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God! I thank You for the solemn service of the Liturgy in Your grace and the communion of the Divine Mysteries into the world of spiritual powers; for the royal prayer service, as if he helped in it; for prayer services and christenings in homes and for help during them; for the unfailing marriage! Thank you for everything! Don't leave in front 47. Earthly life is perishable, fragile, fragile: today you are alive, tomorrow you are dead - but, according to the assurance of the true word of God, there is another, eternal life beyond the grave. Are we preparing for that life and how are we preparing? These are the questions that everyone should think about, to which everyone should immediately give themselves the correct answer. If we prepare, good, we are on the right path; if not, we are lost, lost our way and must immediately head towards the true path. We look not at the visible, but at the invisible: for the visible is temporary, but the invisible is eternal (2 Cor. 4:18). The science of pleasing God. Please God in everything and at all times and think about saving your soul from sins and the devil and assimilating it to God. Get out of bed, cross yourself and say: In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and also: Lord, grant us this day to be preserved without sin 48 and: teach me to do Thy will [Ps. 142, 10 ]; When you wash at home or in the bathhouse, say: Sprinkle me, O Lord, and I will be clean: Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow [Ps. 50, 9 ]; when you put on underwear, think about the purity of your heart and ask the Lord for a pure heart: create a pure heart in me, O God; sewed a new one and put it on, think about the renewal of the spirit and say: the spirit is right, Lord, renew it in my womb [Ps. 50.12 ]; you put aside old clothes with disdain for them, think about putting away with great disdain the old man, sinful, passionate, carnal; you eat sweet bread, think about the true bread that gives eternal life to souls - the Body and Blood of Christ, and hunger for this bread, that is, want to partake of it more often; drink water, or tea, or honey, sweets, or other drink, think about the true drink that quenches the thirst of the soul, scorched by passions - about the most pure and life-giving Blood of the Savior; when you rest during the day, think about the eternal peace prepared for those who labor here in the struggle against sins, against the spirits of evil in high places and against human untruths or human ignorance and rudeness; If you go to bed at night, think about the sleep of death, which sooner or later will certainly come for all of us, and that dark, eternal, terrible night in which all unrepentant sinners will be defeated; when you meet the day, think about the non-evening, eternal, brighter than the present sunny day, the day of the Kingdom of Heaven, in which all those who have pleased God or who have repented from the bottom of their hearts to God in this temporary life will rejoice; Whether you are going anywhere, think about the rightness of your spiritual walk before the face of God and say: Direct my steps according to Your word, and let not all iniquity possess me [Ps. 118, 133 ]; whether you do anything, try to do this with the thought of God the Creator, who created everything with His infinite wisdom, His goodness, His omnipotence, and created you in His image and likeness; whether you receive or have money, treasures of any kind - think that our inexhaustible treasure, from which all the treasures of the soul and body, the ever-flowing source of all good, is God, and thank Him with all your soul and do not keep your treasures with yourself, so that you do not enter into your heart your priceless and living treasure - God, but give from your wealth to the demanding, needy, poor brothers, who are for this purpose left in this life so that you can prove to them your love, gratitude to God and receive rewards from God for this in eternity; Do you see the white silver shine, that is, the silver itself, do not be seduced by it, but think that your soul should be so white and shine with the virtues of Christ; If you see a golden shine or gold - do not be seduced by it, but remember that the Lord wants to enlighten you, like the sun, in the Kingdom of His Father with eternal light, that you will see the unsetting Sun of Truth - God in Three Hypostases, the Most Holy Lady Theotokos and all the Heavenly Powers and holy people, filled with indescribable light and shining eternal light lithium. You love earthly sweets - this is a vicissitude 49: you must love the endless sweetness that exudes all sweets, that is, Christ God, the Most Pure Lady Theotokos; if you love beautiful faces, it’s wrong: love Him who created them beautifully and love for the sake of Him who created them beautifully, holyly, in the Lord; you love earthly splendor - again a vicissitude: you must love heavenly glory, for which you were created and which will be eternal; you love the beauty of earthly clothing - this is a vicissitude: love the robe of heavenly glory in which Christ will clothe you if you keep His commandments here, love that robe of purity and truth that you received from the Holy Spirit after baptism. Root out of your heart pride and contemplation, or partiality, and, regardless of faces - whether they are simple or noble, uneducated or learned, rich or poor, respect them equally, for we all have the same human nature, the same soul and we all partake of the same bread. Do not look at the color of your skin, whether it is dark or white, at your speech - whether it is simple and rude or educated, at your clothes - whether it is rough or fine, ugly or beautiful - it is all appearance, insignificant: look at the inner. External: face, clothes, etc. – beauty, flesh, earth, decay, dirt; internal: soul, heart - that is man, truth, incorruptible and immortal spirit, in the image of God. True, renewed Christians rejoiced when they saw that their outer man was decaying (sick or growing coarse from work and old age), for the inner man was then renewed all day long (2 Cor. 4:16). If the flesh does not indulge in sweets - woe to the inner man: he will begin to disdain everything that is coarse - a coarse, ugly face, clothing, food, drink, bad apartment, [dwelling]. the poor, the wretched will be despised, the unpleasant smell will be disgusted]. Remember what a corrupt sinner you are, humble yourself sincerely before everyone, be patient with everyone, and don’t be irritated with anyone. A satiated and voluptuous person becomes embittered at the hungry who ask him for alms, and a well-dressed person at those wearing tattered rags. Such blindness of the heart is worthy of great tears! O all-good and generous one to our Creator, manage all kinds of all-good and rich providence, how we cruelly insult You with our malice, our madness, our ingratitude! But have mercy on us! The greater, dearest and most pleasant sacrifice you make from your property (since God has given it to you) to your neighbor, the more contented and joyful you will be, for man is a high, priceless, immortal creature on earth in the image of God, a member of Christ; and when you make a meager sacrifice and not with full desire, grieve about it, that you did not honor your neighbor as you should, as you would have wanted it from others yourself, that you did not honor Christ Himself in the person of him, and the more neighbors on a certain day you provide services and mercy, the more rejoice, but do not grieve, for for a great sacrifice of love there is a great reward from God - what you sow, so will you reap. Every day the Lord finds us attached to worldly pleasures and, because of worldly pleasures, at enmity with our neighbors, and through them with God. How long will this last? The day of the Lord would not have caught us like a thief in the night (2 Pet. 3:10)! Oh, when we seek the Kingdom of God and its righteousness [Matt. 6, 33] ? How long will we not count our body and all our sweets as feces, and our money, clothes and dwellings as dust? How long will we not strive with all our fervor, with all our love, to our Lord Jesus Christ, the Giver of Life, into eternal, righteous blood? The Lord has given us temporary life and all its benefits, given us in hope the future Kingdom and eternal life, but we do not want to give alms to the poor from our excesses or treat guests who come to us, we are indignant for frequent requests or for frequent visits to us. The Lord suffered and died for all of us, saved us, but we don’t want even a little trouble, to put up unselfish labor for our neighbor, for example for the poor. Oh, ingratitude, oh, our wickedness! Oh, our pride! Why are you afraid of the wiles of the evil one, internal or external, visible, audible or not subject to external senses? Who is more powerless than him by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who crushed with His cross all his strength, all his dreams? Fear not, servant of Jesus Christ! You are ashamed and sinful to be afraid of him. Fear the only Lord, so that you do not break a single commandment of Him. You are looking for retribution for your goodness. This is paganism. Do good and do not seek retribution - this is Christianity. Expect reward from Christ. Even those who do you harm, love and bless them. This is Christianity. If you do good to those who do good to you, what gratitude do you have for that? [ OK. 6, 33]. If you greet only your brothers, what special are you doing? [Matt. 5, 47]. Love your neighbor according to the commandment of God, for God, unselfishly, not for the kindness of his soul, not for his mind, not for his wealth, not for his gifts, but as a person created in the image of God, as a member of Christ and his own, as having the same soul, the same nature, as coming from the same blood. Love not only those who honor you and favor you, but also those who upset you. Not only those who are given to you, but also those who ask you or take yours without your will; not only those who are rare, but also those who often go to enjoy your sweets that you love, although they themselves are not poor. Imagine what a disaster it is if today you lost ten, twenty, even thirty kopecks on a guest brother? Isn't this nothing? Well, what if you lose a few pieces of sweets for your flesh? And thank God, it won’t go to your fattening or delight. Meanwhile, in the person of your brother, you will serve Christ. Be meek like a lamb when they take what is yours and do not think about being angry with your brother because of the dust. For who is man? King of the earth. Respect yourself, your nature in it, honor the image of God Himself in it. How to reduce your neighbor to dust? And don't think about it. You, exalted to heaven, to deification, how still do you value earthly sweets, earthly possessions? Why don’t you despise sweets, don’t value them, don’t you respect them endlessly, don’t you love your brother, for whom Christ shed his blood, for whom Christ died, as you love yourself? How can you be at enmity against the one whom Christ loved, whom He commanded you to love as yourself, whom He commanded you to serve as Himself? Do I not receive everything freely and easily from the Lord? Why don’t I give it away just as easily? How long, my soul, will you be a slave to sweets, how long will you consider anything to be yours, when everything is God’s? How long will you live your life in pleasures? How long will you be intemperate? How long will she be evil, irritable, proud and disdainful, envious, stingy, sad, and murmuring? It’s an amazing thing: I myself am greedy for everything tasty and consume it in abundance, to the point of satiety, but if my brother is greedy in my house, at my meal, for everything tasty and consumes it with his own hands in excess, not sparing my goods, I am upset, damned, I am embittered with him, but don’t we have the same nature, don’t we have the same weaknesses? If I’m forgiving to myself, why don’t I be forgiving to him? If I please myself, why not him? I indulge myself because I love myself deeply, but why don’t I love him deeply? After all, you have to love him as you love yourself. But how long will I not crucify my lust? How long will I not despise the sweets that my enemy, with such mockery, abuse, mockery, and hellish torment, inspires me to value? Is not what is sweet for the flesh more bitter than all that is bitter for the soul? While serving the Lord in the Sacraments, how do carnal sweets betray me, captivate me, driving me away from my Christ! Is this the life of a rational being - eat and drink, then walk for better and faster cooking, then eat again, then drink and eat again and finally sleep? But this is how many people live. Where is the Christian life, life according to the spirit? [...] you love and value your brother at nothing, for it is worthless that Christ died, that you spare him daily the sweets of the earth, for whom all the sweets of heaven are here, and here is also the sweet Blood of the Savior with His sweet Body. Stop the madness. After all, everything is from God, we are nothing. If you love God, you want to make constant sacrifices of love to Him, bring them to your neighbor for the good, to your neighbor who is a living image, an icon of the Lord God, a member of Christ. He who does not love his brother whom he sees, how can he love God? (1 John 4:20). You see obstacles from the enemy - pity for your brother things, sweets, clothes, money and other things, and know that this is an obstacle from the enemy, and fight the obstacles and overthrow them in the name of Christ and do not be upset at those who take your tuna or those who often ask for alms. Целуя руку матери с искренним уважением и любовью, я бываю покоен, а когда усомнюсь, возгнушаюсь ею – бываю беспокоен, тяжко мне, тесно, горько бывает. Чти отца твоего и матерь твою, да благо ти будет и да долголетен будеши на земли [ Исх. 20.12]. И кто искреннее, постояннее нас любит, уважает, трудится, самоотвергается для нас, как не родители? They are ourselves, our flesh and blood, like our soul. We and they are one. Если разделяет нас кто с ними, вооружает против них, так это дьявол, враг наш всеобщий, мечтатель темный, извративший свою некогда светлую природу и превративший ее в ложь, безобразие, беззаконие. А все, весь мир, все чины Ангелов, всё сотворенное – только законами и держится и благоденствует: беззаконие – начало разрушения, искажения, погибели. Sin is a spiritual matter and the work of the devil: flee this serpentine poison. By respecting a person, we respect ourselves, for we are all from one person and were once in one person and one person; If you respect the image of God, according to which we were created, then you respect and honor God, and when you respect a Christian, you respect Christ Himself, for Christians are His body. Вот как естественно и необходимо любить и почитать друг друга! У дьявола свои, вконец извращенные взгляды на вещи, свои умствования, свои чувства, свои стремления и дела, совершенно противные воле Божией, и он усиливается вести войну против Бога чрез нас, созданных по образу Божию, искупленных от его мерзкого, темного и ужасного владычества страданиями и смертью Бога воплощенного; He strives to make us, the body of Christ, our own bodies through our passions - pride, malice, envy, stinginess, covetousness, gluttony and satiety, uncleanness, false witness, blasphemy, despondency, murmuring and other sins. А мы да любим друг друга, как себя, и Господа своего Спасителя, Главу и Промыслителя. Love, O priest, the souls of men, and not their bodies, not their clothes, not their money, not their food, not their drinks, not their earthly treasures. Oh, how the charming one seduces us priests! And we pay more attention to the external, to the dreamy, transitory, and not to the internal, true, eternal, that is, the priceless soul with its strengths and abilities. We respect the rich, noble, outwardly educated, trained (after all, horses and bears are also trained by elephants), well-dressed, having a beautiful and majestic posture, and the rooster has a beautiful and majestic posture, and the parrot, and the lion, and the eagle, and the horse - this is common with the dumb; but we do not respect the poor, the humble, the uneducated, the simple, [humble, meek] (not wicked in heart, like the rich, noble, educated), the invisible, and often despise them. But remember that Christ is in all things and in all [Col. 3, 11]. Treat everyone reverently, respectfully, lovingly. What is true enlightenment? So that those who are enlightened may acquire enlightened desires of the heart. What is true education? So that those formed are renewed in the image of their Creator, restore His fallen image in themselves, putting aside the old man, so that they learn to despise passions and love virtue, or have faith, piety, fear of God, love for God, for the Church, for their neighbor, for the sovereign, for the fatherland. How many times have I become angry with my brother because of sweets! How many times have I become embittered with beggars because they spared money, and this has upset myself! How long will I not despise sweets, money, this rubbish that is fatal to my soul, this thorn that gores my soul? How long will I not become wise towards Christ and count them to dust? How long will I put my neighbor on the same level as this rubbish? How long will I humiliate the king and the owner of the land by preferring the trash of the earth to him? Why do passions fight in us? Fire, why is it cramped? From our satiety, our lust, from our addiction to earthly things, from our covetousness. God! What will I bring to You, how will I thank You for Your constant, greatest mercies to me and Your people? For here I am every moment revived by Your Holy Spirit, every moment I breathe the air diffused by You, light, pleasant, healthy, strengthening, I am enlightened by Your joyful and life-giving light, spiritual and material; I feed on sweet and life-giving spiritual food and the same drink - the Holy Mysteries of Your Body and Blood, and material food and drinks of sweetness; You clothe me with a bright, beautiful, royal robe - with Yourself, according to the Scripture: those who were baptized into Christ have put on Christ [Gal. 3, 27], and material clothes of beauty in the church and outside it; You cleanse my sins, You heal and purify my sinful passions, many and fierce, You take away my spiritual corruption in the power of Your immeasurable goodness, wisdom and strength; fill me with Your Holy Spirit, the Spirit of holiness, grace, give my soul truth, peace and joy, space, strength, boldness, courage, strength; You endow my body with precious health; You teach my hands to fight and my fingers to fight [Ps. 143, 1 ] with the invisible enemies of my salvation and bliss and with the enemies of the holiness and power of Your glory - with the spirits of evil in high places; You crown my deeds done in Your name with success. For all this I thank, glorify and bless Your all-good, fatherly, all-powerful power, O God, our Savior, our Benefactor. But be known as you were known to me, O Lover of Mankind, and to your other people, so that they may know You, the Father of all, Your goodness, Your providence, Your wisdom and power, and glorify You with the Father and the Holy Spirit now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen. How imperceptibly pride nests in our hearts! So I approach my family, to whom I am accustomed, living together, or another relative who often comes to me, I greet him, take him by the hand, but not sincerely, not from the heart, and I consider him unworthy of my touch, I abhor him as unclean, I turn away from him as hated. Where does such arrogance and pride come from? Do I so despise the image of God? Is he a member of Christ, although weak? Isn’t my brother, my neighbor, equal in rights and equal to me (even more honest)? Are we not all brothers, not creatures, not children of the Heavenly Father? Are there not common sins, passions, infirmities? Do we live as the Savior bequeathed to us? And He commanded us: love one another [Jn. 13, 34], and the Lamb of God Himself took upon Himself the sins of all of us, of the whole world, so that we would not be burdened by each other’s sins and infirmities, would not take responsibility for them, for we cannot answer for ourselves, but would cast all our infirmities on Him, the Lamb of God, and would not judge each other, for each one will give an answer to God for himself, he will bear his own burden [Gal. 6, 5]. God! The more sinful I am, the prouder I am! Always consider yourself unclean, and respect everyone as pure, honor them as saints in Christ, for as members of Christ, according to Christ all are pure; Look at every Christian with faith, and not only with corruptible eyes. Glory to You, Christ God, who created power with me in the apartment of Mikhail Mikhailovich Dmitriev, Your servant, for You powerfully took away the corruption of my heart and pacified me and enlightened Your face on Your servant. Glory to Your goodness, glory to Your power! Oh, how good it is for me to cleave to You, my God, to place the hope of my salvation in You. Glory to the Life-Giving Spirit, the Spirit of grace, the Spirit of peace, freedom, light, strength, boldness! O miracle of goodness, Lord, glory to You! Glory to Your holy name, glory to faith in Your sovereign name! Oh, truly evil in man is pride, contempt, malice, envy, stinginess, covetousness that knows no measure, and an uneducated, simple word means nothing, it is not a sin of man. This is where you show meekness, humility and gentleness and non-covetousness when your neighbors take yours for free: do not torture yours from him who takes yours [Lk. 6, 30]. All teas, coffee, chocolates are a dream, an excess, even ordinary food and drink should be neglected, for we have true, living, eternal bread - the Body and Blood of Christ. Rejoice that everything that you earn through your labors goes to the benefit and pleasure of your neighbors more than yours - may you treat and give willingly. Let there be fellowship of estates. Rejoice that little goes into your flesh and do not try to have much for yourself. Do not be jealous of the wicked [Ps. 36, 1]. Live by the Spirit, do not be jealous of the pleasures of the flesh. Delight yourself in the Lord [Ps. 36:4], cling to Him alone. He is your only, faithful, life-giving Friend - only you be His friend, doing what is pleasing to Him. You are My friends if you do what I command you [Jn. 15, 14]. I praise, Lord, Your miraculous providence for me, Your great bounties: when I was cowardly about the large consumption of food supplies, when I gave away some of my money to the poor (1 ruble 50 kopecks) on that day and prayed to You that You would not forsake me with Your bounties, You suddenly unexpectedly sent me the gift of Your goodness to Tuna, so that I would not hesitate to give Tuna to those who need it. Glory to Thee, Lord, most generous God! Who spares the gift of his earthly blessings both by blood and in Christ, when the Lord provides so richly for us! For He Himself said: I will never leave you nor forsake you [Heb. 13, 5]. How can one not willingly serve people in every way with the thought that the Son of God Jesus Christ served us for our eternal good in a terrible way, namely: He became incarnate (The ends of heaven and earth were amazed at this, for God appeared as a man in the flesh 50, worked, went all the way, from city to city preaching about the Kingdom of God, suffered, died and rose from the dead? That He gave us His most pure Body and Blood for food and drink? How can we not serve our neighbors and, by the way, the poor, and not please ourselves, although we almost constantly seek to please ourselves? Shouldn’t our whole life be service to our neighbors? Live in relation to everything pleasant in the world as if there were nothing, that is, die for everything, live for the one God. Speak slowly, with heartfelt attention, all prayers and exclamations, for church prayers and rituals constitute the same revelation of God, only faithful, and not written in the Gospel. Don't miss a single word. For, having missed it, you will then want to say the same thing twenty times, just to return what was lost, but it will be too late. If we call the Most Holy Virgin Mother of God our Lady, as we truly are, then we must obey Her, we must try to be like Her in thoughts, in feelings, in virtues, in our lives, for we, Christians, are Her heritage. Let us be pure and holy, devoted to the will of God, submissive to the destinies of God, meek, humble, patient, kind, and sociable. Just wish, just try to be sincerely kind to everyone, just call on the Savior Christ for help, just force yourself boldly - and you will succeed and be perfect in love. Do not feel sorry, do not spare yourself and yours for the good of your neighbors. With what love, simplicity, and naturalness are treats given to good people! And how difficult this treat is for me! Oh, let the people of God eat and drink everything from me, like grass, like water! Nothing is mine: naked I came from my mother’s womb, naked I will return to the earth [Job. 1, 21]. I must always remember my relationship to God as a creature to the Creator, as a work of art to the Artist, as a meager vessel to the Meager - on the one hand; on the other hand, as an image to the Prototype, as a child to the Father, as one saved to the Savior, as one favored to the Benefactor, as a follower of the law to the Lawgiver, as one who has entered into a covenant with the Covenant, as a betrothed to the Bridegroom, or as a bride to the Bridegroom, as a member, as a citizen of a mountain city to its Chief, as one looking forward to the future age to the Father of this age, as defendant to the Judge. When reading prayers, one must have heartfelt trust in these very prayers or in the God-bearing and God-wise Fathers of the Church, who compiled them and were accepted by the Church for the prayer guidance of believers; although we may not have experienced much of what is said in these prayers, the experience of others, the experience of many saints, should be more reliable for us than our own. We must respect the experience, wisdom and virtue of the saints. We must be like children, simple-hearted and trusting towards them. That is why we call the saints and saints fathers, and ourselves their children. In comparison with them, in terms of the state of our spiritual life, we are like children, little intelligent, inexperienced. Meanwhile, many of us still dare to raise our heads and become arrogant, not recognize the authority of the holy fathers, and reject traditions. God! I am daily lost, You are daily saved; many times I die, sometimes in one day - many times You are my all-good and all-powerful Savior. I ask you, Christian: do you do this greatest thing on earth every day - do you sincerely believe in the Savior, do you call on Him to save you, do you try to be saved, to be renewed? Do you deny yourself, do you carry your cross? Be like a child, kind, simple-hearted, humble. They say: the clergy is [a suppressed environment]. This is only the appearance: their inside is intact - and, thank God, they, like secular people, have no reasoning. But the secular, educated people despise the spiritually educated. On what basis? How dare they? Why, when they want to transform our educational institutions in Russia, do they turn not to the clergy of their country, but to secular foreign teachers, why did they despise the legitimate pastors and teachers, to whom, by the right of God, belongs the leadership of youth? This is the reason for the separation of the spiritual environment from the secular one. Secular people, proud of their appearance, despise the poor clergy. Why was pagan classicism introduced? In order not to be embarrassed, doubt and remain silent before people in the church, remember that we are one body in the Lord. Say: I and the Lord. Sincere, warm consciousness of my wretchedness, my misfortune, poverty, blindness and nakedness - this is my bliss, spiritual pleasure, my peace, my joy, my spaciousness! Without God in my heart, I am a sinful abomination, an eternal weakness; Sinful death with all its languor and [horrors] rages within me. My only living, inexhaustible, perfect treasure is the Lord and His image on earth is a man who keeps His commandments, and everything earthly is insignificant dust, the beauty of sight, taste, hearing (except for the sacred word of God, sacred readings and chants), touch, smell. The enemy mocks us daily through our stupid addiction to earthly things - to luxurious clothing, delicious foods and drinks, to money, to earthly splendor, and turns us, our hearts, our thoughts from our Heavenly Father, from His light, from His love, from His everlasting glory, from the desire to behold the ineffable kindness of His face, infinite wisdom, His omnipotence. We bury ourselves in manure like worms and run away from the light, cling to what torments our heart (and move away from what makes it peaceful, blissful) or what temporarily consoles the flesh and then plunges the spirit into languor and sadness. Love for earthly and heavenly things can never live in the same heart, like love for Belial 51 and Christ, for God and mammon. Wonderful thing! When the enemy tormented me with an addiction to earthly things, I took the Gospel, read two chapters from the First Epistle to the Corinthians, and all torment passed away: I was immediately at peace in my spirit. This is where our life, our peace, our bliss are! All of you, passionate about clothes, about sweets, about money, give up your burning passions, tormenting, darkening, plunging the spirit into slavery, and read the word of God every day with meditation, with reverence, sincere faith and love - you will find light, peace and joy in it. May 11, 1866 Do not be jealous when you see wickedness and pride rewarded in this world. The path of the wicked is for the most part sung, and the wicked gobble 52, as the holy God-father David noted, but the path of the pious is narrow [Ps. 72, 12; 122, 3 – 4]: they are often subject to internal or external persecution, poverty, dishonor, sorrows, troubles and misfortunes. For the Lord punishes whomever he loves; he beats every son whom he receives [Heb. 12:6] in order to grant them not the vain honors of this place, but the honors of a heavenly calling. Here, followers of Christ must bear the cross of self-sacrifice, the cross of persecution, sorrow, illness, and deprivation. How did Christ our God live on earth? Like the apostles, saints, martyrs, saints, unmercenaries, righteous, holy fools and all the saints? Imitate them and you will be saved. The glory of this world with the Lord is despicable and unclean; it nourishes pride, arrogance, love of the world, and hardness of heart. Oh, how earthly glory seduces! But let us love the one heavenly glory. After all, we are Christians! Do not envy anyone for worldly honors, but just as you rejoice when you receive them, so rejoice with your neighbor, although, apparently, he is unworthy of it, and are you worthy too? Remember that Christ is God the righteous Rewarder, and the rewards here are like a dream. So a beggar often sees himself as rich, in a magnificent house, in rich clothes, at a well-fed table. But I woke up - and there was nothing: the same poverty. So we too are damned at heart, poor, poor, blind and naked, and adorned with clothes, eating lavishly, having enough money or a rich house, or taking advantage of temporary honors and distinctions, we consider that we are rich. Pay all your attention to the inner, to the heart, soul, and despise the outer, like a dream. Love does not envy (1 Cor. 13:4), but we envy the well-being of our neighbor, especially if our neighbor does not favor us. But envy is the fruit of pride and selfishness. There is no me - there is in me the Lord and His holiness, His truth. When sin asks, rushes to you, tell it: I am not there - the Lord is in me. If you receive grace in your heart from reading the word of God or prayer and then envy your neighbor in something, then grace, peace and lightness of heart are lost, and languor, tightness, heaviness, and darkness set in again. Oh, our grief! And all self-love, love for earthly things! Do not love your neighbor as you love yourself! Be kind to your neighbor as to yourself. Pray for him as for yourself. He suffers and is subject to the same infirmities as you. Yes, there are incomparably more of them in you: you melt in them, you are filled with them. The indescribable sweetness of those who behold Your face, the ineffable kindness 53. Earthly sweets are all transitory, both in themselves and due to the vicissitudes of human life. And the sweetness of heavenly bliss will have no end, endless. Isn’t it worthwhile to despise all the sweets of this temporary world and even more fleeting life in order to love with all your heart the spiritual, indispensable sweets? Envy in a Christian is madness: in Christ we have all received infinitely great blessings, we have all been deified, we have all become heirs of the ineffable and eternal blessings of the Kingdom of Heaven, and we are also promised contentment in earthly blessings under the condition of seeking the truth of God and the Kingdom of God: Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all this will be added to you [Matt. 6, 33 ]; we are commanded to be content with what we have and not to be lovers of money: Have a disposition that is not a lover of money, being content with what you have. And added: For He Himself said: I will never leave you nor forsake you [Heb. 13, 5]. Isn’t it crazy after this to envy your neighbor in anything, for example, his honors, his wealth, a luxurious table, magnificent clothes, a beautiful home, and so on? Isn’t all this dust in comparison with what is given to us in the image and likeness of God, in whom we were created, in the redemption of us by the Son of God from sin, curse and death and in the granting to us again of the blessing of the Heavenly Father and the eternal joys associated with him in heaven. So, let us acquire mutual love, goodwill and contentment with our condition, friendship, hospitality, love of poverty, love of hobbies and the height of virtues - humility, kindness, meekness, holiness. Let us respect in each other the image of God, the members of Christ God, His body, the children of God (for we are all children of God), citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, cohabitants and fellow angels. May we all be one, just as our God, worshiped in the Trinity, is one and created our hearts alone (in unity), that is, simple 54, individual. The basis of a lawless life is a lie, delusion, any false thoughts or beliefs. Therefore, lying in faith, as the work of the devil, as opposition to Divine truth, should not and cannot be tolerated. Proof of the unity of the Heavenly and earthly Churches is the fact that the Lord assigned a Guardian Angel to each person after baptism. Every Christian must be looked at with special respect 1) as deified in Christ, as the abode of the Holy Trinity and 2) as a friend of the Guardian Angel, who is always with him, unless a person drives him away from himself through sins and passions. (Faith in the Church.) You who created us beautifully, who created us purely, glory to You! We need not light clothes, but a bright face with a light heart, or with light clothes, a bright face, a pure heart. You Christians are called disciples of Christ, but you do not learn from Christ, you do not read His Gospel. How is this possible? Read the Gospel, otherwise you do not have the spirit of Christ at all, but an earthly spirit, addiction to earthly things, covetousness, pride, envy, stinginess, lust. I, as the image of God, must cleave to my Prototype - God the belly and the giver of everything, and not to earthly goods, not to sweets, not to money, not to earthly splendor, not to beautiful and expensive clothes, not to my home and its furnishings, for this is unnatural and contrary to God. I, as a woman who is passionate about dressing, being a priest, worry about how I could better dress myself in the service, as if more luxuriously, and in advance I get irritated and indignant at the archpriest, madly assuming that he will not allow me to dress in the best vestments on the great holiday, while it is unknown whether I will live to see the holiday! Because I can die today. Oh, how I am partial to appearance! How little I pay attention to the internal, which is the only thing needed. I must put on Christ, His meekness, humility, poverty, non-covetousness, carelessness about earthly things, love for things above, His holiness, love for God and humanity, His gentleness, patience and long-suffering, submission and obedience to God and the authorities. Then even in rags I would shine like the sun, better than any precious clothes and jewelry. Then I would be a friend of God, a friend of the luminous Angels and holy men of God, a friend of all the God-fearing and pious on earth. And now, chasing after earthly splendor, I am losing all the wealth of the spirit, which is God, all the spiritual light. And I become, of my own free will, of my own madness, shamefully poor and gloomy. Saints Anthony and Theodosius of Pechersk and Sergius of Radonezh, Zosima and Savvaty of Solovetsky and others were, even in rags, great saints of God. Didn’t God choose the poor in ointment to be rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom that He promised to those who love Him? [James. 2, 5]. Do not the beggars of this world love God above all else, while the goblins love the world, worldly pleasures, their flesh, their parents and friends more than God, their precious, beautiful clothes, earthly splendor, sweets, etc., and not God. I am also partial to money and feel sorry for it for the beggars, who often ask for alms, although I myself love to often receive gifts of generosity from the Lord and people, I get irritated with the beggars when they strenuously ask me for the second and third time (and even sometimes if the first time) for alms, while I give little by little and it would not be a burden to give the second and third time. O flesh! Oh, sin! Oh, my evil will! I have sinned before You, Lord, have mercy on me! Heal my soul and teach me to do Your will, for You are my God, for You are the source of life. I am also partial to sweets and feel sorry for them for my family or sometimes for frequent guests and, impudent and crazy, I get irritated with them, sometimes I become embittered because they do not spare my sugar, or expensive wine, or delicious pie, etc. Oh, how greedy I am, how bestial! I forget that I am mortal, that I can die today, and my whole body and my belly will turn to stench, to pus, to dust. For such is the fate of all who live for the belly, and not for God! Only those who live in the spirit, through fasting and prayer, have their bodies fragrant and bloom even after death by the grace of the Holy Spirit, with which they became akin through abstinence during life. God! Grant me the only thing I need: to love You with all my heart and my neighbor as myself, to contemplate my sins and despise my flesh! I am irritable - give me, Lord, the grace not to be irritable. God! You completely stripped off your clothes for my sake on the cross, not caring about shame and suffering, and I, the accursed one, strive to dress in shiny clothes, cling to them with my heart and because of them, my heart falls away from You - my bright, priceless robe! I forget that, having been baptized into You, I have clothed myself with You. I have forgotten Your words: do not worry about your life, what you will eat and what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will wear... all this the pagans seek... Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness [Matt. 6, 25 – 33]. Water flows, and the flow purifies the water; the water stands still, and that is why the water rots; wealth is wasted - the soul of the rich is cleansed, wealth lies - the soul and body hurt. We must walk with a perfect heart all the days and hours of our life, not to be hypocritical, not to be double-minded, not to be proud, not to despise others, not to envy, not to be embittered, etc., to love God unceasingly above all else, our neighbor as ourselves, sincerely, from the heart. A sinner, you say, brother, and you are not without sin: God is his judge, not you. The most vile creature - the devil, nesting in my heart, inspires me to abhor a person who is similar and equal to me in everything and is even superior in divine and human right (parents, royalty, especially those in authority); He instills in me to abhor and despise the words most holy of my mother - the Church, the words of the Holy Spirit Himself, spoken through the Church, words that are for me spirit and life, peace, light, purification, shrine, and sometimes the words of the Holy Scriptures. About the soul of pride, the soul of malice, the dreamy soul! Is it not you alone who must be abhorred, the most vile, are we not all people of God, God’s creatures and children in Christ, are we not all saints in Christ? Isn't everyone venerable? Is not every creature of God good: all good is good [Gen. 1, 31 ]? Be gone, vile fiend of pride and disobedience! Be gone, most vile! All piety is disgusting to you, you hate the word “pious, most pious.” Go away, villain, don't touch me! In the name of my Lord, in the power of His strength, I want to urgently break all ties with you. Lord help me! The peritoneum is unclean! Why are you giving shelter to the devil within yourself? Unclean heart! How dare you give shelter to the unclean within yourself? Unclean soul! How dare you be in the vessel of God? From my baptism I belong to the Lord, not to you! Be gone, thief and robber! All the present is only one shadow of the future: light is the shadow of the future ineffable light, earthly sweets are a weak shadow of future ineffable, endless sweets, fire is a weak shadow of the future fire of Gehenna, which will scorch sinners forever and ever; pure earthly joy is a shadow of future, unspeakable joys; the beautifully decorated royal palaces are an insignificant shadow of the bright heavenly abodes prepared for those who love God and fulfill His commandments; the glorious garments of the men and daughters of men cannot be compared with the garment of glory in which the elect will put on, for they will put on Christ and shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father, according to the false promise of the Savior [Matt. 13, 43]. Do not dare to hate your brother, who is the image of God and the church of God, for anything material, for example, because the archpriest is neglectful of renovations inside the cathedral. Perhaps his renewal is intended for someone else and not for him. Everything is God's work. Saint David, prophet and king, wanted to create a church, but God did not want it, but left it to his son Solomon: his father only prepared the materials. What you don’t wish for yourself, don’t wish or do for anyone else: you don’t want to be suspected in all your actions and considered either a thief, or a picky, capricious and stubborn person, even if only in your heart - and don’t think about this yourself; You don’t want to be attacked with anger and contempt and envy or stinginess - and don’t be angry with anyone in your heart for a moment, don’t despise anyone, don’t envy anyone, don’t be stingy for anyone. In everything that you want people to do to you, do so to them. Make me wise, Lord! To be forgiving of the infirmities of every person’s flesh, just as I wish that they would be forgiving of my many and great infirmities, for we are all subject to different and many infirmities; to condescend to the rude, incorrect speech of a simple person, to a rude appearance, for I myself am most susceptible to the weakness of speech and often have an unattractive appearance; pay all attention to the heart of a person, or to the inner man, who most often shines and flourishes under a rough exterior and who is most often gloomy and dead under an adorned exterior, for the poor in spirit and in appearance try to match the poverty of the spirit, dressing in rough, poor and as if beggarly clothes, while proud and pompous vice seeks pomp and sophistication in appearance, imprinting pride in your clothes, in your gait, in your gaze, in your speech, and in your manners. Alms should not be given somehow, not carelessly, not arrogantly and with coldness, sparing money or something else, not getting irritated, but with humility, meekness, with heartfelt attention, sparing the poor, and not money, for this is the work of God, the gifts of God, and we give to Christ God Himself in the person of the poor. Oh, verily, Lord, as rubbish 55 prostrate unclean women, all our righteousness is before You, Lord! And in good deeds our pride, insincerity, hypocrisy, and contemplation are manifested. A beggar in thin clothes is despised in our eyes, a man in a light robe, wearing a gold ring on his hand, is very honorable. Oh, our demonic dream! If You do not enlighten, make us wise, establish, O Lord, how can we correct our steps to do Your commandments? From the Lord, it is said, man’s feet are straightened: how can a mortal understand his ways? [Prov. 20, 24]. I myself am a sinner, more sinful than any other person - how can I judge a fellow sinner? I will judge myself, for I do the same as he. Oh! Everything that is good in me is from God and God, only all evil is mine. How poor, damned, poor, blind, naked I am [Rev. 3, 17 ]! Pray for me, my brothers! When a hungry animal runs up to us and caresses us, thereby asking us for food, we throw something to it - is it a beggar or a beggar who will be sorry to give for bread, for a shirt, boots, a caftan, for renting a house, for buying a species according to our strength? Is it man, created in the image of God? Is it possible for a person whose nature is deified and for whom good things are done by us to be done as to Christ Himself? Is it a Christian who is a member of Christ? But even an unfaithful person must be pitied if he is in need, hurts, suffers misfortune, sorrow, sadness, loss, and especially since he is unfaithful and, therefore, deprived of the greatest good in life - the faith of Christ, or the right faith! The desire for shiny clothes is a matter of pride and vanity and signifies a vain soul. We must thirst for inner light, illumination from the Holy Spirit. Both the desire for shiny clothes and the desire for sweets is a carnal desire, all the work of the devil, who by all means separates us from God and plunges us into earthly love, into earthly sweets, into earthly splendor. A sign of pride, by the way, is to shine with outward brilliance. But those who are partial to external splendor have their soul darkened by passions - hence the obligation to be indifferent to external splendor and ardently desire the inner illumination of the Holy Spirit, or to acquire the radiance of meekness, humility, kindness, simple-heartedness, chastity, obedience, patience, non-covetousness. Let your adornment be not the outward braiding of your hair, not gold jewelry or finery in clothing, but the hidden person of the heart in the incorruptible beauty of a meek and silent spirit, which is precious in the sight of God (as opposed to valuable clothing) (1 Pet. 3:3-4). And to us, priests, passionate about shiny vestments and shiny, expensive silk clothes, the Apostle says this. We have become, like women, concerned about clothes, about decorating ourselves with outfits, and we even quarrel with each other because of this. In the altar, this place of God’s dwelling, with what fear and reverence the altar server should behave, with what meekness, humility, with what purity, forgetting everything earthly, for the altar is truly heaven and the sky of heavens! Here the altar server must have all the spirit. Just as it makes no difference to a child, no matter what clothes he wears, so a Christian, a child in Christ, should be indifferent to the variety, wealth and splendor of earthly clothes, considering Christ the Lord his best and incorruptible robe, for an addiction to expensive, beautiful clothes is characteristic of the people of this age, or the pagans, as the Lord says: all this, that is, food, exquisite clothing, the pagans are looking for [Matt. 6:32], for clothing is an idol for the people of this age. Oh, how vain we are, we who are called to communion with God, Who is promised an inheritance of incorruptible and eternal blessings! How unclear are our concepts about perishable things and incorruptible goods! How unreasonable we are, attaching value to insignificant things and not valuing incorruptible blessings - our eternal soul, peace, joy, boldness before God, holiness, obedience, patience, in general, all the properties of a true Christian! Those who were baptized into Christ, put on Christ [Gal. 3, 27]. So, we must value spiritual blessings and virtues, and despise material ones, as perishable, insignificant. Love for earthly things is the spirit of the devil (for sweets, for splendor, honors, wealth), and in order to more conveniently seduce us into this, the devil takes advantage of the natural disposition of our flesh towards sweets, beauty, splendor (for our soul was created for eternal sweets, for eternal light, for the possession of endless wealth) and conveniently catches us in his nets. It is clear that a Christian needs to philosophize on heaven and despise all earthly blessings - earthly splendor, earthly sweetness, and earthly wealth, and to love the heavenly blessings, the sweetness of Christ, the light of Christ, the riches of Christ - everything else, heavenly. And how sweet, peaceful and life-giving these spiritual blessings are! Those who have experienced it know this! Why do they cleave to corruption and desecrate the image of God within themselves with their addiction? Why do they commit fornication from God? How terrible is Divine abandonment of man to himself, to his passions or devilish malice, abandonment by the goodness of God! Sorrow, cramped conditions, humiliation, darkness, and joylessness fill him! He becomes a monster to himself, becomes a burden to himself! Since God the Word became man and mixed with people, then by insulting a person, and especially a Christian, we insult Christ Himself. Man was created in the image of God, which means that by needlessly insulting man, we also insult God. A word to those who are alienated from the priestly blessing. Whose blessing is this? Heavenly Father. Who deserves it and how? Jesus Christ, the Son of God, through His suffering and death. How to look at him? What are its fruits? Success in all matters. Christians were bound by earthly love: earthly love ate up heavenly love. During prayer, we must avoid frivolity and insensitivity to our sins, infirmities, and God’s incessant great mercies towards us. If we constantly sin in thought and feeling, in word and deed, then we must repent with our whole being – in thought, feeling, word and deed. The Lord Jesus Christ for me is golden ore, inexhaustible: from it I mine through faith and petition the cleansing of sins, holiness, peace, freedom, boldness of spirit. Trinity day. I thank You, Lord, for You have granted me to perform the Divine Liturgy and Great Vespers without stumbling, and You have made me worthy to partake of Your Divine Mysteries without condemnation. I thank You, for now several times you have rescued me from the violence of passions through my prayer. I thank You, for You have granted the name of all the persons of the royal house to be spoken at the Liturgy. I thank You, for You have pleased me with my conversation with Your servant Vasily Ivanovich Petrovsky. The Lady is not only pure and immaculate, but because of the abundance of purity, she also purifies us, sinners and uncleans, and God has granted this to Her for Her immeasurable purity and immeasurable love for purity and holiness and for her complete hatred and alienation of sin. Let us continually beg Her shrine to cleanse us sinners and always cleanse us, all the days of our lives, and let us ask Her for hatred of sin. Whit Monday. I thank You, Lord, for Your wondrous powers that were revealed to me after communion of Your Holy Mysteries: their essence healed the severe illness of my spirit and body and pacified me. If holy men of God are not true in confessing their sins, then they are not true in praising and thanking God, but this is impossible, for they wholeheartedly glorify and thank the Lord, which means they also confess their sins. And if the saints were not without sins, then we have no need to despair of God’s mercy and patience towards us. Who is friendlier and more respectful towards us? Simple and poor people: they especially need to be respected and loved, both because they themselves love, and because they have many infirmities, inseparable from lack of education, however, more external than internal. There is no greater evil than pride and malice, there is no greater virtue than humility, meekness and kindness; But in those educated according to the customs of the world, pride and malice nest, while in the simple and uneducated, simplicity, meekness, humility and gentleness live. So, simple people are better than educated people. Has not God turned the wisdom of this world into foolishness?... God has chosen the base things of the world and the base things, and the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are (1 Cor. 1:20, 28). God! Who don’t I throw myself at with my anger? God! Give me the simplicity of love, meekness and humility. God! Let me remember that You are love. God is love (1 John 4:16). Who respects, loves, caresses us more? A simple man. But we despise and hate ordinary people, the uneducated. These are our fashions, our luxury, our sweets, where they lead us, our beautiful appearance leads us to what - to contempt for the inner man both in ourselves and in others, to disgust from a rude appearance, rude speech, rude clothing, manner of gait. We have sinned and committed lawlessness, we have been unjust before You, Lord! And the saints deliberately dressed in rough clothes, deliberately made their bodies rough through labor, so that the soul would be tender, the heart tender to God and neighbor. Oh, how my damned flesh does not rage! I thank You, Lord, for You have granted me to perform the Liturgy and partake of the Divine Mysteries into the world of spiritual powers. We must always remember the following: 1) we, people, are one body under the Head of Christ, 2) our heavenly title, 3) the perishability of all earthly things. Everything eaten, drunk, dressed and otherwise used by a person is rubbish, and a person is a creature of infinite value and he needs so little of everything that it is sinful and shameful and extremely wicked and reckless to spare what he needs. There is the sin of absent-mindedness, to which we are all greatly susceptible; We must not forget it and repent of it: we indulge in absent-mindedness not only at home, but also in church. Simon! Simon! Behold, Satan asked to sow you like wheat, but I prayed for you, so that your faith would not fail [Lk. 22, 31 – 32]. The culprit of absent-mindedness is the devil and our many different passions for everyday, earthly things; its reason is lack of faith; The remedy against it is fervent prayer. The holy people of God, starting with the Mother of God, are all deified, that is, He moved into them, united with them, dissolved, so to speak, and all the Lord became in them. I will dwell in them and walk in them (2 Cor. 6:16). He who is united with the Lord is one spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17). Likewise, Christians living on earth are deified; they are His body [Eph. 1, 23 ], He is their Head; they eat His most pure Body and drink His Blood, and in them is His spirit, His Divinity. What kind of spirit should Christians, especially priests, have! What should we think at a time when the priest stands before the holy reserved Gifts and before the sick person preparing to receive them, and before everyone present? We must think about God’s immeasurable love for the human race, His extreme condescension towards us, His suffering and death for us and the deification of our nature, and look with extreme respect at the sick person preparing for union with the Lord through communion, as well as at all the Christians who are here, who are also fellow members of the Divinity of Christ and His members. Remember what old beauty is. Cover your neighbor's sins - the Lord will cover yours, just as He does. Teach and judge others less: everyone has their own teacher and judge - conscience and God. Everyone will give a word about themselves to God. Everyone also has their own teacher - a Guardian Angel. So, see that you do not despise one of these little ones who believe in Christ; for I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of My Father in heaven [Matt. 18, 10]. The devil cunningly instills in us to notice the sins of our neighbor in order to embitter us, irritate us against him, despise him (instead of being irritated with the devil), in order to thus keep us in constant enmity with our neighbors and with the Lord God Himself. Therefore, we must despise sins and mistakes, and not our neighbor, who commits them according to the teachings of the devil, but we must pity our neighbor, with meekness, with love, admonish him as someone who has forgotten himself or as someone who is sick, as a captive, a slave of his sin. But our malice and contempt for our neighbor who sins only increases his illness, oblivion, his spiritual captivity, and does not reduce it, and it makes us seem insane, sick, captives of our own passions and the devil, their culprit. I'm proud, I need to humble myself. Look, with what meekness, with what humility, your simple mother communicates with you, speaks to you, with what kindness. What are you doing with your learning? - You are deceitful, angry, proud, angry, narcissistic, envious, stingy, covetous, consider yourself worthy of a lot, while you are not worthy of the smallest, the slightest. Man cannot be compared with all the sweets and treasures of the earth, for he is infinitely more valuable, above all the sweets and treasures of the earth. Therefore, it is godless to spare anything for a person who needs our property. Respect for the mother should be as natural as breathing air. Humble yourself before your mother, consider yourself insignificant compared to her with all your knowledge, with all the importance of your rank, for these are all gifts from God that you have not deserved, and you yourself are a nonentity, a sin, an abomination. She is the image of God as a person and as a mother (parent), as a member of Christ. She is meek, humble, silent, simple-hearted, which is of great value before God, but you are crafty, proud, contemptuous, envious, greedy, stingy, covetous, absent-minded, etc., which is an abomination before God. Oh, what a sacred and honorable name is mother! What she did for you, how infinitely much! Who loves you as sincerely as she does? Who honors like she does? Who is simple-hearted like her? If you want your friends and relatives to be happy with you when you come to them, and at any time, be happy with everyone at all times, since you are the owner of the house, the boss, etc. Remember that man is a priceless, infinitely higher being than all earthly beings, before whom the entire abyss of earthly goods is nothing, dust. Always greet those who come to you with joy, even if they come to you often, and do not at all quarrel over anything earthly. We are one body, our Head is Christ. And He said: By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another [Jn. 13, 35]. Listen to your heart, notice the whispers of the enemy, the action of his intrigues in the heart - and do not follow them for a moment. Be kind to everyone. I thank You, Lord, who victoriously in the power of Your fortress granted me to perform the Liturgy, partake of the Divine Mysteries, and teach two classes at the gymnasium (fourth and third). Friday. May 20, 1866. But take away the sinful impurity that has come to me. How long will food and drink be the cause of hostility towards a brother? How long will I break the commandment of my Sweetest Savior because of corruptible sweets? How long will I not despise them? Lord, help, confirm, intercede, save! To feel sorry for something comes from the word sting, burned 56. Love, addiction to earthly things stings, burns, scorches our insides. To feel sorry for someone again comes from a sting: hence the sting of love, the sting of love. You don’t need to feel sorry for anything, you need to feel sorry for everyone, somehow: those subject to sins, or those wounded by the sting of death, the mourning, the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the orphaned, the unfortunate. So, don’t feel sorry for anything, but feel sorry for everyone. He is not a Christian who spares everything good for his neighbor (and everything beautiful for him is the crown of creation, and was created) and does not spare his neighbor. He who does not tolerate guests coming to him without any good reason is like those insane people (in the prophet) to whom the Lord said: as if you alone were settled on earth [Is. 5, 8]. That is, he is a vain person who would like to live alone in the world and enjoy everything alone. But a Christian must be sociable, he must remember the first Christians, whose heart and soul were one and all in common. It seems to a greedy person, a polyvore, that everyone who comes to him comes to eat and drink, and that they will devour and drink him, whereas he would be ready to devour and drink everyone. Look at him when he eats and drinks: he eats and drinks a lot, greedily, not paying attention to anyone, to anyone’s speech; he devoted himself wholeheartedly to delicious foods and drinks; the spiritual side of him sleeps, is in mortification, only the bodily, animal side is alive. This means that a greedy person should not suspect others of excessive eating and heavy drinking and be indignant at them, but he should be indignant at himself for his greed and stinginess, but accept everyone in the simplicity of his heart, with joy, without thinking about food and drink. So the sign of every sinner is that he lashes out at everyone for the slightest sins, but he himself does not see even his very serious sins, for the eyes of his heart are blinded by passions. And the sign of a righteous person is that he always covers up the sins of others, but reveals and mourns his own, considering himself the first sinner. But humility is imputed to him as truth. I thank you, Lord, all-merciful Master, for yesterday during the all-night vigil you delivered me from the kindled, great evil of demons and did not completely disgrace my face. The reason for the anger was anger at the sexton for forgetting the Breviary for the prayer service, the Breviary, which it would have been convenient to do without, and also for his absurd singing, which is also something external. It was necessary to maintain a peaceful and meek mood of spirit, but I, damned one, did not preserve it. It was necessary to respect and always respect the dignity of a person in the person of the sexton, but I did not respect him and therefore was worthily handed over to the hands of the devil, but I will learn not to be angry with my brother. We humiliate and despise our neighbors in two special cases: firstly, when they eat and drink ours (supposedly), generally watch something without us (although we should consider it happiness that it is not we who look into their hands, but they look from us and that we can serve them, show them love and in their face Christ Himself, and not they to us); secondly, when our neighbors are our subordinates. But may I learn from my Lord Jesus Christ meekness and humility of heart, may I love my neighbor as myself, may I be long-winded, merciful, may I not envy, not be arrogant, not proud, not irritated, etc. Understand, O priest, your high position and dignity, and try to live up to it. In your place, with God’s help, you can do a lot. Thy will be done, because the devil is constantly intensifying his efforts to force and force us to fulfill his murderous will. Hallowed be Thy name, because the devil tries to glorify his blasphemous name in us in his own way; Thy Kingdom come, because the devil constantly strives to establish his devilish dominion in us and over us. You see how a sister wholeheartedly and intelligently serves her brother with her or your gift: do not envy in your heart, do not say: she pleases with my good, but say: this is how I should please everyone, this is how I should be welcoming, hospitable to everyone. Or again: I must imitate the loving and hospitable Abraham. Or say again: food removes me from God; through its distribution, let me draw closer to God. Passions completely distort my nature, my purpose, the purpose of my existence and turn my life into a dream, moreover, the most evil, vulgar, absurd, and the constant anger of the Lord my God, the common Creator, Provider and Savior of all: these passions are primarily carnal pride, pride, malice, envy, stinginess, covetousness, fornication, stubbornness, disobedience, laziness, etc. Christians! Look at the face of the suffering Savior, hanged on the cross for your sake, and weep and lament for your sins, for your infidelities, for your treachery towards Christ! Is this what you render to your Savior? Do you really value the work of your salvation, your redemption? God! I thank You, for You changed the heart of Your servant, Archpriest Paul, to a meek and loving one, and You spoke good things in his heart about me, Your indecent servant, and You inspired him to give a brotherly kiss! God! Give me the grace to look upon him as a father! When is our sincere, Christian love for our neighbor recognized? Then, when a neighbor takes something of ours, and we are not angry with him; when he often asks us for alms, help, our labors, troubles for his own benefit - and we do not become embittered with him; when he sins in something, and we are not angry with him; when he offends us, does injustice to us, persecutes us, harms us, and we are not angry with him and even pray for him. But loving only those who love us is not true love! This means the same thing as loving yourself. What a sweet belly the Lord pours into my entrails, and what a hell, what a scorching, oppressive fire the devil pours out! God! Glory to Your long-suffering, Your mercy! The enemy - the devil - enters predatorily into our hearts as love, the heart's addiction to earthly things (and we are heavenly) - to good clothes, sweets, money, etc., as anger towards our neighbor, as contempt for him, envy, stinginess, pity, etc., as prodigal uncleanness. Seed - from “I sow”: I am from an insignificant seed, I am sown; animals, plants - from seed. Wonderful things! How can a proud, evil, envious, stingy, unclean person be accepted into heaven? Even there he will despise, become embittered, envy, be stingy, have unclean thoughts and poison the bliss of the righteous! No, nothing unclean will enter into it [Rev. 21, 27]. So... let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, practicing holiness in the fear of God (2 Cor. 7:1)! When you pray, eat, read - think, reflect on what you eat, read, say in prayers, feel the power of those words that you say, eat, read, survey with your mental eyes their space and their inner content. “Everyone has his place,” said Father Alexander Lebedev. If we were not in the image of God, then God would not have become incarnate from the Most Pure Virgin. Oh, how exalted is our nature - both in creation and in redemption! Through the incarnation of the Son of God from the Blessed Virgin Mary, God most sincerely united with people. Oh, You, who united the God of the Word to the glorious people of Your birth and united the denied nature of our heavenly race 57 - glory to You, worthy of all intelligent creation, for You have found such purity and grace from God, who are able, by the good will of God the Father, to incarnate the Son of God! But vouchsafe, O Lady, that purity of spirit and body has been achieved for us through the communion of the Divine Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Your Son! Two extremes, equally disastrous, in our society: some of our compatriots adhere too much to the letter of scripture and liturgical books and rituals, others do not recognize either the divine inspiration of the scriptures or the importance of church liturgical books and worship. Some are schismatics, others are heretics, and worse than heretics are true atheists. You know how to turn money capital into circulation and into interest - time, this most precious thing given to us God of capital, why don’t we turn it into proper circulation, why don’t we extract interest from it for eternal life? He who uses his time for deeds of virtue, who lives piously, turns the capital of his time into turnover, into interest. Let us recall the parable of the ten, five, one talents [Lk. 19, 11 – 27]. God! Give me the grace to walk in simplicity of heart, in humility, meekness and gentleness. As if you were the only ones settled on earth [Isa. 5, 8 ]? We must remember that there is one body of many (1 Cor. 10:17). It is not one’s neighbor who must be renounced for one’s material benefit, but oneself one must be renounced and one’s material benefits for the benefit of one’s neighbor. Whose creation, building is the Church? Jesus Christ. I will build My Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it [Matt. 16, 18]. This means that we must deeply respect the entire system, especially the hierarchical order of this Church, as the work of the Spirit of God, sent by Jesus Christ from the Father in His place and guiding the Church into all truth. How unreasonably and impudently do those teachers and societies of Christians act who have separated and are separating from the Church and are building their own churches, are, so to speak, forging their own churches? How dare they separate themselves from the Church created by the Lord Himself? And they also dare to call themselves evangelicals or Catholics or Reformed. They are not Reformed, but anathematists. If he does not listen to the church, then let him be to you as a pagan and a tax collector [Matt. 18, 17]. The Lord will strictly judge all Christian societies that have fallen away from the unity of the Church for their deviation from the Church He created. (The Lord created His Church over the course of thousands of years, throughout the Old Testament and then the New Testament. And heretics reject such and such a building of God and build their own churches.) We are all the work of God, all venerable creatures of God, and we must honor and love each other as ourselves. But let none of us, who have fallen by sin, be exalted, for we are all outside the grace of God, an abomination of sin, children of wrath and curses, everything that we have that is good is from the grace of God, not from us. We should cry about our sins and humble ourselves in front of everyone and always dress in simple clothes, but we are looking for fun, entertainment, are proud of each other, wear clothes of vanity and thus add sins to sins. Oh, damnation! Do not disdain anyone or anything except sin, for everything and everything except sin is the work of the most pure hands of God, the most pure mind of God. To the chosen Voivode - the Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God, victorious, as having been delivered from the evil passions of pride, contempt, malice, envy that tormented me - I will write thanks to You, Your servant, to the Mother of God. But as if you have an invincible power, free me from all troubles. (I knelt down and bowed my face to the floor, reciting the prayer: Undefiled, unblasphemous, etc. and soon after finishing it, I felt relief and freedom from the evil that was spreading inside me, which I carried within me for an hour and a half and could not expel, oppressed, humiliated, tormented by it internally; my face became bright, tender from the grace of the Mother of God.) Beware of eating and drinking often, a lot, in excess: this results in internal trouble, captivity from enemies, strong overwhelm of passions, absorption, infatuation with them, humiliation, decline, narrowness of spirit. The enemy armed me today - I gave it up to my mother [Ps. 130, 2] internally, and for a long time I could not pry out this internal enmity and contempt (two hours). Finally, through my repeated prayer, the Lord had mercy on me. Always honor your mother with affection, always ask for her blessing, kiss her hand with reverence, as the culprit after the God of your existence: the honor given to her returns to God. I am very affectionate to those who feed me, give me something to drink, or give me something from clothes, or money, or any thing at all. But how much more kindly should I be to my father and mother, who, by the will of God, gave me existence, who are my earthly gods after the Lord God, and especially to my mother, with whom I was one flesh, who with tender love milked and fed me. After the Lord God, am I not indebted to my father and mother for the fact that I enjoy life, I can know my Creator, thank and glorify Him, that I can eat food and drink, that I have clothes, money - everything necessary for life. And how can I not be a hundred times more kind to them than to those who treat me and give me something unimportant from earthly goods? For my parents gave me life and preserved this life for me, which could soon fade away from the slightest neglect of them, since it is initially very tender and unconscious. God! You give me the strength to honor my parents according to their heritage and not to disdain them when they are sick or rude, and ignorant, and low in rank and condition, for everything is unimportant compared to the greatest benefit that they bestowed on me. What evil comes from lust and gluttony? The fact that the voluptuous does not have compassion for the suffering and cannot and generally does not have true love for God and neighbor. He is a child of the body, but not a child of the Kingdom of God. It is not the simple mother who must adapt to your urban, artificial life, to your artificial, often ungodly morals, but you - to her simplicity and artlessness. Away with evil eyes! God! Teach me to keep Thy commandments earnestly [Ps. 118, 4]. God! I thank You for the safe passage of two classes, for I am with You! May 24, 1866 God! I thank You for delivering me twice from Your troubles through Your name through the prayer of faith! Treasure for me is Your name, Lord! Spilled myrrh is Your name! It smells fragrant and revitalizes the soul. And what will I repay You for this? Grant me a virtuous life to bring to You, so that, by the grace of Your Spirit, I will be a fragrance to You. Wake up! The perishability and transience of this life and earthly blessings, constantly visible to us, should awaken in us a thirst for incorruptible, spiritual, eternal blessings, and not pity for temporary blessings and sorrow for them. For friendship with the world is enmity against God [Jas. 4, 4]. In word and deed, take sincere, living participation in every person, especially a Christian - both acquaintances and relatives, and strangers, just as you want others to take sincere, kindred, brotherly participation in you, both your own and others, especially take spiritual participation in the spiritual life of a person. You measure according to measure, it will be measured to you, it will be repaid to you [Matt. 7, 2]. And every good thing will return to your bosom in abundance [Lk. 6, 38]. This is confirmed by both Scripture and numerous life experiences. Do not despise anyone, do not disdain anyone, no matter how someone seems to live dissolutely, but take part in a person the more, the more dangerous the situation he is in. The Lady is the fullness of the Divinity of Christ, the fullness of Him who fills all in all [Eph. 1, 23]. The Son of God put on the whole of me as a man, so that I, a man, could put on the whole of God and be deified. Wonderful things! Wonderful creation I am! Wonderful goodness, wisdom, omnipotence of the Lord! When someone causes you any offense in word or deed, do not be indignant in spirit and do not be irritated with the offender, as happens to you - this is the devil playing with both the offender and you, but, having recognized the temptation that is happening over both of you, arm yourself with courage and patience and consider this offense to be passing smoke that has flown out of hell and pray to the Lord for the offender, so that he will recognize his sin and so that he does not perish for his grievances, so that Satan does not completely captivate him and entangle him in his net. If you have to talk to the offender, speak calmly, kindly, with a voice of conviction, and not zeal and irritation, coo like a dove, and not bark like a dog - and you will change the offender into a friend. Experience. Will we then appreciate the blessings of life that we now enjoy when we are deprived of them? God forbid. Let us quickly appreciate them now, and thank the Lord, and let us use the gifts of the Lord according to His will, and moreover, let us love each other diligently from a pure heart, and let us not live in malice and enmity and envy. For, tell me, will we then know the greatness of virtue - love, when we are tormented by anger, pride, envy and other passions? Will we then recognize the greatness and benefits of mercy when we are not able to do deeds of mercy? God forbid. So, as long as we have time, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who belong to the family of faith [Gal. 6, 10]. Saints are gods by the grace of the Lord God, for they are deified. God became man, and may He make man god, says the Holy Church. Stichera for the Annunciation. “I rekh,” says holy David the prophet, by the Holy Spirit, “you are naturally gods, and you are all sons of the Most High [Ps. 81.6]. The gods are purely Christians living on earth, especially sanctified persons - bishops and priests. These are truly like gods on earth: they have the power to resolve and bind sins, to celebrate the greatest mystery - the Eucharist, through which they themselves are constantly adored, and they adore others; they revive through baptism a spiritual, holy life and make people, children of the body, children of God, children of the Kingdom of Heaven; they enlighten with the light of the Gospel teaching those sitting in the land and the shadow of death; they drive away the darkness of passions, guide them on the path of truth, on the eternal path, they lead honesty ό e 58 from the unworthy, from the depths of vice to the path of virtues. Therefore, we must deeply reverence bishops, priests, and deacons and thank the Lord for the establishment of these godlike degrees on earth. The sovereign is the head of the state, and the state is, so to speak, the golden ark of the Christian Orthodox faith. How venerable an Orthodox sovereign should be to us, both as a king and as a guardian of the faith and the Church of Christ! So, let us pray for the king, so that we may live a quiet and quiet life in all piety and purity (1 Tim. 2:2). Walk in the midst of your home in simplicity of heart and kindness [Ps. 100, 2], wish everyone contentment and rejoice in the contentment of your family and their health, peace and well-being; nevertheless, look at all earthly blessings as rubbish, do not feel sorry for them and do not cleave to them with your heart, but cleave to the one God, the infinite life. If God's creation is so beautiful, then how much more beautiful must the Creator be? If His creatures are so sweet, then how much sweeter is the Creator Himself? And for all His blessings, given to us, shouldn’t we cleave to Him alone? Truly. And consider everything earthly as rubbish. As much as God has elevated our nature, the enemy tries to humiliate it with many different passions and addictions of life: pride, arrogance, malice, envy, stinginess, gluttony, drunkenness, fornication, covetousness, disobedience and others. Hence it is necessary to always resist the devil. Why do we spare others the sweets of food and drink? To be greedy ourselves, to enjoy ourselves, to be satiated, means that we are committing a sin for a new sin. How we anger the Creator! Where is the love commanded by the Savior, love that does not seek its own 59? Where is the crucification of the flesh with passions and lusts? Where is the love for your neighbor as for yourself? Why is it commanded to love your neighbor as yourself? Because he, like me, is in the image of God, he is like me in everything, he is of the same blood with me, he is a member of Christ. There is another glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, another of the stars... (1 Cor 15:41). This means that the saints are as bright as the sun, moon, and stars! Oh, Lordship of the saints! Oh, the blessedness of the saints, endless, unchangeable, never passing! What does everything earthly mean? One shadow, a brief dream, a dream of the imagination, a momentary play of the flesh. The Lord is in the heart - that’s all: all life, peace, our bliss - everything else is given to us without our care, care, or sorrow. Just always have God in your heart and instill the same in others. Sorrows about everyday things are just madness, a dream, a paradox. How, through my pride, arrogance, malice, envy, stinginess, disobedience, intemperance, fornication, lies, deception and other passions, will the devil rise above the image of God as man is (me and my neighbors), and in his person above God Himself - and I will endure this, I will allow various passions to act in me, through which the devil dominates the inheritance of God? Or do I have no mind, no free will, that the devil will play me like a pawn? God! Let this not happen. God! Crush Satan under our feet soon. God! I thank You for the wondrous salvation that You sent me through my prayer in Semgina’s class. I despised for a moment one poor boy who entered the class, and insincerely, hypocritically said to him: hello, child, - and a crafty and evil demon attacked me and deprived me of peace, boldness and freedom, bringing confusion, crampedness, darkness, shame, humiliation into my soul; but we prayed to You (prayer before the beginning of the teaching), I realized the equality before You of all people, sonship in Christ, honorability, greatness of each person as the image of God and a member of Christ, and You left the wickedness of my heart and pacified me, and You gave me a bold, bright, healthy word, and enlightened my face, and You made all Your children dear to me, so kind, so that I would not part with them. You made my children just as kind to me at Yakovleva’s boarding house and gave me the same free speech. But drive away from Me forever, O Lord, the spirit of contempt and arrogance and give me the spirit of meekness and humility, for am I not the worst of all, am I not truly the last of all, the most evil of all? You cannot turn everyone to Christ on the path of salvation, for everyone is free, and Christ God Himself does not force anyone to follow His path, but advises, convinces, and pleases. Save yourself, and only rebuke others, admonish them with meekness: if they listen, that’s good; if they don’t listen, they themselves will answer for it; nothing will be exacted from you. (What is the value of torment alone, the corruption of an immortal soul as a result of stinging sweets, zeal for sweets. Because of this torment, because of this corruption of the soul, one must completely despise all sweets, for unclean rubbish, to consider them: they are good, but clinging to them is evil.) It’s enough for you to indulge in madness and hypocrisy - to be indignant in spirit because your family eats meat during Lent. Hold on to love and do not be angry with those who sin; Is it because of this waste - that is, food and drink - that we will pollute our souls with passions, deprive ourselves of love and peace with our neighbors? Is it because of this rubbish that we will give room to the devil within ourselves? Wouldn't it be a greater sin to be hostile to one's neighbor than to eat food? Prudently jump over the obstacles put in front of you by the devil and the evil flesh. Guard your heart, for from that belly comes forth [Prov. 4, 23]. Is it a luxury to give servants one cup of sweet tea or coffee at a time? And what does it cost? Very small. But man is the image of God, the crown of creation, a priceless being, redeemed by the priceless blood of the Son of God, and all earthly sweets are for him, and paradise of sweets, and the endless sweets of heaven are prepared for him. What madness to spare anything for him! What audacity! What an indignation against the Creator! We must rejoice that a person, even our servant, receives sweets from our hands, and consider it an honor to satisfy and delight him, so beloved by God, Who is an endless sweetness for those who love Him. How crazy we are! We spare carnal sweets for our neighbor and reap spiritual bitterness within ourselves! And rightly so! Are our sweets, and not God’s, are they given to us alone, and not to our neighbors together, by God? The Lord gives us tune, and we share tune with others. But here’s what’s amazing, wild and crazy! We want to make the share of our neighbors smaller so that our share is greater, so that we can give as much as possible to our flesh, although this is extremely harmful for both the flesh and the spirit. Therefore, a true Christian squanders the gifts of God for the benefit of his neighbors, treasures up oil for himself on the day of the meeting of the Bridegroom of souls - Christ, and leaves as little as possible for his own benefit. He extracts from his possessions the fruit of love, may he bring this sweet fruit to Christ the King, who loved us to death and gave us His most sweet and most pure Body and most pure Blood for food and drink, may we not spare anything of our own, our sweets to our neighbor, who is His member and ours, may we unite as one spiritual body and may we not spare anything for each other, may we trample on everything earthly goods are the will of the heart, like dust, and we will not be one body with this dust - a body with the devil, whose dream is to cleave our hearts to the dust of the earth and plant in our hearts enmity against God in the face of His image - man and suddenly arm us both against God and against man! My God! What a great man - a true Christian! Just think that he was born of God, that he is a child of God in Christ and one with Christ! For it is said: He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood abides in Me, and I in him [Jn. 6, 56]. Soul of the soul, fire, penetrating charcoal or coal. God in the heart is our life and bliss! Love for God and neighbor, disdain for everything earthly as transitory and perishable - this is the true wisdom and life of man! Grant this, Lord! The Lord, our Guardian, has continually cared, is caring, and will continue to care for us. For He Himself said: I will never leave you nor forsake you [Heb. 13, 5]. How perverse earthly life is! Here in the same house there lives contentment and wealth and joy, but here there is extreme poverty and poverty, and the rich do not care about the poor; here they are healthy and cheerful, but here they are sick and sad; here man was born into the world, and here man left the world; here is wedding rejoicing, and here is funeral singing; here there is dancing, and here there are tears; here are songs of joy, and here are sobs of sorrow! This is what our earthly life is like! How changeable she is! Or here are rich outfits, and here are dirty, torn rags! Die for everything earthly, but you will come to life for everything heavenly. Walk in simplicity of heart. Mortify the belly and revive the soul. Sy 60 – The Lord Jesus Christ is all in all. Why should we worry? What do we hope for in soulless things? Why not the Giver of all blessings, the Nourisher of all creatures? Why do we listen in our hearts to the insane suggestions of the devil, the enemy of God and men, the father of all lies, the dreamer, the proud, the envious, the miser, the adversary and the disobedient? Is it possible to equate incomparable things: a person and sweets, a person and money, a person and clothes, a person and furniture, etc.? And this is being done. A person becomes lower than all this. I don’t spare anything for sweets, clothes, furniture, but I don’t spare anything to give clothes and bread to the truly poor. And this is what those gifted by the Creator with the mind, image and likeness of God do? And this is what Christians, called children of God, do? Judgment without mercy to those who showed no mercy; mercy exalts itself over judgment [Jas. 2, 13]. The abomination of man is the abomination of the works of the hands of the Creator, while the Lord created all things with wisdom [Ps. 103, 24] and all good things [Gen. 1, 31 ]; this is the devil’s oppression of the Creator through us. How crazy and flighty we are! We are seduced by beauty, whiteness, tenderness, ruddy skin, somewhat exposed breasts (in a woman), but we abhor dark, rough skin, especially if a simple woman has somewhat exposed breasts - a mutual sin! O pride of sweetness! O voluptuousness! This is all from the sweets that are at war in our lives, from the addiction to bodily beauty. This is all the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life (1 John 2:16)! Forgive our sins, O Lord, enlighten our darkness! Isn't it the same earth - a tender and beautiful body and a rough and ugly body, isn't there the same pus and dust: where is the difference in the tomb? To abhor sin: pride, malice, envy, fornication - that’s what! We must abhor the devil, be embittered at the devil, and not at the person against whom the devil breathes malice; we must feel sorry for our enemies, have mercy on them, be lenient towards them, pray for them: for they do not know what they are doing. We must consider ourselves worthy of insults, reproaches, reproaches, curses from our neighbors because of our sins: we will accept what is worthy for our evils - pride, our envy, etc. If we receive good things from the hand of the Lord, will we not tolerate the evil ones? [Job. 2, 10]. So, forget to think about anyone or abhor anything except sin and its culprit, for everything is the work of God’s hands; Equally, do not be angry with anyone except the devil, for he is the culprit of all evil: man is a pitiful instrument of his malice, not knowing what he is doing. How can you especially abhor the flesh of your mother, from whom you yourself received flesh? We must remember that the Lord Himself became incarnate and sanctified and magnified human flesh. How our flesh is glorified in the relics of the saints! They are even on the throne, in the Body and Blood of the Lamb of God! Christ is in all things and in all [Col. 3, 11] - how can I dare to disdain and despise anyone, and how and because of what? Syi! In everyone and in everything I will kiss You, honor You, for everything is from You! Away with old charm - pride and disgust! God! I thank You, for today (May 29, Sunday) You helped me to perform the Divine Liturgy without stumbling, although under difficult circumstances of spirit and body, and then a prayer service to the Iveron Icon of the Mother of God. God! I thank You, for You saved me from cramped conditions and sorrow in the apartment of the customs official Alexei Puchkov, before the prayer service for the prayer of faith; I thank You, for You saved me in the house after afternoon tea, forgiving me of my sin with a word! Long-suffering, All-Merciful, glory to You! Teach me patience too! How humble and meek is my father-in-law, old man! But I am proud and daring before him! Alas for me, a sinner who has become bored! He is an old man and my father, and who am I? - a worm, not a man, a reproach of men and humiliation of people [Ps. 21, 7]. Is it because of bread and salt, tea and sugar, or money that I am proud? Shouldn’t I, out of great gratitude to my father, humble myself before him and rejoice that in my old age I can serve him, who served so much for me, who gave me his place, his daughter, his property! God! Forgive me my great sins and teach me to honor my father with the honor befitting his rank, his old age, the title of my father, to be sincerely grateful to him, meek and humble before him! This is righteous! Why should I feel sorry for him? Is it an ordinary, daily serving of sweet tea? It won't happen. I don’t regret it for myself – and neither do he. Will I be tempted by such trifles? And is the Lord not sending it to me? Isn't he rewarding? Yes, I am jealous of love, but I consider the feeling of enmity towards one’s neighbor to be a great crime, [...], internal murder. Behold, whatever is good or whatever is good, let brothers and sisters live together! [Ps. 132, 1]. The Lord is pleased with family peace, the unanimity of members of the family, society, state, and Church. Common, unanimous prayer is pleasing to the Lord! How easy it is to pray! What peace, what joy for the soul! Glory to Thee, Lord, for everything, and for common and concordant prayer at home and in church! Grant that we may always please You. Those who say that church meetings are not needed should be brought to reason. Do you always pray willingly, do you give credit to every word of prayer, do you willingly, humbly, with faith, hope and love pronounce the words of prayer; Do you willingly, firmly, and with respect pronounce in prayer the names of your parents, sovereign, empress, heir, your superiors or mentors, relatives and all those connected with you by spiritual and carnal ties? Do you pronounce with reverence and love the names of the saints whom you call upon to reinforce your prayer, to be intercessors and prayer books for you and for other people? You measure according to the measure, it will be measured to you: your prayer will return to your bosom. And mother, as a mother, is greater than me, because I am her son, and the cross with which she blesses me is infinitely higher than me, for it is the power of God and, so to speak, Christ Himself. Therefore, it is worthy and righteous for my mother to bless me, even though I am a priest. But, as from a priest, she also asks for my blessing: thus, we are mutually God’s, and our beginning and end are God. As soon as I stretched out my hands of heart and body to the living God with faith and hope for the gift of rain, I only said: Lord! send rain to the thirsty earth, for in Your right hand are all the elements - and soon on the same day, about four hours later, the rain poured down. Glory to You, Lord, for you listen to the voice of the worm: for I am a worm, and not a man - a worm, for I creep on the earth and in the earth, and cling to the earth, and I live more on the earth than on the heavenly. Woe to those who despise shepherds and archpastors individually, especially woe to those who despise their most holy assembly (Synod), for he who despises shepherds and archpastors despises the Chief Shepherd Himself - Christ, who gave them and the Holy Spirit who established them. Therefore, we must honor shepherds and archpastors with great honor, so that we may be participants in the grace given to them from God - teaching, the Sacraments, shepherding, guidance to eternal life. With boldness, with strength, with firmness, one must pronounce in prayer the names of the shepherds or the archpastor and their most holy government class (Synod). God gave my mother the right to bless me, my son. I respect my right, I stand for it - I must respect my mother’s right and always be faithful to it, so that it will be good for me. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord [Prov. 9, 10]. Acquire the fear of God, so that you will be wise. If you are poor in Christian wisdom, that is, virtues, ask with undoubted faith from the Mother of Hypostatic Wisdom, the Most Holy Virgin Theotokos, Who is always near us, like God, and you will receive. From experience. Ask for the Hypostatic Wisdom Itself. That I, the accursed one, do not thank the Lord for saving Him through His truth, through His name? He saved me from inner malice and contempt for respectable persons and family members. We are one body of many under the Head Christ (1 Cor. 10:17). Oh, the ancient charm of pride and malice! God! I thank You for saving me twice in class (sixth) and for giving me peace and boldness, for saving me upon leaving the class on the way to home through Your name and my faith, together with Yours, for my faith is from You and in You. Then for repeated rescues in the evening at home. O my Jesus, the abyss of my salvation, the abyss of mercy, love, generosity - glory to You! May 30, 1866. The spirit of addiction to earthly goods and pity for them is truly the spirit of the devil. One must be indifferent to them, despise them, consider them for dust, but be ardent towards God and one’s neighbor for God’s sake, caring for his soul, which is the image of God. How will we be diligent about the soul of our neighbor when we are negligent about satisfying his bodily needs? How shall we lay down our souls for him, when we spare for him our material property, which is dust, when we madly prefer earthly things to man created in the image of God, when we exchange for dust the king of the earth, rational, endowed with freedom, destined for immortality, for the eternal kingdom with Christ, for cohabitation with the Angels and saints! Having entered the church and seeing the faces of the Lord, the Mother of God and the saints, remember the words of the Apostle addressed to us believers: you are no longer strangers and strangers, but fellow citizens of the saints and members of God, having been established on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, having Jesus Christ Himself as the cornerstone [Eph. 2, 19 – 20], or: you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem and ten thousand angels, to the triumphant council and church of the firstborn written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant [Heb. 12, 22 – 24]. The church clearly represents this truth. This is who we are, my Christian brothers, this is what kind of society we are! Isn’t the whole earth, all its blessings, dust before us and for us? Isn’t it low, isn’t it humiliating, isn’t it crazy for us to have a heart attachment to these goods? Shouldn’t our heart constantly be the church of God? Shouldn't the fire of love for God burn unceasingly on the altar of our hearts? Shouldn’t our heart be a living, burning, fragrant censer? But we want to completely extinguish it and many, many of us have already extinguished it - as if we want it not only not to be fragrant with the incense of faith, hope, love, but as if we want it to stink with the stench of unbelief, lack of faith, hopelessness for resurrection and a better life, for retribution for evil and virtue, malice, pride, envy, covetousness, stinginess, uncleanness, lies, laziness, gluttony and other passions. Let us come to our senses, my brethren, let us awaken from spiritual sleep and let us be sober for the rest of our lives, for judgment is at the door and the throne of the Lord Almighty is prepared for judgment. Seeing on the icons the Savior depicted with the blessing right hand, with the orb in His hand, let us remember the words of the troparion for the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos; From You rose the Sun of righteousness, Christ our God, and having destroyed the oath, given blessing, and abolished death, giving us eternal life, and the words of Isaiah the prophet: He is the One who sits over the circle of the earth, and those who live on it are like locusts before Him; He stretched out the heavens like a thin cloth and spread them out like a tent to live in. He turns the princes into nothing, makes the judges of the earth into something empty [Isa. 40, 22 – 23]. We must rejoice that God will send someone to us and we will serve the Lord Himself in the person of our neighbor, for we [please] the Lord in the person of our neighbor: we are all His members. Just as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me [Matt. 25, 40]. Whether guests or beggars come to you, receive them and serve them with a bright face. Realize the idea of ​​the Church in yourself and in others. Constantly look with your mental eyes at the Head of the Church, Jesus Christ. Our church beautifully depicts the Church - a gathering of believers and saints under the Head and wing (roof) of Christ God, the Head of the Church. The Head of the Church means the Head - Christ; the roof of the church is [...] Christ, the walls of stones or trees are saints and us, the foundation of the church is again Christ, the apostles and prophets. Don’t you allow meat during Lent so that your prodigal flesh will lust more and be defiled in sleep and in reality? Oh, how good is fasting, the cause of purity, chastity and mortification, vigil and prayer, mercy and other virtues, for the one who fasts perceives human feelings and becomes more compassionate and merciful! The Mother of God, as having infinitely loved purity, meekness, humility and every other virtue, infinitely abhors all sin. She wants this from us, Her children. And the dreamer, the devil, blasphemes the name of the Most Pure One in the voluntary or involuntary instruments of his blasphemy - human hearts! Scoundrel, slanderer! When he tells a lie, he speaks his own way, for he is a liar and the father of lies, the teacher of all uncleanness [Jn. 8, 44]. Let us hate, my brethren, sin with all our souls, with all our hearts, with all our thoughts, and let us love with all our hearts virtue and the source of all virtue, goodness and bliss - God, the Most Pure Mother of God, the sun of virtues, the holy Angels of the Lord, like the sun in their purity, and the holy people of God, like the sun or stars in their shrines and virtues, let us glorify Lord, who lives in unapproachable light, may we please Him and become heirs of the promised benefits. Why braid your hair? To fornicate? Let not your adornment be the outward braiding of your hair, or gold headdresses, or finery in clothing, says the Apostle (1 Pet. 3:3). God! So another time, in the simplicity and strength of faith and hope, I prayed to You for the gift of rain, and another time You fulfilled my humble and faithful prayer, as You fulfill all my prayers for Your glory. I thank You, O all-merciful, all-powerful, ever-living, benevolent, condescending King! But what is a man who remembers him, or a son of man who visits him and listens to his prayer? [Ps. 8, 5]. But you do not disdain anyone or anything, for your whole essence is, Lord, Lover of Souls! (Wisdom of Solomon.) Do not spare anything for a person, for a person is infinitely dear: give the whole world for him, and even little. Everything in the world is for him. And we regret it, we stingy for him. I thank You, Lord, for Your salvation, which was revealed to me through my prayer in front of Your image that I have in my prayer room. Do not cease, my Jesus, to save me, to revive me, who have been killed by sins, to pacify and delight me. May 31, 1866 In your father and mother, respect the dignity and rights of man, father, mother, members of the Church and citizens of society equal in rights with other members. Give everyone their due. When the enemy touches your heart with the sting of pity for sweets, or money, or the clothes of your neighbor, say with firmness in your heart to the Lord: You, Lord, are my eternal sweetness, my inexhaustible treasure, my bright, imperishable clothing: to You alone is it possible to cleave. Human! You are like a swimmer floating on a fragile shuttle in the middle of a large, fast river in a strong wind: with the slightest inattention to yourself and your actions, you are in danger of being overturned into the river along with the shuttle by the force of this incessantly fierce wind and choking on the river waves. For the constant action of passions in us is truly like a great, destructive storm, and we with our flesh are like a man in a fragile boat, but our daily life is a fast-flowing river, rushing us with our deeds into the boundless ocean of eternity; gusts of passion - gusts of strong wind; captivity by passions, drowning in passions, darkening of passions - drowning in the river. Let my soul rejoice in the Lord, for he has clothed me with the robe of salvation, and clothed me with the robe of gladness, as you put a crown on me like a bridegroom, and adorn me with beauty like a bride [Isa. 61, 10 ] 62 . My kamilavka is my crown, my sacred clothes are the vestments of salvation, the clothes of joy. But in the spiritual sense, my crown is Christ and the robe of joy, the robe of salvation, is Him. All of you who were baptized into Christ have put on Christ [Gal. 3, 27]. Teach me, Lord, to serve You with firmness, so that I pronounce every word of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving firmly, with all my soul! Wake up! Talk with the Lord as often as possible and little by little you will become like Him: from the Meek you will learn meekness, from the All-Good - goodness, from the All-Wise - wisdom, from the Almighty you will receive strength, from the Long-suffering you will learn patience, from the Blessed - bliss. You will be chosen with the chosen [Ps. 17, 27]. Like the stinking air in a room, not refreshed by the outside air, is the stench of passions in a person, not purified by the spirit of prayer, repentance and tenderness of the heart. We purify and change the air in our home - it is all the more necessary to purify and change the spiritual air in the soul: to drive out the spirit of malice and be filled with the Holy Spirit through fervent prayer and through the Sacraments. Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord [Eph. 5, 18 – 19]. I work for you unceasingly, says the Lord, I work daily, every minute, having given birth to you 63 by water and the Spirit, I enlighten your mind, I act on your feelings, I feed you with My word, My Body and Blood; I prepare bread and various fruits for your food and enjoyment, pouring out life-giving air for your rest, I constantly refresh, moisturize, and dilute it; I enlighten you with the light of My sun, depicting the unapproachable light of My Divinity; I have prepared many different and many kinds of substance for your garments; you are adorned with the works of My hands, with the works of the art of My creatures, which I have taught; I will give you rest in your houses, which many of you have like kings; I save you from sins, I prepare eternal mansions. - What are you doing for Me? How do you work and serve Me, what do you reward Me for all this? You do not want to know Me, or you blaspheme My name, despise My word, My commandments and live in pride and malice, envy and stinginess, in covetousness and intemperance, in laziness and debauchery, in idleness and absent-mindedness. If you have any hopes, then tell me, what do you hope for in the future with this way of your life? Or are you, like animals, without any hope? This is what you hope from Me: if you continue to live like this, I will come to you like a thief, and I will tear you in half and put your part with the infidels: there will be inconsolable crying and eternal gnashing of teeth [Lk. 12, 46; 13, 28]. What does ordinary food mean without the spiritual food of the Body and Blood of Christ, faith in God, without sincere prayer, without the word of God, the writings of the holy fathers? “Nothing better than the dirt that is under our feet, and our very body too.” What does ordinary drinking or all drinks mean without drinking the true - the Blood of Christ, without singing and spiritual songs? One heaviness, one decay, sometimes an increase in sins. Therefore, be zealous for the meat of the Lord, for the drink of the Lord. Oh, what a blessing is faith in God, prayer or conversation with God, the Body and Blood of Christ, reading the word of God, the scriptures of the Fathers! They revive, enlighten, facilitate, pacify, liberate, delight, spread the spirit and body. So, let us love abstinence, fasting and prayer, which drive away passions, and let us cleave by faith to the Lord, to His word, we will engage in spiritual contemplation and meditation, be diligent in reading the writings of the holy fathers and practice all acts of virtue. Look at food and drink as dirt and dust, and at the person who eats them as a king and owner, as the image of God, as the manager of everything on earth... Let us create man in Our image and likeness, and let him possess... all the earth [Gen. 1, 26]. Who are you, encroaching on the rights of the image of God and at the same time your own? Who are you, fool, who spares the gifts of God for your neighbor, the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the homeless, when you have these gifts in abundance? Who are you, the devil? God! I thank You, because after an unpeaceful and insolent, sad state of mind due to my many sins, You made me peaceful and daring for the duration of two classes (in the fifth grade). June 3 days. 1866. God! Our whole life, our peace, our bliss, our space, our freedom is in a heartfelt conversation with You through prayer, in heartfelt attention to Your word, in the communion of Your Holy Mysteries. But the clinging of the heart to sweets, rich, beautiful clothes, to the decorations of the home, the utensils of the home, to money - sorrow, languor and ruin of the spirit, darkness, crampedness and slavery - in a word, the death of the spirit. [June] 3 1866. Confession of this truth is peace of the heart. Grant me, Lord, to humiliate myself in every possible way, to be embittered at myself alone, as at sheer pride, malice, the abomination of fornication - in a word, the receptacle of all sin, envy, stinginess, covetousness, love of money, gluttony, gluttony, drunkenness, disobedience, disrespect, laziness, negligence about the spiritual and about business. your rank; absent-mindedness, carelessness, idleness, parasitism, ingratitude, partiality, material addiction, hypocrisy and many other sins, countless of them. How should we look at God's holy men? Like new people, clean from the aphids of sin, whitened by the blood of the Lamb, enlightened by the light of God, fragrant with the sanctity of the Holy Spirit like cedars and cypresses. Alas for us, sinners, corrupted, stinking sinners! Rich people can be whimsical, capricious and angry. God! Your love covers and cleanses the multitude of my great sins, but I do not want to cover the small sins of my brother, father and mother! Alas for me, wretched one! And not only do I not cover up my neighbor’s sins, but I reveal them, increase them, and turn his slightest infirmities into an excuse for anger towards him. Alas for me, wretched one! O thorn of Satan! When will you become dull? When will you disappear? God! Plant Thy holiness, Thy grace, Thy meekness, Thy patience into our hearts! God! We have no peace from sin and from the wiles of the enemy! The blessings of the world - because they are gifts of a good God, and with a good heart one must give them to one’s neighbor. Renounce your heart, your will, your sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell for the sake of the glory of God, that is, let the sensations of all senses be like nothing to you. The devil is an evil, simple spirit, through a moment of sight and through an empty thing (some movement in our neighbor) produces in us either a feeling of anger towards him, or a feeling of fornication, or envy and stinginess, etc., through empty things, plunging us into grave sins! O fiend of God's creation! Oh, a creature that has perverted its bright nature, the most evil of all people in its own way, an example to spew out intensifying! Protect us from him, Lord! Take him, the unclean dog, away from us, Your servants! Do not impute your heartfelt wisdom to anything, for example, when kissing your mother’s hand, you hate her hand because she is black and rude, and that the mother herself is too simple and uneducated, and her speech is rude and simple, and her face. But this simplicity simply has a heart, which in you, an educated person, is deceitful; These hands are black and rough, but more honorable than your white ones, because blackness and roughness have stuck to them from hard and many works in the field and at home. This simple and uneducated person is very simple-hearted, kind, meek, humble - she will not contradict or cry out [Matt. 12, 19]. This speech is rude and simple, but it is heartfelt, and yours is polished, artificial, memorized, but not heartfelt - your heart is far away from your interlocutor; her face is rough and simple, and more honorable than yours, because the sun has darkened it, it has become rough from frequent exposure to the air, from sweat, from rough work, while your work is light, spiritual, within the walls of the house. So, do not count your heartfelt wisdom for anything - instead, follow the commandments of God, love Divine wisdom. We are counted as sheep of the slaughter [Ps. 43, 23]: the devil stabs, burns, scorches us with anger, pride, contempt, envy, stinginess, greed, covetousness and other passions every day. We slay all the day long: we are counted as sheep of the slaughter [Rom. 8, 36]. This is what happens to true Christians: they are constantly persecuted by the enemy of men - the devil, persecuting them with his abominations. Simplicity, inconspicuousness. God grant! Kiss your mother’s hand like Christ Himself, for we are all members of Christ. Don't despise anyone at all. Otherwise, we have a habit of despising people whom we have known for a long time (an old, ingrained charm), although the person we have known for a long time is the same as the person we have just known, or perhaps has become even better. So, we are all members of Christ and should live in mutual respect. God! I thank You with all my heart for the grace of the Holy Spirit, poured into my heart during the Sunday all-night vigil (June 4, the Sunday of the Third Week after Pentecost), for the cleansing of sins, the removal of sorrow, tightness and the gift of peace and freedom. The daring of mental and physical space; I thank You for the purification of my passions, for the victory of my powerful enemies. June 5, 1866. Do not worry... what to wear [Matt. 6:31], and I, a pagan at heart, have been looking and looking for what to wear in church, what vestments to wear, and I want to dress as brilliantly as possible. And I worry when the archpriest gives me vestments on a holiday, not according to my wishes. And I forgot the clothes of my soul! O pagan! Slyness does not like simplicity, hates it, persecutes it. But there are wicked people both among the uneducated, simple people, and among the educated. Children who have learned to be wicked also persecute their simple parents, who should be loved all the more the simpler, kinder, more ingenuous, and more affectionate they are. Take away, O Lord, wickedness from our souls. Oh, our deceit is obvious. So the last will be first, and the first last [Matt. 20, 16]. Many of our simple, uneducated men will be the first, and educated, out-of-mind men will be the last. Away with your brilliant appearance, away with external education, eloquence, away with fashionable clothes, a beautiful home, furnishings and everything in the house - give me your inner man, your heart. Although your speech is rude, your face is rude, your gait, your manners, your clothes, [but if] your heart is simple, kind, meek, humble, chaste - I find everything in it. This wisdom is peace, the truth of God! Speak boldly, with respect, to that person and to those people against whom your heart is armed with malice, pride, stinginess, and do not lose heart, do not succumb to these passions: they, like a dream, will disappear, like snow, will melt. When you say litanies or read prayers in church during divine services or during the celebration of the Sacraments, prayers, memorial services, enter first into the spirit of the Church with which she composed these prayers, and in this spirit pronounce them. Thus, enter into the spirit of Vespers, Matins, Liturgy - weekday, Sunday, holiday, into the spirit of Baptism, Confirmation, Repentance, Marriage, Blessing of Anointing, Great and Lesser Blessing of Water, farewell and other prayers and other services. In this way, try to acquire one spirit of life, one main goal of life - pleasing God, saving human souls and your own soul, striving for the Kingdom of Heaven. Undoubtedly, unwaveringly wish for every person as much good as for yourself, especially spiritual goods - a virtuous life and the salvation of the soul. With these good wishes you will continually please God, who sees all the secrets of our hearts. And wish your enemy every good thing, especially since he has the misfortune of being an enemy. Attribute the actions of passions in people not so much to people as to the devil, and pray to the Lord for enlightenment and deliverance from the machinations of the enemy. Judge for yourself how strong the enemy’s intrigues are and how difficult it is to resist his impetuous violence, his whirlwind. Pray with love for your enemies. Prednyaya (Church Slavic) – future. Great Doxology at Matins. Vicissitude is a lie, distortion, perversion of the truth, the true order of things. Irmos of the 9th song of the Sunday canon, tone 8. Belial (Heb.) – lit.: insignificant, worthless. In the Bible this word is applied to all depraved, wicked and evil people, but especially to Satan, as the main culprit of all wickedness and evil. Gobzovati (Church Glav.) – to live in contentment, to be abundant, to abound. Prayer of St. Basil the Great from the sequence of morning prayers. Pr ό sty (Church-Glav.) – meaning whole, indivisible into parts. Rub (Church Slavic) – rag, rags. Burnt - a hot iron for cauterizing something. Prayer to the Most Holy Theotokos at Compline. Honest (church glory) - revered, worthy, revered. Our si (church glory) - ours. Sy (Church Glav.) - the same as Jehovah - one of the names of God, truly (really) existing, abiding, eternal. Lepo (lepotno) (Church Glav.) - decently, as it should, fairly. The prayer of the priest when vesting in the cassock, and the deacon in the surplice. To give birth (Church Glav.) – to revive, to give a new birth (in the Sacrament of Baptism). You might be interested in: