what temptations, will separate us from the love of God: tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or hunger, or nakedness, or danger, or the sword?.. For I am sure that neither death, nor life... nor any other creation cannot separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord [Rom. 8, 35, 38–39]. I am sure - that is, through various temptations, which I withstood all brilliantly, I came to the conviction that nothing could shake my faith and love for the Lord, who loved me so much. And have you noticed in your life, brothers, that every trifle, every insignificant temptation can separate us from love for God and neighbor. (Examples from life.) It’s raining - you can’t go to church. Evening - go for the evening. We are damned people! How will you tempt us when we are constantly in sins, constantly tempted, drawn and seduced by our own lust! Although there is an urgent need to tempt us: it is necessary, says the Lord, to come to temptations [Matt. 18:7] from the enemy the seducer and the tempter, let him not, the all-evil one, boast before the Lord! Yes, very, very many of us would turn out to be unbelievers in the Lord, lacking true heartfelt faith in Him, true virtue, many would renounce the Lord and virtue. That is why the Lord, knowing our extreme weakness in faith, our spiritual weakness, does not send strong temptations to us, but only weak ones, as if we are able to bear them; and sends strong, highly purifying temptations to people who are firm and strong in faith and piety, such as the martyrs, such as, for example, the newest martyrs of Syria 271. Weak temptations: whether we believe in the Lord, whether we trust in His words - are sent to us often, beloved brethren; and notice when these temptations occur: you must emerge victorious from them; Having learned to emerge victorious from small temptations, you will learn to face large ones and emerge victorious from them. The enemy is extremely evil and envious and is constantly plotting something against the servants of the Lord, almost constantly plotting against them in order to somehow shake their faith and love for the Lord and for their neighbor, and one must always be prepared to meet new and new temptations. But glory to the all-good Lord: he allows all these temptations in order to show on our part greater faith and love for Him and to receive from Him the most brilliant crowns in the next century, so that the enemy with his temptations, although they are now contrary to our nature, is himself preparing for us in some way a rich reward in the future life. Any punishment at the present time seems not to be joy, but sadness; but after... [Heb. 12, 11]. When sorrow and oppression of the enemy take hold of your heart, then say: Who will separate us from the love of God: sorrow or distress?.. [Rom. 8, 35]. The enemy tempts everyone with his lust: drunkards with drunkenness, money-loving and stingy people with money and perishable property in general, adulterers with adultery, the greedy and dainty with food and drink, various delicacies, tobacco and other things, the unkind and envious with the misfortune of others or their prosperity. When, during a conversation with the fair sex, criminal lust appears in your flesh and, like a stream, carries away your heart and inflames your loins, then say to yourself firmly: let not flesh and blood deceive me, and let not earth and ashes defile my soul. Behold, my Savior! The passion of lust overcomes me, but intercede and save me Yourself, my Savior, extinguish carnal lust in me, preserve my body with Your dispassionate passion. The progress that now exists is the progress of the carnal, the old man, the progress of the flesh, not the spirit. Look closely and you will see. Consider the sciences, arts, arts, trade, industry, entertainment, tables, house buildings, various human enterprises, the spirit of the age. Professor Kostomarov’s mother is a simple woman, and he is a most respectful son. Many parents give their infants, especially teenagers, to drink wine to supposedly prevent certain diseases, especially scrofula. What foolishness! Wine accelerates and intensifies physical vital activity in an infant and a child (as in any person), their reproductive parts quickly begin to develop and make their demands, and you see - from a very early age children learn debauchery, lose their chastity (of soul and body - alas) and most often become malakia or childbearers and fornicators. This is the enormous harm that comes from children drinking alcoholic beverages or grape wines! If, for the most part, it is dangerous for those who are of age to preserve mental and physical purity to drink wine, although they have a lamp in life - reason and conscience and the commandments of God, then will it not be dangerous for children, in whom both reason and conscience are infancy and in whom, however, the sinful flesh makes its demands. ABOUT! The attention of parents and educators should be very keen: if they have pity on their children and want to preserve intact spiritually and physically these still innocent creations of God, these temples of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son, then they must remove from them all causes that could corrupt their hearts and bodies. Do not get drunk with wine, which causes debauchery [Eph. 5, 18]. If wine of age leads to debauchery, do you think that it will not lead children to it? Sooner or later it will certainly lead. This is the law of sinful sequence, or sinful causation. Making a procession to Jerusalem [Lk. 13, 22]. The Lord’s entry into Jerusalem, beloved brethren, reminds us of our journey along the path of temporary life to the Heavenly and eternal city of Jerusalem. That the union of our souls with God in the next century will follow and that it will be for us a source of light, peace, joy, bliss - we partly know this experimentally and in this life: in prayer, when our soul is completely turned to God and united with Him, we feel beautiful, calm, light, joyful, like children laid to rest at their mother’s breast, or, better to say, somehow inexpressibly good: it’s good for us to be here [ Matt. 17, 4]. So, strive unremittingly for future endless bliss, the beginnings of which you know from experience in this life. But pay attention: these are only the firstfruits of the earth, imperfect, visible only in part, as if in a mirror and fortune telling (1 Cor. 13:12); What will it be like for us when we truly, most sincerely unite with God, when images and shadows disappear and the Kingdom of pure truth and vision begins? ABOUT! Until death we must strive for future bliss, for our future unity with God. How to love another person? How do you love yourself? No one, it is said, has ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and warms it [Eph. 5, 29]. So love every neighbor. Nourish and warm his flesh as if it were your own, do everything for him as you want them to do for you - and you will love him according to the commandment of the Lord. No matter how you looked, you would not be tempted; no matter how I heard, my heart wouldn’t hurt; no matter how much I tasted it, my tongue wouldn’t itch. You see how many temptations there are from our eyes, ears and tastes! How many have suffered and are suffering because, being unsteady at heart in good dispositions, they looked carelessly with unclean eyes, listened with ears unaccustomed to distinguishing between good and evil, and tasted with a greedy taste! The feelings of sin-loving flesh, unbridled by reason and God’s commandments, drew them into various worldly passions, darkened their minds and hearts, deprived them of peace of heart and took away freedom from their will, making them their slaves. How carefully you need to look, listen, taste, smell and touch, or, better yet, how you need to protect your heart, so that through external feelings, as through windows, sin and the culprit of sin himself - the devil - do not darken and hurt our heavenly bird - the soul with his poisonous and deadly arrows! August 18th, 1861. The more someone loves to delight his taste with food and drink and fill his belly, the more his heart becomes attached to the earth, the more he intensifies his passions, the more he moves away from everything spiritual and heavenly, the more he gives birth to heart sorrows. Our true, life-giving food is the Flesh of Christ God, and our true drink is His Blood: they revive, truly rest and delight our souls and bodies, raise our souls with faith, hope and love, and transport us to heaven with heavenly thoughts and hopes; earthly foods and drinks, like earthly ones, attract the earth, and since the earth is not akin to the soul, since our soul is by nature God-like and must be united with God, then attachment to earthly things, as a matter contrary to its nature and God’s will, is always painful for it, murderous and associated with dislike for God and neighbor, because through everything earthly the enemy acts on us with his seductions and everything earthly for the sake of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, with which he deceived the first people, it was cursed by God and, as it were, handed over to the power of the enemy, that is, he was given the will to tempt man through everything earthly, for the earth was created primarily for man, and one fruit of a tree for the Lord is the same as the whole earth. For the sake of one fruit by which man fell, the whole earth became unkind to the Lord. That is why it is said: cursed is the earth for your sake... She will bring forth thorns and thistles for you [Gen. 3, 17–18]. Therefore, with extreme caution and wise prudence, a Christian must use the material blessings of the earth and beware every minute, lest our heart become bogged down in them by the action of the enemy, as in snares, and move away from God, for the heart’s attachment to earthly things necessarily means its removal from God. Jesus Christ with the Father and the Holy Spirit is the unsearchable abyss of love for mankind: in this abyss of mercy there will be mercy in abundance for everyone, only let us turn to God with faith and hope and heartfelt pain about our untruths, about our insults inflicted by us on the Lord, Master and Benefactor. A spacious, kind heart, by the way, is expressed in an abundance of bread and salt and heartfelt affection - just as the goodness of God, by the way, is expressed in an abundance of earthly gifts. It would not be right for a priest to consume cow's milk and butter, especially meat, although this is not prohibited, due to our weakness. What suits a layman does not suit a priest. It especially does not suit him to drink vodka, perhaps just a little, and to smoke or sniff tobacco. All this cherishes our flesh, which must be crucified with its lusts, whitens our heart and more or less entangles it in approaching God, in union with Him. Yes, the lips, which are so often sanctified by the use of the divine Mysteries and serve as doors for them, must receive food and drink with extreme caution! With what care and reverence must the entrance of the King of glory be guarded from all that is superfluous and brings impurity into our hearts! If the entrance of the earthly king is carefully always kept clean, if there is always a guard at his entrance, then we must keep our lips, this entrance of the Heavenly King, as clean as possible and always have our mind as a guard, which must prohibit the entry into these royal doors to everything that can make this entrance unclean and unseemly, especially the very chamber of the Heavenly King - the heart. Take heed to yourselves, says the Savior, so that your hearts are not burdened with gluttony and drunkenness [Lk. 21, 34]. I also mean here words spoken not in grace, words that are idle, immodest, false, words that express our heartfelt passions. The lips and tongue of every Christian, especially a priest, must be protected in every possible way. Priest of God! Understand how much your lips mean, what honor they have received from the Heavenly King, your Creator and Lord, and be afraid to make them a conduit for rubbish and all uncleanness. Love every neighbor as yourself, and do not spare anything for your neighbor, just as you do not spare anything for yourself, and you will have everything, for it is impossible for the Lord to leave someone who loves in poverty and lack. Yes, even if the test of poverty was sent to him, then his love for his neighbor, which is always with him, is his greatest wealth, which can go with him beyond the grave. Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feeds them [Matt. 6, 26]. These words of the Lord do not support our laziness and inaction - can the Wise say this - but suggest that if God does not forget the birds, these creatures so cheaply valued by us, these unreasonable creatures, then even more so He will not forget to feed us, creatures so dear to Him, for the salvation of which He did not spare His Only Begotten Son! It is also instilled that we should not doze off, not sit idly by, not be lazy, but just as birds constantly fly and gain food for themselves, using their sharp vision and natural instinct for this, so we should constantly use our strengths and abilities to gain for ourselves the Kingdom of God and its righteousness, for this is the purpose of our life, and not just to gain food for ourselves; so that we constantly sharpen our spiritual vision, or the eyes of our hearts, and through them obtain spiritual food and drink for ourselves daily; These words do not prohibit the acquisition of temporary blessings, but only so that this acquisition of temporary blessings always comes after spiritual, heavenly blessings, as the Lord also says: Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all this will be added to you [Matt. 6, 33 ]; Moreover, it is necessary that it is not strong, too caring, and does not take up a lot of time and labor, which should be used more for spiritual salvation. Marriage is a Sacrament. Just as a wife bears fruit for her husband by the power of God, children (planted in her with his seed), so the Church bears fruit with the Holy Spirit for children of the Heavenly Father, redeemed by the Blood of Christ. Harm to spiritual life from fast food. It predisposes to nightly unclean dreams and outpourings of semen, and during the day it inflames the loins and reproductive organs. It is dangerous for a well-fed person - a monk or a priest and a layman - to have a conversation with the fair sex: a well-fed person is extremely prone to intercourse. About the benefits and necessity of fasting on Wednesday and Friday and the need for fasting. Fasting on Wednesday and Friday - I am amazed at the wisdom of the Holy Mother of the Church - is extremely useful and necessary for us both in relation to the soul and in relation to the body. In relation to the soul: by relieving our body of the burden of nutritious, quick food - which, even if taken in small quantities, has a big difference for a spiritual person from fasting, for it makes the heart white, - fasting on Wednesday and Friday lightens, clarifies and encourages our soul, makes holy thoughts about God, about the salvation of the soul, about death and eternity, about the corruption of all earthly things more accessible to it, and generally disposes us to spiritual pursuits. In relation to the body: fasting on Wednesday and Friday gives two times relief to the stomach from lean, more difficult to digest and nutritious food than lean food, and thus the stomach saves its strength little by little for the future. Fasting on Wednesday and Friday can be compared with recreational days 272 in educational institutions, where rest is given to students who are tired mentally and physically, and the fasts - Great, Nativity, the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul and the Assumption - can be compared with vacations 273 allowed in educational institutions. Just as there the pupils are freed from intense mental activities so that they, through rest and light, free bodily activities, can gather their bodily strength, wasted by intense mental activities, so during fasting, some vacancy is given to the stomachs, which have worked a lot and strongly in a short time (from light, difficult to digest food, from wine, from ingested things) (just as steam engines have a need for weakening and rest), in order to the time when the stomach is more or less free from its activity and does not darken the clarity of thoughts and heart with its work and its fumes, the soul has collected its strength, wasted by the carnal way of life and the excessive activity of the womb, because when the stomach acts strongly, then the soul acts weakly. Stinginess, or reckless sparing of earthly goods for anyone who comes to me, has no basis in me and in my entire environment: if today I am full and I still have food and drink left or for food and drink, then I should no longer refuse a needy person or a visitor and should not be stingy for him, no matter how much he eats, no matter how hungry he is: let him eat as much as he wants. Our daily bread, it is said, give us this day [Matt. 6, 11]. Today I am full, tomorrow God willing. Moreover, the Lord saturates us with all sorts of good things, and in abundance; we too must be satisfied with God’s gifts, because we are members of one another [Eph. 4, 25]. But especially for a brother one should not spare anything eaten or drunk, because he is the image of God, the church of God and God himself: since you did it to one of these... you did it to Me [Matt. 25, 40], and trashna is earth and ashes, or dust trampled underfoot. God! Have mercy on me, Teach me to do Your will; With Your bounty, teach me to be generous and kind to everyone. Almighty! You always contain me with Your laws and do not allow me to err unpunished. If I turn away from Your path, from the path of love for You and for my neighbor, as for myself, You are my inner enemy, disembodied, who is the scourge in Your hand, scourging and admonishing us sinners. Glory to You about everything, O all-powerful King! You must always listen to the desires and desires of your heart and never indiscriminately, without reasoning, begin to fulfill them, because many desires are suggested by the enemy in order for him to more conveniently bind our hearts with these desires or their fulfillment. It is especially necessary to strictly consider, through the eyes of the mind, the desires and unwillingnesses of everyday life, earthly ones, related to food, drink, clothing, housing, its decoration and various utensils and utensils. Having started to fulfill desires, do not have great impetuosity and haste in fulfilling desires, which proves the passionate attachment of the heart to those things that you want to purchase or make or install in place; otherwise, an obstacle encountered from someone else will greatly irritate, outrage and bind your heart, and you will sin against love and respect for your neighbor, whom you should love and honor as yourself, and not be irritated or angry with him because of anything perishable. What you don’t want for yourself, don’t do to others. Here is a short but truly wise rule of life. Fulfill it, have living faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and in His Gospel - and you will be saved. An all-evil enemy sometimes strikes a person with incomprehensible grief and melancholy of the heart, so that the person cannot be consoled by anything, by any advice. I called this grief and melancholy incomprehensible, because a person indulges in it without sufficient reasons or for the most unimportant and empty reasons. When he talks about these reasons for his melancholy to others, especially his family and friends, he will produce almost only laughter, and if he often repeats his story about them and shows his melancholy, then strong anger mixed with the desire to amaze and destroy the poor fellow. This hypochondria, this anger of ours towards the hypochondriac is the work of the enemy, who breathes murder against the one stricken with hypochondria and our angry, irritable disposition towards him distracts us from sincere prayer for the grieving person and from advice that is useful to him. We must calmly sympathize with the grieving person and not call him the defamatory names of a fool, melancholy and the like, but firmly remember that such a state of sometimes a very smart person is the work of the all-evil enemy of man - the devil, who seeks by all possible means to defeat our spirit with spiritual death. We still don’t need to help the enemy with our irritability, with our abusive words. The grieving soul, it is said, do not grieve [Sir. 4, 2]. You will say: he is moping about trifles, but the enemy always confuses us with trifles, always torments us with ghosts alone. Today I had a collector, a peasant from the Ryazan province. A wonderful person. Meek and humble, kind and simple-hearted and a faster: he has not eaten anything fast and on fast days for eleven years. Apparently God's grace rests on him. What devotion to God! What trust in God in the simplicity of the heart! Woe, woe to us sinners, to us who call ourselves Orthodox Christians: what do we see in our city - I’m not talking about other places, but about our city - everywhere you go? Saturation, drunkenness, passion for circuses and theaters - real paganism! On holidays, instead of going to church and praying to God and lighting a candle, in order to show the Lord their gratitude for His mercies and so that the Lord would send fire and gracious light into our souls instead of material fire and light, many go to a tavern or drinking house and there eat and get extremely drunk on the holiday, instead of honoring the holiday with abstinence. Among foreigners, although they are not Orthodox Christians, on Sundays and holidays the places where wine is sold are sealed and everyone goes to the service, after the service they sit in their houses and read holy books or engage in soul-saving conversations; dine modestly and moderately; They don’t even think about going to houses of entertainment. And with us - oh, woe! - like a holiday, there is satiety and drunkenness; like a holiday, it is a soul-rending spectacle of debauchery; What a holiday, then a visit to entertainment venues! What are we doing? What have we come to, Christians? In name we are Christians, as if we belong to Christ, but in deeds we are swept away from Him, in deeds we are pagans, not Christians, and woe, woe, woe will befall us at the Last Judgment of Christ if we do not correct ourselves. It will be more joyful at the Judgment for the inhabitants of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, Tire and Sidon, these most lawless cities that angered the Lord with their carnal impurities, than for us, who call ourselves Christians. Woe, woe, woe to us, the shepherds, that we do not reprove and forbid enough, we beg Christians to behave like Christians. We remain silent, but our sheep go where they should not, and do what they should not; we slumber, and the wolf plunders and destroys them; We do not shine for them with our teaching and life, and the alien darkness of the accursed covers them, and in this darkness they do all sorts of deeds of destruction. My God! What have we come to! It is impossible to recognize Christians in us: we all live in the flesh, not in the spirit, [...] we all did not even think of crucifying our flesh with passions and lusts, we all... became... obscene; there is no one who does good [Ps. 13, 3]. There are greedy, envious people who eat a lot and are ready to eat everything just so that there is no food left from them for others; they drink a lot and are ready to drink everything just so that there is nothing left for others. Oh, senseless brutes! O slaves of corruption! How highly they value their rough, low, abdominal pleasure—pigs, real pigs. How crazy they are! For tell me: where is the soul of such people? I don't see it. We must despise food and drink and never drink or eat in excess: let the leftovers remain, even if they are delicious and delicious, my soul is more valuable than them: I do not want to burden it with excessive consumption of perishable food and drink, I do not want to be a slave to dust, even precious, and suffer from it soul and body; I am a Christian, I want to be obedient to the words of my Lord: Pay attention to yourself, lest they aggravate you... [Lk. 21, 34 ] - and I will sacrifice both my will and my belly as a pleasing sacrifice to Him, so that He, the Lord of my belly, will mercifully despise me, His unworthy servant, sacrificing His carnal pleasure to Him; I don’t want to serve the devil, who deceives me even to this day, just as he deceived Adam and Eve; I will not burden or obscure the clarity of my soul with a multitude of food and drink - this earthly corruption. The devil's delusion in people is manifold: the devil deceived some from an early age not to pray, and he remains in this deception and does not pray; the other is in a different delusion, also from an early age: he considers the Holy Scripture something inconceivable for himself and does not read the Holy Scripture, of which one word, like the word of God, could revive his soul, as it is said: by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, man will live [Matt. 4, 4]. Others consider going to church unnecessary and in vain and not at all obligatory for themselves, although this is obligatory for every Christian, for it is said: do not forsake meeting yourself [Heb. 10, 25], and although often a few minutes of standing in God’s church clearly speak to the heart about the benefits and necessity of visiting the house of God. Others - oh, horror - are in the most terrible deception: they do not come to confession and communion of the Holy Mysteries, considering all this to be a human institution, and not God's, and considering all the decrees, statutes and Sacraments of the Church to be restrictive for their supposed freedom, but in fact - for their carnal, old, sinful, pernicious man. These are ignorant in the faith, these are stone-hearted, these are enemies of the Cross of Christ, the offspring of vipers, for if they wanted, they could learn the faith and Christian life in the church or from their spiritual father. There is more - what audacity! - so proud and contemptuous of everything holy, who consider prayers to the mother in labor and the very Sacrament of Holy Baptism to be unnecessary and are indignant when their babies are baptized, calling it torture (oh, horror!) for children and a custom, God knows why, that came into the world! The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God [Exod. 20, 10], Saturday 274, that is, peace: rest of the hands from work, peace of the stomach from satiety and drunkenness, peace of the whole person from earthly and corruptible work, and dedication of all oneself to God, or the heavenly and spiritual. Those who partake of the Divine and life-giving Mysteries often notice that before, during and after communion, thoughts blasphemous against the Divine Mysteries crowd into their hearts, which to listen to is lies and slander; They usually strike the heart with sorrow and oppression and burn with fire, according to what is written: Fire is ecu, unworthy of burning 275, and the weaker the participant resists them, the weaker he reflects them with opposite true thoughts, the stronger and more unbearable they burn and oppress our insides, the more unbearable the sorrow and tightness of the heart they produce. Pay attention, brethren: all this is the delusion or deception of the devil, who attacks you with false thoughts, so blaspheme the Divine Mysteries by which you are quickened; and [since] you cannot blaspheme them by will, for you yourself have experienced a thousand times that they are true, holy, pure and life-giving, then he darkens your mind and heart with vain, false wisdom, and at the same time uses coercion by fire, tightness and sorrow of your heart, so that you involuntarily, forced by torment, blaspheme what you are constantly sanctifying and you are revived. But you, my brothers, be strong, unyielding, sober and vigilant in every possible way in these moments, strive until sweat and blood against the devil and his deceptions, calling on the Lord Jesus and His Most Pure Mother for help: not for a minute, not for a moment, try not to deign to have evil and blasphemous thoughts about the Divine, all-saving Mysteries, so that you will not be like-minded with the slanderer of the world and the father of lies, constantly slandering God and everything pleasing to Him, all His truth. Remember that you stand here on the level of His confessors and martyrs for Christ, for His Divine Body and Blood. Reject the wisdom of your carnal mind, remembering that the Body and Blood are the mystery of God the Creator, a life-giving mystery and, therefore, true, for only truth is life-giving, and lies are poisonous to our spirit, created for truth. When, having stood firmly for the Divine Mysteries, for their truth, you do not succumb to the enemy and defeat his slander and slander, then - oh, what peace of spiritual strength will be in your hearts! Why? - Because you, as confessors or martyrs, emerge victorious from the struggle against the spirits of evil in heaven and are united in the closest union with the Lord Himself, for Whom you stood firmly against His enemies. It is said: He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood abides in Me, and I in him [Jn. 6, 56]. Throughout your life, learn to recognize and defeat the enemy’s machinations over you. Remember that this spiritual thief does not come into your soul and body except by stealing your faith, hope and love for God and neighbor, by instilling doubt in you about the Divine, by instilling nasty, evil and blasphemous thoughts, by instilling despair or enmity on your brother, by killing your soul with excessive sorrow and crampedness and ultimately destroying it through slowness in evil and petrification of the heart. He will appear in your heart through sorrow, oppression and fire in order to arouse in it distrust of the words of God or cowardice, murmuring, despair in sorrows, or enmity towards a brother because of something material and perishable, or stinging food and drink for a brother, or envy, or pride, or anger and irritability towards a brother because of something empty. Stand in the fire, as once were the three youths in the cave of Babylon or the martyrs who endured different kinds of torment; endure the tribulation and oppression of the enemy: be patient in tribulation, burn in spirit in prayer to the Lord: be constant in prayer [Rom. 12, 12], but do not change faith, hope, love. Seeing your firmness in faith, hope and love, the enemy will leave you behind and run away with his fiery arrows, with his hellish, joyless sorrow and cramped conditions, in which he himself eternally languishes and groans; your heart will expand, and your face will shine, just as the day of the Lord shines after menacing black clouds. This 276 science is Christian, and the experienced knows the truth of these words! Lord, what will I bring, or what will I repay to Your power, which you support, take away from passions and live my heart? Behold, Master, by Your power, with an undisgraced face, with the dignity befitting the head of a house, I treat Your people, and I am majestic as the generous feeder of their tuna with Your bounties, as You feed all creation with tuna. I offer You, Master, my heartfelt thanks: behold, see! Do not deprive me of Thy grace, Thy sovereign help, lest the enemy overwhelm me with stinginess for food and drink for Thy people, or, more precisely, with stinginess. A poor person who often comes to you and takes advantage of your mercies or, better yet, God’s bounties, do not despise him, but love him all the more the more he needs you, and consider him not as your debtor, but as your benefactor, for God, who receives mercy from you in the person of the poor, prepares for you rich mercies in His Kingdom and makes the poor man the culprit or mediator for your reward: the poor must always be considered God's messenger to us. It is a grave sin to despise a beggar: in his person Christ Himself is despised. Therefore, in the evening prayers, among other things, when listing sins, it is said: either a poor man came to me, and despised him 278. My God! I still have hope for earthly things! I still do not respect man, created in the image of God, as I should, still a large number of visitors produces sorrow in my heart, and still I regret the blessings of the Lord when they need to be shared by many; there is still little, little Christian love in me, or love for every neighbor as for myself. I have not yet learned to be jealous of Your saints, who, with hope in God, nourished everyone without exception, believing that if God sent guests or pilgrims, strangers, then He will also send their daily bread for them. God! Enlighten, strengthen my heart in hope in You alone, the Father of all, who continually cares for all of us, children in Christ. Grant me not to say that I should be, but to have everything in common for everyone [Acts. 4, 32 ]; Grant to me ever in goodness the unity of spirit with all in the bond of peace [Eph. 4, 3]. Our future bliss will consist in unity with God, with all the Heavenly Powers and the holy people of God. Whoever wants to inherit it, in this life must prepare himself for this, among other things, by unity of spirit with everyone in a union of peace and love, must treat everyone with love and affection and in every possible way preserve meekness and kindness of heart. Consider every inconvenience and cramped space on earth as comfort and space, every stench as a fragrance, every dust as clean air, cold as warmth, rain as a bucket, and run far away from all earthly softness, lest you become attached to the earth through earthly comforts and coolness, for the more a person has conveniences, bliss, comfort here, the more - and against his will, imperceptibly - he becomes attached with thoughts and with his heart to the earth and even more so moving away from the invisible, heavenly, eternal. But when the visible oppresses and crowds, then the spirit is lighter, as if necessarily rushing towards the invisible, not finding joy on earth. Woe to those who receive their consolation on earth, grief precisely because earthly consolations distract the soul from seeking heavenly consolations. Hallowed be Thy name [Matt. 6, 9]. When and how is the name of God sanctified? For example, when we are merciful, compassionate towards the poor, the orphaned, widows, when we are generous in giving alms, when we are friendly, when we are holy, in general when we try to adorn ourselves with every virtue - then we sanctify the name of God. Nothing sanctifies the name of God more than mutual love, for God is love (1 John 4:8, 16). Christian wisdom and our unceasing feat are that we constantly have love in our hearts - this is the life-giving principle of our souls - and treat everyone the way we want others to treat us. Show kindness to one another with brotherly love [Rom. 12, 10], but not hostile, not rude, not cold. But [after all] it is this wisdom of ours that the enemy of God always strives to steal from us and instead keep us in enmity and hostility towards each other. God gave you His generous gifts in order to send them through your hands to others in need: gifts of God, not yours, even when you possess them, having collected them in the service through your labors or having received them as an inheritance. You will say: I worked. What can I say? We are all born to work, and this is not your merit: by the sweat of your face you will eat bread [Gen. 3, 19], it is said. But the fact is that you work and receive more than enough for your labors, while others work more than you and are much harder than you, and receive little reward for their labors. Do you not see how God is righteous in His words and in His deeds and is sufficient, but He will generously punish the stingy for withholding His generous gifts and not giving them to His lesser brethren? Yes, everything is God’s, and only our pride and self-interest ascribes God’s to ourselves and selfishly uses it alone and considers it a great favor for our neighbors when we sacrifice something a little for them. Only the devil, the eternal liar and deceiver, blasphemes through us the ever-glorious and glorified name of our God, generous and merciful, through our covetousness, unsociability and stinginess. He, who has nothing, and especially not even a shadow of love or any kind of good, always tries to instill in us dislike and unsociability towards each other; he instills in us feelings of poverty, when we are rich, he does not tolerate cordiality and hospitality in us. But you, servant of God, always consider everything to be God’s, not yours, and do not stand when you have to sacrifice the gifts of the Lord to your brethren, lest you stop His generosity on yourself alone, lest you reward yourself beyond measure and beyond your merits, and lest you incur even greater punishment on yourself at the Judgment, for judgment is without mercy for those who have not shown mercy [Jas. 2, 13]. When you feel in your heart an impulse to pity the earthly blessings of your brethren, then remember the endless generosity of God to people and to you: As a father gives generously to his sons, so the Lord show mercy [Russian: merciful] to all people, especially to those who fear Him [Ps. 102, 13 ]; to you, like to others, He gave the greatest, priceless gift of life and, like you a sinner, He gave His only begotten Son for you to die, so that, believing in Him, you will not perish forever and will receive the inheritance of eternal life; Remember also that for the sake of His infinite love for you, He extends His bounties throughout your entire life to such an extent that He feeds you with nothing else for purification and sanctification and the closest union with Him, as with the Flesh and Blood of His Only Begotten Son. What kind of close communication should you have with the people of God, if God unites with you like this? But they too are His members, for He prayed for all of them to His Father: that they may all be one, just as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, so that they also may be one in Us [Jn. 17, 21]. Since God has subjugated everything on earth under the feet of man, then man in some way is the god of the earth, or the vicegerent of God on earth, and through him the name of God is either glorified or blasphemed, as through the image of God or as through the likeness of the devil. Christian and, at the same time, everyday wisdom of every person consists in firmly knowing what revives our soul, and not what nourishes, delights and fattens our body. When that which animates the soul is known, then simple prudence demands that one turn primarily to it and place it above all else for its life-giving nature, the beginning of life in man, and simple prudence demands not to pay strong attention to those principles that support only the body, because increased attention or attachment to them produces torment in the soul. In the first case, I am talking about God, about His word, about His Cross, about prayer, about faith and piety; in the second - about non-attachment to anything earthly, about excessive carelessness about food and drink, clothing, housing, because this last only constitutes sorrow and ruin of the spirit. Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is all for man [Eccl. 12, 13]. So, when the heart is in sorrow and distress because of something... When guests come to you and do something unpleasant for you, for example, smoke tobacco in your whitewashed and cleaned rooms, do not be upset with them, but, highly valuing yourself in them and honoring them as guests, forgive them as if nothing they did: forgive them their debts. Remember also how you yourself, perhaps, smoke without mercy in their home or in someone else’s, and look at their mistake as your own. Let nothing darken the virtue of hospitality, but let good nature and kindness shine on your face. Show kindness to one another with brotherly love...forgiving one another...if anyone has a complaint against anyone [Rom. 12, 10; Eph. 4, 32; Col. 3, 13]. Let there always be unfailing respect for the guest, no matter how often he visits. The church is like a green tree with leaves and fruits, and schism is a dry branch broken off from the tree; it does not have nutritious juices in it, because there is nowhere for them to come from and there is no way to nourish it. They say: we soon get tired of praying. Why? Because they do not imagine the Lord alive before them, as if He is at their right hand; and look at Him unceasingly with the eyes of your heart - then you will stand the whole night in prayer and will not get tired. What am I saying - night? Stand for three days and three nights and you will not get tired. Remember the stylites. For many years they stood in a prayerful mood of spirit on the pillar, overcoming their flesh, which, both in you and in them, was also prone to laziness. And you are burdened by several hours of public prayer, even one hour. Let every sweetness of food and drink be like bitterness for you, the fragrance like stench, and the expensive like the cheapest, that is, nothing highly valued in the world has any price for your heart, but let everything be like pus, like rubbish, for in comparison with God, with heavenly spiritual sweets, in comparison with your immortal, god-like soul, it is insignificant and charming, soul-destroying. Hallowed be Thy name [Matt. 6, 9]. The responsibility to sanctify the name of God lies with everyone, but mainly with us, for the Lord has appointed us to be the light of the world, and we must glorify the Lord more than anyone with all our lives, our life must be a burning lamp. The priest should primarily shine with meekness, humility, faith and trust in God, love, lack of covetousness, zeal for the glory of God and the salvation of human souls, and zealous humility to all. Nevertheless, we, who are called spiritual, must demonstrate to all the laity a spiritual way of life, and not a carnal, sensual one; our very face should express our heavenly wisdom; in the church of God, which is appointed to be a special, sacred place for the glorification of the name of God, we must show everyone an example of reverent service to the Lord the All-Tsar: here our light should especially shine before people, for here the priest, deacon and cleric stand as if on the priesthood 279, in the sight of everyone, as living guides to the people of faith and trust in God, as living examples of meekness, humility, reverence for the holiness of the church, for all services, for all sacred readings, chants, sacred actions. Render to the earthly Father, as the image of the Heavenly Father, every respect in everything and do not spare anything earthly or perishable for him, for his food, clothing, peace of mind, especially for his spiritual benefit; May your stinginess, hostility and dislike, irritability, pride and disobedience never attack his sacred person. Honor your father and do not dislike or disrespect him for any reason. Packs, packs and packs I will sing 280 victorious and grateful to the glorious, all-powerful Lady of my Virgin Mary, as if she delivered me from the fiery oppression - my soul, wounded by the enemy through pity on the parent of earthly blessings. He called out to Her from the heart, as to a living one, with hope, as to a living abyss of goodness and mercy, the prayer: Undefiled, unglamorous, incorruptible... - and the fiery tightness passed, as if it had never been. Glory to You, Lady and Queen of all! Our Father, who is in heaven [Matt. 6, 9 ]! What a lofty, touching spiritual spectacle when these words in a large church meeting, or in a circle of family members, or in a meeting of pets, or in a meeting of soldiers are pronounced from the soul, truly, with one heart and one mouth. What a lofty spectacle when you see that these words are justified in the very lives of people, when everyone has a feeling of brotherly love for each other, they live peacefully, obeying the younger ones, the less intelligent, the more intelligent, giving each other their due, respecting each other, doing more with each other’s honor [Rom. 12, 10]. What a truly heavenly spectacle it is when, sitting down at the table with a large and heterogeneous family, everyone with one mouth and one heart says: Our Father - and confesses the one Father as the Heavenly, all-holy King, desiring the fulfillment of His one will on earth, confessing Him alone as the nourisher of all. What a sublime spectacle it is when the owner of the house ascribes his blessings - food and drink - not to himself, but to God, considering His gifts common to all, when he compares himself with all others and, as it were, accepts the treat himself, and not he treats others. But what an amazing and most comforting spiritual spectacle it would be if the whole earth, all peoples, with one mouth and one heart, cried out to heaven: Our Father! Like ecu in heaven! Hallowed be Thy name in us all! May Your Kingdom come as in the beginning, before the Fall; may Thy will be done, good and perfect, as in heaven forever, so on earth, and may self-will not reign. Give us this day our daily bread (what if everyone had such a way of thinking and desires) and forgive us our debts [Matt. 6, 9–12] and so on. But someday this will happen, for the time will come when all those living on earth will be one flock under one Shepherd. When treating guests, especially those who cannot repay you, and spending your wealth on them, rejoice that the fruits of your labors and God’s gifts are spent on living images of God, and not on dead idols of your passions, which are often the case, for example, household furnishings, rich clothes, even books, if they lie unused, not for food, drink, delicacies, not for the satisfaction of one’s sinful desires. and voluptuous flesh, whose end is decay. He who promised to reward for a cup of cold water, which does not need to be bought and obtained by labor, will reward even more for your food and drink, which is bought and obtained by labor 281. In general, God’s truth requires that you measure it with the same measure that you use yourself [Matt. 7, 2; Mk. 4, 24; OK. 6, 38]. Love your neighbor as yourself [Matt. 22, 39]. Remember this constantly and do not separate the other from yourself. Love thinks no evil (1 Cor. 13:5). To think any kind of evil is the work of the devil, and the devil in man and with man thinks it. Therefore, do not have any evil [in] your heart against another and do not think about him, lest you become at odds with the devil. Conquer all evil with good [Rom. 12, 21], which you see or [which] seems to you. This is your spiritual wisdom and the feat of Christian love. Moderation and abstinence are the mother of health. As long as you eat and drink in moderation and in moderation, and not everything that comes to hand, especially pies and mushrooms, then everything in the body flows well: there is no heaviness in the body, neither the stomach nor the head hurts, everything is light and cheerful; and when you start eating and drinking a lot and indiscriminately, you see - it becomes heavy, and the stomach will hurt, and behind it the head and pus will form on the surface of the body; and your own body will bind you for your immoderation, for your recklessness, for your greed in eating and drinking. Thy will be done as it is in heaven and on earth [Matt. 6, 10], that is, in all people. Therefore we pray: may Thy will be done in me, a sinner, 282 for in us our own will is fulfilled, the will of sinful flesh and thoughts, and the will of the devil, who daily tempts us to do his will and whose will we actually do every day, with the difference that some of us repent soon after the fall, while others do his will and do not repent, being in extreme blindness and delusion, finding their deeds, if not legal, then at least not worthy of great, serious attention, considering them to be matters of stupidity, unreason, passion, habit. Lead us not into temptation [Matt. 6, 13]. Why do we pray: do not lead us into temptation? Because temptation is generally difficult for a person to endure - not only carnal, but also spiritual. And if the Lord subjected us all to temptation, then few would remain in faith and virtue. Temptations of the Lord. Job. Paul the Apostle. Judas. Meanwhile, for people leading a spiritual life, traveling to heaven, temptations are necessary, because the internal state of our soul often eludes our internal introspection, being covered by our pride, of which there is a lot in each of us. And the untempted, not knowing in what he is imperfect and in what he is perfect, if only there is any slightest perfection in him, cannot purify himself, do great deeds of virtue, improve himself and unite more and more closely with God. That is why it is necessary to subject a person often to temptations, day and night, in order to tempt his inner man: is he strong in all virtues, or even in just one virtue, or is his inner man weak, carnal, sold to sin [Rom. 7, 14] and very easily indulges in, if not all sin, then at least some. And now temptations from the enemy, day and night, reveal to our spiritual eyes what our soul is like, what it is more inclined to: whether to fulfill the will of God and please God with a sacrifice to Him (self-love) with our pride and our will, or to fulfill the will of a sinful, carnal man, the will of the flesh and thoughts. In this sense, temptations are necessary for us, just as fire is necessary to purify gold, and without temptations salvation is impossible. Therefore, Godfather David prayed: Tempt me, O Lord, and test me; melt my bowels and my heart [Ps. 25, 2]. The temptations God allows us are very different and multifaceted due to the diversity and multifaceted nature of our sins and passions; and the enemy touches all the many strings of our heart in order to test what kind of ringing it will give: earthly, carnal, sinful, devilish - or heavenly, spiritual, holy, Godly; what kind of harmony will there be in the soul - God’s or demonic, or, better, God’s harmony or demonic disharmony, pure and firm love for God and neighbor or sinful love for oneself, for one’s sinful flesh, so that for the sake of this sinful love for oneself we are ready to easily despise the will of God (which is our holiness, love for God and neighbors) and for the sake of it we are ready to do any evil to your neighbor, to make him and his property, as they say, a victim of your unclean, carnal love for yourself. And doesn’t it often happen that, out of unlawful love for myself, I violate all the commandments about love for God and neighbor, I forget the one God and set up for myself many gods that flatter my sensuality, I instruct myself and visible idols - beautiful graces, living or in a picture, or idols of gold and silver, copper, wood, stone and clay, paper (home furnishings or dining room items, tea room service or cabinet are made of different types of substances); I will not reverently pronounce the name of God, but inattentively, frivolously, unnecessarily, as if it were empty, as if it were just a sound that only resounds in the air and disappears; I will forget to proclaim from time to time, on Sundays and holidays, the benefits and miracles of God’s goodness, omnipotence and wisdom on me, a sinner and on all people, on all creation, heavenly and earthly; because of sinful self-love, pride, carnality, not honoring their parents and those who take their place; if for my carnal pleasure I become a murderer - physically or morally, a temptation - or an adulterer, or a thief, or a false witness, or an envious person who wants to take everything into his own hands from everyone: the sincere wife 283, and his house, his field, his male servant, his maidservant, his ox, his donkey and everything that his neighbor has. It is bad if we, the tempted ones, continue to fall from temptation: we will incur the wrath of God upon ourselves, like unfaithful slaves - and this is another reason why we ask the Lord not to lead us into temptation, for it is easy, easy to fall under temptation, like the Apostle Peter, and anger the Lord; It is better, much better, if the Lord does not lead us into temptation, but delivers us from the evil tempter, who places his snares for us everywhere, and guides us comfortably through all his snares. Yes, the one who is tempted and often falls must be afraid, lest he provoke the long-suffering of God to indignation, because although temptations are allowed upon us by God and although the enemy tempts us, everyone is tempted, being carried away and deceived by his own lust [Jas. 1:14], so we are left with complete freedom either to lust or not to lust, to be carried away or not, to be seduced or not to be seduced. We also pray to the Lord that He will not lead us into temptation, so as not to dream too much about ourselves, about our imaginary or even true perfections, which are the work of God. For if God’s grace leaves us and unexpectedly leads us into temptation, then all our perfections can be crushed into dust in an instant. With these words of prayer, the Lord distracts us from internal self-pleasure, from self-delusion with pride. Do not lead us into temptation: do not deprive us of Your grace, do not leave us only to our weakness, for we are weak, infirm: the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak [Matt. 26, 41]. Do not lead us into temptation, let us not each go separate ways to do our own will, and let us not abandon You, as Your apostles once fled on the day of their terrible temptation and abandoned You alone, just as some others abandoned You and those who do not walk 285 with You. Beloved brothers! What, I think, if the Lord sent temptations to all of you, if He gave our enemy complete freedom over us? What do you think would happen to us? I don’t think that good would come of it, but I think that an awful lot of evil would come of it. You've seen the fires. The house catches fire, everyone rushes in fear, not knowing where: some out the window, others through the door, if possible, others to their treasures, others save their wife, children or the mother of their children; everything is burning, everything is cracking from a strong flame; in the smoke it is gloomy, stuffy; the walls have turned black, everything has turned black, everything is collapsing, falling, smoldering with fire, and finally, alas, what remains are pitiful ruins, both charred and blackened, coal and ash. Here is some semblance of the spiritual flame of extermination and destruction that the enemy would have produced in people, in their souls, if the Lord had allowed the enemy to tempt them. Of course, many, perhaps, would have emerged from the flames whole and even better, shining purer than gold, like the three youths in the cave of Babylon, like the Christian martyrs of the first three centuries of Christianity and the present time, but most - alas - would have emerged from the temptation in spiritual ruins, burned, blackened like coals, and even weaker in faith and virtue, like conveniently blown ashes. Yes, it is scary for a weak person to be tempted: before the temptation he is apparently good, but after the temptation, perhaps, he will be no good. That is why we say: do not lead us into temptation. Temptations are also dangerous because of their strength, persistence, and duration. What if we subjected people to constant temptations from the evil spirit, so that it would inflame their insides, oppress and defeat them every day, hour, minute? Would it be possible to endure them without faith and trust in God, without heartfelt prayer? – Impossible: people would fall into murmuring, blasphemy against God (Apocalypse), into the very depths of evil. And since there are many people of weak faith and infidels, as there are very many people who have not learned to pray true, heartfelt prayer, the merciful Lord leaves them without special temptations, so that they do not rush into the very depths of evil, so that they do not become apostates from the faith, traitors to Christ, blasphemers, perjurers, molesters of father and mother, suicides or murderers, adulterers, thieves, false witnesses: the Lord does not want the death of the sinner, but to turn him and live to be him, and draws them to Himself, into His love with His countless mercies, so that, although they feel the beneficial and merciful right hand of God over them, they will turn to Him with their hearts and create the right paths with their feet. The Lord is generous and merciful, long-suffering and abundantly merciful. He is not completely angry... He does not deal with us according to our iniquities, nor does He reward us according to our sins [Ps. 102, 8 – 10]. Temptations include illness, loss of wife, children, property, heartbreak, and troubles from the elements. If someone somewhere treated you proudly, then remember if you also treated someone proudly: with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you [Mk. 4:24], and do not have indignation and enmity towards that person, but blame yourself and consider his act as retribution for your pride: with what someone sins, it is said, he is punished [Wis. 11, 17]. If you sinned with pride, you will suffer from the pride of another, may you hate pride in yourself and in others, and may you learn humility. For you cannot see the stench of pride in yourself, but in others you can easily see how disgusting it is. Do not repay pride with pride, or arrogance with arrogance, but overcome evil with good [Rom. 12, 21]. Conquer pride and arrogance with meekness and humility. The priest must take care of the formation of the gift of speech. Union with the Lord occurs in the heart. The heart is the soul of a person. It is either life or death, and keeping your heart in peace and love is the essential duty of every Christian. Greedy for food and drink. What seduces you, you who are greedy for food and drink? - Pus and stench. You yourself see evidence of this every day, and you abhor and are ashamed of the remnants of your own food and drink almost more than anything else in the world, always throwing them out secretly, without witnesses. Therefore, brethren, do not be seduced by their pleasant taste and aromatic foods and drinks, knowing that they will soon, soon become disgusting pus and an unbearable stench, and your now flourishing body will soon, soon be the same pus and stench and food of worms. Oh! I would like to take to the grave not a fat and well-fed body, but a lean and withered body from fasting, so that the abundance of pus and stench from my body does not serve as an accusation of intemperance and neglect of fasting. Even after death, I would like to carry to the grave this beautiful church of my immortal spirit, such a frequent receptacle of the most pure, immortal and life-giving Mysteries of my Savior, the church of my God, glorified in the Holy Trinity; I would like it to be adorned with incorruptibility and fragrance in the grave, and in this respect it would be similar to some trees, which, when cut down and put into use, remain fragrant for a long time. But is it not pride that inspires these words in me? - No, my God sees that it is not pride: I desire what should be characteristic and, as it were, natural for me. Incorruptibility and fragrance are one of the Divine signs of the holiness of a Christian man, but the Lord called us all to holiness and incorruption. I wish for goodness and incorruptibility even after death of my body, so that in my mortal body and after death the life-giving Mysteries of my God, my Lord Jesus, may be glorified, as they were glorified in me countlessly during my life, in my life and in my body. But let the will of God be done. I am the first of sinners and the first worthy of all condemnation, and since the decay and stench of bodies after death is God’s punishment for our souls stinking with sins for their carnal way of life, then may I be subjected to the strongest stench and rapid decay to expose my sinful life, to show me the truth of God. I have written a lot about not sparing earthly blessings for our neighbors when they seek our help or our meal. What does this, perhaps strange, rant mean for many? Well, he said a little, and then he finished, but then he didn’t: he writes and writes, and there is no end. And that’s why I write a lot, because there is no end, because there is no end to the wiles of the devil, who deceives the human heart to feel sorry for perishable goods for others, squeezing it with stinginess. But why, many will say, doesn’t this happen to us, why do we spare nothing for our guests, and, it seems, for everyone who requires our help? What you do not regret to your dear guests is because you are confident of their reward for your caresses, or because they are your relatives, and most importantly, because the enemy will not touch you. Therefore, when the enemy does not touch me, and I am very generous: this is when another passion - sensual pleasure, food and especially stimulating drinks - replaces the place of stinginess. All the enemy needs is something, just to keep the poor man captive. Therefore, when I fell from one type of devilish bondage into another: from cramped to spacious, from iron to golden, the enemy does not care about the first and allows me to freely get out of it: it doesn’t matter, he thinks, even though it will be more spacious there, it’s still in my department and power. And as for whether or not you spare your bread and salt or money for those who truly need your help, you need to ask your heart about this, look at you when you are face to face with true poverty: you often feel sorry for a few kopecks for it, while you do not spare tens and hundreds of rubles to treat your dear guests or parasites, your caresses. It is too well known to speak against it. So, isn’t the enemy captivating you with your insane extravagance for the sake of some and unpardonable stinginess for the sake of others? Truly, you are in captivity of the enemy, and you are sinners, like me, and we are all in the snare of the devil, from which may the Master free us, enlightening our intelligent eyes of the heart. To me, the most sinful of all, at least the Lord gave me the grace not to spare anything for true poverty and to feel great joy and peace of heart upon satisfying the needs of the poor or needy. I also thank the Master for this gift to me, I glorify Him that He makes my lewdness an instrument of His goodness, not disdaining my wretchedness, but giving me, the last of all, to deserve at least some kind of mercy at the Judgment, for blessed are the merciful, it is said, for they will have mercy [Matt. 5, 7]. With the painful feeling of pity for earthly goods, produced, as I know, by an enemy alien to all love, and the bounties flowing from love, I always fight, calling on my Lord and His Most Pure Mother for help, and often defeat my passion. Since my youth, the enemy has been tempting me, burning me with sweets. But, trusting in You, Lord, I overcome this. So, do not laugh at me and do not scold me, brethren: and I, like you, am a weak, passionate person: all the passions were and are in me, and I have not been removed from any of them; Behold, my Lord, who tests the hearts and wombs of all, sees, I repent to Him, the only impartial Judge of all, who knows the weakness of the human being. If anyone would consider me righteous and holy, then I tell everyone that I am not righteous and not holy: for there is only one Holy, one Lord Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father. A person cannot serve two masters: for either he will hate one and love the other; or he will be zealous for one and neglectful of the other [Matt. 6, 24]. The word of the Lord is true: it is justified daily in the life of every person. A person cannot, truly cannot, work for two masters: our true Lord Jesus Christ with the Father and the Holy Spirit, the God of our hearts, and the imaginary masters, or owners of human hearts: food, drink, pride, ambition and envy. You love passionately to eat and drink well - you work for your master, your despot - the belly, and not for the Lord Jesus Christ, and you yourself feel that your heart passionately loves food and drinks, and constantly strives for them, and lives, so to speak, in union with them, and not strives for the Lord, does not seek union with Him. The Lord is something distant, something unusual for a person greedy for food and drink. But alas, a greedy man is greedy about food and drink, but careless about the Lord; loves food and drink, but hates the Lord, and His commandments or commandments; He also hates the Holy Church, His pure bride, hates her commandments, statutes, services, rituals, for there is no food, drink or his favorite pleasures there for him. The same must be said about all carnal people. It is according to this kind of carnal law that fasting is necessary to please God and save the soul. My book is finished. Glory to my God, the glorified Father and Son and Holy Spirit in the Trinity. Amen. August 24th day, 1861. Byashe (Church Glav.) – it was. Fulfillment (Church Glorious) – filling; that which fills. Wed: Whatever my eyes desired, I did not refuse them, I did not forbid my heart any joy, because my heart rejoiced in all my labors, and this was my share from all my labors. And I looked back at all my works that my hands had done, and at the labor that I labored in doing them: and behold, everything is vanity and vexation of spirit, and there is no profit from them under the sun! (Eccl. 2:10–11). Thorn (Church Slavic) – thorn, thorn, any thorny plant. Bodets (Old Russian) – stake, rozhen (iron horn or any other pointed weapon), a weapon for goring, for jabbing, for thrusting. Stink (Church Slavic) – smell, aroma, fragrance. Dathan and Abiron - two brothers, Levites, together with the Levites Korah, On and others, formed a conspiracy against Moses and Aaron. They accused the priests of putting themselves above the people of Israel: the whole community, all are holy, and the Lord is among them! why do you put yourselves above the people of the Lord? (Num. 16, 3), and that Moses led the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt, in which milk and honey flowed (and in which the Jews were slaves of the Egyptians) in order to destroy them in the desert (Num. 16, 14, 13). God punished them for this with a terrible death: Dathan and Aviron with their accomplices were swallowed up alive by the earth, while two hundred and fifty people who participated in the disturbance were destroyed by heavenly fire. See: Number 16, 1–33. Saint Tikhon was glorified as a saint in 1861. The memory is celebrated on August 13 (26). Dennitsa - lit.: morning star or dawn; Lucifer, the chief of the fallen angels, was so named from the brilliant perfections with which he was endowed by God. Wed: You are the salt of the earth. If the salt loses its strength; then how will you make it salty? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out to be trampled underfoot by people (Matthew 5:13). Prosperation (church glory) – success, prosperity. Honor your father and your mother, may it be good for you and may you live long in the land that the Lord your God gives you (Russian: Honor your father and your mother, so that it may be good for you and that your days may be long on the land that the Lord your God is giving you) (Ex. 20:12). Wed: go into the depths, and cast your nets into fishing (Russian: sail into the depths and cast your nets for fishing) (Luke 5:4). Fulfilling everything and containing everything (Church Glav.). Packs and packs (Church Slavic) - again and again, again and again, again and again. Otiti (Church Glav.) – move away, leave, retire. Vran (Church Glav.) – raven. In wisdom go to outsiders, time is redeeming (Russian: Treat outsiders wisely, using time). Wed: Good Earth, blessed Bride of God, Klas, vegetated unearthed and saving the world, grant me, this eating, to be saved (Russian: Blessed Bride of God, fertile land, who produced the uncultivated and saving ear of the world! Make me worthy to be saved by taking Him as food) (Canon for Holy Communion. Canto 1, Theotokos). To help us (church glory) - to help us. As if we are able to bear (church glory) - which we may be able to bear. This refers to Syrian Christians who suffered from Muslim persecution in May 1860. Then up to sixty Christian villages were burned, most of the inhabitants were killed, churches were desecrated, and monasteries were destroyed. Recreation (French) – vacations, holidays in educational institutions. Vacations (lat.) – vacations. Saturday (Heb.) – lit.: peace, rest. Poems of Metaphrastus from the sequence to Holy Communion. Impervious (Church Glav.) – motionless, constant, firm. Prayer 3, to the Holy Spirit. Candlestick (Church Slavic) – candlestick. Vospisati (Church Glav.) – to attribute, relate to someone or something, reward, send back. Whoever gives one of these little ones to drink only a cup of cold water... truly I tell you, he will not lose his reward (Matthew 10:42). Prayer 7, by St. John Chrysostom, from prayers for the future to sleep. Sincere (Church Glav.) – neighbor. Kiyzhdo (Church Glav.) – everyone. Those who don’t go (church-glory) - no longer, no longer go. You might be interested in: