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I thank You, Lord, for through my prayer you took away the great darkness and the storm of the accursed’s anger against me, and through my prayer you took away the darkness into light, the storm into silence, the oppression into freedom, the sorrow into joy, the languor into peace, quickly, graciously, powerfully. This serves as proof to me that I should never despair of Your mercy, but always trust in Your immeasurable mercy, in Your quick protection and quick help, Lord, Lover of Mankind! What blessed sweetness, after so much spiritual bitterness and the disappearance of the soul, crampedness, and sorrow, You filled me with! I thank you for everything! But, O Master, by Thy mercy do not allow the evil of hell to triumph in me, but fill my heart with Thy goodness. Behold, from You, Lord, I drink Your mercy. I am poor, empty, proud, angry, proud, arrogant, envious, malicious, malicious, stingy, impatient, covetous, stubborn, rebellious, capricious, contradictory, disrespectful, changeable, lustful, greedy, lascivious, thief, a liar, cowardly, suspicious, suspicious, sad, ungrateful, fickle, inconsistent with words (untrue in words), insolent in words, with his hand, untruthful, evasive, dishonest and deceitful, laughter-loving, frivolous, lazy, absent-minded, careless in service, unfriendly, inhospitable, disrespectful, unmerciful, uncompassionate, inhumane - remove from me all evil and plant all virtue, may I be your chosen vessel. Amen. What light, what peace, what space and sweetness to be in union with God, having alienated the heart from all sin! How good it is to cleave to You, our God! And how, having tasted Your sweetness, Your life, Your freedom, Your peace, we again return to sin and cling with our hearts to the weak and bad elements, which cannot give life to the heart, which comes from You alone! Oh, sinful corruption of our hearts! Our Father, we say, means that we are all brothers, we are all equal in rights, we are all children of God. So we must have this unchanging respect and this brotherly love among ourselves and not disdain a single person, for the image of God is also a member of Christ. We must not allow respect for our neighbor to fall from habit towards him, from frequent handling of him or from constant service to him with food, drink, clothing, shelter, money, etc. The devil, knowing that God is love and that the Savior commanded us to love, tries by all means to create enmity between people, both between Churches and individual nations, and between families and individuals, and the whole bone of contention, that is any insignificant reason stirs up discord. Hence the lesson - do not neglect anything that is apparently unimportant. By being angry with our neighbor for whatever reason, we fulfill the lust of the devil. If you don’t believe it, you will see it and experience it. You shouldn't be angry with anyone. You won’t [surprise] anyone with your beautiful ribbons, kamilavkas, duckweeds and cassocks, rooms, furniture, and service. There is no point in bothering with them, worrying about this vanity, but it is better to focus your whole mind and heart on God. And greed cannot be surprised or satisfied with anything: everything will be small for it and not as good as it would like. Treasure the feeling of love and affection as a priceless treasure and do not exchange it for anything; on the contrary, if necessary, buy it at a high price, with great sacrifices. Love is the fulfillment of the law [Rom. 13, 10]. God! I thank You that You have given me the grace to understand the machinations of the demon of the belly and malice, which attacks us while we eat and drink and when guests visit us and instills pity for food and anger towards people. When, through Your grace, I recognized the intrigues, he ran away from me. I am worse than anyone and filled with all evils, therefore I should be embittered only at myself, and not at others, but respect and love others. I should consider it a blessing that I have been accepted into the kinship of St. Petersburg relatives, many, both good and famous, I, the most insignificant, nasty, dead dog. I can be a decidedly evil fool at home, greedy and unfed. Meanwhile, I ate a little and was full. Will you be the only one to absorb everything? Respect and love all your household as members of Christ and your own members: commit yourself and each other and your whole life to Christ God, for we are all God’s, Christ’s; to be carefree, bear each other’s burdens, spiritual and physical, willingly, without grief, without grumbling and bitterness. Love your neighbor as yourself without ceasing. The devil constantly tries to hurt us either with ill will and malice, or with malice, pride, envy, stinginess, coldness, neglect, suppression, arrogance, impurity, etc. You play the instrument beautifully, but do you extract from it the grace-filled sounds that pacify, cleanse and strengthen your soul in the grace of God? If not, if you extract from it only the sounds of secular frivolity, vanity, passions overwhelming the world, if playing an instrument does not calm your soul, does not reconcile you with your conscience, with people, with God, then your playing is vain. Sing church songs, psalms of David, play them on the instrument - then you will see how your soul will be satisfied. Look, you yourself are satiated, and you should be indignant at yourself for being satiated and love moderation, abstinence, fasting, but you are satiated, indignant at others for sharing food and drink with you. The wrong side, perversion, madness, chimera! Deny yourself, although it is difficult - what to do? Otherwise there is no way to be saved. Take up your cross and follow the Lord. Why are you persecuting Christ in your father? Oh, terrible! What if your father is burdened by the thought that he is a burden to you, that you are burdened by him? Already, old age and the infirmities of old age weigh on him, and now there is a new burden from the thought that constantly haunts him that he is a burden to you. Always show that he is not a burden to you at all, that you are happy to serve him in any way you can, and always show a cheerful appearance. Give up envy, greed and stinginess, which the devil teaches you internally, and be benevolent, generous, throwing everything like rubbish into the service of your neighbor. The Lord alone must be the treasure of my heart, for He is life, peace, freedom, shrine, light, sweetness, food, drink, clothing, my shelter, and the treasures of this world, with which the heart is seduced through sight, touch, taste, smell, hearing, torment, deaden, oppress, darken, gore the heart, and woe to me when I gaze at golden vestments, vessels and precious stones: I fall away in thoughts and heart from God, the source of life, and fall into the deadening unity of the earth. I am attracted to white (sugar, cream), shiny, soft, white-ruddy. But all this is land. The dust that has stuck...we shake it off for you [Lk. 10, 11]. Entering the church, you shake off the dust and dirt and snow that [sticks] to your feet on the iron. Let this be a moral lesson for you to shake off the dust of the earth from your hearts, which clings to you in the guise of money, shiny metal, pieces of paper, in the guise of beautiful faces and carnal pleasure, in the guise of soft, shiny, beautiful clothes, in the guise of various sweets, etc. Enter the church of God, shaking off everything earthly from your hearts and fixing the thoughts of your heart on the one God who fills the church, looking at you and your hearts seeker. Do not love gold, but the Creator of gold, not precious stones, but the Creator of stones, not the beauty of the human face, but the Creator of this beauty and the beauty of the entire visible world and especially the beauty of the invisible world; not artistic products of human hands, for example, gold and silver vessels, golden vestments, etc., but man himself, created in the image and likeness of God, the artist of these things, his immortal soul, the artist of all artistic things. My family children are not small: they themselves know what to do and what not to do; they themselves have reason and will. And you mainly correct yourself, notice yourself, pursue and kill the monster of sin in yourself. Thank the Lord for everything. Remember what you were and what you are, and that you are truly the first sinner and parasite. They would live without you, and you would not have the right to tell them; They would live with their father and mother. So, consider yourself a stranger and a freeloader in the house. I thank You, Lord, for You have had mercy on me through the prayers of You who gave birth to You. I thank You, All-Good, Most Pure One, for You heard and had mercy on me, and You saved me from the flattery of love of gold and envy. God the Word united with people through the incarnation and our nature, rejected through sin, united with the heavenly powers. What is the devil, the enemy of God and men, doing contrary to God’s work for us? In order to tear us away from God and from heaven, he nails or tries to nail our hearts to earthly things - to corruptible beauty, to the many different earthly sweets, tasted and touched, to soft and beautiful clothes, to magnificent houses and premises, to the magnificent decoration of a temporary home, to money, to gold and silver, precious stones, to playing earthly vanities in the theater, to play with words, cards, etc. But let Christians not serve the divine wisdom of the creature more than the one who created it, let them remember their high rank and let them follow the commandments of Christ. He humiliated the archpriest in himself, saying that he was only a shadow of the abbot, and hated him. I sinned before God. He was insolent in front of him. I envied him. Father Matthew too. But he didn’t notice the abyss of his sins, his unworthiness, and didn’t blame himself. Each one will bear his own burden [Gal. 6, 5], will give an answer to God for himself, for everything: for his rank, and for his property, and for his attitude towards God and towards people. Rudeness and cruelty of treatment are from the devil: he sits in the heart of everyone who is rude, evil, and usually uses the sins of others as an excuse for malice, as if he himself is sinless and as if malice is not the greatest sin. Treat others the way people treat you and the way you want others to treat you, without noticing the shortcomings and faults of your neighbor, for these shortcomings, with noble, respectful treatment, will disappear, just as darkness disappears with the appearance of the sun. You renew and strengthen your bodily strength with sleep, food and drink, a walk in the fresh air, or you refresh and change the air in your room. Why don’t you take care of the renewal and strengthening of your soul’s faith and virtue? Why don’t you take care of her with the same care? Why don't you pray? For prayer is pure and cleansing, life-giving air for the soul? Why don’t you read the Divine Gospel, which cleanses, enlightens, pacifies, revitalizes and strengthens the soul? Why don’t you go to divine services, which give new strength to your worldly soul, exhausted by the vanity of the world? Why don’t you renew your souls with your divine communion of the life-giving Mysteries? Why don't you read spiritual books? Ah, we live in the shadow of life, the ghost of life, and we think that we live as we should: we will eat, get drunk, take a walk or ride, go on a visit, chat, laugh, play cards or otherwise, or go to the theater or to a ball, to an evening, to a masquerade - we will dress up, get perfumed, dance, hurt someone with passion, or get hurt ourselves, or hurt someone... or in words - and we think that we live as we should, as if we should live only for this corruptible, disappearing world, as if we have no other fatherland for which we must prepare ourselves by cleansing ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit and through the acquisition of holiness, as if we have one body without a soul or only an animal, unreasonable, not immortal soul, as if we were not created for good deeds, for eternal life in God and with God, as if life is ours on earth there is an unceasing holiday or revelry of passions or like one fleeting shadow. Therefore, brethren, be renewed day by day in the Spirit, put off the old man, which is corrupted by its deceitful lusts, and put on the new man, which was created according to God in righteousness and excellence of the truth [Eph. 4, 22 – 24]. Happy New Year - with a new spirit, a Christian spirit! But I don’t wish you new happiness, earthly, vain, because it is useless and even harmful to your soul, especially if you passionately desire it. What a modest, humble old man my father-in-law is! But he was an archpriest, he lived in good housing, in contentment, abundance, and honor! Now you, who became his son in his old age, will reward him with all this, and the same will be rewarded to you in your old age, if God blesses you to live to see it. Our dislike, enmity, malice, and pride before our neighbors increases day by day because we are alert to their shortcomings and each shortcoming serves as a reason for us to dislike, dislike, malice, and envy regarding it. And love covers everything and loves its neighbor, despite his shortcomings: it reveres the image, the dignity of a person, knowing that his sins and passions are the fruit and work of the devil’s envy, the breath, the forced breath of the devil, the abuse of freedom. You are a servant of Christ - develop in your life meekness, humility, kindness, patience, abstinence, purity and chastity, honesty, simplicity, straightforwardness, love of truth, hard work, holiness, and every virtue. Then you will be a true servant of Christ, and if you live in sins contrary to the above-mentioned virtues, then you are not a slave of Christ, but a slave of the devil. Sin captivates the inattentive and unreasonable with its charm, the pleasure of our voluptuous flesh and our pride, its speed and strength. But he who is attentive in Christ will not allow sin to have dominion over him. You have to hate and loathe yourself. My hands, or rather the grace of the priesthood in them, are the greatest treasure of mine and others, for I touch the Lamb of God with them - let me bless the people of God with joy, let me not touch cards, let me not train them in embezzlement, theft, and the like. Remember that each one will bear his own burden [Gal. 6, 5], give a word about yourself to God, and do not judge anyone, do not be embittered at the one who sins, for everyone has his own will, which God Himself does not take away, does not force. He Himself says: if anyone wants to follow Me [Matt. 16, 24]... If anyone wants, he does not force him to follow His commandments, but seeks free will. Examine and judge yourself. If one of those receiving the blessing does not kiss your hand, then attribute this circumstance not to the priesthood, but to yourself and consider yourself unworthy of having your hand kissed and be complacent, without being offended by the non-kisser, but be more affectionate and friendly with him than with others who kissed your hand, for he reminds you of your weaknesses as a person, while others honor in you the rank of the priesthood. And again remember that everyone has free will. Until now, from time to time I was madly angry at the poor, fearing poverty, although hitherto, by the grace of God, I have not endured poverty in anything and have everything, I am content with my relatives and relatives, and there is enough for the poor. I must remember more often about the five loaves and two fishes, with which the Lord fed five thousand people and from which there is still a lot of surplus left. Just as the bread in the hands of the giving apostles multiplied and did not become scarce, so the hand of the alms giver will not become scarce. This is why the Lord created the aforementioned miracle, to prove this truth visually, by deed, that is, that the hand of the merciful will not become scarce and as he gives, his wealth will increase. So, hitherto I have served my enemy and my flesh in vain, doing their will, being angry with other poor people. I have sinned against the Lord! We must feel sorry for the poor, try to get them a job, some kind of service or school, and admonish those who fall into errors and deceit and punish them in a fatherly manner, but to be angry is insane. It is reasonable to rage only at our enemy the devil, the culprit of all the troubles and evils of life, all the unrest. You must crucify self-love within yourself, not spare yourself and your property for the good of others, lay down your soul for your friends. And who are others if not neighbors? Gamblers and all idle people should be reminded of the following words from the morning troparions: Suddenly the Judge will come, and every deed will be exposed. My heart is a lie, my heart is a devil. Oh, waywardness, malice, wickedness. What do I have in common with you, Belial? God! May I remain faithful to You until my last breath. I came from mass, and I was filled with anger at my family, especially at my sister-in-law and father-in-law, but as soon as I became convinced that I should be angry at myself, at the passions living in me, and not at others whom I needed to love, I immediately calmed down. This is the truth. If the thought of your heart whispers to you that such and such speaks and behaves proudly (although, as you will see later, this is not true), then say to yourself: I am proud and to my pride the words and actions of others, who are not at all proud, seem (seem) to be proud. My evil heart! You point out to me the imaginary anger of others in order to be angry with them yourself. Immediately answer a question asked of you by someone at home, of course, not a stupid one, and do not remain silent with the thought that this question is asked with arrogance, with pride or malice, with deceit. Live, speak, do in simplicity of heart. Money is spent on cigars, clothes, theaters. And to the church of God? Oh, children not of the Heavenly Father, but of the devil, doing the lusts of their father [Jn. 8, 44 ]! Oh Lord! May I never do a single lust of the devil! Be wise, confirm! May I mercilessly attack myself alone, may I diligently pursue the evil in myself, the evil that I truly know, but I well and truly do not know the evil of others, and the devil or my short-sightedness and malice often present the innocent words and actions of my neighbor in an evil form. So, I myself am sick at heart, my spiritual eye is deceitful, evil [Matt. 6, 23]. I'm crazy! Because of something unpleasant for sensuality, I dare to inwardly hate and despise a neighbor who has done something unpleasant, for example, smoked tobacco, forgetting who a person is, what his soul is and what our flesh is, this rubbish, this manure that fertilizes the earth, and is it worthwhile to hate a person created in the image of God because of something unpleasant for the flesh. Oh, how little, even no patience at all. How unlenient I am towards the weaknesses of my neighbor, even my father! Or again, because of something pleasing to sensuality, for example, because of a beautiful face, we forget the beautiful soul, the image of God, and are often wounded by carnal, impure love for our neighbor, turning a person into the food of sensuality, into the food of our passions. So, in general, carnal aspirations prevail everywhere in us and spiritual aspirations are suppressed, muffled, almost killed! Oh, what a dangerous and terrible net for me is my own flesh! I am in constant danger from her! I feel that a spiritual lion or wolf, the devil, is sitting in it, as in a den, as in an ambush, and is looking to devour me (1 Pet. 5:8). Gradually, the enemy weakens respect and love for a person in the heart and constantly arouses and strengthens dislike and hatred towards him, as well as addiction to voluptuousness, wealth, and amorousness. Keep a close eye on yourself. Oh, how can I crucify the many-passionate flesh! Her strong point is voluptuousness, wealth, and curiosity. You must despise yourself, hate yourself, eat coarse, unpleasant food, wear simple clothes, be content with little, not seek honor and despise it. To be angry with your neighbor is to be a devil. Moments of sin, such as anger, envy, pride, stinginess, stubbornness and disobedience, fear as an all-destructive poison, like Satan himself. God! Teach me to serve my neighbors with love in everything, to endure everything, to be forgiving in everything. When will I breathe the spirit of love into myself? We will be unrequited at judgment if we do not use the time and grace of God given to us to save our souls, for all the strength and convenience have been given to us for salvation. Divine services are held every day, the church of God is open, the Mystery is performed every day, the treasury of repentance is opened. The Church is the threshold of heaven: only through it can one enter heaven, the doors of the Kingdom of Heaven. We must be especially attentive to what we hear [Heb. 2:1] and pay more attention to the work for which the Son of God was incarnate - to the work of pleasing God and saving the soul. Ranks, earthly distinctions, wealth, earthly glory, sweets, magnificent clothes, adorned homes - all this is vain, temporary. Let us remember to what extent the Lord of heaven and earth humbled himself, where he was born, where and how he lived, how he served humanity, how he treated everything earthly as heavenly - and let us imitate Him. Let us not become intoxicated with anything earthly. It is easy to humble yourself before someone who is humble himself - humble yourself before a proud person, humble yourself before a lower person, younger than you, but proud and trampling on you morally. Again, it is easy to be kind to a good person - be kind to an evil, ungrateful person. It is easy to be generous to the generous - be generous to the beggar or to the poor from whom nothing can be expected. There are so many people on the globe - and there are enough of God's gifts for everyone, and it is not crowded for anyone, and there are still many, many empty places. Are you cramped in a spacious apartment with your father and sister, and with an abundance of earthly blessings - food, drink, clothes, and while you almost constantly taste the most pure Body and the most pure Blood of the Lord and God and with it eternal life? Let the example of the Lord, who fed five thousand people in the desert, teach you not to spare anything for your household and to hope for an increase from the Lord in material gifts, for with the measure you use, says the Lord, it will be measured to you [Matt. 7, 2]. Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, shaken together, pressed, and running over, will be poured into your bosom; For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you [Lk. 6, 38]. So, away from the demon of greed, gluttony, covetousness, pride, malice, envy and stinginess! Seek communication with people and rejoice that people honor you with communication: serve them with joy. Love and communication of love are the only thing needed. Food, drink, money, clothes, dishes, furniture - consider everything as rubbish, but man is infinitely higher, for he is the image of God, the king and owner of the earth. Beggars too. There are people for whom eating their own meal at home with their family is a disaster, a stone of stumbling and a stone of temptation, a snare and a snare, and anger and pride, and envy and stinginess, but who at someone else’s meal are extremely kind, and cheerful, and calm. If a person living in society does not have communication with others, he can be rude, angry, stupid and stupid. But he who has fellowship is the opposite. Example. In New Street [...]. Turn it on yourself: ask how you, an evil stranger, are tolerated in the house, and they, your family, are their own in this house. This place is earned by their efforts, not yours. In general, direct any anger towards yourself, and not towards others. This is the evil trick of the enemy - to turn anger instead of him and instead of ourselves on others. Look at the cross and learn to love your neighbors to the point of laying down your soul for them, sacrifice everything to love. Crucify self-love and other passions, such as greed, anger, pride, envy, etc. Hell is constantly working in you - you do not sleep either. What if you, with love and humility, were content with the blessings of God for your household? How much love, gratitude from them and rewards from God you would collect! And now you can lose everything for not loving. Contact us. Self-love is enmity against God. We must try, vying with each other, to seek, seek honor, feed, clothe and give rest to the elderly father, and not be burdened by him. How much do you need? One corner (peace), like your office, a piece of bread and stew, modest clothes - and that’s all here, the rest is the property of your neighbors. Your labors are necessary for yourself, and you should pay for them, and not your friend. Rejoice that you can comfort and give peace to your neighbors with the fruits of your easy labors. Give me, Lord, the grace to be angry with myself and no one else. Let me listen calmly to reproof and not be offended by the one who reproaches, for resentment is a sign of pride. How can I be offended by the image of God - man, if he tells me the truth? It is in his nature to tell the truth: it is in his nature, he is obliged to do this as a member of a single body with me. Even if he speaks a lie, then I should not be offended, but feel sorry for him that he was deceived regarding me or others, and pray for him, that he may leave his delusion. If my brother tells me the bitter truth, convicting me of sin, I must gratefully accept his reproof and repent of my sin from the bottom of my heart, and love him as a doctor who also gives bitter medicine to heal an illness, sometimes an old one. But I have a long-standing mental illness - sin. If I lived comfortably and abundantly with my father-in-law for eleven years, then I can live comfortably for the same number of years or more. If he didn’t bother me before, he won’t bother me now. Only sin gets in the way. What if the goodness of God finally leaves me, the evil one? Oh, hasten, my soul, to become good! What if I, a fornicator, are abandoned by the holiness and purity of God? Oh, hasten, my soul, to become chaste and cleanse yourself! Getting irritated with the poor because of their frequent oppression for you, you forget your sinful corruption, for which the Lord suffered, you forget the endless sacrifice He made for you to the Heavenly Father, His voluntary exhaustion and impoverishment, His incarnation, His wanderings on earth, in this deplorable vale, on this earth, defiled by sins and all sorts of human untruths, His free suffering, His death and burial in the tomb, which you deserved by your sins. Remember all this and do not regret wasting your wealth on the poor, whom He calls His brethren. Why not despise sin as a dream, the devil, for example, touchiness, anger at those who speak the truth, which is unpleasant for us, fornication, etc.? We have a brutal war, but we don’t even think about taking up arms. For what? For fasting and prayer. We feast upon ourselves, we become satiated, and that is why the evil one gains power. When the poor ask for your blessing before asking for alms, do not neglect the blessing and do not despise them, for they are the image of God and first of all have a need for God’s blessing. Consider alms as rubbish compared to a person. The natural consequence of freedom from sin is light in the soul and face, calmness, freedom, joy, and the consequence of enslavement to passions is darkness of the face, languor, compulsion, sadness. Elder Eutykhios is a man of God. Respect every person, pray for everyone. If I am red, then I am red because of my brothers and my family, and without them my leprosy would soon come out. For everything I thank the [all-wise] providence of the Heavenly Father. We must rejoice that through our labors our family and our neighbors in general are at peace, and not lose heart and grumble and become embittered. Alas! With addiction to things, voluptuousness, and satiety, love for God and neighbor cools! Sometimes, because of an empty thing, there is a quarrel between people, for example, between a husband and wife, and it would be better if this thing did not exist. Everything is in God, which means that having God in me, I have everything and will never be exhausted. When I become embittered against someone, then the enemy starts a war against me, insults me, and I must arm myself against him, and not against the one against whom he arms me. Equally, if someone is proud against me or becomes embittered against me, then the devil, and not that person, was the cause of this pride and malice. I thank Thee, most blessed Lady, for she often and clearly delivered me from severe evils and circumstances during the liturgy before the great exit during the prayer service of the Blessing of Water (January 7) and on other occasions. I came to know sin as absurdity, madness. Thus, the madness of malice is recognized from the fact that it becomes embittered towards innocent babies; blasphemy, slander blasphemes the shrine, slanders the sun that it is not bright; stinginess with wealth is greedy and trembles over a penny or a sweet piece, although it itself is satiated. Looking at the cross and the Crucified One, you should say to yourself: look, man, how much and what did the Lord sacrifice for you - how much and what did you sacrifice for Him, especially for the salvation of your soul? You don’t want to forgive your neighbor’s offense, you don’t want to give decent alms and give them properly, from the heart; He humbled Himself to the point of the cross and death—you don’t want to humble yourself before someone like yourself; He endured the cross and death for your salvation - you do not have patience for yourself, for your own eternal good you do not want to endure sorrows, misfortunes, illnesses, and labors. Man is the image of God, king. Inherit, it is said, the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world [Matt. 25, 34]. To him who overcomes I will give to sit with Me on My throne, says the Lord [Rev. 3, 21]. Therefore, do not be discouraged when passions fight against you, but fight and overcome violence, turn their attacks into an opportunity to receive a crown. Yesterday at the customs, a storm of anger against my brother instantly came upon me, this demonic vain, but - I immediately raised my heart’s eyes to the Lord and said to Him: You are my shield, Lord, I trust in You, as you will protect me from anger, which I do not want, which I despise; became firm on this - and the spirit of malice recoiled from me. Glory to Thee, Lord! And how can one become embittered against the image of God? What pride, what insolence, what blindness! Why am I not angry with myself, who has sinned more than any other person? What about the devil? Look, when you are inwardly kind and humble before your sister Anna Konstantinovna, how kind and humble she is before you! Yes, and it has always been like this: it means that it depends on us that others behave towards us in one way or another. It is truly said: who will do you harm if you are zealous for good? (1 Pet. 3:13). When you feel anger towards your neighbor in your heart, say to the enemy who arouses it: we are one body - why are you arming yourself against me? I love my neighbor as myself, and I hate you, only you, with all the strength of my soul. Away from the name of our Lord Jesus Christ! The self-loving and proud person does not like reproof even from his elders and becomes embittered at them in the event of reproof, although he deserves it and should be grateful for it, because the one who reproaches brings before our face our sins, which we ourselves do not see or do not want to notice and in which we can become rigid without reproof. In general, we must be grateful to every person who exposes the evil in us, defeats it in one way or another, although it is painful for our pride, it hurts when sick members of the body are cut off or cauterized, but this is necessary for maintaining the health of the entire physical organism: and in the spiritual sense. Is it not the evil spirit that operates in us, teaching us many different evils, and is offended when others notice our vices to us? Truly so. Therefore, we must desire that we be convicted of our sins more, more severely, more severely, and be grateful for the strongest, strictest, harshest reproof or punishment, and despise the caresses, for they increase the moral illness of the spirit. In general, do not trust your flesh and do everything opposite to it. The voice of a person who exposes our untruths should be respected as the voice of God. With love or without love, reproof is done—in any case, to love the accuser, for reproof is good and leads to good. If you don’t see God, you see a Christian man, His image; almost God in the person of man, especially a Christian. My father will live, and the Heavenly Father will provide for his portion in abundance. All these things will be added to you [Matt. 6, 33]. Customs officials are workers, martyrs of the cause. (Dream - they live together amicably. An example for you.) I thank You, most merciful, all-wise, omnipotent Lord, for You have restored my bodily strength, which had fallen during the days, with the night’s rest and raised me to the praise of Your holy, wonderful, magnificent name. Everything is God's - there is not a speck of my dust on earth, and everything is God's - no one is our own, everyone must live for God, according to His will, and not their own. It is good to strengthen the hearts with the grace of God, and not with foods from which those who indulge in them receive no benefit [Heb. 13, 9]. What are all the sweets, all kinds of satiation, all kinds of awards, brilliant attire, magnificent chambers, when there is no grace of the Holy Spirit in the heart? Are you chasing food, drinks, money, dresses, room decorations, furniture, dishes, but not the grace of God? Oh, how pathetic you are! What is grace? This is the cleansing of sins, purity and peace of heart, firmness in faith, hope and love, philosophizing about things above, contempt for everything earthly as dust, as a fleeting shadow, as a temporary, charming splendor, as a desire for the best, the permanent, the most perfect. Oh, when will I remove from my heart the sting of sin, the sting of voluptuousness, pride, hatred, envy, stubbornness, etc.? If I have put on Christ in the communion of the Holy Mysteries, then may I be unceasingly united with Him, may I zealously deny myself, my mentality or carnal wisdom (my suspiciousness, greed, stinginess, hatred, impurity, satiety, delicacy, etc.) Everything is from the earth: our body, gold, silver, clothes, beautiful houses and everything in them, all the plants, all the fruits - and everything will go to the earth and turn. This means that pity for everything earthly and a passionate desire for everything earthly, addiction to earthly things is one emptiest satanic dream, and, therefore, pride, envy, malice, stinginess, covetousness are also one emptiest and stupidest satanic dream, and we can only humble ourselves before God, who created all things and contains all things, and humble ourselves before our neighbors, as the majestic works of God’s hands and images of His glory, to live in love, to regret their sins and weaknesses, to be patient with them, to pray for them and, leaving all attachment to creation, to cleave to the one Creator, knowing that cleaving to earthly creatures is deceit and the work of the evil spirit, which, knowing the simplicity and singularity of our heart, chains us to earthly creatures in order to turn it completely away from the Creator and in the most insidious way to seize it into your own hands, into your infernal power. What kind of ugliness is it to hate the one from whom I received everything: a good wife, and a most honorable place, and almost the rank of priesthood (for I took his place), and the opportunity to often communicate sincerely with the Lord in the Holy Mysteries and serve Him, the Creator, Provider and Savior, to be an instrument of His goodness, wisdom and omnipotence for my brothers? What is this absurdity in my heart? Is it not from satiety, is it not from the delicacy of the flesh, for I pamper it with long and restful sleep, and sweets, and a lot of eating, and elegant clothes, and a spacious, richly decorated apartment, mirrors, soft and beautiful seats and much, much more? Where is the mortification and enslavement of the body? Where is the reminder of the journey to the future fatherland? Where is the heavenly wisdom? I enjoy myself on earth and neglect the Kingdom of Heaven, you damned one! I don’t trust myself - always tell yourself when any passion or evil thoughts carry you away, or greed, or pride, or envy, or hatred. Remember that ours is a cruel war: we are fighting for the eternal fatherland, for God the Creator, Provider and Savior, just as earthly warriors fight for the earthly king and the earthly fatherland. Run away from satiation and delicacies. Leave oblivion and carelessness, foolishness. He sinned against the Lord: with pride, contempt and bitterness, he gave alms to beggar boys. I sinned purely: through satiety, pride and bitterness, and against whom? On the poor, the hungry, the poor. I am like a dog, like a dog, I acted with people like myself - I sinned against the Lord. Where is the meekness, humility and gentleness of me, the priest of the Lord, who bears the image of the meek Shepherd, Christ? Where is the quality of the Lamb, immaculate, meek and gentle, which I eat so often? Oh, you vile, stinking goat! How long will you not change your heart? If others act irritatingly, unreasonably, or unjustly, why don’t you remain meek and patient? Show virtue there, where you see sin opposing it, for what kind of virtue is there if there is no confrontation, self-sacrifice? For virtue is opposition to sin, war with sin. Why are you irritated, desecrating the image of God, grieving the Spirit of God, the Spirit of goodness, Christ Jesus, the Lord, united with your soul through communion? Do the same beggars come to you several times to ask for alms? But you yourself, a spiritual beggar, repeatedly ask God for mercy and forgiveness of sins. Isn’t God’s mercy a hundred times more important than your material mercy? You will say: they have been served. But they ate what was served. You eat and drink more than once a day, and they also want to eat and drink more than once a day. Give to them generously, give once and twice, so that both God and people will be generous to you, for with the measure you use, it will be measured to you [Lk. 6, 38]. Do not shorten your hand, do not squeeze your heart, do not oppress your womb. Look: how and where do you live - and how and where are the beggars? Compare your chambers with the holey and dirty corner of the beggars, compare your table with their meal, your clothes with their clothes - all your furnishings with their pitiful surroundings. Oh, what answer will you give to the Judge in that you did not always give to the poor willingly, with meekness and humility, but with pride, and contempt, and reluctance. Oh, how little it takes for my brother to treat him! All calculations are gone when I treat the priceless, that is, the person for whom a priceless ransom was given - the Body and Blood of the God-Man! We must consider it happiness that my brother treats himself to me or accepts alms from me, even regardless of the reward promised by the Lord for providing him with what he needs. Meanwhile, I regret sweets for my brother, although later, when my brother finishes eating and drinking, I see clearly that I was mad in my heart. Sin is the greatest offense to God, sin is the death of the soul, sin is an absurdity, sin is an arbitrary disease. The spirit is always united with the Lord. Remember the simplicity of God and the simplicity of the soul. The Lord our God is holy and does not tolerate the slightest sin in His chosen ones, for light has not the slightest communion with darkness, endlessly abhors sin and does not unite with the sinner. He punishes every sin and rewards and delights in virtue. When you call God Holy, then remember that you yourself, the image of God, must be holy. Be holy, for holy am I the Lord your God [Lev. 19, 2]. The benefit of sorrow, misfortune, illness: they do not allow the soul to fall asleep in sinful death, and the thorns of passions to grow in it. If there were no sorrows and illnesses, there would be trouble, everyone would doze off and fall asleep in sinful death, drowning in voluptuousness, pride, anger and other sins. I thank You, Most Merciful, for You, the infinite greatness, this God, listen to the insignificant worm, have mercy, cleanse me from many sins, take away my malice and grant me kindness. I thank You, for You grant me daily liturgy and to partake of Your heavenly meat, Your Flesh and Blood, and with it to be cleansed and pacified. When at enmity, be at enmity with yourself, with your old man, with your sinful inclinations and aspirations, but have peace with all people [Rom. 12, 18]. Fight with your pride, malice, envy, stinginess, greed, laziness, stubbornness, and self-will. I thank Thee, as I have thanked Thee for the gift of liturgisation - once again granting liturgisati. But let me be perfect, Master, let me philosophize on high. Do these minds, these souls, busy with skating rinks and illuminations, both in time and out of time, have the opportunity, the time, the desire to do one thing that is needed? Is their soul occupied with the most important matter - the salvation of the soul? Where is the wearing of the cross when on the day of the cross they have mad fun? Despise the demon of greed and gluttony, which is especially rampant during the table and during delicious dishes and drinks. The Lord Jesus Christ is my most perfect fullness, and my neighbors are His members, whom I must honor with high honor and love with great, selfless love. Christ is in all things and in all [Col. 3, 11]. He (Jesus Christ) is the Head of the body of the Church. May they all be one, just as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, so may they also be one in Us [Jn. 17, 21]. God! Manage to be one of us all. May our passions, pride, envy, covetousness, gluttony, impurity and other passions not divide us. May we all be one in You. All Angels and men must have one heart, one soul, and in all there is one God, one Lord Jesus Christ, one Holy Spirit, the Holy Trinity. Look at the tree: how many branches, leaves, fruits, but there is one tree, one life, one, so to speak, soul, penetrating all its parts. Everything earthly is rubbish and cannot be compared in any way with man, the image of the Lord God the All-Creator, who put everything under his feet, the king of the earth. Man is like the king of the earth - so he must rule over everything earthly, and not earthly things over him. Only the enemy perverts the order of the Creator - the devil, who enslaves our heart to earthly things, or man himself, who does not want to understand his high purpose. So, first of all, man, take care of the soul, for the soul is greater than food, seek first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness - meekness, humility, patience, purity and holiness, abstinence, patience, non-covetousness, obedience. If you are a rich person, do not be stingy in doing charity, do not spare anything for the poor; if you are the owner of the house, do not spare anyone anything from food, drink, sweets, clothing, money, for everything is God and everything is given to people. Just as the desire for someone else's flesh is an absurdity, a dream, so the stinging of sweets for one's neighbor is a dream, an absurdity of the heart. Give up the desire and pity for cream, coffee, etc., as a luxury harmful to the soul and body, and in general despise everything that places the flesh too high and is attached to: cream, sweets, gold and silver vessels, soft and colored clothes, etc. All is vanity. May the Lord be the only treasure of your heart. What do we have in heaven? and what did You want on earth? [Ps. 72, 25]. The trouble is that we want a lot, a lot on earth, while we need very little. If only the Lord were in our hearts, His Kingdom would be in us, otherwise we have both this and that, and the fifth and tenth and hundredth things in our hearts, but the Lord is still not there; We cleave to this and that, and the fifth and tenth and hundredth person, to that, another, tenth thing, pleasure, and not to the Lord. That is why we are poor in souls, because there is no peace, no joy, no freedom of spirit, but sorrow, oppression, heaviness, laziness, cowardice, despondency, etc. You see for yourself into what slavery the devil forcibly plunges you - be lenient towards others who sin against you; fight against the devil, not against man, against sin, not against the sinner. Crucify the flattering flesh, the flattering belly, the demon of gluttony, who arms himself against his brother. At the very moment of sin, raise your heart’s eyes to the Savior, asking for His help. For eleven years I have been staying with my father-in-law, and he is not burdened by me. Should I be burdened by him and other relatives? I am visiting, I say, because I am a stranger, and if I work, the work is beneficial for myself, and I am indebted to my father-in-law for these very works. We are one spiritual body. There is a body and a spiritual (1 Cor. 15:44). Look what a close spiritual connection there should be between us - we should be one heart, one soul [Acts. 4, 32]. Respect in every person the immortal soul, created in the image of God, the verbal creature of God, a member of Christ, the temple of the Holy Spirit, the abode of the Holy Trinity. You don’t know what such and such a person will be after death: maybe he will rejoice with the Angels, prophets, apostles, martyrs, hierarchs, saints and other saints; maybe, considered the last person here, will be the first person there. The monotony in life gets boring and boring, so if you don’t go out to visit yourself, then the things and faces at home will become boring and disgusting. Hence the need for community. A corrupted heart - don’t trust it, it is even ready not to love its own mother. It's not others' fault, it's your fault. I always err in my heart, Lord, I become embittered towards my relatives and only harm myself. What madness! Leave anger, this dream of a dark and evil enemy. The essence of Christianity is love, meekness, kindness, humility. Make you wise and confirm, Lord! God! Have mercy on me, as I admire Your judgment over my neighbors, who am the abyss of sins; I wish evil on my brothers, you wicked one. Give me the grace to pray for my brother. Grant me to see my sins and not condemn my brother 99. I am not the judge - You, Lord: You judge everyone internally and punish; my business is to examine myself carefully and judge my actions, and justify the weaknesses of others. After the Fall, man turned his love from God and his neighbors to himself, to his flesh, to this world, to its vanity, to wealth, to sweets, clothes, honors. Grant me to live in love for You and in mutual love, Lord! My desired part 100 is the Lord. What do we have in heaven? and what did You want on earth? My heart and my flesh are gone, O God of my heart, and my portion, O God, forever [Ps. 72, 25 – 26]. It is stupid to be childish incessantly after reaching adulthood. And we, Christians, are childish, doing empty things and not paying attention to the matter of the greatest importance - the matter of pleasing the Lord and saving the soul, the matter of fighting passions; We, like children, are only concerned with food and drinks, clothes, various entertainments - theaters, masquerades, skating rinks, funny lights, cards and various games. Our religious consciousness is asleep; we think, live and act in everything not according to the principles of faith, but according to purely carnal, earthly principles. But what does the Gospel say about our lives? It says that we must reach perfection in manhood, in the knowledge of the Son of God, according to the age of the fulfillment of Christ [Eph. 4, 13]. May the man of God be complete, equipped for every good work (2 Tim. 3:17). The altar is made higher, so that I always rise from the earth, from earthly cares and passions for my heavenly fatherland. You, Christian, are heavenly, for through the incarnation of the Son of God, heaven was united with earth, Christ is with us until the end of the age: we eat His Body and Blood unceasingly, we unceasingly hear His holy word, His life-giving cross is unceasingly with us and gives life; Angels fill the earth, assigned to every Christian. Away with carnal and earthly attachments and pleasures, let us establish spiritual, heavenly, and holy attachments in the heart. We have worked enough on the vain, corruptible flesh - it’s time to take up the soul, its education, the restoration of the image of God in it. May sin and passion not dream in us, may God, the Gospel, and virtue reign in us! Each of us should have in our thoughts God’s intention for man and whether we correspond to God’s intention for us. And God’s intention is to cleanse us from the filth of passions, from the corruption of lusts, to renew, sanctify us and bring us into His eternal Kingdom. Are we not resisting this intention of God? We are free and sin grievously if we do not conform. By eating the bodies of animals, fish, birds, and fruits of the earth, you corrupt them, but you also corrupt your own body in a short time. The body lives for the eternal soul. Look: God spares nothing for man - will you regret it? Fireworks. The ephemerality of everything earthly, all pleasures, a symbol of fallen pride: a person will ascend and suddenly be cast down from the heights into the underworld if he does not correct himself, does not repent. Emptiness, vanity of earthly pleasures. In the simplicity of your heart, look at the apparently strange actions of your brother or father, and not slyly and maliciously: you see, the enemy is catching you on the bait of pride and malice and wants to turn everything into a reason for them - and you act as if you see nothing, and if your brother does a temptation in front of people, in the church, pray for him to God, may He enlighten the eyes of his heart, or with meekness notice him and your malice say: you are the greatest sin before God, Angels and people, I reject you. I myself am the greatest sinner, and do not condemn anyone but yourself, do not be angry with anyone but yourself. The devil uses all his strength to arouse enmity between households, to disrupt domestic unity - this is the core, root, basis of social life. Therefore, we must in every possible way maintain peace with our family and keep the Lord before us. I want to live with one God and with no one and nothing else. As a baby clings to its mother’s breast and a leech to its body, so you cling to God. Giving a high value to things, feeling sorry for them, clinging to them with the heart is a grave sin, for everything is subjugated by God under the nose of man. Gluttony kills Christianity in me, introducing with it a horde of passions - pride, anger, envy, greed, gluttony, drunkenness, covetousness, despondency, spiritual corruption, disobedience. Fight and conquer yourself constantly. Seek grace, not waste, seek the Kingdom of God in yourself and in your neighbors. The whole old man is rottenness, abomination, disease, overcrowding, death. I thank you, Lord, because through my prayer, with my determination and firmness, you took away my anger from me. Lady, help me! I sinned: I got angry with poor children instead of feeling sorry for them. I sinned, because I was angry with the Lord Himself in the person of the beggar, with the innocent beggars who are in great need! Oh, I, rich and satiated! One should give alms with regret and willingly, but I do so reluctantly and with rage! Oh, I am a sinner, a great sinner! How dare I rage against someone like myself, my equal in everything! What oblivion, what insolence! It cost me many tears to renew my communication with God, for I sinned gravely, becoming angry with poor children whom I should have pitied, and sparing a few money for them when I should have given them everything. Who will feel sorry for them and satisfy their requests if I do not feel sorry for them and fulfill their requests? O poor, poor! Worthy of all compassion! Forgive me for sinning against you. It is time for a wise heart to consider everything earthly as rubbish and not to be deceived by the five senses. The One (God) is all in all and in everything. All hope is in Him. I cast all my sorrow on Him. Just as during divine services one cannot, with impunity, think biasedly about a substance and interfere with thoughts about it with prayer to God, so one cannot, during a meal with one’s neighbors, compare food and drink with one’s neighbors, to whom the whole earth has been subjugated by the Lord as kings and possessors and images of God, for the difference between the two is infinite. The whole world means nothing compared to the soul. For the one to whom you spare meat and sweet drink, the blood of the Son of God was shed; to whom you spare money, food and drink, the Body and Blood of the Son of God is given for food and drink, and he himself is a child of God. Do you have any regrets for a child of God? Will God not pay you for His child? And now, as at the Last Supper, the Lord Himself will sit at our table and feed us. With what reverence one must sit at the table, with what humility, kindness, dispassion! For the thousand-fold treachery of the flesh against the spirit, it is worth always despising it, and not pleasing it. O manifold webs of flesh! I thank You, Lord, my Savior, for yesterday You saved me from great falls, sorrow and hardship, and You again gave me Your longed-for peace. Glory to You, All-Merciful Lord! January 16, 1867 Brother visiting - Christ visiting. Cherish it. The enemy teaches us to dream about worldly things, to cling to them with our hearts - for what? - in order to divert attention from the only thing needed - from caring for the soul and souls of men and from serving God the Creator, so that we thus serve the creature, and not the Creator, Who is blessed forever; It also ties our hearts to things - to sweets, clothes, money, to various luxuries in order to distract our hearts from love for our neighbor and instill hatred, envy, stinginess, etc. towards him, and thus cut the single body of the Church and the human race, tear it into many separate lifeless fragments and thereby cause grief to the Heavenly Father and the holy Angels and the community of holy people. Christ is my fullness. What more could I want with Him? What do we have in heaven? [Ps. 72, 25]. No use. Through sight, hearing, taste and the belly, smell and touch, the devil strongly, violently, almost incessantly fights against me and against my brother, arousing anger or envy or stinginess towards him, and strongly scorches and oppresses me. We must value all the delights of sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell, or things that pleasantly or unpleasantly strike these senses, for example, an unpleasant smell, a pleasant taste, an unpleasant sight or a pleasant sight, etc., as nothing; we must value all five senses and despise the pleasure of taste, smell, touch, etc. How subtly the enemy the devil fights against me and through me against my neighbor! Simple and unnoticeable. My brother smoked tobacco - and now there is anger at him for smoking! And from others - nothing. You demolish who is higher or equal. There is income for you from everywhere, from a thousand sides, and for your household and your servants - only from you alone - do not spare them a few lumps of sugar, even nine a day for each servant, and other sweets; Let there be an abundance of giving, and not sparingly, so that everyone will be happy and cheerful. And you will be rewarded according to the measure with which you measure. Do not disdain your wife and other household members, either in word or in deed, but just as you do not want them to neglect you, but to show you attention and respect, do the same with others. The coldness and neglect you show, for example, to your family, little by little, will cool them down towards you. Reciprocity is needed, especially on your part. The Kingdom of Heaven is forced - and the kingdom of Satan is forced, that is, sin constantly forces us to follow its lusts, and even with impudence, with strength, with bitterness; fight against it constantly: if you don’t fight, sin will completely overcome, and the Kingdom of God will weaken. Not just for the sake of conformity, greet yours and strangers affectionately, but also without their conformity to you, out of duty, because the law of God commands so, for if we love those who love us, what grace is there for us? [ OK. 6, 32]. We all know that it is good to live in mutual love, kindness, affectionate treatment, but we are needlessly angry with each other, we are proud of each other, especially who is rich or the owner (and mistress) of the house, we are puffed up (with an opposing spirit) and, not knowing why, we deprive ourselves of peace and tranquility, and others, due to some evil habit that a Christian, created for good deeds, needs will certainly win. And after all, everyone has learned a thousand times, without number, that the victory of our proud and evil custom brings great benefit for ourselves, bringing peace, silence, freedom, spiritual light to the soul, and indifference in an evil custom brings the greatest harm, producing sorrow, crampedness, darkness, languor in us - however, due to unreason and some kind of negligence, we remain in evil dispositions. Oh, the damnation, the poverty, the malice of human nature! But help, O omnipotent Jesus, Savior of our souls, to overcome all the passions that are warring against us, Your property! What is most desirable for a person? – Avoidance of sin, remission and forgiveness of sins and acquisition of holiness. Why? Because sins separate me from God, the source of life, and plunge me into spiritual death, for example, proud, evil behavior towards others [...], evil suspiciousness, covetousness, stinginess, envy, etc., and holiness unites me with God, the source of life, for example, meek, humble, kindly treatment of everyone, even our enemies, simple-heartedness, carelessness about acquisitions, contentment with the small and necessary, generosity, goodwill towards everyone. Grant, then, Lord, to completely avoid sin, and to become accustomed to every virtue by Thy grace. Hey, Master Lord, without You we cannot do any good, evil things exist. I am the worst and the last of all and only a guest in the house and in the world, and in everything that is the Lord’s, I use something that is not mine, and I have nothing to be proud of. I am truly worthy of being trampled upon by everyone, as one who has distorted his nature through corruption. Who is more sinful than me? Whom have I not surpassed in sins? And I committed all kinds of fornication, and pride and malice towards my neighbors, and harbored envy, and stinginess, and was constantly betrayed and indulged in gluttony and intemperance with greed, and stole, and lied, and was lazy, and did the work of the Lord with negligence, and did not correct public service in good faith, and was not lenient towards my neighbor, etc., etc. See, Lord, how poor the accursed I have become, and, having cleansed me from the filth of sins, renew and sanctify me, having come to renew and sanctify my nature corrupted by sin! The more sinful, the more proud a person is! Behold, the accursed one! Remember the human dignity of a person and respect every person! Those who are embittered towards us or envious of us, those who are proud of us, should not be mutually embittered, angry, proud, as is usually the case with our corrupted nature, but pity them, as if possessed by hellish fire and spiritual death, and pray for them in the depths of the heart, that the Lord will kindle the darkness of their souls and enlighten their hearts with the light of His grace. We are overshadowed by our passions and do not see the absurdity and ugliness of them and our actions. But when the Lord enlightens us with the light of His grace, then we awaken as if from a dream, we clearly see the ugliness, the madness of our thoughts, feelings, words, actions - our heart, which until that time had been hardened, softens, the anger passes, and in its place is kindness, affection, and condescension. Therefore, according to the word of our Savior, we must love our enemies, bless those who curse us, and do good to those who hate us [Matt. 5:44], for they too are our brothers, blind and erring. Others, silent ones, for the sake of poverty and malice and all the impurity of their hearts, want others, like them, to observe dead silence in the house and are annoyed and embittered when others speak. But this is madness: why did the Creator give us language and words, if not for mutual communication? The word is a golden bond that connects us both with the Creator and with each other, therefore we must certainly practice the word with prudence, purity, meekness and goodness, talk with our family and other neighbors and overcome despondency and fear of speaking, and the word will bring us peace, liveliness, boldness, strength, light. Do you want others to be silent like you? Are you the only one who has the right to speak? I thank You, Most Holy, All-Good and All-Powerful Lady Theotokos, for the power that came from You and from Your Tikhvin icon, which is in my living room, for taking away my anger, for pacifying my heart, for giving freedom of the Holy Spirit. Behold, You are always with us, O Lady, and You always deliver Your servants from great evils, and You endlessly exude mercy from Your all-honorable icon. January 18, 1867 Eradicate your evil from your heart, for everyone will bear his own burden, but do not be very vigilant or maliciously vigilant about the lives of others - this is the evil of the devil. Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not feel the plank in your own eye? [Matt. 7, 3]. With my change for the better, my sister Anna and all my household change for the better; they rejoice and rejoice with me. Glory to Thee, Lord! To you - everyone’s generosity, and to your servants only your generosity; they have no one else to expect from them - so be generous to them. Who doesn't like sweets? If you want it sweeter, do the same for your servants: they are the same people as you, and maybe even more worthy than you. God! Have mercy on us. Many springs flow to you, but to your household from no one but you. Have mercy on them, be content with them, please them. Like an enemy envies our bliss, our pleasure: we eat and drink sweetly, and he arouses in us envy of those who eat and drink sweetly and poisons our pleasure and others. If we alone eat and drink sweetly, it will lead us to sweets, and will tear us away from God and away from love for our neighbor. Oh, if there was love, there would be love between us, and God would give us sweets in abundance, if only we would not feel sorry for each other, and would not look askance at others who eat and drink with us. Sin greatly slows down the spiritual education and enlightenment of a Christian person. Therefore, the emerging and enlightened youth and Christians in general, called to spiritual enlightenment and renewal, must overcome the sin that lives in them in every possible way, so that otherwise the enemy does not laugh at our education and the Christian name and does not make of us, from our enlightenment, a clouding, from our education - a real disgrace, from the saints that we should be in Christianity - full of unbelief, wickedness, various corrupting passions, from the sons of light - the sons of darkness, from the children of Christ - the children of the devil. And this does happen. Voluptuousness especially weakens the soul and clothes it in the darkness of passions. In the next century are all the hopes of a Christian, all his treasures, and the present short-lived age is a time of preparation, this world, or the Church, is a preparatory school. After the Lord, my father Archpriest Konstantin is the culprit of all my present happiness and well-being, for if he had not given up his place, I would not now be a priest and would not have such a wife and all the spiritual and material benefits that I have now. Therefore, I must serve him with joy and sacrifice everything willingly. This place in which I hold the priesthood is deserved by him. Just as he, my father, gave me everything, so I must give him my heart. He gave me his birth and feeding, his daughter - let me give him my heart and lay everything at his feet. Whatever you do, says the Apostle, do it from the heart, as for the Lord, and not for men [Col. 3, 23]. Greetings good morning, afternoon, evening, New Year, happy birthday, happy Angel Day - greet me from the bottom of my heart. Understand when and how and why a spiritual thief and robber attacks you (for example, at the table during a meal) and what you need to do to drive him away. Despise the womb and everything that is for it. The Kingdom of Heaven is in need [Matt. 11, 12], and the kingdom of Satan, the earthly, the lovely, is tired. By forcing yourself to the former, drive out the latter. The Kingdom of Heaven is approaching [Matt. 3, 2; 4:17], says the Lord and His Forerunner. You see, we are sons of the Kingdom of Heaven, we need to have aspirations, thoughts, desires, words and deeds that are heavenly, and not earthly. Is this really the case with us? - No, we are dominated by gluttony (I am the first), covetousness, worldly pride and because of worldly, vain things, anger because of everyday vain things, I will say again, envy because of the same, ill will, stinginess, irritability, zeal, desecration of the body and other earthly passions. We have hearts! The devil strongly arms the son against his father or mother, because the sin of vain hatred of parents is the most serious, the most disgusting to God, for in the person of the father and mother, God Himself, the Father of love, who has given us existence and everything, is hated. Thus, in my person the devil rebelled against my innocent mother internally, although with the help of God's grace I defeated his wiles; So now he rebels against his father. I am a servant in the house, managing other people's goods. Is it possible to feel sorry for someone else's good? Should you cling to someone else's? How does the dust of the earth: earthly sweets, clothes, money, cleave to my heart, which should cleave entirely only to the Lord? Let us shake off the dust that adheres to us, or let us shake it off, according to the word of the Lord [Matt. 10, 14, etc.]. I thank You, Most Holy, All-Good, All-Beneficent, Merciful Lady, for this day twice through my prayer you have obviously saved me, who bowed the knee of my soul and body before You with faith and love. Oh, truly, You are always with us and near us, and you see us, and listen to us, and save us as the true Mother of Your children by grace. January 19, 1867. If the power of the devil is over me in sweets, wine, prolonged sleep, satiety, then despise sweets, wine, excessive sleep and use them less and less often, and exercise especially in prayer and contemplation of God and your purpose. We were created not for earthly pleasures, but for spiritual, eternal, heavenly pleasures. They must be valued, strived for, reflected on, and earthly ones must be rejected in the likeness of the saints. The sacrifice of mortification must be offered to God daily, unceasingly, the sacrifice of self-crucifixion, according to what was said: the flesh is crucified with the passions and lusts of Christ [Gal. 5, 24]. A sensualist has dreams wandering in his heart, and he is rarely at peace, because instead of God, the source of life, he cleaves to sweets. What's worse? The stench of the belly or the stench of malice? Of course, the stench of malice, because the stench of the belly is an airborne phenomenon, transitory and in itself does not constitute evil, but malice is sin, and a grave sin that can eternally destroy the soul and body in Gehenna. We tolerate our own stench indifferently - there is no need to be angry with your brother for the stench produced: everyone is weak, everyone is human, everyone is made from the rough earth, from the elements of the earth. If you can’t stand the stench, avoid gluttony and overeating, strive for a spiritual, angelic life, eternally fragrant! Oh, our shame and grief! All plants are fragrant with their pleasant smell, but man, the crown of all earthly creatures, emits a stench. Let us despise the stinking belly, lust, and gluttony. But most importantly, let us uproot anger and pride from the soul. This stench is most disgusting before God and the saints - the stench of Satan in man. There is nothing worse than this stench. So, have an aversion to your malice, and the stench of the belly is smoke, disappearing steam, nothing. You have a separate room, the air is clean, the stench of others does not reach you. Be happy with your room. Are you the only one who will dwell on earth [Isa. 5, 6 ]? Give a share to others. If they create a stench in your room and you, willy-nilly, have to endure it, do not be irritated with those who create it, but tolerate the stench complacently as punishment for your evil-smelling passions, for which you are not worthy of clean, well-dissolved air. However, you have a separate room in which you can be free from the stinking air. Tolerate everything that is unpleasant for the flesh, just as you allow yourself to be greedy for everything pleasant, but do not dare to be embittered towards your neighbor, but rather have pity on him, and pray for him so that he will leave his carnal life and embrace the spiritual. How do you know whether you are leading a carnal or spiritual life, pleasing to God or not? Notice for yourself: what do you think about first of all in the morning, waking up on your bed and getting up from your bed, getting dressed, washing yourself: is it about God, about fervent prayer, is your heart filled with gratitude to the Lord for His countless mercies towards you, is it love for the saints of God, the Church of God and your neighbors, or do you, having gotten up, immediately take up carnal affairs: for a cigarette, you don’t want a cigar, tea, or even prayer; you think not about God, but about pleasures, how and where to spend the day more fun, what kind of dress to make yourself more beautiful and in fashion, how to sell more or deceive someone, but about prayer, about reading God’s word and there is no mention in your soul, about doing something good for someone on this day, giving alms, admonishing or comforting someone or showing patience in something, abstaining from anything harmful to piety and purity of heart or maintain chastity, refrain from verbosity or idle talk, from ridicule, condemnation of neighbors, from pride, bitterness, envy or stinginess, as if to stop your arrogance, disobedience, stubbornness - or you don’t even care about all this, but on the contrary, you feel in yourself the predominance of pride, covetousness, stinginess, envy, impatience, arrogance, gluttony, idle talk, vanity in thoughts and aspirations, suspicion, pompousness, disobedience, laziness, etc. Depending on which of the two opposite directions predominates in you, you can judge whether you lead a carnal life or a spiritual one. Anna Konstantinovna, my sister, is a smart, observant, kind and noble girl. He who leads a spiritual life according to God is not wounded by pity or desire for sweets, money, clothes, and despises and tramples on them, but he who lives according to the flesh is wounded, and suffers, and is tormented. A Christian person who grieves about what to eat and what to drink, or who regrets food, drink, money for their neighbors, needs to be reminded more often of the words of the Lord Jesus Christ spoken to the apostles: Do you still not understand and remember about the five loaves of bread for five thousand people, and how many baskets you have collected? nor about seven loaves for four thousand, and how many baskets did you pick up? [Matt. 16, 9 – 10]. That is, we must remind ourselves that the hand of the giver will not become scarce, but will gain, that the giver will have his wealth increased by the goodness and omnipotence of the Lord, by Whom countless worlds of the universe were brought from non-existence into existence. The voice of truth and the voice of lies in the human heart; the voice of the spirit of truth and the voice of the spirit of lies, the voice of the spirit and the voice of the flesh. The flesh says: sweets are my life, sweets are mine, only for me, not for others; and the spirit says: you lie, God is our life, sweets are soulless dust, sweets are God’s, not mine, not to me, but given to others for enjoyment and for the knowledge that God is love and endless sweetness (if he created so many and such sweets on earth, then how many and what kind of sweets will there be in heaven), that we must live in love and out of love or out of love, please others with what is sweet for us, and The sweetness of God’s love and mutual love for each other should be considered above all material, transitory, coarse sweets that can burden and bind the heart if it becomes attached to them and if a person uses them immoderately, for only in God should we immeasurably enjoy the infinite Sweetness, and use earthly sweets moderately and carefully. Oh! You are citizens of this world only: here are your churches - theaters, clubs... dinners... The greedy person sits down at the table even when the stomach does not require food and drink; the greedy person is sorry for food and drink even when he does not need them, especially for soft, tasty, sweet things. Oh, if only we were greedy for love of God and neighbor, ardent in love for God and neighbor, and not in addiction to earthly goods! Oh, if only we had a cold heart towards all sweets, clothing, metals, precious stones, temporary dwellings, and earthly things in general! God! I thank You, for You heard my prayer and delivered me from the error of my heart, and from its oppression and sorrow, and from the darkening and humiliation of my face. How long will I be mistaken? Oh, how weak I am, how deprived of light, how much darkness of sin there is in me! Love is the fulfillment of the law, love is the life of soul and body, temporary and eternal. So, let us be wise - we will acquire love and not be afraid of the accuser 101. God! Help us! We consider everything earthly as rubbish. I count all things as rubbish, that I may win Christ [Phil. 3, 8]. You see that you cannot acquire Christ without considering everything as rubbish, you cannot work for God and wealth, you cannot chase after earthly acquisitions and together have Christ in your heart: to love earthly things means not to love Christ. We must rejoice that they eat, drink, and take ours—it does not weigh on the heart or stomach, or it will not weaken our spirit. We want to be revered, respected, caressed, but we don’t honor, respect, or caress others (family, not relatives). Your Creator commanded you to love Him, your God, with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself - why don’t you love Him, as you should, and your neighbor? Give me the answer. God! Thank you for the gift of love and hospitality. May I be friendly and talkative. It means a lot to talk with family and strangers: it wards off evil despondency, suspiciousness, vain anger, pride and other passions. The enemy often uses silence to cause our deposition, oppression, evil despondency, etc. Say something. All the red of the world: orders with their ribbons, colored clothes, soft, precious, earthly honors - all of it is rubbish, rubbish or the emptiest rubbish, for it litters the soul destructively, because of them we constantly anger God, our Creator, serving the creature instead of the Creator, we are careless about our souls and about the souls of men. The church, especially the altar, is an earthly heaven: whoever enters here, especially those standing at the most terrible throne of the Lord of glory, must certainly reject everything earthly from the heart, put aside all worldly cares, consider everything earthly as rubbish, so that Christ alone will be the treasure, and desire, and attachment of our heart: Handsome in kindness than the sons of men [Ps. 44, 3] – Negozhe has all imperishable beauties, every concept that surpasses every concept, inexpressible sweetness, unspeakable honor. But just as outside the church, so especially in the church, the devil, the worst enemy of God and man, knowing our weaknesses and addictions, through these weaknesses and addictions especially fights against us in the church during worship, lest we do what we want, lest we pray to God in truth and fervor of the heart, lest we stand like reeds shaken by the wind, lest we become darkened and whirled like drunks, lest we see the salvation of God, May we not taste the sweetness of God’s grace and see that the Lord is good. Therefore, passions must be immediately eradicated, they must be despised by deeds; there is no need to look at beautiful dresses and dresses, there is no need to greedily, sweetly, eat and drink a lot, you don’t need to sleep a lot, don’t go to the bathhouse often, don’t be seduced by vain ranks, insignia and earthly honors, but prefer to all earthly sweets the one heavenly sweetness - Christ and the grace of the Holy Spirit, the beauty of an earthly home and earthly attire - the beauty of a heavenly palace and clothing the bridal garment, the garment of the soul, made white in the blood of the Lamb; earthly honors - the incomparable honors of the heavenly calling, the honors of the sons of God and heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ, fellow citizens of the Angels, fellow citizens of the prophets, apostles, martyrs, saints, reverends and all saints. One God is my life, one God is the God of my heart, and the greater is nothing. My heart and my flesh have disappeared - as if I don’t feel them, having immersed myself entirely in You, surrendering myself entirely to You, clinging entirely to You, God of my heart, and my part, God, forever! [Ps. 72, 26]. This is the love of God! This is how to love God! And the Apostle Paul says the same: Who will separate us from the love of God?... neither death nor life [Rom. 8: 35, 38]... not like us - every trinket, beautiful rag, sweetness, shiny dust (metal), earthly honor, stupid carnal pride separates us from God; vain mutual enmity, satanic malice, pride, envy and stinginess, our voluntary destruction! Man is the subject of violence, the tyranny of sin, a victim of satanic malice, pride, envy, hellish darkness, and therefore worthy of all pity, condescension, patience, and long-suffering, and love. If the beggars chase you, pursue you and ask for more and more alms, give them what they demand; If you give everything and they keep chasing, tell them meekly: children! I have nothing more left - but do not be irritated and do not become embittered with them, for irritation and embitterment are the dreams of your flesh, thirsting for acquisitions, is the roar of its lust, the roar of this lion, this spiritual wolf - the devil, teaching you to place your hope in earthly things. You, as a servant of Christ, place all your hope in Christ and be ready to give up your shirt and caftan. The sexton’s whim is God’s punishment to me for gluttony, greed, and satiety. Therefore, one should not be angry at him, at his malfunction: doctor, heal yourself [Lk. 4, 23]. Those who have sinned against the Lord. I thank You, Lord, because I have sinned and have not deprived the repentant of Your mercy and grace. I thank You, all-merciful Lady, for I have sinned and repented and asked for Your mercy and granted holy help. Real life is exile: the Lord God expelled him, it is said, from the paradise of sweetness [Gen. 3, 23], and we must all strive with all our might, through repentance and deeds worthy of repentance, to our fatherland. Grant me the coveted fatherland, creating paradise for me again as an inhabitant 102. Real life is a narrow path, a path of sorrows, hardships, and illnesses. The narrower this path is, the more certain it is that we are on the true path; the wider it is, the more certain it is that we are close to destruction [Matt. 7, 14]. Real life is a daily, cruel, bitter war with the enemies of our salvation, especially with the invisible ones - the spirits of evil in the heavens, who do not leave us alone for a single day, but are constantly treacherous over us and kindle various passions in us and with their stings wound us in the most sensitive way. Therefore, there is no time to rest and have fun and have fun in this life, given for preparation, when there is a continuous war against us, and even when it seems to us that we are completely calm and happy, when, for example, we indulge in pleasures in the theater, at evenings, when we show off in elegant clothes and decorations, when we indulge in the pleasures of the belly, whirl in cheerful dances, ride around in magnificent carriages, etc. Among all your worldly pleasures, here is your greatest misfortune, man: you are a sinner, you are an enemy of God, you are in great danger of losing eternal life, especially if you live carelessly and do not do deeds worthy of repentance. So the wrath of your God weighs on you, especially if you do not appease God, who is irritated by you, with your prayer, repentance, and correction. So, there is no time for pleasure, but rather for tears - pleasures should be rare, and then mainly the pleasures that faith provides you with in spiritual celebrations. Looking at the multitude of corruptions, various evils, sins, passions and the inability to help one’s salvation with one’s own strength, one sees the whole necessity of God’s supernatural providence for the human race, which the Lord revealed in the incarnation of His Son, in His suffering, death and resurrection and in the donation through Him, in the Church, of all Divine powers for salvation, for the cleansing of sins, the sanctification and strengthening of our souls and bodies. Ah, what an abyss of evil in man, an abyss of sinful corruption! O priceless Savior Jesus the Son of God, have mercy and save us! Give everything - money, and, perhaps, clothes, food, even your body for torture, just keep your soul from anger, pride, envy, covetousness and other sins and passions - carnal impurity, gluttony, laziness, disobedience. I will not be angry with anyone for insulting myself and others, for this is uncharacteristic of man, the image of God, but I will pray; prayer is the most faithful and powerful tool for ending all evil. Grant, Lord! Behold, I prayed to the Lady to stop the quarrel between the household, and my heart, which began to worry and be embarrassed, calmed down; I think that the family who aroused enmity will reconcile. One must love one's neighbor for God, as His image, although with the wounds of sins; his sins should be despised as a devil’s dream if a person confesses to them, but also not allow the tares of Satan to grow stronger in him. Remember your sins and be forgiving of the weaknesses and infirmities of your neighbor. How can I become embittered at someone who is embittered even without me as an enemy, and even more embittered at myself, embittered by the same enemy? how to be proud before a brother or sister, struck down by the pride of the devil, how to envy a neighbor when he is a member of the same body with me: if one member is glorified, all members rejoice with it (1 Cor. 12:26), and if here the well-being of a neighbor outrages me, then with what eyes would I look at the bliss of the righteous in God if I were taken to heaven? Aren't you envious? How can I begrudge my neighbor sweets when they are common property and when the slightest excess of them is harmful to my body and my soul, when the enemy seeks to destroy my soul through sweets? Oh, anger, oh, pride, pride. Oh, womb! O stinking belly! O corruptible flesh! Let love, love reign among the inheritance of Christ. This I command you, that you love one another [Jn. 15, 17]. We must tear dreamy pretexts for malice away from our hearts and love our neighbor unfailingly and consistently. The Kingdom of Heaven, or the kingdom of love and peace in our hearts, is forced, that is, we must constantly force ourselves to love our neighbor, even our enemies, our ill-wishers. You don’t want to scatter affections ahead of an apparently pouting person - and he doesn’t want to, but you always anticipate this honor as the most experienced in spiritual life. Who is running from the crown? But those who increase in love are crowned by Christ God with incorruptible crowns. You partake of the heavenly, terrible, Holy Mysteries of Christ, but have you acquired heavenly thoughts, dispositions of your heart? Are you philosophizing from above or are you still on earth? Or are you still greedy, gluttonous, satiated, drunk, covetous, gambling, etc.? Repent, says the Lord, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand [Matt. 4:17], that is, living on earth, we must not only think about earthly things, but even more about heavenly things, we must instill the faith of Christ in our hearts [Eph. 3, 17]. I thank You, Lord my God, for You have granted me peace and sinlessness in the passing day, for You have created peace with my neighbors, with my household, for You have granted me to overcome greed and pity for sweet foods by looking to You and instilling You with faith in my heart. So, truly, You are the only true belly, my belly, and everything material is rubbish, trampled under foot, about which a Christian should not have any zeal. Day follows night, month follows month, winter follows summer, year follows another year, etc., and after time follows eternity, after deeds - an account, after death - resurrection, after resurrection - judgment, after judgment - righteous reward. Earthborns! Think about it and stop being distracted. Do not be irritated with the poor, it is sinful: do not despise one of these little ones... [Matt. 18, 10]. Respect their persistent request if you want the Lord to accept your prayers; Do not trample on your child’s faith, hope, and courage, and do not become embittered at them for what you should imitate. Be quiet and meek always, as the Lord commanded. Give alms willingly, according to your strength - the Lord will send and reward. The saying is true: if you measure according to measure, it will be measured to you [Matt. 7, 2]. Sooner, later, the Lord will [return] you a hundredfold to your bosom. Bear each other's burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ [Gal. 6, 2]. Virtue shines most in opposition: when people become angry with us, we are not angry, when they are rude to us, we are affectionate, when they are irritated with us, we remain meek; when someone encroaches on someone’s chastity - and the person who is encroached remains adamant in chastity and with indignation and disgust pushes away the misogynist or carnivore; when we are courageous in fears, patient in adversity, in sadness and sorrow we do not lose heart. You are satiated with bread and salt, household goods, and you become embittered at them, raising your head in front of them. Oh, ridiculous sin! Sitting at the table with your family, do not dream that you are the owner of the house and these dishes, for the owner of the house and the giver of dishes is the Lord, whose icon will be before your eyes, and the mistress and mother of the house and the giver of all food and drinks is the Mother of God, whose icon will also be before your eyes; sit at the table with humility, kindness, with the fear of God, with grateful feelings, clothed in the womb of generosity and goodness [Col. 3, 12]. Whoever dreams of himself as the owner and culprit of food and drink is proud, pompous, angry, suspicious, stingy, insolent, grumbling, sad despite all the abundance of the Lord’s blessings, heavy for himself and for others. I thank You, my good Lady, my all-powerful Lady, as I, who looked up to You in prayer, heard and saved me during the meal. January 27, 1867 Thursday. The Church, that is, we Christians, is one spiritual body, has one Head - Christ and is animated by one Spirit of God. Do we live in such a way that from our mutual relationships it is clear that we are one spiritual body? Does each of us constantly recognize Christ as our Head and obey Him, imbued with His spirit, the spirit of love, meekness, humility, purity, patience, submission to the will of God? Are we all animated by the same Spirit of God, the Spirit of the Holy, the Heavenly Spirit? Are we not animated by a nasty spirit, by the spirit of dreams, lies, deception, deceit, covetousness and uncleanness? Let's think about it. Do our family members at least constitute one spiritual body? Do they not share passions, these stings of the evil one - pride, arrogance, malice, envy, stinginess, gluttony, etc. Let us constantly remember that we are one spiritual body, we have one Head - Christ, Creator, Father, Provider and Trustee, Savior, Resurrector, Judge and Eternal Life. Let us not dare to sell the priceless feeling of love for our neighbor for sweets and pieces of silver or for anything else similar, for our neighbor is the image of God, a living portrait of the invisible God. I am also carnal, still far from perfect, because instead of rejoicing at the distribution of monetary alms and the abundant distribution of alms to many poor - that many are satisfied by the goodness of the Lord, I grieve and get irritated, cowardly, as if everything is lost, as if there will be no reward from the righteous and abundantly merciful Lord on that day of righteous retribution, or as if the Lord will not send for the lot of the poor today or tomorrow and then. Oh, lack of faith! Oh, passion for earthly and perishable things! Oh, the poverty of love for God and neighbor! O poverty of hope! How long will we be beginners in the faith! You distributed, let’s say, ten rubles to the poor and, in their person, to Jesus Christ Himself, but what does this mean in comparison with what the Lord gives you daily through the holy Orthodox faith, through the Church, especially in the Holy Mysteries - His Body and Blood? Truly nothing, for the Lord gives you cleansing of sins and eternal life. How many earthly blessings does it give you every day? What about the light of the sun? What about breathing air? What about the chosen food and drink? Is the home spacious, clean, magnificent? What about physical health? What about a good name? What about glory, although you neither seek nor desire it? And good greetings from everyone? What about good kinship? Who were you and what are you? And the priceless gift of education, which was given to you by the goodness of the Heavenly Father, almost without your desire, for you were forcibly taken to school, although there God gave you reason, meaning, a desire to learn, and patience. Theological school, seminary and academy are worth something! Oh, I thank You, Creator, Provider, Educator, Enlightener, Nourisher, Savior, Punisher, My Guardian, Lord! Rise up and save us all! The whole world, the whole earth is decay, a rag compared to the soul. He who is wise will despise the goods of the world and count them as rubbish, so that he may gain Christ [Phil. 3, 8]. Having food and clothing, we will be satisfied with these (1 Tim. 6:8). I worry about what I don't need. We must take care of the soul, about the Kingdom of God in the soul, about the salvation of human souls, about meekness, humility, alms, abstinence, chastity and purity, obedience, patience. After all, you are fed, clothed, have shelter, and have books. What do you want more? Why are you angry at those who are waiting for your labors? On those begging for alms? Greedy and stingy. Are you full? - Full. Dressed? - Dressed. And is your apartment nice? - Yes. And do you have everything you need? - Eat. What else do you need? What are you greedy for? Why do you feel sorry for others? Why do you hate your neighbors with whom you share the gifts of God’s goodness, why are you not peaceful with them, why are you arrogant, puffed up, gloomy? Madman. And also an educated person who is also considered smart! Having food and clothing (daily), we will be content with these. If your heart forces you to run away from those you don’t love for something vain, do the opposite: come to them and talk to them friendly, and you will see that the violence of hatred and anger will dissipate like smoke. But woe to you if you run from what you hate: your hatred will intensify and will burn you. You cannot tolerate that others eat without you, drink sweets - your work, and you run away from temptation - nonsense: go straight and say from your heart: bread and salt, tea and sugar, bon appetit. We are all subject to infirmities, and the infirmity and illness that our neighbor has can also be with us. Therefore, we must sympathize with the sincerely sick, just as we want to be sympathized with us, so that when we are sick, others will have sympathy for us. With the measure you use, it will be measured to you [Matt. 7, 2]. I am God’s first parasite, for my household is better, cleaner than me, and I am a sinner among sinners, for I do not follow the commandments of Christ. Damned one, I forget my sins, the multitude and greatness of which are without number or measure! Yes, I am jealous of love for God and neighbor. Looking at the poor looking into your hands, remember the words of the Psalmist: Behold, as the eyes of a servant are in the hand of his masters... so are our eyes towards the Lord our God, Dondezh 104 will spare us [Ps. 122:2], - and do not be irritated by the multitude of those asking for mercy, but give to them willingly, for the Lord will reward you, according to the word of David. Just as we give generously to our neighbors, so the Lord will show us incomparably greater generosity. God! Have mercy on me: I have sinned greatly before You, for I despised, destroyed and devoured my brother, my sister, even my father and mother, the culprits of my existence and my wife, with my eyes, destroyed and devoured in vain, and they endured generously. I myself can’t stand this and I’m reprimanding it. To live in love with your family, turn the grill over: be like a guest in the house, and not like the owner, for the owner is the Lord. Look how pleasant you feel when visiting, how kind and sociable you are. Be like this every day at home. Do not come close to me, passion, for my heart is the temple of the Holy Spirit, the village of the Holy Trinity, Consubstantial, Life-Giving and Indivisible. For this perishable body, not much is needed to maintain its health, vigor, strength, and strength. Incorruptible clothes 105. If anyone has any sense, take care of acquiring these clothes. Everything about perishable clothes is taken care of. If they do not honor you at home, while they honor you everywhere in other places, do not be offended by this, for such is our sinful nature that we become arrogant with those whom we often see, with whom we often treat. You yourself do not respect your family, as you should, you neglect, become embittered, pity not them, but them, you envy their indulgence. How do you want to be respected, and respected heartily? If you respect everyone, but they do not respect you, then remember the words of the Lord Jesus Christ that a prophet has no honor in his patronymic, that in his house and in his kin he is without honor [Matt. 13, 57]. Dad’s words: if it were only a sin to eat a small meal on a fast day, then thank God for that. Yes, I said, love is higher than fasting. I ate a small meal after the engagement, with general joy, and in the evening. Eat what you eat, but don’t be proud, don’t be puffed up, don’t be angry, don’t envy, don’t be greedy, don’t be satiated, don’t offend, don’t commit fornication and don’t harbor unclean thoughts in your soul, be meek, humble, good and kind, benevolent, despise sweets, be abstinent, chaste - and through you the Lord God will be glorified. Honor your father-in-law as your own father, sincerely and diligently. Our God is glorified by this, His goodness, His generosity, that we use His gifts for the benefit and enjoyment of ourselves and our neighbors. But what glory to the Lord if His gifts lie with us motionless, without use, and sometimes, perhaps, become food for rust, moths, and worms? God subdued everything under the nose of man, and made him king and lord over everything. Let us not become attached to worldly sweets and beauties. Let us cleave to the one God, and let us love each other diligently. Sin is the greatest weakness of a person, worthy of regret and tears, a weakness that has crept or is creeping into his heart with the speed of lightning, with a captivating force, a weakness as if animated, having intelligence, cunning, extraordinary deceit and malice. So I cry for myself, a sinner, evil, proud, envious, stingy, voluptuous, money-loving, prodigal - I must cry for others and be forgiving to them, tolerant of them. The Holy Life-giving Mysteries are both food and medicine for me - they nourish and heal my soul, which is sick with passions. Oh, how beneficial they are to me! Oh, how necessary for me was the incarnation of the Son of God, His suffering and death! The Lord exhausted Himself entirely out of love for me: I must at least partly exhaust myself out of love for my neighbors! Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends [John. 15, 13]. If you partake of the Holy Mysteries - the Body and Blood of the Lord in betrothal to the future life and the Kingdom, then why else do you attach your heart to the blessings of this temporary life, why do you love the corruptible and passionate life? Why do you love perishable sweets and those that corrupt soul and body, when you have incorruptible, life-giving sweetness - Christ? Why do you love bright, perishable clothes, when you have put on Christ, His grace, the Holy Spirit? Why do you need the shine of earthly life, waiting for the bright life of heaven? You cannot combine both, you cannot love both, for the heart is simple, singular. Most merciful Lord! I thank You, for You have granted me the grace to perform the Divine Liturgy without stumbling and to partake without condemnation of the Divine Mysteries with victory in Your name against the wiles of the evil one; I thank You, because during dinner You granted me, through my prayer, to defeat the spirit of greed, pity, sweets and anger towards a fellow who consumes, as it seemed to me, mercilessly; I thank Thee, for Thou hast delivered me from foolish despondency and cramped conditions. I thank You, because even after dinner, the spirit of sweetness and malice that came upon me, through my prayer, You drove away and gave me peace instead of languor. You are my only belly, Lord, inexhaustible, and everything earthly is rubbish and thorns that bite the soul. Do perishable things still deceive you, when through perishable things you have fallen into sin and enmity with God, and if not for the Son of God who became incarnate for our sake, who suffered and died, you would have perished eternally? A Christian should not be seduced by anything perishable. Christianity is the trampling of everything earthly - all sweets, all splendor, all earthly beauty, the putting aside of pride, malice, envy, stinginess, covetousness, gluttony, laziness, disobedience. And what are we seduced by? Doesn’t everything pass like smoke—beauty, and bodily strength, and health, and sweets, and clothes, and horses, and chariots, and theaters, and clubs, and skating rinks, and evenings, and everything? Why don’t we take care of the eternal soul, don’t we decorate it with virtues, kindness, humility, self-control, purity and chastity, obedience, etc.? Especially a priest, a servant of Jesus Christ, must be all grief and show others an example of spiritual life, heavenly wisdom - he must be all in Christ. What are candles in church for? May we ourselves be like burning lamps, and we will be like men who wait for their Lord when He returns from marriage, so that when I come and push, Abiye 106 will open to Him [Lk. 12, 36]. So, this is what the candles burning in churches are for: so that they constantly remind us of the burning of our hearts with faith, hope and love, that this is how our souls should burn before God. Censer for what? May our hearts burn like hot coals, may our fiery prayers rise to God like fragrant incense, and may our prayers be free from the stench of passions. In order for the sinful flesh, for itself to have more sweets and to be more alienated from God and from its neighbor, the flesh drives its neighbors out of its home and from its meal, or looks only at beautiful faces, and turns away from ugly and rude ones, as if a person is in the face, and not in the heart. The nasty thing does everything opposite to God’s word. I am a beast - but transform me, Lord! About the benefits and necessity of going to the church of God: outside the church the earthly spirit chains the soul to the earthly (drinking houses, taverns, theaters, clubs, shops); in the church - the Heavenly Spirit attracts grief; outside the church there is vanity and partiality, in the church there is truth and the cleaving of those created in the image of God to their Creator; outside the church there is languor, in the church there is peace, because here the God of peace dwells. Look at the icons: Who is on them? - The Lord, His Most Pure Mother, apostles, martyrs, saints, unmercenaries. What do they teach you, what do they encourage you to do? What happens in the church? What's in the house? If people often went to the church of God, there would not be such money lovers, such drunkards. Vices intensify to the extent that we leave our mother - the Holy Church and the Lord of the Church - Jesus Christ. Do not be seduced by earthly honors - the rank of archimandrite, bishop, for they have been entrusted with the most difficult task of shepherding human souls, requiring great virtue, self-sacrifice, intelligence, vigilance, contemplation of God, prayer, fasting, non-covetousness, patience, an exalted spirit, which despises longer, constantly striving and elevating to the above - seek the above. title, strive to cleanse yourself from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, form yourself according to the heavenly spirit, for the earth is the place of exile for us and evil spirits; reject longer. Why does the Lord tempt you so much? So that one does not rely on wealth, but on Him, the generous Giver of all the blessings. God is my God, my glory and honor, my adornment, my sweetness, my peace, my consolation, my life. And I’m well-fed, and dressed, and there’s room in my apartment—why shouldn’t I love everyone as I love myself? If they took off my clothes or took away a piece of bread from me, I would be crowded in the apartment, and then truly I should love everyone according to the commandment of the Lord and according to common sense, for they would constrain me only in the physical, and not in the spiritual. And now why is my flesh going mad? What does he dream? Greed cries out in me, but let love prevail. My mistress and my relatives by wife are here, but I am a wanderer and a stranger, a stranger, and I should be grateful that they love me and take care of me. All I can do is love and thank, respect, live with meekness and humility and kindness. Do not eat in the morning until twelve o'clock. Eating and drinking turns out to be completely unnecessary. God bless! Today I caught a wolf who entered someone else’s house and began to play pranks. It was as if brother Konstantin came to me and began in his own way, like a master, to dispose of food and drink, especially sugar, to which I, a sinner, have an addiction (which means I should be angry with myself). And then carnal jealousy took me: it was a terrible pity that my brother, in his own way, like a master and without mercy, was destroying my sweets - and let it be, thank God, that the food of the passionate flesh is taken away from it, the food that inflames its passions - voluptuousness and covetousness. I’m sitting at the same table with him, my sister Anna was also sitting, and I’m filled with evil jealousy and anger at my brother (sinned, damned); now my sister left - evil jealousy began to inflame me even more, and he, as if on purpose, eats and eats everything: so, I think, one brother lives with me for nothing, the other [...] is still on his neck, let me, I think, with annoyance I reprimand him: what, don’t you have anything in the house, why do you come to me to eat and drink - but in my heart it’s boiling, it’s stinging, and the snake is inciting lust - so what? After all, I almost had a huge quarrel with my brother in my sleep, I almost got terribly upset. And what annoyance I had with my brother! He threw away a piece of sugar and crackers out of frustration - what an evil slanderer he had made him angry! What a new dream! And truly dreams are all our passions. But then I woke up indignant at my brother. And how glad I was that this agony was in a dream, and not in reality. All that remains for me is to be as indifferent as possible to sweets and warm to my neighbor, especially to my relatives, to whom I owe everything; do not be jealous of sweets, do not be proud, do not be arrogant, do not be arrogant in front of your family: it is not I, but God who feeds them, just like me, the greatest sinner; tuna, treat everyone with joy, spare nothing, offer readily. I thank You, most merciful Lord, for yesterday You saved me many times through my prayer (in the apartment of the elder Eutyches, you graciously saved me from grief for insulting a beggar youth - you tore me by the hair) and at home many times. I thank you for granting me, without stumbling, through my prayer, to perform the Sacrament of Marriage with perfect boldness. I thank you, for in Elder Eutyches you reveal Your servant to me. When God pours out the gifts of His love on us incessantly, will we become embittered because of these very gifts and eat each other? Let us live in meekness, humility and love as children of the one Heavenly Father. To trample on sweets, earthly splendor, earthly beauty means to trample on the charming devil himself, who has power over us through our addictions to earthly things. I am sated, damned one, and for the sake of satiety I become embittered at those living under the same roof and eating from the same meal. Inspire ourselves and society to seek the grace of God, and not sweets, not games, not smart clothes, not theater, not clubs... Oh, how we are deluded and mistaken! Today, January 31, 1867, in Rambov, I visited the sick Evdokia, a servant of God, who had been lying on one side for 47 years, from the age of three to fifty years, and not a single bedsore. White, clean. May I learn from her patience, submission to Providence, the corruption and insignificance of everything earthly, purity and simplicity of the soul. What a priceless gift my wife is to me from God and how I should thank the Lord and my father, my father-in-law, for her. With her came great happiness to me: priesthood, place, contentment, honor - everything! Previously, instead of a wife and mother, I had a school, a seminary, an academy; Now after the Lord everything for me is my wife. Thank You, Lord! How do I behave so unworthily, so passionately in the presence of the Lord and His saints, forming one body with them? How can I not be afraid? From now on let me fear the Lord. Yes, I am afraid of anger, pride, envy, greed, covetousness, etc. For the very fact that poor children persistently follow me, asking for alms, we must respect them, for they have simple-hearted faith in me, in my alms, and I must imitate them in prayer to God. If it were not for the need, would we have followed you? - said one poor girl. Why am I angry at them for their persistence and annoyingness? Despise your own belly, not your brother; pride, malice, envy, one’s stinginess, and not one’s brother, for what is more venerable on earth than the image of God, by which man is venerated? But we forget this, and all because of the womb! Food is for the belly, and the belly is for food; but God will destroy both (1 Cor. 6:13). Look at your father as a metropolitan living independently, for he lives by God and what he deserves; always treat him with respect - what am I saying? Look at him as at Christ Himself, and serve as Christ, for in addition to being a Christian, he is also an archpriest and an old man with gray hair. If you measure according to the measure, it will be measured to you [Matt. 7, 2]. The Righteous Rewarder will reward everything. Take pity on the brother who has no place and treat him kindly, so that he does not think that he is a burden to you. God will not leave you, as He has not left you before. Live in love, meekness, humility, non-covetousness, acquire through the love of God, and everything will be added to you. Remember that when all the brothers had a place and ate and drank with you, you said to yourself: if they were without a place and poor, then you would willingly give one of them shelter with you. Now is the opportunity to show kindness to your relative. If you give alms to strangers, give even more to your own and be generous, kind, and hospitable to him. Do not seek gratitude from your family for this and do not demean your work, which you are obliged to do. I am a slave who cannot be turned off, say, as if I must create, I have created [Lk. 17, 10]. Equally, your father became poor - please satisfy him too. Let everything with you be done with love (1 Cor. 16:14); Let love be like air, like the seasoning of everything: conversation, food, drink, everything. Remember that you are fed, clothed, under a roof and do not need anything, you just have to thank God in love. Before you die with your body and all external feelings for this corruptible world, die with your will, your thoughts, your heart for your body and for everything that flatters the feelings and deceives the heart, tearing it away from love for God and neighbor. After all, you will have to die even if you don’t want to, so die of your own free will, so that this will be counted towards you as a feat and you will receive a reward. God! May Thy one life-giving Spirit, the spirit of love for You, God, and neighbor, constantly revive me; May I place all my hope in You, and not in food and sweets, not in the perishing riches of this world, not in clothes, not in the mighty of this world. We are all one in the one God of love and we have everything from the one God. All the efforts of the enemy tend to little by little weaken and then completely destroy love and respect for one’s neighbor and lead one into hostility with him. This must be remembered and sincerely respected by every person. One must be kind to those who offend, simple-hearted, and not suspicious; seeing not seeing and hearing not listening to insults. Sorrows, troubles and misfortunes are useful, because they cut off passions, take away fatness from the heart, make you chaste, humble the soul, and just as there is silence after a storm, so after sorrows there is coolness and silence. Christ came to renew the human race, to raise it from corruption to incorruptible, ageless life. Holy people of God are new (renewed) people who have achieved eternal life, who, with the help of God’s grace, have cast off the corruption of sins and passions. Oh, the greatness of God's works! Oh, the greatness of the goodness, wisdom and omnipotence of God in the incarnation and redemption of humanity, manifested by the Lord! Oh, the insignificance of all earthly things! My family protects me from many evils and teaches me a lot: I should be grateful to them for pleasant and unpleasant things, for a word of affection and a word of reproof, expressed with a spirit of love or hostility. Thank the Lord for everything - not only for what flatters your pride, but also for what is disgusting and hurts it. He who does not like reproof is mad. Be a Christian sage. It seems that people are happy outwardly: they are well-fed with everything, and are dressed beautifully, and have magnificent and well-furnished chambers, and are rich - but internally they are unhappy - so what? After all, they will invent various imaginary misfortunes for themselves - what? Here's what: such and such a family member or relative eats a lot of sugar; such and such is disrespectful, rude, evil, and owes everything to me or owes this and that; or there are enough clothes, but there is no such and such a dress - in a word, outwardly happy people have an awful lot of inventions, suspiciousness, which makes them unhappy. What comes out of this? The fact that there is no happiness in anything earthly, but lies only in God, in Whom alone we find true peace and contentment. Respect the Divine principle in man - the soul, for it is the image of God. Save our souls, Holy Soul. Addiction to earthly things (sweets, clothes, money) turns the soul away from God, hardens it, hardens it against people, makes it uncompassionate. The heart is simple: it needs only God, the source of life. Addiction to earthly things is a thorn, a lie, a dirty trick of the devil. Experience. Pay attention to the surrounding faces and objects of your life: the devil is tempting you with them and you, sons of men! True Christianity: goodness, kindness, humility, impartiality to earthly things. I will lift up my eyes 107 to the Lord [Ps. 24, 15]. Pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5:17). Necessary. Through addiction to earthly, material things, a person wants to separate from God and live independently and arbitrarily, pleasing himself, doing the will of the flesh. Clinging to things is ungodly and harmful to the soul, because through attachment to the earthly, perishable, material, objects of the greatest and primary importance are neglected: God, soul, eternal life... And how many wounds? What about poverty? Fuss? I am an Imam and more than an Imam, for the Lord is in me through the communion of His Holy Mysteries [John. 10, 10]. What is the enemy's deceit? If you do not seek the offender, God will exact from him: Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says God [Rom. 12, 19, etc.], and if you demand it, then you yourself will lose the reward for patience, and you will not enlighten the offender as you should and, perhaps, you will harden him. In general, leave your case to the Righteous Judge. Otherwise we want to be arbitrary judges ourselves. Do not be offended by the comments of others, but take them to heart and correct them, do not serve your passions, but the truth of God. Let us follow this wisdom, the rules that the Church instills in us in her daily prayers, litanies, chants, and sacred rites. Be like a guest at home, not a host, enduring everything unpleasant. There is so much nobility, gentleness, and meekness in the actions of my father, my brothers-in-law, and even my sister-in-law Anna, and in mine, on the contrary, so much ignobility, malice, and irritability! Words are our golden bond, connecting us to each other: we must learn to speak, we must force ourselves to speak, to speak with meekness and courtesy. Will I breathe anger against the one on whom the devil constantly breathes from the abyss of hell, from the fiery Gehenna? Am I still not understanding the great, blessed thought of the Savior, who came from heaven to save the world and died for evil sinners? Am I still unable to understand and assimilate into my heart and will the essence of His New Testament, which is love? Have I not yet learned meekness, humility and gentleness, I, who so often partake of the Lamb? Oh, woe to me if I don’t come to my senses. And you, Capernaum, who ascended to heaven, will be cast down to hell [Matt. 11, 23]. Will I cover with the breath of malice the gifts of the Lord's love - food and drink? I breathe anger against man, the image of God, while God is all love? Yes, we love each other. By nature, one tree is smooth, while the other is knotty. Is it really possible to be angry with a gnarled tree because it is gnarled? Eutyches. Don't trust your opinion: it is wrong. What is my opinion? – Often the delusion of my corrupted heart, for example, an opinion about a person with whom I have not spoken and about whom I infer from his posture, gait, look, manners, or, for example, an opinion about the state of mind of a famous acquaintance at a certain moment. Caring in the simplicity of your heart. Don’t be broken and don’t be a hypocrite, don’t be double-minded before your father: thank him as the Lord, and in general honor him as the Lord, don’t listen to the suggestions of self-love and pride. So the love of God, with a generous hand, scattered its gifts across the earth so that everyone could use, enjoy them and glorify the grace and bounties of the Lord. But what does greed and stinginess, self-love, malice and envy make of these gifts? With an insatiable, scorching thirst, she collects them for herself and wants to use them only herself, without sharing them with others, and those who want to use them with him, she abhors, hates, despises, persecutes, looks askance at them, moves away from them. Oh monster! Oh Satan! Everything is for everyone, just as the Lord is for me, and I am neither in soul nor in body guilty of the life and contentment of others living with me - everything down to the smallest detail is from the Lord God, the most good, most generous, all-powerful. Therefore, we must live in mutual love and respect, in meekness and humility, and not consider ourselves to be responsible for the well-being of others, and not consider others obligated to ourselves or living as a burden to me. I must work and work for my own good and perfection; In addition, work is penance for my sins, and if I do it voluntarily, I myself am pleased and my sins are forgiven, I am calm in myself, and this is my reward. Material reward for labor is an undeserved gift from God: it is as much my property as it is that of others. With a slight observation of society, it is easy to notice that it suffers from gambling, namely, it suffers because, willy-nilly, it plays cards during the day, and in the evening, and in the morning, after lunch, if not before lunch, before tea and after evening tea, before dinner and after it. Disgusting! Man, the image of God and the likeness of God, created with a straight stance in order to look at the mountain and philosophize on the high, constantly looks only at the earth, chaining his thought and heart and all his feelings to the earth. I became infected with the passion of love of money and covetousness, which I don’t know what is more vile, because it completely distorts the spiritual, heavenly nature of a person, making of him some kind of idol, decay, mere dust. Oh, woe to us who call ourselves Christians and have become worse than Jews, Muslims and the pagans themselves! Our life is filled with all kinds of untruth, impurity, laziness, and foolishness! Where is the life of the next century? Where is the preparation for it? Where is the Last Judgment? Where is the preparation for the answer at this Last Judgment? Everyone dozed off and fell asleep... [Matt. 25, 5]. Look, [... people], lest a voice soon be heard: Behold the Bridegroom! Blessed are the virgins who are ready and wise and ill-fated; extremely ill-fated are the unready and holy fools 108! Have ears to hear, let him hear. Mary sits at the feet of the Savior, listening to His words? Or at the feet of Shakespeare, Gogol, Pushkin, Lermontov and others? Or Starchevsky, Korsh, etc.? Are our glasses (eyes of the heart) spoiled, showing things incorrectly, not in the color and form in which they really are? We need to fix them. Are we fixing it? Are we distorting things further? A Christian must have everything in Christ, everything different: different pleasures, different food (the word of God and prayer, thoughts of God), different spiritual drink (of course, not excluding perishable food and drink, for he also has a perishable body, but everything perishable must be in the background), different air, different decoration, different repose; he should not be interested in sweets, worldly pleasures, such as clubs, theaters, evenings. A Christian collects treasures at home, in solitude: there he reflects, teaches, reads, instructs. All his hopes are not on earth, all his joys are not on earth, but in eternity. A Christian must live very skillfully and together in simplicity: he must live not like that, truly not like other people live - non-Christians or non-Orthodox Christians, or Orthodox in name, but not in deeds; he must have a different view of things, God’s view: what is high in the eyes of people, then in his eyes should be low, of little value, insignificant; he must constantly have the sky in his thoughts; he must be cold to the earth, just as it cools his heart towards God and his neighbor; earthly splendor, earthly decorations, elegant clothes, sweets are no better for him than dirt, the dust of the pasture. If he sees or hears something that is offensive or faulty to himself, he should not be offended or irritated, but should be gentle and meek; if you offend, you should not offend and be offended, they slander - do not reproach each other, beat - turn the other cheek, take away - do not resist, and everything, your whole life with all the sorrows and joys, surrender to Christ God, Who, as the source of life, as the Creator, as the Savior, the Provider, will not leave us for a minute, as He Himself says: I will not leave you and will not forsake you [Heb. 13, 5]. Not a single bird is forgotten before God, and you have counted all the main things [Matt. 10, 30 – 31]. Look what a craft! We act amazingly unreasonably and senselessly: one does something absurd, another does the same absurdity precisely because others do something absurd in front of him: someone becomes angry with me - I also become angry, they despise me - I respond with the same contempt. Madmen! Do they fight fire with fire? Is it possible to treat a disease by making it worse? Truly, there is no other name for sin than madness. Leave madness and live... seek reason, so that you may live and correct your reason in knowledge [Russian: and walk in the path of reason] [Prov. 9, 6]. Let your neighbor eat and drink as much as he wants, whatever he wants, and constantly restrain yourself, keep within the boundaries of moderation. Do not abandon your feelings of friendship for your brother because of food and drink or money. Appreciate the feelings of respect and compassion for fellow humans and do not exchange them for anything material; always have high thoughts regarding every human person. I, damned one, always enjoy greater pleasures than my household or the poor, to whom I give alms and of whom I am no better. Human! The Lord values ​​you so much: he came down from heaven for you, suffered, died, gave birth to water and the Spirit, sealed the seal of the Holy Spirit, nourishes you with His Body and Blood, assigned you a Guardian Angel, prepares heavenly abodes for you - why don’t you value yourself? Why did you give yourself over to sin and passions? The Lord has endlessly elevated human nature, but the devil wants to endlessly lower it, disfigure it, plunging it into various passions: gluttony, fornication, malice, envy, stinginess, madness, laziness, etc. Oh, how you must watch over yourself! Human! Earth, ashes, pus, don’t you value the fact that the Lord raised you up when you fell and placed you so high again? Why do you live as if you do not know and do not understand your high position? But that servant who knew the will of his master, and was not ready, and did not do according to his will, will be beaten many times [Lk. 12, 47]. The Germans turned the Church into a theater, into a game, and from the harmonious, vital body of faith and the Church they left only a lifeless skeleton, just like the British. Catholics from the body of the Church [removed] the soul, the spirit of Christ, leaving empty rituals and ceremonies. One Orthodox Church is a living, organic, holy body. How awkward you feel in a Lutheran church! There is no spirit of the Holy Spirit here, whose grace, abundantly poured out on the apostles, was cut off in the Lutheran and Anglican churches after they fell away from the true Church and the legal hierarchy. The Lutherans and the English have broken ties with the Heavenly Church and the underworld (the dead), just as they are disconnected with the living members of the Orthodox confession, and look at us with distrust and hostility. An unauthorized gathering, a gathering! What the Lutheran Church treats its children to! No fasting, no image of ό in, no Sacraments, no hierarchy, no relics - nothing. Thank God that we were born in the Orthodox faith! Holy men of God and holy Angels are friends of God, like other gods, according to Scripture: I said: Ye are gods, and all are the sons of Him [Ps. 81:6], and we honor them according to their heritage with chants, prayers, incense, and lighting candles. But the Lutherans and the English reject it and do not honor it. Extreme injustice. If the king himself is honored when his friend is venerated, and he himself is insulted when his friend is insulted, so the Lord God is both glorified by the veneration of His friends and insulted by their disrespect. (We will do it without spices.) How can we neglect the entire spiritual world - Angels, people, and also the souls of the departed? We give honor to sinful people - bosses, acquaintances, relatives, friends, but not to the saints of God. Where is the body of the Church? Where is everyone's debt? Lutherans and Anglicans are lifeless fragments. With what eyes [...] do you, Lutherans and Anglicans, see the afterlife, the faces of the saints of God, when here you did not want to honor them? My service to You, Lord, has delivered and is delivering from countless evils. I thank You, most merciful Master, for my service to You. I thank You for those who do good to me and my enemies. Your deity, sensualist, is sweetness. Know this and immediately destroy your idol. It is good to fast: I experience this constantly. It is bad not to fast, eat meat, drink wine, etc. - we only develop corruption in our body, but we intensify passions, and we impose burdens on ourselves. Pies clog the stomach and blood. Avoid. Don't eat meat. Eat as little fish as possible, except cold, and it is better not to eat indigenous fish at all: it is fatty and fleshy, not inferior to meat. Avoid sweets, especially jam - produces night dreams. Tea with sugar is the entire dinner for the servants: make this tea sweeter for them, so that they drink with pleasure and glorify the generosity of God and yours. Imagine that you give your servant a glass of sweet tea instead of dinner. Is this great and should we regret it when we do not spare ourselves more? The servants only see pleasure from us, but we enjoy everything from many and almost always at home as much as we want. How long will we persecute the members of Christ? Do not eat black bread and butter at night: it is extremely hard on the heart and the whole body, it makes it difficult to sleep. There is white bread. I don’t eat oranges, maybe once a week. Do not drink this sweet water in the morning, and do not eat anything until the first hour. And then satiety comes out. Don’t eat too much pie: it clogs both your stomach and larynx. Gluttony is a mortal sin. Anyone who indulges in excess of need, eats and drinks, becomes satiated, does not keep fasts, seeks somewhere to eat pie, drink wine and sweet tea - in a word, for whom pleasing the belly has turned into passion - is susceptible to it. My enemy, Satan! Now I am independent of food, because I have eaten the incorruptible food - spiritual: the Body and Blood of my Lord; So, do not arouse in me enmity against my brother because of this corruptible waste: it is God’s, not mine, and the neighbor is God’s and his own member; It seems that you will soon feel sorry for the fresh air for us or through us and will arouse enmity against others for using it. Oh, the absurdity! Oh, satanic envy, absurd! One All-Good and Most Generous One, have mercy on us! February 6, 1867. Do you receive communion of the Holy Mysteries in a worthy manner? If it is worthy, then after communion you do not have the slightest addiction to earthly things: bread, sweets, money, clothes, housing, household utensils; You do not give place in your heart to malice, pride, anger, envy, stinginess, gluttony, covetousness, lies and untruth, disobedience. And if it is unworthy, then you will find it all in yourself. If you receive communion worthily, then the Lord alone fills your heart, and not the vanity of the world, and if not, then it is filled with vanity and vain cares and addictions. If it is worthy, then you have peace, silence, light, joy, heavenly wisdom; if not, then the opposite. Grant us, Lord, that we may all receive communion with dignity. Almond vodka is good. Rog ό m 109 is good to drink after fatty foods. How nice it would be if you left the meat, shortening, cream, milk! Do not consume fish and raw milk together - it is very harmful. It’s good that you give your servants a good measure, for example sugar, and at least with this you delight their unsweetened existence and often their great labors. Our God is a God of sweetness, bounty, goodness. Come with a good heart, willingly. Through long and honest service, my servant fully deserves to be given three lumps of sugar at a time. Drink tea with cherry jam and lemon. Healthy. You hardly eat bread at night. Don't drink champagne - it's harmful. Never eat meat. Through it, passions are terribly intensified: the passion of greed, lust, stinging, anger, pride, envy, stinginess, etc. During the rainy season or before the rain, you should eat less fresh and sweet food, rolls, pretzels and drink unleavened drinks - tea and eat sour and salty food and drinks - for example, black bread, salted sturgeon fish or herring, partly cod, kvass. It is good not to eat fish for the benefit of the soul, for there are many temptations from fish - anger, pride, fornication, relaxation. Eat as little unleavened white bread as possible. During Lent, it is good to eat black caviar with white or black bread and tea with lemon. For the health of the body and peace of mind, despise the womb, consider it a dung heap. If you want to please Christ, despise the womb, for the sake of which the fall of man and the incarnation of God, His suffering and death took place. Christ the Lord Himself showed by fasting an example (...) of the mortification of the womb. God! Give me the grace not to drink tea if it is harmful to my soul. Rutabaga is a very difficult thing not to eat. It is unpleasant for us when guests are unnecessarily treated to our good tea and sugar. But this is crazy! A person cannot eat or sleep more than he needs, and for a guest, if he is of a weak character, it is a punishment to overindulge, but a good-natured treat is pleasant to everyone as a sign of cordiality towards us and the fact that we are very much valued and do not value all pleasant food and drinks or money. Let us love our neighbor as ourselves. Let us sometimes judge others by ourselves: we are pleased when they diligently treat us, do not spare anything for us, they value us, value us, respect us, love us - let us think that it is pleasant for our neighbors when we treat them just as diligently, we do not spare anything for them, we value them, we appreciate them, we respect them, we love them - and let us do the same with them as we want others to do with us. For this is the law and the prophets [Matt. 7, 12]. A person needs a little: he is nourished and full - and give, but he will not want more. But we are shaking, as if we had eaten or drunk. Oh, a dream, a chimera, delirium, insanity, a lie, moral deformity, perversion, loss of meaning, nonsense, a ghost, poof, nothing! The devil strongly favors those who are fed up. Decency and neatness require braiding your hair. Don't eat meat. In general, drink and eat in moderation. Now I say: don’t go, and then I say again [...]. Avoid eating very tasty and fatty fish: it is harmful to the body and spirit and makes you feel relaxed. In the frosty season, you need to eat less thick food and eat liquid or drink more than usual, and in warm and damp seasons, drink less and eat liquid, because the atmosphere replenishes the lack of fluid in the body. Avoid cheesecakes and pies and don’t eat more than one piece; Also eat as little meat as possible, or better not eat at all. Don’t drink more than one glass of tea in the morning and don’t eat more than one slice of white bread: it’s unnatural to eat and drink early in the morning when you’ve been eating and drinking since the evening: nature doesn’t need early eating and drinking - don’t force it. A sinful habit is to drink tea early. So I got drunk, ate too much and became incapable of doing anything. Do not eat mealy foods - sieve bread, especially with butter, salted fish, potatoes, porridge, fatty foods, meat, etc., in general, anything that gives thin juices: you are scrofulous and should eat raw food, not mealy, juicy, vegetable, cleansing. It's enough for you to eat once a day. Avoid rough food: it weakens the body and spirit. Be more diligent in reading the word of God and in prayer: they revive the body and soul. Don’t judge that such and such people eat fast food: you don’t know why they do it, maybe out of weakness. Use as little butter, cream, and all fatty foods as possible. They are a burden to the heart. Coffee eats away the rottenness in our insides. Lenten is good to drink, just a little, no more than a glass or two cups. Oranges are unhealthy for me. Right. It sharpens the blood and promotes bile. They are not good to eat, especially after quick butter and cream. Sweet tea only tickles the insides, rapes, helps the rapist devil, irritates. Drink simple tea, and not much at all. Don’t start tea and coffee when you can easily do without it. Don’t drink tea or coffee unnecessarily after lunch, lest you weaken your heart. You should eat and drink as little as possible at night, and not be tempted by food or drink. If you eat and drink a lot today, then tomorrow during the priestly service it will be very, very difficult for you. Your own seeds will burden you. Not eating meat excites voluptuousness. Not eating a lot of pressed caviar is also bad; milk, cream - too; Do not drink sweet tea - everything is dangerous for chastity. Remember that what is very pleasant in the mouth will be very pleasant to tickle the loins. The masculine and childish man does not sincerely love his mother, his wife, his maidens, his children, or people in general, only when he begins to exhaust his body and abstain from sweets and excessive eating and drinking. This is why some are very cold towards their family and other people; They have long corrupted their hearts, squandered the pledges of love. This is why they are irritable, impatient, cowardly, timid, and taciturn! Cod is heavy - don't eat it at night. Don’t eat fatty cabbage soup at night, and in general, after drinking tea and a roll, don’t eat or drink anything else, so as not to burden yourself and prepare yourself for great sorrow and cramped conditions the next day and not give a reason for devilish violence, but most importantly, so as not to anger the Lord with intemperance. How long will you live like a pagan - just eat and drink? You think to gain strength by eating and drinking a lot, but instead you see a relaxation of mental and physical strength, corruption of the heart, weakness of spirit, illness, irritability, you are angry with everyone, while you yourself carry a great evil - intemperance. Be afraid to eat and drink a lot: from this great spiritual evil comes - pride, contempt, malice, envy, suspicion, or suspiciousness, absent-mindedness, stinginess, covetousness, laziness and other passions. Zeal for the consumption of sweets by others is a satanic, soul-destroying zeal. Neglect, be ready to give everything without pity, and then - oh, what grace of the Holy Spirit will dwell in your heart! But now he cannot, for you commit adultery with the pleasures of this world. Because of the love of sweets, friends, half-bloods, and in-laws become enemies. This is how harmful and criminal the addiction to sweets is! Should a Christian do this? Is it for the one who is called to imperishable life, to the mountainous fatherland? Bathhouse Britnev is a very good bathhouse. A ghost and a dream have nothing essential about them; These are all the ghosts, the dreams of the devil, of our passions. Is it okay to share a meal with heretics? With those who incorrectly confess the Holy Trinity, who reject the invocation of saints, the veneration of holy relics, who reject the hierarchy or the Sacrament of the Priesthood, who reject traditions? Make me tea, just like daddy. Why am I feeling sorry for myself? So dad, and wife, and others have no regrets. I ended up in their family so that they could correct me. I must graft myself into them like a wild olive into a good one. Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian. Part (Church Slavic) – share, allotment, property; fate. Navetovati (Church Glav.) – to encroach, plot, slander. Troparions for the Immaculates, sung on Saturday and during funeral services. Otrevati (otrenuti) (church-glav.) – reject, remove, alienate. Dondezhe (Church Glorious) - until then. That is, immortality and eternal life. Wed. 1 Cor. 15, 53. Abie (Church Glav.) – immediately, immediately. Vynu (Church Glav.) - always. Holy Fool (Church Slavic) – stupid, crazy. Rogom is a brand of French Cahors. Here: false news, an absurd, absurd invention. You might be interested in: