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I thank You, most merciful Lord, for through my prayer you delivered me from the anger and pride of demons, including mine, and you pacified me. Teach, O Lord, my hands to fight, my fingers to fight [Ps. 143, 1]. Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be burdened with gluttony and drunkenness [Lk. 21, 34]. This means that abstinence and fasting make it easier. If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself [Matt. 16, 24], that is, one’s passions and lusts: pride, contempt, malice, envy and ill will, condemnation, covetousness, gluttony and carnality (for example, smoking tobacco, playing cards, visiting theaters, promenades, etc.). Why do we wish evil upon our neighbor, hate him, despise him, envy him? Because of addiction to earthly things, because of covetousness, lust, pride, luxury, pomp. Destroy this attachment, or these passions, and there will be no reason to be hostile to your neighbor. And we turn away from God, we constantly violate God’s commandments, also because of addiction to earthly things, more because of gluttony, covetousness and our pride. Therefore, in order to please God, it is necessary to deny yourself, your self and live for Christ and Christ, be content with the small and necessary, and despise luxury, willingly giving to those in need from your property, not sparing anything necessary for your neighbor, for the earth is the Lord’s, and its fulfillment, the universe and all who live on it [Ps. 23, 1]. Beware lest darkness overtake you, that is, spiritual darkness, evil demons [Jn. 12, 35]. Our priceless Savior! Glory and thanksgiving to You that You save us from this darkness when it surrounds us; You will enlighten us, give us a taste of the fire of Gehenna, and again have mercy on us who repent. The more you please the womb, the more sorrow it brings you, the more it will dominate you tormentingly. Therefore, you must eat in moderation and without greed, and how long will you, priest, engage in this childish fun? For pleasing the belly is truly child's play. It’s time to take up your mind and philosophize on things above, not on earth [Col. 3, 2], it’s time to love fasting. Do you not see how spiritual serpents bite gluttons and intemperate people? Oh, if only we could cleave to heavenly blessings with such strength as we cleave to earthly ones. What would be our bliss instead of our real distress, which we experienced in our souls from worldly addictions! What exaltation of spirit instead of real humiliation, what joy instead of sorrow! By greedily consuming food and drink, sweets, a person thereby buys himself bondage every time and sells his birthright, his sonship, like Esau to Jacob, for one poison [Heb. 12:16], and falls away from love for God and neighbor, and cleaves to earthly things, and through this dissolves with the devil, who embeds his deadly roots deeper and deeper into his heart. Despising our neighbor through us, the devil mocks God's majesty, humiliating the Creator in the work of His hands, in the image of His glory (for example, when we despise our neighbor for the blackness and roughness of his skin, for poverty, painful scabs, etc.) The satiated belly is furious at those who often ask for alms and dares to attack them with its hand. But the flesh needs very little: having food and clothing, we will be content with that (1 Tim. 6:8). Every work of God's hands is honorable, especially man. And good must be done according to the will of God, and not according to one’s own, that is, in this way and as much as God pleases: you would like, for example, to give so much alms to such and such persons, but God sends you a larger number of persons or orders the same person to give several times. She was good, but now she's an old lady. What should excite regret, for example, lack of education, ignorance, old age, often produces in us disgust, contempt, hatred, and education - envy. I myself am one of the ragamuffins: God endlessly lifted me up and raised me through my parents, bosses and mentors and other good people. “I must share the work of raising poor children with my parents.” For teaching noble children you receive a good salary - allocate a significant part of it, although a fourth, to the poor, that is, divide a quarter of the salary monthly among the poor. Give to a beggar who repeatedly asks you for alms each time as willingly as if he came to you for the first time or as the Heavenly Father graciously gives you daily, even though you are unworthy. Help the poor with joy: they are so humble, kind, gentle, patient, learn these virtues from them; You yourself are poor at heart, and your poverty is more important and worse than a hundred times their poverty, for you are proud, and angry, and sated, and covetous, and stingy, and lazy, and a glutton, etc. To save rich sinners, God sent the poor to sell us oil; The more oil we buy, the better. Respect the virtue of mercy, look for an opportunity to do good, do not allow the enemy to destroy the building of alms, willingly and humbly distribute God's property to the poor, that is, your property, do not be irritated with the poor and do not serve the enemy. From the satiety of bread, the Sodomites and Gomorrites were corrupted to the extreme, which is why fasting is highly valued in Christianity as a means and path to all virtue. Photograph: people look at themselves and turn their faces away from God. They care about appearances and turn their eyes away from the inside. As much as the Lord is good and generous to me, I should be kind and generous in my measure towards my neighbor. The Lord gives me eternal life, eternal bliss in His Divine Mysteries, His Body and Blood - will I regret this corruptible trash for the poor, this stone called money! The heavenly spirit must be in me, not the earthly one. The greedy flesh spares alms to the poor in order to become satiated and destroy the soul. We must serve with joy and not look at the sadness and irritation of the flesh: both our flesh and its needs are our idols. The flesh places its hope in money and sweets. But there is one God of our hearts, who abundantly supplies everything for our enjoyment (1 Tim. 6:17). Sow generously, so you will reap generously; alms are the seed. Everything is subdued under the feet of man. Grant me, Lord, to fulfill the commandment to love my neighbor. What a crazy, evil, envious heart! Others eat, that’s why I don’t like them. And I eat and drink greedily. Quit greed! Despise the womb! If for the sake of your neighbor you had to go hungry, it would be good, but due to the generosity of the Lord this did not happen. We are all God’s and everything is God’s – let us live only in love. The Lord's Prayer is the teacher of wisdom, mutual love and all virtue. We must remember her. I thank You, all-good and all-powerful Lady, Most Quick Intercessor, for You delivered me from the cruel and showed me Your heavenly help in teaching the Law of God in the third and fourth grades. Thank you for peace of mind, for boldness, for the gift of words, O Mother of the Word! Through an addiction to brilliant appearance in clothes and housing and carriage, or beauty of face, or to the sweets of food and drink, or through satiety, the devil produces hatred of insignificant people, poor people, who have an unattractive appearance due to old age or by nature. But we must always [give] tribute to the soul, which is the image of God, is a rational, free, immortal spirit. Do not fall into one-sidedness when showing love to your neighbor: do not love only the rich, educated and noble, despising the poor and ignorant, or do not love only the poor, despising the noble and rich. Is there persecution now? Eat. – The devil drives us with pride, contempt, stubbornness, disobedience, hatred of our neighbor and, therefore, our neighbor through us; drives us away with gluttony and greed, insatiable covetousness, luxury, amusements, and generally an addiction to earthly, so-called goods; coldness towards faith and the Church and indifference to the future life or to the future fate beyond the grave; laziness and relaxation towards important matters, desire and haste for empty, earthly things; lack of faith, partiality (pleasant faces, good clothes, manner, tone, ability to speak, in general, external etiquette). Delicious food, elegant clothes, an elegant home, florid, elegant speech, long, well-fed sleep, and elegant utensils in a room with elegant books and so on - a complete disaster for some people: they will despise ugly, uneducated people who do not speak bookish speech, poor and low people: they don’t match the suit, they don’t match the color, they say. Oh, lovely. Ghost sight! Oh, delusion of the mind and heart! Oh, ghosts! Mirages! Lies! The truth is in love and humility, in patience and kindness. The devil vigilantly and vigilantly monitors the relationship of our heart to the two main commandments of the law of God - about love for God and neighbor, and in every possible way and incessantly tries to ensure that we do not love God with all our hearts and forget Him, do not remember and do not feel His benefits and do not love our neighbor as ourselves - on the contrary, so that we are hostile to him at every slightest thing on the part of our neighbor reason, intentional or unintentional, voluntary or involuntary, real or apparent, so that they envy him, are stingy with him, etc. Where there is a neighbor, there the devil tries and plots against him. We must listen to our hearts and show love to our neighbors in every case. Do not forget the words of our Savior: measure accordingly, and it will be measured to you [Matt. 7, 2]. You measure sweetly to others, and they will measure you back in sweetness; you measure to others heartily, in simplicity, and they will measure it back to you in the same way; and one more thing: as you want people to do to you, do so to them [Matt. 7, 12 ]; and again: give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed together, pressed and running over, will be poured into your bosom; For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you [Lk. 6, 38]. The one who knows, the giver, should be most calm; on the contrary, the one who does not give should worry so that he does not lose much. And we must also remember that almsgiving is a seed that will grow and bear fruit a hundredfold [Matt. 13, 8]. Always be as kind to your neighbor as you are to yourself. Inscribe in golden words the commandment: love your neighbor as yourself. The cup is golden - this means it contains the purest gold - the Body and Blood of Savior, and your heart, your soul must be, like gold, pure from all sin, from all worldly addiction, from all malice, pride, envy. Because of my gluttony, I suffered great misfortune during early mass and after the prayer service: I could not read the akathist and the prayer of water blessing. Try by all means to be like the parishioners in the relationship of a father to his children, a shepherd to his sheep. To whom the sheep are not his own... [John. 10, 12]. We are our own sheep from the Good Shepherd - Christ, His blood sheep. Look at every Christian as a blood lamb of Christ and take care of everyone, especially take care of the soul, its eternal salvation, its upbringing in the spirit and rules of the Christian faith. The marriage was celebrated on Sunday, October 2, with the help of God, almost without stumbling and with good feeling, with strength, evenly, talking with God, feeling His closeness to the heart in every word. The villain the devil brings up a storm of anger when his brother visits his home and when he consumes sweets (even on a person worthy of every special love and respect) he brings up anger because of an empty pretext. My God! What troubles, what absurdities am I bound to! Where is the education of the heart and will? Where is the putting off of the old man and the putting on of the new? Where is meekness, humility, kindness? Where is the leniency? Where is the covering of the infirmities and shortcomings of one’s neighbor? Where is the spirit of Christ? And this is after receiving the Divine Mysteries multiple times! My mother is a kind, meek, simple-hearted and good-hearted child. What a precious treasure she possesses in the sight of God! She has a kind, meek heart! So much for an uneducated person! And when I was educated, I was proud, and capricious (willful to the smallest detail and stupidity), and angry, and stingy, and envious, and crafty! Pay attention to the beggars: they are also very kind and gentle. Let us remember the words of the prophet: our soul is especially filled with the reproach of the gobblers and the humiliation of the proud [Ps. 122, 4 ]! The education of the mind is progressive, but the education of the heart is regressive; the mind is enlightened, but the heart is corrupted, becoming prouder, angrier, more irritable, envious, more voluptuous, stingier, crueler, more willful, more crafty. An important matter is to remember the living members of the Church during the great exit, when the crucifixion of the Lord on the cross is remembered, the repentant prayer of the thief: remember me, Lord... Just as then the thief was awarded forgiveness of sins and paradise for his heartfelt prayer of repentance, so now those who sincerely reveal the guilt of their hearts to the Lord at this time of the liturgy are awarded forgiveness of sins and great mercies from the Lord. Therefore, everyone must at this time sincerely repent of their sins. The enemy teaches in the book to despise frequently read words, and in life to despise frequently visiting guests. You see his machinations! Everyone should weep gratefully and touchingly when they see the Eternal Child in the arms of the Virgin Mother, who came down from heaven for us and for our salvation, or when we see Him hanging on the cross and suffering terrible torment for our iniquities. We must love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength and thought, and our neighbor as ourselves, and sacrifice everything for him. I was nailed to the earth: that’s why the Lord, atonement for my sin of being nailed to the earthly, was nailed to the cross. From now on I must philosophize on heaven, despising earthly sweets, splendor, beauty, honors. Christ was nailed to the cross, therefore the cross and Christ are one. Whether an enemy, a friend, an acquaintance or a stranger, treats me with bread and salt, tea and sugar, I should consider it an honor that with the dust of the earth I serve the living, immortal and priceless image of God, before which the whole world is insignificant - just so as not to offend anyone or hate anyone. Like the Cherubim secretly forming and the Life-giving Trinity... let us now put aside all worldly cares 77 . This is what the liturgy should bring to all those present during it - so that they put aside all worldly cares, become as if heavenly, so that all worldly cares and addictions leave and ascend to the mountain, to heaven, as they say after: Horus we have hearts. This is why you need to go to church for mass, this is how you need to stand in it! Oh, the dignity of Christians! Oh, the greatness of the Divine gift. Oh sonhood! Because of what trifles and addictions we become indignant and lose love for God and neighbor! Because of gold, silver, which are dust, because of a tasty morsel, a dish, which is expensive and often and immoderately consumed, because of elegant clothes, because of furniture, books, etc. All is vanity and dust! Why are we angry at the poor? Is it because they have nothing and yet want to eat, drink, dress, live under shelter, like us, that they ask? - No, because we are lovers of money and unbrotherly, not lovers of God. The good shepherd laid down His soul for the sheep, and we, as brothers, lay down our souls. We speak in prayers not only at church, but also at home, morning and evening, in the plural, because we are members of the Church. Heavenly King... dwell in us and cleanse us... Lord! Give me the grace to serve my neighbors, as Thy members, with joy, willingly, do not let me be upset with them. Through our deeds we crucify the Son of God a second time (with modern idolatry) - in gambling, killing time, amusements, theaters, clubs, mercenary dealing, talkativeness (newspaperism and journalism), tobacco addiction, drunkenness, coffee and tea drinking. Have the spirit of brotherhood, the spirit of Christ’s love for everyone without partiality: acquaintances and strangers, rich and poor, friends and enemies who visit you often and rarely, those who offend and favor, those who give and those who take away. Always have God in your heart. I eat so often the most pure Body and Blood of Jesus Christ and, according to His promise, the imam has eternal life. How can I then value my temporary life and its benefits? Until now, I have not lacked anything by the grace of the Lord, and now, by the same grace, I will not have it. Be the mercy of the Lord. Why should I feel sorry for anyone? Until now, the devil has placed many different dreams in my heart and mind, and I have succumbed to them out of pride and addiction to temporary goods. From now on, Lord, give me the grace not to succumb to these many different dreams. Who is the weakest and most sinful of all? Me: Against whom will I open my mouth? Not against anyone but yourself. God created us all, and God provides for us all: our job is to live in peace and love among ourselves. The Lord's Prayer is a constant teacher of mutual, brotherly love. Feces of sweets. With this word - feces - my heart, passionate for sweets and troubled by this addiction, calmed down. You might be interested in: