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I thank You, Lord, for saving me from malice and contempt towards Deacon Peter for his exorbitant and shameless coquetry or vanity in front of the mirror in church. God! Grant me to see my sins and not condemn my brother. I glorify Your goodness, Your long-suffering, Your power, which are constantly shown to me, a sinner. If we sincerely prayed according to the prayers that the Church puts into our mouths, if we sincerely always repented of our sins, so that we irrevocably hated every sin, then we would long ago have been holy, heavenly, long ago would have burned with love for God and neighbor. Our coldness and our passion show that we do not always pray sincerely or rarely. Lovers of the Lord, hate evil! [Ps. 96, 10]. I am the last of the brethren of this church and a stranger; everyone else is from here, but I am a stranger; everyone is morally better than me, purer, but I am worse than everyone, more sinful. Oh, how I must love and respect them all, how I must humble myself before everyone, be forgiving of their infirmities, weaknesses, and sins, remembering that God is patient with me and people are patient! Teach by your example the people entrusted to you by God in prayer, pronouncing the words of prayer and thanksgiving with firmness and sincerity. Mary... has chosen the good part, which will not be taken away from her [Lk. 10, 42]. May I be comforted by the participation of Mary, and may I reject the part of Martha that is about to be taken away from me. September 20, 1870. The strong tightness that prevented me from reading the prayers at the public school the first time and embarrassed me was the devil’s dirty trick; it continued all the way to the cemetery, in the cemetery church until mass and partly during mass, and was greatly reduced by prayer and tenderness; from the communion of the Holy Mysteries I completely went away. While reading the prayer of permission, the enemy suddenly struck fear into me and knocked me over, but I immediately recovered. Trouble, that's all. But I feel that it’s all because of overeating, and because of potatoes, which increase the scrofulous blockages. There is no doubt that enmity against a deacon for coquetry is absolutely the work of the devil. Don't I look myself in the mirror? Consider it an honor that you endure bitterness from your adversary for your Lord, for serving Him, for if you had not served God, you would not have been subjected to bitterness, but would have always had space and peace. Remember also that it is easy for the enemy to tempt a person corrupted by sins, just as a ship riddled with a cannonball is always easy to sink. Wednesday. God! I thank and extol You for delivering me this morning from the great evils that befell me through the slander of the spirit of malice, and for giving me the grace to sincerely perform the Divine Liturgy and to partake, without condemnation, in the deep peace of Your Divine Mysteries, with a feeling of the life-giving warmth of the Holy Spirit. I thank You, for You gave me a good disposition towards the deacon and did not allow the spirit of malice to scold me. And in the foregoing 116 keep me in love, Lord! It is useful to eat cold fish, cold whitefish soup, herring at night - and not drink tea. Deacon Peter is worthy of the priesthood for his humility, but due to his intelligence and learning and weak character, it would seem that he is not. However, the Lord knows. I magnify You, Lord Jesus Christ, my God, for you quickly heard my prayer of repentance and bowed down to mercy towards me, accursed, evil, envious, greedy - for today, because of an empty case, because of the baked apples that were not left for me, I became very angry with my wife and cursed her. I thank Thee, for Thou hast turned fire into the dew of Thy grace. Lady Theotokos, I extol You, for You quickly and clearly saved me twice now from an unclean movement of the heart, when I looked at You prayerfully with the eyes of faith. God! I thank You, for in the gymnasium You saved me from internal enmity towards my brother Father Archpriest Pavel Lamanov; shame was already beginning to cover my face in the classroom, oppression was already pressing into my insides - but I looked to You in repentance, and You gave me peace and boldness. Constantly and mercilessly condemn your old man, for to spare him means to spare the devil, who in every possible way and incessantly seeks your destruction; Condemn and punish yourself for malice, envy, enmity, gluttony, gluttony, drunkenness, fornication, ill will, covetousness, etc. Look at yourself impartially: how bad you are in the eyes of God with your passions, how you hourly become a pitiful instrument of the devil, who plays you like chess: through you he expresses anger towards man, created in the image of God, and envy, and seeks to defile him with fornication; he daily teaches you the love of money and lust and gluttony, so that you do not love God, your Creator and your Prototype, and he teaches you various dirty tricks in order to humiliate, defile, and destroy you. Yesterday I greedily ate fish with black bread in the evening and didn’t drink tea, and this morning that’s why it was very hard for me: a strong burden in my heart and an evil despondency; I barely served early mass. Deacon Peter Al., seeking the priesthood, was tempted: I involuntarily felt strong apathy towards him - and the apathy killed me: it is evil, from the devil. Everyone should wish for the best. Whether he is worthy or not, God the Knower of the Heart knows: He will decide the matter. I myself am not worthy of the priesthood, for I am a glutton, evil, envious, money-loving, prodigal, and nasty. I thank the Lord, who revived me after the death of sin through the communion of His Holy Mysteries and drove away my enemies, who nested within me during the liturgy through my satiety the day before. I served the entire liturgy in confusion because of my evil suspiciousness about the deacon, especially during the invocation of the Holy Spirit for the Holy Gifts: the enemy had a strong hold on my heart. I thank the Lord, who has given me the grace to perform the Divine Liturgy without stumbling and to partake in the world of spiritual powers of the Life-giving Mysteries. In a public school, while reading a prayer before the start of the teaching, the enemy stumbled. In the classrooms at the gymnasium, the evil one stung with a nasty sting. At home it also stung with filth. Lord, give me the grace to be so faithful to You, the Bridegroom of my soul, that I will always say sincerely: I have no sweetness except the Most Holy Sweetness - my Lord Jesus Christ; I have no beauty except the imperishable, infinite, Primordial Beauty - Jesus Christ. Saturday. All-night vigil. God! I thank You for the gift of fiery prayer, given through prayer, and for the stumbling-free performance of Your service; at first I felt coldness and sinful deadness in my soul, probably from my voluptuousness; but faith and diligence overcame everything: I begged the Lord to give me a prayer, and the prayer was given. But, having arrived home, I almost fell into a grave sin - into a quarrel with my wife: I came and did not find the key to the cupboard in which tea and sugar were locked, although I had no particular thirst for drinking tea, I just wanted to serve my habit. He prayed to the Queen of Heaven - and found the key, and the anger went away. Otherwise, I don’t know what would have happened with my haste and vehemence: I would have had a strong quarrel and offended her, because I considered myself very offended. O crafty, senseless, routine flesh! I had to wait quite a long time, but I was in a hurry to get home, I don’t know why, and I didn’t satisfy the beggars: I [couldn’t] spend six minutes changing money and distributing it to the poor. Do not rush forward into vanity, but do the work of God, the work of mercy, slowly - for this attention God will deliver you from the snares of the enemy. God! I thank You for the peace, sweetness, lightness given to me, unworthy, by You during the all-night vigil, for a lively, bold, fiery conversation with You. Oh, with what faith, with what boldness I looked at You, my God, my infinite Life! With what a solemn spirit I walked around the church, censing! But what other wild, bestial, swift instincts of greed and wordless malice within me! How thin, low, insignificant, poor I am outside of Your grace! Heal and correct me, Lord! Instead of marveling at the great Artist God in the works of His hands - in beautifully constructed people, and loving His eternal, uncreated, incorruptible, source beauty and kindness, and glorifying His Divine perfections, we, out of our sinfulness, out of our pride, our carnality and according to the teaching of the devil, are seduced by this beauty into sin and desecration of ourselves and at alienation from God, for sometimes we look with lust, and our heart melts with carnal love, and not with spiritual and holy love. Thus, from every corruptible beauty one must ascend to the incorruptible, from the earthly to the heavenly, and cling more and more with heartfelt love to the Primordial Beauty - God. With what bait does the ethereal enemy not catch us, the voluptuous and beauty-loving, and how subtly, quickly, like lightning, the sting of carnal love plunges into the heart! What kind of gain are you looking for in prayer? Spiritual self-interest - for the soul, and perhaps bodily self-interest - for the body, because I ask for perishable goods, but most importantly and first of all, I am looking for this kind of self-interest: salvation of the soul, cleansing of sins, spiritual peace, holiness of the soul and body, freedom of the soul from the snares of the enemy, spiritual light, driving away the darkness of sin and enlightening my entire inner man, lightness, spirituality, boldness before God and before people, God's help for my deeds, for without God I can do nothing 117. Even in my prayer, I offer the Lord a sacrifice of heart - a sacrifice of thanksgiving for His ineffable mercies, which are constantly pouring out on me, and a sacrifice of praise - a tribute of wonder at His perfections, His deeds in the world of matter and in the world of spirits. Before the holidays, to avoid temptations and stumblings, do not eat at night and drink as little as possible, so that the substance does not weaken the spirit or suppress it. I continually, daily, repeatedly benefit from the fruits of the saving incarnation, teaching, suffering, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ: by His stripes I am continually healed, by His life and grace I live, by His light I am enlightened, by His strength I am strengthened, by His boldness I dare against my invisible enemies, by His shrine I am sanctified, by His Blood I quench the scorching thirst of my soul, by it I am cleansed, I am revived, I feed my soul with His Body and merge with it prenaturally, I adore it. O unsearchable abyss of love for mankind, Lord! I thank and praise Thee, and I will praise all the days of my life. I will sing to my God as long as I exist. Arise, my glory [Ps. 103, 33; 56, 9 ]! Hateer of evil, Lord! give me the grace to hate evil with all my heart. You who hate sin, Lord, let me hate sin. Enter into the taste of prayer at home and in public, especially into the taste of the Divine Liturgy; Enter into the taste of the Divine Scriptures, especially the taste of the Gospel, the prophetic writings, the Psalter, the book of Job, Proverbs, Sirach, the Pentateuch of Moses, and the taste of church liturgical books. Oh, what treasures of heavenly wisdom are these! This wisdom is not given to everyone, but to simple and humble hearts. It is not given to the wise or those who pretend to be the wise men of this age: they would rather mock these treasures. Here's a wonderful soup for you, here's greed for you, here's satiety for you - and now dance, and strain yourself, and suffer insults from demons rightly so! So much for the difficulty of serving! From now on, don’t be greedy, don’t be satiated! How harmful it is to eat a lot of cabbage soup and drink sweet tea! Here is the fornication of the night in a dream! Oh, how necessary is moderation, measure in everything! I thank the Lord for celebrating the Liturgy under difficult circumstances, and for the non-judgmental acceptance of the Holy Mysteries, and for the boldness in preaching a sermon about the duties of a husband and wife. I thank the Lord for repeatedly saving my home from the insolence of sin. By not asking the people for forgiveness of sins at the end of the all-night vigil or Compline and Midnight Office, you are doing what is pleasing to the devil, doing his will, fearing his false fear; and by sincerely asking forgiveness for your sins in words, deeds, thoughts, you are doing what is pleasing to God and very contrary to the devil, who is burned by our humility, our sincere repentance. So, always ask for forgiveness, as you should. From sweets (from sweet food and sweet drinking) desecration of the soul and body occurs due to night dreams, prodigal overwhelms, anger, rage, hellish fire; and still I, the damned one, am numb, I continue to have an addiction to sweets, I am still ready to fight with my neighbors because of them, to start trouble over a tasty morsel, to console the enemy, to anger the Lord. For a long time now I should consider earthly sweets to be bitter wormwood, for rubbish, but I still value them as something important, worthy of attention; It has long been necessary to cleave to the only sweetness - God, from Whom all sweetness is lawful and from Whom we fall away due to addiction to earthly sweets. I thank You, Lord, from the abundance of a grateful heart for the grace of tender, broad prayer, bestowed by Your mercy on me, the accursed, during the all-night vigil on the feast of the Nativity of the Most Pure Theotokos, for the grace of forgiveness of sins, sanctification, heavenly peace, the sweetness of communion with God, lightness, space of the heart - and this after the fire and tightness with which the adversary at home struck me before the evening meal. the reason for sparing my brother the sweet pie. But I repented from my soul of my voluptuousness, I realized my madness, that I, being already a husband, was still, like a small, foolish child, chasing after sweets and physical things in general, whereas long ago I should have trampled on all carnal lusts and gone through spiritual life - and You had mercy on me, having seen my sincere repentance and my great spiritual distress from the enemy. Oh, how terribly the invisible fisher catches us - and everything is on the hook of sweets! And how greedy we all are for sweets, especially me! Christ, the true Light spoke without stumbling, but there was considerable embarrassment from the enemy. Thank the Lord! I thank the Lord for the unfaltering celebration of the Liturgy on Monday, September 7th, and for the heavenly peace upon receiving the Holy Mysteries with the cleansing of all my sins and the impurity of the prodigal night, in a dream. Wash me and I will be whiter than snow. Though your sins be like scarlet, they will be white as snow [Ps. 50, 9; Is. 1, 18]. Glory to Thee, Most Pure Lord! They talk about pious suicides. But these churches were not founded on stone, but on sand, and therefore, when the rivers came and the winds blew and attacked it [the church], it fell, and its fall was great 118. These people serve God and serve mammon, and mammon overpowers. The church is a place of prayer, petition, thanksgiving and praise. Remember this and perform your prayers with all diligence. May the Lord help you. Until brother Konstantin began to mercilessly destroy my sweets (sugar), until then I spoke to him peacefully, looked at him with love; but when I began to exterminate them, I changed my feelings towards him, the spirit of indignation and hostility began to boil in me, and he definitely became not a brother, but an enemy to me - such is the power of addiction to sweets! Meanwhile, today after the all-night vigil I drank tea at the merchant Lebedev’s (snack) and asked for wine, and they brought me a ruble Sauternes (chateau-ikem), of which I drank two glasses. Why don’t I joyfully give in to my neighbor the sweets that have caused and continue to cause so much spiritual harm, because of which I so boldly and fearlessly violate the entire law of God, which consists in loving one’s neighbor! And my sugar was a gift. If you yourself love at someone else’s expense, that is, at a party, eating and drinking sweetly, then why can’t you tolerate those who like to do the same with you? To your question from Lebedev: why do we love to feast on someone else’s expense? He answered you correctly: yes, this is reciprocity: today you pinch me, and tomorrow I will pinch you; Today my flaw, tomorrow yours. Well, a lot, a lot - your predator will drink three glasses of sweets, no more - but that’s not a problem. I deny everything - I unite with You, Christ! I sinned by idolatry of sweets. Today is a holiday, and for the sake of one holiday I had to lovingly and generously treat Brother Konstantin, at his request, with the gifts of God, given to me by God’s sole love for us. And what does this treat mean in comparison with what I receive from God with His generous gifts? Nothing. But it is my envy, pride, lust, stinginess, and malice that act in me. I have sinned against the Lord! Because of sweets, love was violated on such a day! How infinitely important love is in the life of a Christian! How insignificant are sweets to be despised and always despised for the sake of preserving love for one’s neighbor, and not to stand up for collecting them! What a close connection between voluptuousness and malice! If you regret sweets, you will hate your brother. Oh, my dear soul! Oh madness! Oh, blindness! (Today I received four rubles for free for the funeral services and the removal of the body of God’s servant Anna.) Lust is enmity against God and neighbor. Yes, I will give up sweets! God! My loves! Do I anger you every day and so often? I repent: forgive and correct me. Don't you know that Konstantin is the penultimate son of his father Konstantin and was born at a time when his father especially loved sweets? Naturally, the son loves them too - a true father in this regard. Indulge him. Despise sweets, which are so harmful to a Christian, who must philosophize on the heavens, love the heavenly sweetness, eternal, spiritual, and sweets strongly nail me to the earth and earthly things. The cross teaches me to constantly despise sweets and love my brother, even if he destroys all my sweets. The bridegroom of my soul is Christ. To whom will I give my heart, except Christ, by whose love I am captivated, except His? Who is more beautiful to me than everyone except Him? Away from me, lovely earthly beauty. I thank You, Lord, who has now shown me great mercies, who has created great strength in me during the liturgy and thanksgiving service, during the reading of the final prayer of thanksgiving; I thank the Lord for the gift of tenderness during the liturgy, for the clear, grace-filled voice, for the heavenly peace during the liturgy, for the strength and boldness of the heart at the great entrance. I thank the Lady for her quick help at the thanksgiving service during the reading of the prayer. Imagine and always remember how the saints lived, how they mortified their flesh, how willingly they gave everything they had, how they despised sweets, how they fasted, prayed, how they loved God and their neighbors, how meek, gentle, patient they were - and imitate them. Do you see someone greedy for sweets, ready to eat and drink your goods - do not pity and do not be jealous of his greed, do not want to repay him in kind, that is, eat and drink from him, and do not add another to one evil, do not add your own to his greed, but leave your goods as to the Lord Himself, who demands His gifts from you back, and try to maintain love for your brother, and you yourself do not be greedy for other people's goods, for other people's meals, for other people's samovars, dishes and decanters. What a disgrace 119 we live in and, as it were, in a place of struggle and exploits! We eat, drink, feast on ourselves, acquire things - suddenly illness, and then death: go to judgment, to another life, in the middle of the night - and all your deeds will be laid bare. There will be no time to do it anymore. May we always be ready. I drank tea at the merchant Lebedev's, drank two glasses of grape wine, and strong, grave temptations befell me at home: his sins weighed heavily on me - and there are many of my own! What a blessing and what a Christian deed it is to give without grumbling and displeasure, willingly our sweets and gains to those who take 120 of them! This is the work of the soul above, meek, non-covetous, non-envious. (I ate a little meat yesterday - and woe was me: oh, my heart is still heavy; the soup is also heavy - it’s too rich.) Let brother Konstantin eat the sins of Nikolai Grigorievich Sidorov - because sugar destroys him; and do not be jealous of him, and thank God that it is not you who destroy him. You will be charged less. Sweets are always the cause of your lasciviousness - and you pity them, you do not despise them until now! Where is your wisdom? Which saint has not despised the pleasures of this world? How many mental troubles have sweets caused you? Their traces are still memorable. As soon as you eat sweets, especially those sent for free, it’s a disaster! There is a terrible tightness in your soul, as if the sins of all those who gave you these sweets will weigh down on you. The devil is gnawing your soul and your body! Woe to drinking a lot of tea, and especially without sugar, or drinking tea with boiled water: terrible irritation of the nerves, insomnia. (I drank tea on September 8th at Lebedev’s and at home.) Oh my God! What fury of the enemy! How he sets me on fire both in the church, and in the house, and everywhere - with irritability, and carnal love, and stinginess. I thank You, Lord, for the miracles of Your mercy, for even on this day You have taken away my deadness from me during the Liturgy and bestowed Your sweet, most peaceful life, for You have forgiven me my great sins, cleansing me from all filth and sanctifying me with Your Holy Spirit; I thank You for reviving me with Your Divine Mysteries and for repeatedly saving me outside the liturgy. I thank Thee, Lord, for this day is the day of Thy mercy, the day of cleansing from the inner impurities of the heart by Thy mercy, and this day is the day of Thy goodness, Thy power. What can I bring to You for this, most pure, meek, gentle, almighty King? Primordial, self-existent, imprecise Beauty, beautify my inner, god-like tabernacle, so that I may be pleasing to You in everything, created by Your hand in Your image and likeness. (Today at nine and a half o'clock in the morning they began to remove the canvas from the dome of the cathedral, painted and gilded, and remove the scaffolding. The dome is beautiful.) Yesterday I was in the menagerie, here in Kronstadt, and saw the beasts of God: an American bear, wolves, hyenas, leopards, lions and lionesses, a woman bird 121 with a long beak - a fish eater, an Alpine kite, monkeys of various kinds, porcupines. What different characters the animals have! Wonderful are Your works, O Lord [Rev. 15, 3 ]! How You exalted man above all animals, created by You in Your image and likeness and redeemed by Your most pure Blood. God! Let me avoid animal qualities - rage, greed, envy and other passions. The reproductive members must be as unblemished and holy as the lips, eyesight, ears, and smell, because they were created in the same way by the Creator and as wisely and compassionately as all other members of the body. Glory to Your wisdom, Your immeasurable power, Your immeasurable goodness, Lord! I got up cheerfully and felt great; During the service of Matins I felt in a state of irritation - internal thorns from sweets the day before (baptism at Dr. Alekseev's, in Pavlovsky's house): I drank wine, ate jam, drank sweet tea with cream, again jam; apple; tea at home, herring before bed with black bread. He served Mass in great spiritual and physical distress, but through sincere prayer he overcame despondency; received communion with warm faith; After communion, the enemy hesitated to pronounce a few words of the troparion - and this again confused me. There was a lot of weakness from various sweets. God forbid from them in future. I thank the Lord for my repeated salvation from my sins through my inner prayer, especially from the sins of greed, envy, and lust. The Lord provided me with His Divine, true word that He would add everything to me, give me without my worries everything necessary for bodily life, if I diligently seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness 122, namely: mutual love, purity of heart, if I am not envious, stingy, covetous, voluptuous, hard-hearted, but on the contrary, I will be benevolent to everyone, generous, compassionate, merciful to the poor, abstinent in everything. So, let not my soul worry that I seem to be impoverished due to the frequent arrival of guests. I will not become poor. Until now, for sixteen years, the Lord has generously provided for me, and will continue to do so. May I trust in God’s Providence and, above all, seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, leading us into eternal life. Rancor, when in a brother’s need or trouble we do not help him, remembering his insult inflicted on us. As you yourself were a fornicator, pray to God with tears for all the fornicators and harlots who are in this city and everywhere, for you know from experience what trouble they are in mentally and physically and what awaits them. Morning. During the service of Matins, the devil suppressed my curse with anger against the reader Vasily Ivanovich Kutuzov for the fact that he read very fluently (but not at all fluently than before). And he so wounded, embarrassed, constrained and weakened me, faint-hearted, during the singing of the great doxology, that at the end of it I was afraid and hesitated to pronounce the words of the special litany and did not say the dismissal as it should, completely, but only the words: Christ is good and a lover of mankind. The adversary presented me with various ghosts, namely: that the sexton stands badly, and reads and sings rudely - in a word, he presented him in a black form, and yet he is a sheep. Damned one, I will not take into account that he alone has to read and sing Matins, and Mass, and Vespers, that his content is insignificant, and his education is small. You must have leniency towards him, and more. But deliver me forever, Lord, from the evil of the devil, which ensnares me with various vain reasons. Don’t let me speak sacred words - what an insolence of an adversary! But You, Lord, deservedly punish me with shame, sticking my tongue to my larynx for the sake of my malice, for I am not worthy to speak the sacred verbs of the brightest and most child-loving mother of our Church, and for my gluttony the Lord punishes me with satiety. (Yesterday I had tea and a glass and a half of port at Vasily Ivanovich Petrov’s; I wanted to smoke a cigar; and I also had tea at home.) Liturgy. I thank You, Most Merciful and All-Powerful, for even today you have delivered me from extreme, severe internal disasters, from cramped conditions, irritability, fear and other troubles. I thank Thee, for Thou hast surprised me with the great powers of salvation, for Thou hast granted me to pronounce the royal house by name, to partake of the Holy Mysteries with boldness, and to read the prayer behind the pulpit, although the enemy had already angered me. For military and secular people, it is necessary to serve in church or at home with special strength and expressiveness, because they only go to church on special occasions, and hardly pray at home. I thank the Lord for the gift of deep tenderness and tears during the All-Night Sunday Vigil on September 13th. This tenderness, through the action of God’s many-merciful grace, continued from the beginning of the all-night vigil until the censing of Praise. Here, while walking around the church, I was almost swallowed up by an adversary, looking for someone to devour. And through what case? Behind, at the candle sale, stood a woman, Ekaterina Grigorievna Stepanova, née Sidorova; when I burned incense to everyone standing here with her, everyone humbly bowed in response to my worship, and she barely nodded her head lazily; This confused and embittered me; but I immediately repented of my malice and, by the grace of God, changed it to love. If truly, I thought, she is proud, then this is a disease of her soul and, perhaps, of mine; and she is my spiritual daughter, and I must take pity on her as if she were spiritually sick, pray for her as for myself, and, on occasion, correct her with meekness; My anger towards those who sin shows that I myself am spiritually sick, and blind, and naked, and poor, and damned, a servant and workman of the devil. When I prayed to the Lord for her: “Forgive, enlighten, correct her, Lord, my spiritual child,” when I felt love for her - then embarrassment, shame and the oppression of the enemy, powerlessness of heart left me, and I calmed down again, tenderness came again, again sincere prayer for everyone. But at the very end of the all-night vigil, the devil almost devoured me again, and already tempted me painfully, confusing me (which I feared) while saying the prayer to Christ, the True Light, and not allowing me to speak to doing Your commandments, and then forgiveness of sins in deeds, words, thoughts. My insides were filled with poison, the poison of the serpent. Horror, what rage he breathed on me! As soon as with inner prayer and contrition of heart I spiritually vomited this poison; Some demonic fear did not allow me to utter these words, some vain fear of man, of the rich and powerful of the earth, confused me: I was afraid of people, but I despised God, Who pleases our humility, but did not please God. We must boldly ask for forgiveness of sins. This is true freedom of spirit. We must teach people to repent by our example. The devil does not like this repentance, and so he confuses us with various ghosts so that we do not repent and do not think about it, but the all-acting grace of God will wisely outwit him, a villain, a scoundrel, a destroyer, unclean and all-filthy. September 13th. He read the Gospel well, he spoke calmly, without haste, pronouncing all the saints. As you prayed for God’s servant Catherine, so pray for all your comrades, priests and archpriests who suffer from pride, that is, with love and pity for them, but do not at all despise them and do not be angry with them: fire is not extinguished with fire, but with water. This water is love. In the cross and on the cross all the love of God for the human race was expressed, for on the cross the salvation of perishing people was accomplished by the infinite love of God the Father, the Son of God and the Holy Spirit for the world; in these and on these two crossed trees, Divinity and humanity crossed and united and dissolved and were reconciled. This is why the sign of the cross is so dear to us, Orthodox Christians! That is why we honor him so diligently, kiss him, put candles in front of him, light lamps, burn incense. If during worship or the celebration of the Sacrament or prayer you find it tempting to look at certain faces, then turn your gaze to those that are not tempting to look at - and you will be at peace. My sexton Vasily Ivanovich Kutuzov yesterday at the all-night vigil beautifully read the Six Psalms, Kathismas and the Canon, at my insistence. Thank you for your obedience soon! If you want to [eradicate] your shortcomings and various addictions, then observe yourself in different situations in life, for example, how you feel when strangers or family members scold you, dishonor you, when they take your property, your sweets, your money, or when you have to share your goods, your belongings with others: aren’t you upset, aren’t you despondent, aren’t you sorry? Or are you indifferent to praise and blame, to profits and losses? Various everyday encounters with people show us both ourselves and people, what we and they are like in themselves. For there is nothing hidden that will not become obvious [Lk. 8, 17]. I thank the Lord, who turned away from me the terrible misfortune of the enemy before the very Cherubic song, when I, in a stupid addiction to bread - prosphora, bought by me and taken away with the position of particles, but not put aside in a special place - thought or cared for a moment about separating it from other prosphoras. My God! Grace instantly left me, offended by my worldly care in such great moments, when not only the priest, but also the layman must put aside all worldly care, and the evil tyrant the devil had already entered my heart, but the most ardent, intense prayer of faith and repentance saved me, although not suddenly, from the wiles of Satan; and although with difficulty, I pronounced at the great entrance the names of the royal persons, with the exception of the last one - Ekaterina Mikhailovna, and her husband, and Alexandra Petrovna. How terribly punishable is a sudden addiction to bread! Dignified and righteous: the priest must at this time be an incorporeal Angel due to his heavenly mood and ardent love for God and humanity. It is not in vain that it is said: Like the Cherubim secretly form... Let us now put aside every care of this life. This must be strictly enforced. When will we be lifted up in grief, if at this time we think about the things of life and pay attention to the bread, and do the evil things that perish? I thank the Lord, who has given me the grace to peacefully, without stumbling, perform the all-night vigil [divine service] in the Assumption Church for the Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord (and perform the litia safely, and the blessing of the loaves, and say absolution, and the prayer to Christ, the true Light, and forgiveness of sins). Thank you for your boldness and for overcoming the fear of the devil. On the cross, the Lord revealed all the greatness of His mercy and long-suffering towards us sinners - and we too will learn to be patient with our neighbors, and we too will have mercy on each other, bearing each other’s burdens. Now, during the Liturgy, let us put aside all worldly concerns, that is, not only about food, drink, clothing, and earthly means of subsistence in general, but also all concerns about pleasing people to those standing in the church, the strong and rich of the earth, all partiality, which is sometimes done by the clergy. In the church during the priestly service, our thoughts and hearts must be occupied exclusively, entirely with the Lord, and everyone standing in the church: king and warrior, slave and ruler, rich and poor - are equal, as slaves of the common Lord. I thank the Lord, who saved me in the morning hour (the seventh) today, September 14, from evil zeal for the sick Grigory Ivanovich, from my carelessness and tactlessness in life, in my opinion, who fell ill again. I thank You, who enlightened me and strengthened me with the love of long-suffering, and bestowed peaceful love on me with the removal of tormenting anger. What are perishable clothes? Robe of passions: anger, pride, envy, greed, covetousness, voluptuousness, despondency and other things. What about incorruptible clothing? The vestment of virtues that are opposite to the said passions. I thank Thee, Lord, for Thou hast transformed my malice into goodness, through the prayer of my repentance, and Thou hast boldly granted me peace during the service of prayer in the shop of the merchant Balabanov. Quick to Hear! I thank You with all my heart. But grant me to always show obedience to Your commandments, and most of all - patience with love for all, and crucify my many-passionate flesh mercilessly. It is better to give alms willingly, and not out of need, humbly and with joy, and not with pride and sadness. Remember who is the acceptor in the face of the beggar, even if he is unworthy. It is better a hundred times to endure the stench in your apartment from your neighbor, sick or healthy, than to indulge in impatience and grief of spirit because of the stench; Often many things only seem very unpleasant and harmful to us, due to our effeminacy and voluptuousness, although this unpleasant thing is not so harmful or completely harmless. Our flesh is a lie, a sin, a passion: all its uprisings must be suppressed and killed. You don’t need to eat very pleasant food and drink very pleasant drink with excess and greed, but in moderation and indifference. Too pleasant foods and drinks pamper the body and relax the soul, making it whimsical, irritable, capricious, impatient, unloving, proud, envious, and self-loving. Teach me, Lord, to despise the flesh and all lusts and passions of the flesh and to educate an immortal soul, to acquire its godlike perfections: meekness, humility, kindness, patience, peacefulness, obedience, abstinence, faith, love. The more pleasantly I eat and drink, the more strongly the passions act in me, the more the flesh is enlivened (and not mortified). How necessary is fasting! He who cleaves to God is content with everything, but he who has fallen away from God is not content with anything. In God is the fullness of the life of our soul. My soul is simple, and her life is simple. One... there is what is needed [Lk. 10, 42]. The passionate flesh does not cease to manifest itself in anger, envy, greed, impatience, gluttony, gluttony, drunkenness, fornication, idleness, ridicule, absent-mindedness, wickedness, despondency, murmuring, gloating, and malice. Keep fighting and praying. What great bliss and happiness that after five, many six days, the Lord calls me to communion of His Holy Mysteries and allows me to partake of them! Let me put aside all worldly cares. May I love the one God with all my heart and my neighbor as myself. The enemy attaches enormous importance to trifles in my eyes, and torments me with these ghosts. God! deliver me from ghosts. Why do demonic ghosts and his insurances have power over me? Because I chase after temporary, illusory blessings and abandon true, heavenly blessings! The Lord and His most pure Mysteries and His words suffice 123 me! Liturgy. I thank the Lord, who saved me from the fierce instigations of the adversary to be angry at my sick person through negligence and [from] the fierce pity for earthly goods and who made me worthy to unfailingly perform the Divine Liturgy with a firm reprimand at the great entrance of all royal persons, with the communion into the world of the spiritual powers of the Divine Mysteries, with the firm pronunciation of the prayer behind the pulpit, the sermon of the archbishop Gregory 124 about Christ drawing everyone to Himself and releasing them. But it was fierce for me before mass and during the proskomedia, fierce, fierce! All addiction! Everything is earthy! Everything is a lack of love and hope! If the soul were alive, animating the body, the body would also be alive. And the soul is alive when it is filled with love for God and neighbor. Love - and your soul will live along with your body. Or: crucify, and always crucify, your many-passionate flesh - and your soul will live, although your body may be weak. Your sick person is your Christ; serve him as Christ, willingly, with love, without vexation, without stinginess and greed. We are all weak. Thank God that you are healthy at least in body. However, there is not much benefit to being healthy in body and unhealthy in soul - paralyzed by passions. How my passions fool me, how they throw me at my brother like a sheep! I repent, Lord, long-suffering, gentle! Have mercy on me, make me a sheep of Your verbal flock, and let me not be like a greedy wolf. From a young age, how passions have fooled me and continue to fool me! How fierce, violent, fast they are! How dishonest, insane, nasty! I insulted my sick brother Gregory, who meekly and kindly endured my rude remarks! I repent, Lord! Make me a kindly lamb! All earthly sweets are short-lived, an insignificant shadow of future - unspeakable, eternal sweets; every earthly beauty is a momentary, insignificant, weak shadow of the heavenly beauties, the uncreated beauty of God, the Mother of God, the ranks of Angels and all the saints, adorned with heavenly, Divine glory. Once in a lifetime, the bride and groom get married - so marry firmly, sincerely, boldly, slowly. September 16. Mercilessly remove from your heart the sting of carnal love, which is hostile to holy love for God and neighbor, desecrating, raping and darkening the soul. I thank the Lord for the supreme state of soul granted by partaking of the Divine Mysteries with faith, and for the unfaltering performance of the Divine Liturgy. I consider it an honor to pronounce all the words put into my mouth by the Church, and to fear no one in a good deed except God. The wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. Let the cross with a crucifix on my chest remind me that I died for the world and the world for me. Good things do not live... in my flesh [Rom. 7, 18] (unfortunately, I see this every day), but in my flesh there lives self-love, malice, envy, lust, fornication, greed, stinginess, laziness, partiality, greed, impatience, disobedience, all kinds of evil; my flesh is the work of the devil. I am horrified and perplexed by how the enemy constantly arouses in me enmity against my neighbors, and especially against my family, and firmly, persistently, brazenly incites me to anger and bitter words of murmuring, vexation, anger! Just like we leave our debtor. Every day we say these words, but sometimes we only beat the air with them, because we do not fulfill them with deeds, because some of us have hatred for our neighbor deep in our hearts and, at every meeting with him, it is revealed in us by embarrassment, dislike, annoyance at the meeting, or something else. Ah, is this really supposed to be the fruit of our most holy, wonderful, all-renewing, all-powerful faith? Does she teach us malice and rancor? Didn’t the Lord suffer for us, doesn’t He forgive us our countless and fierce sins that we commit daily? Are not our sins before God infinitely greater in comparison with the sins of our neighbors against us? Isn’t everything that we have God’s, and aren’t we all the work of God’s hands, in the image and likeness of God? Isn't love commanded to us? How quickly and easily the enemy overthrew me with anger, alienation, coldness at the entrance to our house (apartment) of Anna Konstantinovna, who came to us again soon after leaving us! I became completely uneasy with annoyance that she came again a week after her three-month visit! (But the Blessed Virgin Mary stayed with Elizabeth and Zechariah for three months!) At the table I sat all embarrassed and cramped and almost could not speak! After dinner, I turned to an intense prayer of repentance, and after many fervent prayers, the Lord took away the violence of anger, and I thanked Him with all my heart! And all the complaints about loved ones, all the displeasures - because of food and drink, because of earthly goods! Where is the priest's heavenly heart? For he often stirs up others with the words: Woe is our heart! Where is sincere goodwill, putting aside rancor, gluttony, envy, pride, malice, greed, fornication, despondency and other things? Where is the contempt of the belly and everything bodily for the sake of preserving the commandment of God, saving the soul? Are we Christians only in words, are we Christians only in name? Are we only warriors on paper, or only in our office? Is it the first tidbit, the first ruble that must be shared with our neighbors, that shatters all our faith, all our hope in God, all our notorious love? Oh, how blind, short-sighted and contradictory we are! How proud, voluptuous, and selfish we are! Or what do I say – us? I, I alone of all, am a sinful monster! I am stinking feces of sin! But for centuries I was cast away from Thy presence, O Light that never passes, and an alien darkness, accursed, covered me, but turn me to the light of Thy commandments, direct my path, I pray. I thank the Lord and the Most Pure Mother of God, who granted me great help through my prayer during the performance of a grateful prayer service with the blessing of water in the apartment of Captain-Lieutenant Stepan Stepanovich Akimov (after whom nee Puzina). I sent it boldly, unfailingly, loudly, although the enemy was greatly confused by vain human fear! The higher, said Father Alexey Perov, a man from the military class, the worse he is: without conscience, without faith. Scary but true! If I live with my family and with all people in love and like-mindedness, will the Lord deprive me of earthly blessings? No: everything will work out, even if my neighbors robbed me. So, love everyone, even if your neighbors offend you. Enmity and hatred will turn away the grace of God and the blessing of God from you, and spiritual poverty will be followed by poverty of earthly blessings. Remember that a person’s life does not depend on the abundance of his possessions [Lk. 12, 15 ], as the Lord said, the eternal Truth. Every day, through the action of the spirit of malice, I declare war against God and my neighbor, every day this spirit strongly incites me to malice, and I - oh, shame! - I get carried away by his incitement, I serve him unwillingly and willingly and anger my God! Without You, Lord, I cannot be a person, not only a Christian: I am a beast, tormenting myself and others, I have no peace within myself, no common sense, no freedom. And when You are in me, I am gentle as a lamb, pleasing to everyone; all my words and actions are imprinted with calmness; I feel light and freedom inside me. Many of the Christians, to which (many) I belong, still consider in fact the task of life to be pleasure, to please themselves: for example, they love to eat and drink well, with taste, elegance, to dress luxuriously, to furnish their home with shiny things, to acquire a lot of goods... for many years [Lk. 12:19], - but not the desire for the honor of a high calling, not voluntary poverty, not thinness of clothing, not simplicity in the table, not constant abstinence, not the salvation of the soul, not the taming of passions, not the acquisition of virtues, not pleasing one’s neighbor for the good of creation, not the salvation of the souls of the perishing. That is why they torment, disturbing us daily, fornication, and animal greed, and envy, and bestial malice, and insatiable greed, and drunkenness, and other passions. We don’t even think about heaven, foggy, distracted and overwhelmed by our passions. Oh, how the enemy laughs at us! God! Save us, we are perishing! Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy on us: we are perplexed by every answer... and so on. Why have passions taken over me with such power that I cannot cope with them and walk around gloomy, sad, and irritated, and agitated by them? Because I allowed them to take root and strengthen in me through their satisfaction, my intemperance in food and drink, my thirst for gain, honor, and so on. Babylonian babies grew into giant men. The adversary haunts me everywhere and with everyone - at home, in church, and in the classroom: at home with sweets, in church with prosphoras that are small, callous, that the sexton does not read well and sings absurdly, and so on. And everything is his dreams. Sunday. Early liturgy. I thank the Lord, who strengthened me to perform the Divine Liturgy without stumbling and to take communion for the cleansing of my sins and the heavenly peace of my spiritual strength, agitated and weakened by my passions; equally, to perform without stumbling and with strength, when the nerves are weakened from the bath, a prayer service before the Iveron holy icon of the Mother of God. Going to the bathhouse is harmful, braiding your hair is even more harmful: you sleep poorly at night, the breakdown of nerves the next day is extreme. I have no true friend and strong helper except You, Lord! Should I be afraid of men, Lord, or not You, the only one terrible in Your greatness and power? In me, as in every person, the greatest stupidity lives to a greater or lesser extent: this stupidity, sin, passions. We must fight this stupidity inexorably and incessantly, just as it constantly and cruelly fights us. May God's grace help us. The more well-fed a person is, the more greedy, angrier, lascivious, lazier, cowardly, and cowardly he is. But he doesn’t want to admit his madness, but he keeps attacking others. Thy will be done [Matt. 6, 10]. In these words we express our desire to fulfill the will of God and renounce our will; [we express the desire] to endure everything that happens against our desires, for example, when they take something from us against our desire, when unloved persons stay with us and take advantage of our good (more than God’s), when in general people and events go against our plans, intentions, goals. Although it is painful for our old man, we must certainly cut off our will, the sinful will. Velikanov served a prayer service, with God's help, successfully. September 20. Why am I burdened by my relatives staying with me? Isn’t the all-good and all-generous God able to reward me for all my expenses? Yes, even if he had not rewarded me here, in the future would he not have rewarded me a hundredfold for love, and would he have left me hungry and unclothed, me, who until now had always been well-fed and satiated, dressed and overdressed? O lack of faith, oh little hope and distrust, oh dislike! Live in faith, hope and love! Ten o'clock in the evening. I thank and extol the Most Holy Lady Theotokos, my Quick to Hear, who soon heard my kneeling heartfelt prayer to deliver me from the violence of anger and hellish oppression and who granted me peace and freedom. To the victorious Voivode, as if we were delivered from the evil ones, I will sing thanks to You, Thy servant, to the Mother of God. I prayed before the icon of the Tikhvin Mother of God, which is in the large hallway, for the granting of cordial favor to my sister Anna. For a long time, a black cat ran between us. God! save us! And how much evidence she showed me of kindness, patience, meekness, and kindness! I have so much anger, impatience, irritation! God! Convert me and I will be converted. You are the only good one! Observe the calmness of a pregnant sister-in-law, for whom calmness or sorrow will respond to the fruit of her womb; be a father to her and her future child, sacrifice your property for her: God will reward you generously for her. Cut off your will: you don’t want your husband and wife to live with you for nothing for such a long time - endure it, sacrifice your property to them - what am I saying? - as a sacrifice to God Himself, for this favor is being done to Him. Just as you did it to one of the least of my brothers, you did it to me [Matt. 25, 40]. The Lord gave, the Lord also took away [Job. 1, 21]. Keep your love, do not give in to the enemy, who kindles in you the flame of anger against those who rob you. Be meek like the martyrs. Deny yourself some things out of selflessness for love of your neighbor. What kind of love is without sacrifice, without self-sacrifice, without labor, without flaw 125? How much did the Savior endure for you? How many spiritual blessings has he given you? He gave you heaven and eternal bliss, but why do you regret for your neighbor, redeemed by His blood? Decay that exists today and disappears tomorrow? I thank the Lord for help from above during the wedding of Nikita and Elizabeth. The enemy greatly embarrassed Father Matthew by his presence and dislike towards him; but I begged the Lord to grant me sincere affection for my brother and peace at the wedding. Only while reading the Gospel did the enemy rape me - he did not allow me to read a few words. May he be damned. Today, September 20, in the evening at ten o'clock there was a strong fire on the mountain and lasted all night. I will find out about the consequences. Anna Konstantinovna expressed great love and kindred tenderness for me when she got out of bed and looked at the fire, begging me to go to bed, because tomorrow I had to serve early mass. God bless her! God grant me, brotherly and sincerely, to love her. Any hope for earthly blessings and greed for them and hostility towards one’s neighbor because of them is a soul-piercing wall 126 and a snare of the devil. It is good to trust in the Lord in everything, and not to worry about anything, and to diligently love one another from a pure heart. I thank the Lord, who made me worthy to celebrate the early Divine Liturgy with a peaceful and free spirit after conquering by the grace of God at the beginning of the Liturgy the spirit of greed for prosphora and to partake in the world of spiritual powers, for the purification and sanctification of the soul and body of the life-giving Mysteries. The most senseless and destructive thing is to hate those who offend or rob us, to add your malice to the evil of others when others beat you, to beat yourself and to cause yourself a hundred times more harm than what others do; or while others take advantage of our goods, are in peaceful and favorable relations with us, we worry, are tormented by the sting of any food, any drink, have a hostile, devilish disposition and drive out of our hearts love for our neighbor and together for God, which is the fulfillment of the law and without which no good deeds have any value or merit before God - alms itself is nothing. It is most natural to voluntarily, willingly give up one’s goods for the benefit of others, especially one’s own, even though they themselves have something to live with. The Righteous Judge and Rewarder will repay all the shortcomings 127 made to the neighbor for His sake, for even a cup of ice water does not go to waste with Him. It is not a thief, not water, not fire that destroys my property, but a neighbor like me, who has the same rights as me to the gifts of God. The devil, an envier of my neighbor's well-being, incites me to envy my neighbor, who uses a gift, without labor on his part, all sorts of comforts, without considering whether the one who uses it is healthy or sick - for he does not know justice, since sin is, first of all, itself - injustice and lawlessness, although it is mostly covered with the name and guise of justice; he only needs sin and sin, untruth and untruth, our torment and torment. I have not yet come to the senses of giving up my greed: just today the Lord punished me at mass - I repented, and God forgave me, and now I am again taking up my old sin. O old leaven! Oh, how necessary is impartiality towards everything that is on earth, not heavenly, how necessary is mutual love, which I do not have! How damned and ill-fated I am! Alas for me, a sinner! I thank the Most Merciful Lady for the help shown from above at this hour for me, who is unworthy, or even more so for saving me from poisonous anger towards my relatives Gregory and Anna, who have been living with me for four months in inactivity! I thank you for the dew of grace, which sprinkled my soul with Her prayers and saved me from delusion. Treat every person, especially a Christian, as the image of God, with respect and love, with long-suffering, forbearance, goodwill, meekness, and humility. Remember that you are more sinful and worse than everyone else. I thank the Lord with all my heart for destroying the destructive wiles of the devil in me and for giving me peace with my family. September 20. The marriage of the bride and groom means the most holy union of Christ with me, or with the entire Church. A certain king held a wedding feast for his son [Matt. 22, 2]. I thank the Lord, who gave me the grace, in an extremely painful state of mind caused by the spirits of malice, to steadfastly celebrate the Sacrament of Marriage in front of a large crowd of people in the Duma church on Monday, September 21. He married Gerasim and Pelagia Gorbunov. (Do not eat rice porridge with milk or sour porridge, do not eat herring with vegetable oil or meat and potatoes together: this causes cramped conditions and weakness.) The Lord is everything to me and to each of us. This axiom, this alpha and omega, must be firmly known to everyone, not only with the mind, but even more so with the heart and life, and in everything to rely on His all-effective Providence, which cares not only about man, but about every bird and insect. Look at the birds... Your heavenly Father feeds them [Matt. 6, 26]. Whether a fire, robbers, a shipwreck, or random circumstances ruin us, let us not lose heart, but let us place our trust in our merciful, omniscient and omnipotent God. Who is tormented by childbirth, and a sinner, like me, is tormented by passions, and passions often befall him, like the pangs of birth; just as a woman has in her womb and in her sides the cause of her torment, so a sinner has in his womb or in his sides painful passions; a woman at birth feels joy, a sinner, after tears of repentance with which sin leaves the womb, also feels joy. It is unpleasant for you that your neighbors live with you for so long: be patient for the sake of the Lord, and leave rage, cut off your will, the will of pride and sin, and follow the will of God, saying: Thy will be done. Accept sister Anna and brother Gregory as your flesh and blood and please them as yourself. Do not obey the voluptuous and sin-loving flesh: it wants to spend its property on fornication, on satisfying its lusts. Do not listen to the breath, the suggestions of the spirit of malice. The Lord will arrange everything for the better. You were never left without bread and necessary things; on the contrary, you were always full and satiated with excess - you will not be left without bread in the future. Remember that you owe everything, after God, to the Nesvitsky family, and your relatives are happy through them; Yes, you don’t even have children: bear with the Tsvetkov family with gratitude and love, for Tsvetkova Anna was born Nesvitskaya. Look how Veliar rages in you, although he wants to fulfill his will so that the Tsvetkovs do not remain with you, with what rage he breathes on them. Do not listen to him: pray to God to strengthen your heart. Keep love, hold on to love, may God be with you. And my scrofula contributes to the spirit of despondency and melancholy. God demands from you self-sacrifice for the benefit of your neighbors - and submit to His will, and renounce yourself and all worldly attachments, like the apostles, martyrs, saints, and leave your relatives - mother and married, family sisters - to the Providence of God, and be at peace yourself. Have compassion for your relative and her future child, be a father to them. Food, drink, sweets, money, clothing, housing have always been for people and for you the cause of enmity, coldness, disagreement, displeasure - completely reject the addiction to food, consider everything as rubbish. In this show the Christian disposition of your heart, that when they take what is yours, do not intercede, do not be angry, do not regret, but give in voluntarily, saying like Job: The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away [Job. 1, 21 ]; do not resist, but agree, saying: Thy will be done, O God. My flesh is raging, that is, the devil stands for life, for his lawless laws in my flesh, in order to do his will in me, contrary to God and my eternal good; the flesh goes berserk, wants to live its lawless life, the life of passions that must be cut off; the flesh that needs to be crucified, put to death, that is, the nest of sin in it must be completely destroyed. And the earth, and all the blessings, and my house, and those living in it - everything and everyone is God's, and I am God's; Oh, just let me not be the devil, let me not be a covetous and cruel stranger. Do not be alienated at all from your neighbors for the sake of addiction to the blessings of the earth, but alienate yourself from the blessings of the earth, considering them to be dust. You see how the spirit of evil seeks to breathe in you various passions and despondency, gloominess: drive him out in the name of Jesus and always rejoice in the Lord, trusting in Him unfailingly. Treat the woman in labor with respect and the good and wise work of God - the birth of a person - as if it were your own, and the woman in labor as your own mother or wife. September 22, 1870. Tuesday. God bless. God gave Anna Konstantinovna Tsvetkova, my sister by marriage, a daughter, Rufin, on Tuesday, September 22, at 1 o’clock in the afternoon, safely. She wanted to go home to St. Petersburg with her husband, but the pangs of birth seized her, and she had to stay with us. So, God wants it that way. And I, a sinner, did not want them to stay with us for childbirth for material reasons; and she herself wanted to stay at home for this time, but God judged otherwise. It’s a sin for me to think about material calculations. This is godlessness, materialism, unbelief. One must despise all material calculations and love non-covetousness, selflessness, placing hope in God the Provider, and not in money and food. We must succeed in love, affection and respect for those around us, despite the fact that they have been using our good gift for a long time, for I myself have everything from God as a gift. Love is incorruptible, venerable, attracts the blessing of God on those who love, and earthly goods, which we love so passionately, to the point of stupidity, are perishable, like our very bodies, worth nothing compared to the soul, they are rubbish, and addiction to them brings upon us the curse and punishment of God, like sheer idolatry. The fire victims of Kronstadt or any other place would not, of course, want their houses and property to burn; however, against their will they had to part with the gifts of God; when the fire began to rage and destroy everything, then they were glad that they themselves were saved. And the Lord sent you another light cross. Endure with gratitude and even joy. It is not the insatiable fire that destroys your property, not robbers, not anything else, but your relatives, for whom God will reward you. I am absolutely crazy: why am I bored, crying, howling, angry that strangers have been living on my bread for so long? What don't I have enough of? Isn't everything enough? It’s funny and annoying at yourself and at the tormentor Belial, tormenting you with the ghosts of your heart, the passions of your heart. God! Deliver me from evil. We must rejoice in everything and thank God for everything. (I immediately calmed down, having said this in my heart with complete conviction.) Live in love with your relatives as if you were one family with them, forgetting those outbursts of anger that they showed against you, and remembering your frequent anger against them, with which you caused their irritation. Help, Lord! Confirm your love! When everything is fine with me and I should thank God, why do I bother myself with my suspiciousness and irritate the Lord by thinking evil about my own? Away with the spirit of despondency! Everything is fine with me. I thank the Lord. Be gone evil ghosts! Sacrifice to the love of God and neighbor some of the hardships and worries associated with serving your sister Anna Konstantinovna, who is sick due to childbirth, and her sick husband; see in them members of Christ and serve them with love, as Christ, according to the Scripture: I was sick and you visited Me [Matt. 25, 36]. Get used to thinking about this world in such a way that nothing is yours in it, not even in your house - everything is God’s, and yours is only a sinful soul; be happy with your corner and thank God for it; acquire love for your family, so that you will not be naked for love. I thank the Lord, who gives us all everything: a warm corner, and warm clothes, and all food, and all drink, and the means for all this, which many do not have, and people who are a hundred times better than me; I thank the Lord, who through me gives to my mother, and to my sisters, and to my uncle the good things of this world. Grant me to remember, Lord, that I have everything from You through the Nesvitsky family, all the good things of this world, and [must] love them very much and please them. (And Anna’s husband is sick, and she is sick; what a high work of Christ is to serve the sick! May I rejoice in the Lord!) Grant me a humble, kind, patient heart, Lord! Remember that Christian love is not one-sided, but complete, all-encompassing: if you love your own by blood, love those who are not by blood, but your own, as if by blood, and other people, too, as if they were your own. Remember what hardships brother Grigory Ivanovich suffers because of his illness, and pity him from the bottom of your heart, like your own brother, and pity your sick sister, like your own sister. I thank You, Lord, for the feeling; give him strength and constancy. Do not, by thought, movement of the heart, word or deed, violate love for your neighbor, especially for God. With the measure you use, it is measured back to you. Sister Anna (the mother giving birth) was not pretending, as it seemed to me, in order to stay with me and not go to St. Petersburg, but was really sick during childbirth. May the Lord have mercy and bless her and may he take away from my heart the ancient enmity towards her for the sake of her hot-tempered and vindictive character, as well as my hot-tempered and vindictive character, stubborn, willful. O Master, Physician of souls and bodies, heal my souls from many years of ulcers! My apartment is spacious for a woman in labor and for her husband. God! Thy will be done. It would be great for me to live in it alone. Give me the grace to uncomplainingly, with a peaceful spirit, endure the present state of things in the house and joyfully serve the sick, just like You. To me, you say, you have created [Russian: they did to me] [Matt. 25, 40]. May Satan not continually tempt me. Give me hope in You, Lord, that Your blessings will not become scarce for me, but even if they become scarce, I am worthy of poverty for the lack of love. Thy will be done. It’s a thousand times better to be calm and undisturbed than to be suspicious and worried by some kind of, God knows, ghosts. This disturbs the soul and body and causes illness, melancholy, lethargy, and relaxation. Remember the words of the apostle: you are one body and one spirit, just as you were called to one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all [Eph. 4, 4–6 ]; and: trying to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace [Eph. 4, 3]. Beware of the devil's spiritual discord and unpeace. Because of my sins, I am worthy of a prison sentence, not this; He deserves black, moldy bread and swamp water, and not this pure rye and wheat bread and not this sweet drink. He served a prayer service for the sailor Vasily and Paraskeva, Serebrenikov's former maid, who were about to marry. What grace to pray to the Lord and His Most Pure Mother and the saints! How the soul is peaceful! How passions are silenced and the machinations of the enemy are destroyed! How insignificant then all the blessings of this world seem in comparison with this spiritual food, with this spiritual treasure! What a unity of spirit in the bond of peace [Eph. 4, 3 ] you feel during prayer with all those praying! Oh, to serve God unceasingly! For if we do not serve God, then we serve the devil. That's true. He does not sleep to teach us his dirty tricks. God! You zrishi! Save us from the violence of the all-evil and all-evil and all-cunning devil. On Wednesday, September 23, the first wet snow fell Having sinned against the Lord by sharply, unlovingly, and hostilely reprimanding my brother for his inappropriate precaution against me; those who have sinned with pride, malice, self-love, and lack of love; I complained that they crowded me in everywhere and didn’t allow me to walk. He did not humble himself, did not obey, was not a meek lamb. I repent. Endure free embarrassment from your family; If you can’t bear it and become irritated, you will feel an inner, grave oppression from sin and the devil - love is patient [1 Cor. 13, 4], everything endures. It’s the evil that keeps coming to light and tormenting me – and it’s good: I must know myself and not dream about myself. God! Pluck out my passions from the roots. The incident with brother Alexei, who stopped me from knocking my boots on the room. How proud, proud, envious, stubborn, irritable, disobedient, grumpy I am. I repent before the Lord. Give me correction in my life, Lord! I say: I am constrained - why am I constrained? Nothing. My pride is humiliated by the fact that my sister Anna gave birth to a child, but I still haven’t! But - God's will! Where is my love that endures everything? How can I prove my Christian title if I don’t have love? God sent me a small test, and I don’t want to endure it. And who was the instrument of my salvation from a shipwreck at sea? Isn’t it my sister Anna Konstantinovna? Who, after my wife, was my life partner and helper? Isn't this your sister? Where is my gratitude? But if it weren’t for this, shouldn’t I also love my enemies and do good to those who hate me? Should I love only those who love? Is it possible to do charity only to those who do charity? Don’t pagans do the same?.. How do I differ from a pagan? Nothing. I am worse than a pagan: he does not know the will of his Master, but I know and do not do. How long is my pagan heart, how long is my uncorrection, unrepentant? How long will life be different? How long will there be anger, envy, pride, monopoly, stinginess, greed, gluttony, despondency? As if you are the only ones settled on earth [Is. 5, 8]? Animals get along in one pit, but I can’t get along in one cramped apartment; every smell disturbs me, my pampered flesh, my pampered sense of smell. What freedom did you give to the flesh?! And all because of the flesh, all the trouble! May I endure everything, may I humble my heart! Here is a test, a temptation of my insides! Here is my weak side: I cannot tolerate the presence of strangers in my apartment for long! But how long will my apartment last? Will not the tomb be my home? Are worms my neighbors? Will not my body be the food of worms, as now the various products of the earth and animals serve as my food? God! Grant me to be satisfied with You alone, to be entirely in You and to despise my flesh - the nest of passions, the worker of the devil, the culprit of death, this pus, corruption. Let all visible things be for me as if they do not exist; our neighbors are like You, especially Christians are Your members, for You are our Head. I commend myself, and each other, and my whole life to You, Christ our God. Destroy in me arbitrariness, self-will, stubbornness; let me put aside my carnal wisdom and live by Your wisdom, always learn from Your word, follow Your word. For it is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path [Ps. 118, 105]. People live in cramped conditions - and do not live in resentment; and I, a sinner, am used to living in space and am offended that my in-laws are bothering me. Damned! Away with everything earthly! I want to soar to God, the Source of the belly! Do not separate your brothers-in-law from yourself as your own members, love them as you love yourself, endure everything unpleasant from them as if it were your own. For you must agree: isn’t it a thousand times more work to be at enmity with your neighbors, to hate them, to envy them, than to love them and be kind to them? Isn’t it a thousand times better to voluntarily lose everything for them than to spare them even a little? So, love the easy, holy, saving work of love and hate the painful, sinful, painful work of enmity. Anger is a mortal disease of the soul. Everything is God: my hope is in Him. God is good: Do not be anxious about anything... Cast all your worries on Him, for He cares for you [Phil. 4, 6; 1 Pet. 5, 7]. Is it for the sake of Him who laid down His soul for us on the cross and delivered us from sin, curse and eternal death that I do not want to deny myself for the sake of my neighbor Anna and my neighbor Gregory? Be crucified, my flesh! Hello to my flesh: you are the hydra, you are the asp, you are the basilisk. Live in your own home as in someone else’s, like a guest living as a guest, with all meekness and humility, with obedience. For today he is yours, and tomorrow another; or the blessings of life: today are yours, but tomorrow, perhaps, will not belong to you if you die, for everything will be taken away from us except the soul and good deeds. Love yourself in your neighbor to the point of forgetting yourself, neglecting yourself, your benefits, your peace of mind, your honor. God will not allow you to be tempted by your love beyond your strength. The truth of God will reward you for your patience and losses or dishonor. All this painful and disturbing thorn is a carnal wisdom: despise it, do not pay attention to it. Gregory, like Joseph, Anna Konstantinovna, like Mary, a baby, like Christ - so may they be revered by me. Compare your passions mentally one with another or all together and strike the flesh with its own weapon, direct its cunning against itself. Bear one another's burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ [Gal. 6, 2]. God! Your name is Lover of Humanity; Give me the grace to look with unchanging love for mankind at my parents and those born by Your providence, who settled with us and were born, and serve them from the heart, as I would like this service for myself from others. Just as Your fatherly gaze lovingly rests on these three, so grant that my heart can rest with You in them. Despise my sins and grant me Your love. Afterwards, 129, Lord, raise them up and grant them to do everything around themselves. God! let me give up the thought that everything at home is mine; nothing is mine, everything is Yours, and these are Yours, and they are lent to You, not to me. Let Belial, my tormentor, depart from me. Do not only what you want or like, but especially what you don’t want, don’t like, for otherwise you will not please God, but yourself, your old man. Go against your heart and against your will. If you don’t want to go to the poor with you, go willingly; I wouldn’t want people you don’t like to be in your house and take advantage of you - willingly tolerate them in your home and do them favors and services. Through this you will fulfill the will of God. Not as I want, but as You, Lord! The will of God and our will are as distant as heaven from earth. As in heaven and on earth... Thy will be done... [Matt. 6, 10]. Always fight with yourself, go against yourself, your pride. God! Take away from me the spirit of impatience and alienation from my loved ones and grant me the spirit of affection and appropriation of the heart. We all center ourselves in God. All things are from Him, by Him and to Him [Rom. 11, 36]. Therefore, love should embrace and penetrate everyone. Cut off enmity like wild meat; like poison, spew out in a spirit of repentance and in tears. The way you treat your neighbors, the way people will treat you. How you want people to treat you... with the measure you use, they will measure it to you [Lk. 6, 31; Matt. 7, 2]. I thank the Lord, the author of all good things, for the kind greeting given to me by my sister Anna Konstantinovna. But I must love her not only when she kindly greets me, but also when she is angry or scolds me, and by the way, she never scolded me directly to my face. Envy looks unfavorably at everything good and graceful in others: a child was born to unloved parents, whether the parents themselves are visible, or rich, or noble - it looks at all this obstinately, restlessly; envy is the enemy of all good, and it is a fiend of the devil. Woe to the man infected with it: hell forever burns in his soul, a murderous poison is poured in his insides, the poison of the all-destroying serpent that killed the first people. Divine goodness and wisdom, purifying its chosen ones, often places them for crucification or eradication of their pride in such circumstances that they would like to avoid with all their hearts, which they would not like to encounter. Here they enter into a desperate struggle with themselves, with their pride, and then it hurts their souls, they feel like they are on a cross. I have no need to worry about satisfying the urgent needs of my flesh: the Lord has been taking care of me for more than forty years now and has given me everything I need without any worries on my part; will give, I fully hope, and in the future. All I can do is seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness in perfect love for God and neighbor. Treat the children of the infinite Creator, created in His image and likeness, with all love - for the Creator is Love; especially with those at home, against whom the enemy is especially armed. Lord willing. It is not worth caring about the multi-passionate flesh, what it should eat and drink, what to wear tomorrow, etc., because of its multi-passion and mortality and because it has killed me and is constantly killing, desecrating and, being ringed, destroying in me that which is in the image of God and in the likeness: it draws me into malice, pride, envy, covetousness, voluptuousness, despondency, laziness, confuses, constantly hurts, alienates from God and neighbor for the sake of perishable, ephemeral benefits. How many times have I, the accursed one, expressed impatience and dislike for my relatives, Gregory and Anna, and all because of worldly pleasures! Oh, how destructive sweets are for us! I thank the Lord, who heard my prayer of repentance and saved me from the fire of malice. Love is not burdened by any difficulties in favor of one's neighbor. Behold, what is good, or what is good, but let the brethren live together [Russian: How good and how pleasant it is for brothers to live together!] [Ps. 132, 1 ]! For the sake of love, do not be burdened to live together with your people who have come to you, although they have their own separate corner and their own settled way. Your apartment is large, and it’s enough for them and you, and in this regard you have no worries; they are about themselves, and you are about yourself. Everything else that is necessary for them and you is also given to you by God; if anything else bothers you, endure the constraint with love for the sake of God, who took upon Himself the immeasurable burdens of you and the whole world and, through His Theanthropic walks, suffering and death, delivered you from eternal torment in hell. Let love make everything easier for you. Bear each other's burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ [Russian: Bear each other's burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ] [Gal. 6, 2]. Isn’t the greatest burden for you - hostility and impatience and, in general, every sin? Isn't all work easy for love? Remember the works of the apostles, martyrs, saints for Christ and for the salvation of human souls and your own! What was difficult for them? Nothing. They endured everything with joy for the sake of the Lord and for the sake of future eternal pleasure. Do not look at work alone - anxiety is often combined with good deeds - but also at the moral sanity from God of work or good deeds, and thank Him for the very work and anxiety that, perhaps, will bring you eternal life. You are saved by some, and your wife by other good works: everything is from the Lord, who wants to save everyone. The burden of our sins is lifted from our labors for the glory of God and the benefit of our neighbor. Rather than work for yourself and your sins, it is better to work for God and your neighbor. I thank the Lord for the word of reason. The sweetness of the loins and reproductive organs and the beauty of women’s faces are given for the birth of children, and not for pleasure, like the sweetness of food and drink for the most convenient and willing feeding. There is Primordial Beauty, spiritual, supernatural and pure pleasure, which is prepared for the faithful and the chosen in eternity. Our duty is to preserve unbreakably the love for this original beauty - God. Health was given to us by God for serving Him and our neighbors, and not for peace and laziness or enjoying visible blessings. God constantly shows His immeasurable love for me, showering me with countless blessings every minute, and since I cannot repay Him Himself with anything, for He, as the Creator, does not need anything and does not require anything from me, then I must, out of love and gratitude to Him, serve my neighbors, for He accepts what is done for them as done to Him personally... They did it to me [Matt. 25, 40]. I thank the Lord for the intelligent light, in the light of which I am saved by His grace from the darkness of sin, in which I would have sunk forever if He had not enlightened me and illuminated me with His light. In Your light we will see light [Ps. 35, 10]. You are the true Light, enlighten and sanctify all... It is better to lose property, sweets, clothing, housing, distinctions, than to be wounded because of anything like malice, hatred, envy, greed, etc. How our poor soul suffers because of worldly addictions! How often does he fall into the snares of Belial! Blessed is the one who despises everything earthly and strives with all his soul incessantly towards the things above. And I have experienced a thousand times the bliss of thinking about heavenly things, the bliss of dispassion, love for God and neighbor, and I don’t know how I am still immersed in the unity of this world, how I still have an addiction to earthly sweets and self-interest and to earthly beauty and glory! God! By Your Holy Spirit, take away earthly love from my heart! Grant us to love everyone in You and for Your sake, but not outside of You and not on their own. May I carry You in my heart constantly. How do I still dare to create rebellion in the kingdom of my all-good God, that is, to sin every day in thought, feeling, word and deed? God! Teach me to do Your will, for You are my God [Ps. 142, 10 ]! Everything in God is one: I love everyone as I love myself. Just let everything be. Glory to Your great name, which gives life to my heart, which takes away the oppression of the enemy. Glory to Your goodness, Lord! Two hours and forty minutes in the afternoon. Friday. It’s amazing how the enemy is persistently forced into my heart through thoughts, addictions, passions, how this uninvited guest wants to live in me! How quickly he sneaks in like a thief! With what difficulty it comes out! How reluctant! How he loves to torment! What is the intention of the disembodied enemy when inciting addictions to earthly delights, food, drink, money, clothing? To turn us away from love for God and neighbor and to plant enmity and malice in our hearts; excites a passion for sweets in order to at the same moment kindle enmity against those who constantly share our favorite foods with us or eat our coveted and more expensive delicacies when we eat less coveted and valuable and tender ones. Therefore, discard all addiction to earthly pleasures, being content with simple, tasteless, cheap food. Cling to God with all your heart and be ready to joyfully give everything sweet and dear to your neighbor. I thank You, O most merciful and obedient Lord, for You quickly and powerfully saved me from the evil of the devil when I was with my sister, Anna, who was in labor, when I cried out to You like this: Lord, by Your omnipresence I beseech You, save me from the evil of the devil gnawing at my heart. My hope, my salvation, my strength, my peace, my light, my joy, my contentment, Lord, glory to you! Give me exactly 130 You, and it will suffice 131 me. Do not be discouraged because the Lord often beats you: He leads you through this to holiness, to union with Himself; If He didn't love you, He wouldn't punish you. The Lord punishes and favors whomever the Lord loves, like a father to his son [Prov. 3, 12]. Rufina's daughter to Grigory Ivanovich and Anna Konstantinovna was born on September 23, Thursday, at one o'clock in the afternoon. I read a prayer to the mother in labor and named the newborn. Because I do not consider food and drink, money, clothes and other things of this age as trash, but consider them as something important, I am terribly wounded by invisible snakes, suffering a worthy punishment for my material, vain wisdom. From now on, at least through the prayers of the holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian, whose memory is celebrated today, grant me to despise everything carnal and earthly and to succeed more and more in love. Grigory Ivanovich was fiddling with the secondary tea (after the morning tea at twelve o’clock) for grandmother Yulia Ivanovna. And I don’t need to drink tea at all. May I be entirely in God. Don’t forget your carrots: they are better than tea and coffee. Take thirty-five kopecks from the sexton. Great is Saint John the Theologian. Why is he great? God, love for Him. Without comparison, the Blessed Virgin Mary is great. By whom? God, from Whom She found grace. Great are all the holy apostles, prophets, martyrs, hierarchs, saints and all saints. By whom? God, Who made them His dwelling place for faith, simplicity and holiness, love for Him. Who are we great at - we, insignificant, sinful creatures? God, since 132 we believe in Him, trust in Him, love Him; great are the saints of God, the Mother of God, Who is our Lady and to Whom we are slaves; the holy apostles, who are our teachers and fathers, and we are their children and students; prophets, hierarchs, saints, who are our fathers and teachers, and we are their children and disciples: they are our beauty and glory, for they constitute with us one Church, one body under one Head - Christ. God! Give me the grace to be carefree regarding earthly goods and kind and generous to my household without grumbling; let me trust in Your word, let me consider myself the most sinful and the worst of all; give me sincere sympathy for all those who are sick and grieving, let me tearfully, from a loving heart, pray for everyone who requires Your help and Your intercession. Apply the sacred history of the Old and New Testaments to your life. If you, seeing a lot of people eating immoderately at your meal, and you think: where can I get meat, eggs and other things to sufficiently feed those who have capacious stomachs, then do not be afraid: the hand of the Lord has not become weak, He will send you in abundance, if necessary, meat, eggs, and other good things; and if you see gluttony and fear for the illness of those suffering from it, then leave this too to the Lord: He is the Creator, Provider and Judge, He will punish and admonish. Do your job, and be calm, and do not look at what tempts, and do not think about it, think about the Lord and about pleasing Him. Seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. How long will the New Testament priest worry about bread, to the detriment of his salvation? How long does he not trust in the Lord? How long does he anger the Lord and the more God sends, the more he regrets, the more he fears poverty? The evildoer flesh stands terribly for her Egyptian cauldrons 133 and forgets the Flesh and Blood of God and that the Kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit [Rom. 14, 17 ], which is food for the belly, and the belly for food; but God will destroy both [1 Cor. 6, 13]. What a meaningless, absurd thing: it carries away a new man, in the image and likeness of God, and robs him of meaning, consciousness, faith, hope and love! Damn you, old, senseless, devilish man! Here is the proof that I will live in time and eternity - the Cross of my Lord: He died so that I would live forever; This is my joy - the Cross and my God crucified on it! This is proof that He who gave me eternal life will not deprive me of everything I need (as He has not deprived me for forty years) for temporary life, me and my family. His bounty is very great, 134 His power is infinite, His omniscience is perfect, His wisdom is infinite. Because of me, because of my sins - my greed and stinginess - my spiritual son, the merchant Gerasim Murashov, is raging, oppressing his tenant Anna Andreevna, for I am internally and sometimes externally overcome by greed, cruelty and pickiness, malice towards my tenants. My God! Greed, lust and love of money breaks the ties of kinship and the union of faith, destroys brotherhood, instills coldness, alienation, anger, envy, and brotherly hatred in the hearts! God! Have mercy on us! God! Soften the cruel heart of my spiritual son Gerasim! We are all equally consumed by sins and passions, and we are all worthy of pity, and not mutual contempt. If your brother answered your greetings unkindly, do not be angry with him, as happens with you, and do not consider him proud, but go into your heart and ask yourself: did you treat him with appropriate love and humility, and if you find that you did not, then internally repent of your insincerity towards him and say to yourself: I was worthy of my brother’s cold treatment of me because I myself treated him insincerely. As you want people to do to you, do so to them [Lk. 6, 31]. September 26, 1870. Let all my household and the poor be satisfied from me, for the earth is the Lord's and what fills it [Ps. 23, 1]. I don't really need much. Now, in the next week, when I have to serve the Divine Liturgy daily and partake of the Divine Mysteries, may I put aside all worldly cares (Lord, help!) and all earthly sorrow. Let my mind and my heart be in God. The cares of this age, the deception of wealth and other desires, entering into them, choke the word of God, and it becomes unfruitful [Mk. 4, 19]. Woe to me if it remains barren in me, for I am the land that the Lord cultivated for so many years with teaching, which drank in abundance the heavenly rain of grace that descended on it, especially in the holy Sacraments. Woe to me, who hitherto brings thorns and thistles of passion! Am I near the oath and will my end be burned? How do I tend the sheep of the Lord entrusted to me? Have they scattered? Today the deceased said goodbye on the street, turning his face to the people, calmly and firmly. God bless! The sun is preceded by dawn, the liturgy is Vespers and Matins. Liturgy is the full radiance of the Sun of Truth of Christ. Vespers is the evening dawn, Matins is the morning dawn. The New Testament times were preceded by the Old Testament times, and in the services the times of the Old Testament are remembered first, and then the New Testament. Commit yourself and your brother Gregory and Anna, your sister, his wife, to Christ God. God is the Payer and Giver of love. Just love. Do not kill with enmity, but revive with love the spirit and body of the brother and Anna who owe you, so that God and good people will also console you with love. Remember that you yourself owe an infinite amount to God and people. Holy Martyr Callistratus and his squad, St. Savvaty of Solovetsky. I thank You, Lord, for in any of my requests from You I am not put to shame by Your goodness and mercy, but I accept everything that is asked: the dome of the cathedral, according to my desire and prayer, was cleaned and painted with gold; the possessed Euthym recovered; the girl, the baby Elena (Murashova of the merchant), who suffered from fits of demonic possession, is recovering; You took away the hard-heartedness of this merchant Gerasim against his tenant Anna Andreevna Vorotnikova: today he came under Your blessing through me, - I hope that you will do for both Gregory and Anna, my brother and sister, the blessings they have asked from You. I thank You, Gracious Master, for this morning in the church you saved me through my prayer from my wordless inner rage against the reader, and after hardship you gave me the longed-for peace: always do me secret goodness, my Master, merciful, cleansing and sanctifying me! Grant me the grace, Lord, not to envy in anything those who eat more than me and with greater appetite. You are my food and inexhaustible drink. He who abides in love abides in God, and God in him [1 Jn. 4, 16]. But he who remains in evil remains in the devil, and the devil remains in him and leads him to eternal destruction. Oh, what a great and fierce charm of sin - malice, pride, dominance, envy, lust, gluttony, love of money, covetousness and others. Prayer, unceasing prayer must burn within us so that sin does not enter our heart if it cools towards God or relaxes. You are making a Bloodless Sacrifice. But sacrifice to God, out of love for Him, who did not spare His beloved Son for you, yourself, a pure heart, an exalted soul, not bound by worldly lusts and pleasures, faith, hope, love; slaughter, put to death the old man with his deeds, that is, malice, pride, envy, stinginess, covetousness, voluptuousness, fornication, greed, wordless rage, laziness, impatience, carnal wisdom, earthly hope and so on. For, giving His Only Begotten Son as a sacrifice for us, the Heavenly Father also demands from us a sacrifice favorable to himself - the killing of our old man and the new life, or righteous deeds. Truly, it is better to lose than to have anger against those who offend and deprive us. Resurrection. I thank the Lord, who has given me the grace to perform the late Divine Liturgy with strength, although in the face of the adversary’s opposition, and to partake in the world of my spiritual strength and to speak with boldness the word about fiery punishment. In the evening, I celebrated the marriage of Peter and Anna with extreme mental labor and shame due to the inner tightness of the enemy that befell me because of my anger at my brother Gregory for the fact that he lives with me for nothing for a long time and does nothing, leaving his service. Is this my business? Let the Lord build everything. Under no circumstances should I be angry: can a matter ever be corrected with malice, or can a brother be corrected with malice? Isn't this an empty pretext of the devil? Is it not the character of Cain that I support? Having sinned against the Lord, I am not satisfied with the generous gifts of the Lord, with which I am abundantly satisfied. I should live with special love for my own people for the sake of blessing our house, but I live in malice! What absurdity and ingratitude! Why do I hate my brother, who has the blessing of childbearing? God! There is no truth in me: everything is a lie from the devil, and all because of satiety. (I ate together with my brother Konstantin - and his life? God is the Judge, not me.) What a sensitive and grateful brother Grigory Ivanovich! May the Lord be with him, our Shepherd and our Enlightener. May my heart lie with him and his wife. I owe everything to the Nesvitskys. Do mercy not only to those whom you want, but also to whom you do not want, and to whom, however, God commands. Cut off your will. I cried out to the Lord before and during the marriage, much and strongly, and received almost no relief for my anger against my brother Gregory, who was completely innocent. Shame covered my face, confusion and oppression and darkness were great within me! The enemy captivated me, taking advantage of the hostile feeling towards brother Gregory for his, as it seemed to me, laziness and effeminacy and desire to live at the expense of others. The Lord will judge. But you submit to circumstances and do not regret material losses, the Lord will reward you; the enemy sets terrible traps for me from these material goods, knowing my addiction to them: he completely wants to tear Christian love out of my heart and implant devilish enmity. May I despise these blessings and may I be affirmed in love, in which is the whole law, may I endure all hardships for its sake. Let me not be afraid of sacrifices: with the measure I use, it will be measured to me. Give love and receive love. Remember one philosopher (Diogenes), who, seeing a man drinking water with his hand, broke his glass, which he carried with him for drinking water, because it was superfluous, and do not worry about too much for life. In God, in communication with God, seek the breadth of your spirit, and not in this world, not in the wide chambers in which you wanted to rest and walk alone, which is too proud. Remember in what cramped cells and dens the saints were imprisoned, wanting to please God. You are not cramped in us; but your hearts are tight. In equal retribution, I say, as to children, you too will be distributed [2 Cor. 6, 12 – 13]. This means that mutual love is our breadth. Remember the coffin that will enclose us after death - how narrow it is! How little space a person needs then! Why are we expanding in life, crowding those living with us? How much do I need to be full? Quite a bit. Why are we fighting against each other? And how grave is sin before God - enmity. You are our Sorrower, Lord, and of the whole world; I must be calm and not obey the instigations of the ethereal enemy, who undermines my hope and plunges me into despondency, and the fear of the scarcity of earthly goods arouses in me enmity against those who, living with me, share them with me. How much does a person need? And don’t I know how strong the Lord is, who led the Jews through the wilderness and fed them with wonderful manna, and who feeds me with Heavenly Manna, His Body and Blood? Or have you forgotten the five loaves and two fish with which five thousand people were supernaturally nourished by the Nourisher of creation? 137 You, O priest, who have accepted angelic service, acquire angelic dispassion, angelic carelessness; direct your mind to heights and correct your service in simplicity of heart, with angelic love and zeal. Love unceasing abstinence, vigil, prayer, brotherly love. Where is the lamb’s meekness and gentleness, when my neighbors take, and so in moderation, God’s gifts from me? Why do I partake of the Lamb of God so often? According to Christian faith, hope and love, one must desire the presence of one’s neighbors both for moral merit and the insatiability of love, which always wants to see loved ones, and for material benefit, for the all-good and all-knowing providence God adds His gifts to each extra person. And we, due to the action of the enemy, are becoming angrier and more impatient with our guests every day due to a lack of faith, hope and love and addiction to earthly goods. For this reason, terrible temptations sometimes befall us, as, for example, on September 27 at the wedding of Peter the singer and Anna (from the wings of the state-owned provincial houses). How much oppression, shame, dishonor, embarrassment, and oppression I suffered because of my dislike for Brother Gregory! Be careful not to be upset with anyone before the wedding, or the liturgy, or any other service. A servant of God should not be a servant of the devil in any way: What is the agreement between Christ and Belial?.. What is the compatibility of the church of God with idols? For you are the church of the living God, as God said: I will dwell in them and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they will be My people. Therefore, come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord, and do not touch the unclean; and I will receive you. And I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty [2 Cor. 6, 15 – 18]. Is any of his face handsome, has good, flourishing health and a good appetite, does he eat and drink good food, does anyone have good children, does anyone have good means of living, are they rich in income, etc. - the envious person is jealous of all this, all this torments him, torments him like the devil: he is an enemy of human well-being. Meanwhile, look: what did God not reward him with? He has everything, and yet, due to his insatiability, it is as if he has nothing: everything is not enough for him, although he has nowhere to put what he has. This is how absurd and ferocious sin is in general, and especially the sin of envy! It is precisely every sin that is darkness, and he who walks in darkness does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes [1 Jn. 2, 11]. The same envious person, if he sees a good face, is seduced by it, enjoys it, melts with pleasure, for it flatters his sensuality and voluptuousness; if he sees an ugly face, he turns away from it, shuns it; if he sees rich, beautiful clothes, he admires them, but if he sees dirty rags, he turns away his face with annoyance. His heart, his sight, his taste are so spoiled! But he will not think that a person, whether in rags, or in purple, or in silk and velvet, is equally the Royal, or God’s, venerable image, [immortal, beautiful to the soul], and that clothing is vanity and dust. Our neighbors are our members and members of Christ; how can I hate, despise, and torment my members, more than Christ’s? How can we envy our members, feel sorry for them for something material and unimportant, since everything earthly is subjugated by God himself under the nose of man, as a king and owner? The devil has corrupted our hearts and brought into them self-love, division, alienation, coldness, hatred, but we must resist him with all our might as our most evil enemy, as the perverter of our god-like nature, who robbed us with flattery in paradise and expelled sweets from paradise and is now constantly seducing us into all sin. Those who were baptized into Christ were baptized, put on Christ [Russian: all of you who were baptized into Christ have put on Christ] [Gal. 3, 27 ]; if not in Christ, then a person puts on the devil, in his lies, enmity, envy, anger, lust, self-interest, laziness, drunkenness, gluttony, untruth, hypocrisy, and so on. I need courage and courage, boldness and boldness. We must constantly pray and praise the Lord, otherwise passions will constantly act in us and we will blaspheme the name of God. This throne is now the throne of mercy, but it will one day turn into the throne of Judgment. Smoking tobacco is harmful to the soul and body: the sting of Satan is sharpened on me and acts in me, my gums become swollen, I am angry. With frequent falls, voluntary and involuntary, with constant temptations, greed and thirst for truth flare up, intensify, and also at the sight and hearing of human untruths. There is a sting in all of us (the sting of blessings); Our soul is wounded by the sting of death; but the apostles did not have this thorn, pity for goods - they were cold towards them and counted them for rubbish. One day an enemy ate me during communion and horribly killed me - with what? Pity Father Deacon for antidor and warmth! This is the peak of the absurdity of demonic greed. I barely got rid of the cramped conditions through sincere and long prayer. From now on I see his dirty tricks, and I will not spare anything for my family - no food or drink or clothes or anything else, for this pity, greed, ready to devour everything, is from the devil - unnatural pity, with it is combined unnatural hatred of all those who, against our will, and even according to our will, use our benefits. Those who do not approach confession and communion of the Holy Mysteries or who waver in their truth reject the Council of God about themselves, all-wise, all-good, all-powerful, and will be rewarded with worse torment than pagans, Mohammedans and Jews. Judge yourself, and not your brother: your brother is shepherded by the Supreme Shepherd and Visitor of our souls; be condescending to the brethren as to yourself, for we are all mentally ill. The Lord is among us continually; Let us surrender ourselves to Him. I thank You, Lord, for the wonderful, grace-filled change of my soul, for the transformation from passion into holiness, from confusion into peace. There are frequent spiritual storms - during these storms, how well fasting helps, how it strengthens the soul. How powerless and defenseless is the soul of one who does not fast during these storms! One must treat with great reverence the Revealed Mystery of the Holy Trinity, the Mystery of the Incarnation and the Mystery of the Holy Body and Blood. Always be sincere and kind to yourself, O man! If we leave passion for ourselves and for earthly goods, then our hearts will be ours, and we will save our souls; and if we do not give up our addiction to earthly goods and to ourselves, then our hearts will be in the hands of the devil, and we will perish. The same... will delight the soul... [Matt. 16, 25; Mk. 8, 35; OK. 9, 24]. A great loss for piety is addiction to earthly things and the loss of mental and physical energy. Do everything contrary to the flesh: if it compels you to evil, be good; if you are stingy, be generous; if you want to be lazy, work; if you are tempted to indulge in voluptuousness, refrain; if you feel jealous, be sincerely friendly; if he wants to rage, be meek; if it makes you feel sad, be cheerful. Do you know and appreciate, sinner, that the Lord has raised you from spiritual death so many times, how many times have you humbly repented of your sins before God and asked Him for mercy, cleansing, healing and salvation? Each time you sinned, you died in soul, and this death was reflected in your body, according to the extent of your sin, but the Lord raised you from the dead, tearing apart your sinful mortal bonds and leading you to freedom. And you, ungrateful and malicious, again and again subjected yourself to spiritual death, falling into new sins. What are you chasing, man, and why are you persecuting Me, the Lord speaks internally to a person who is chasing after vain things, for food, for self-interest, for honor, and because of these vain things, persecuting his neighbor with hatred, envy, stinginess, resentment, untruth, and so on. I live by Christ, and not by bread and money or people. Everyone should have this conviction in the depths of their souls, and then everyone will be calm and will not be discouraged or offended by people who take his property or take anything away from him. How many times have you been treated freely at various services by parishioners for almost sixteen years, either at invited dinners, or in the evenings at a party? Count this and say: how did you repay the Lord for all this? Nothing. So the Lord takes a debt from you - commanding your relatives to live with you on your support. Accept this visitation of God with joy. Take a good look at the words of the song at the thanksgiving prayer service: You, an indecent sinner, are honored daily by the Lord with the gift of great blessings and gifts of God. How will you repay them? Nothing. Do not regret, at least, giving these gifts of God to those in need, do not be angry with them, do not be hostile to them, do not envy them, live with them in love and peace. This will be a pleasing sacrifice to God. I thank the Lord for my great salvation from hellish fire and the oppression of the enemy, who came upon me after a disagreement with my family regarding the stay of a mother in labor with her baby in our house. I prayed to the Lord with ardent repentance, and the Lord had mercy on me, heeding my pushing, for he said: knock, and it will be opened to you [Russian: knock, and it will be opened to you] [Matt. 7, 7; OK. 11, 9]. What kind of impudence is this ethereal enemy, and what kind of stupid addiction is it on my part to bread, that even in church at the proskomedia I satisfy this addiction, demanding that the prosphora bowl deliver more prosphora, as if size is the dignity of prosphora, as if everyone should eat their fill of prosphora? Does man live on bread alone?.. Is it not on every word that comes from the mouth of God [Matt. 4, 4 ]? How long will I not confirm this alphabet? Until I accept it in my heart and show it in my deeds, that is, indifference to food and drink?.. Food is not for the imams of houses, but for eating and drinking [Russian: Isn’t... there are no houses for eating and drinking] [1 Cor. 11, 22 ] ? Don’t we have rolls, pies, pretzels, and homemade white bread to satisfy our hunger or greed?.. I am a sinner, Lord! correct me, damned one. Late liturgy. Everything was fine, only at the great entrance, looking at the people and seeing the naval officers ahead, he became somewhat embarrassed and doubted his ability to pronounce the names of the royal house, and indeed, out of stupid embarrassment and doubt, he did not pronounce all the names, but missed many. I repent that in the face of the Living God, the beginningless, omnipotent, all-holy, omniscient, great, before Whom each of us is an insignificant blade of grass, an infusoria, a drop, I was afraid of people. But, by the grace of God, he delivered the sermon with boldness and power. On the 28th, on Monday, at Vespers, saying forgiveness, I also became frightened, I don’t know why, when I looked at Grechukhina and Yudina standing in the church; I was embarrassed and hurt by the enemy and did not utter words of forgiveness. And this had a strong impact on me when reading the akathist to the Iveron Queen Theotokos: I could not calm down for a long time - the enemy was cutting me internally. I thank the Lord for the gracious, easy, stumbling-free celebration of Matins on September 29. Memory of the Monk Kyriakos the hermit. At four o'clock in the morning I woke up to the sick woman - to the house of Yurkevich, to the wife of Mikhail Lavr, a painter. In the gymnasium in the 4th grade with fornication, at home with hatred of Grigory Ivanovich the enemy fired and is still firing. If I gave up greed, then anger would be taken away by itself, for anger is because of bread (food and drink). What an absurdity this insatiable greed is! What anger she stirs up! Papa and mamma rejoice at the successful release of Anna, their daughter, and my sister, from her burden. Why am I not happy? Yes, I look at her like a father looks at his daughter. He who comes to Me I will not cast out [Jn. 6, 37]. If Grigory Ivanovich and Anna Konstantinovna came to you out of need: one because of illness, the other for a sick person, and both stayed with you for a long time, at your expense, then do not throw them out, but for the sake of Christ and for the sake of kinship and love for mankind, tolerate them with you, for God will not leave you and will reward you for your patience, just do not be embittered with them and do not complain about them. Give the prayer to the mother in labor at Estafiev’s house. Live with those who remain with you out of need, as if you were destined to live together from your superiors or from God Himself, and as if they were superior in your apartment, and you were inferior, they were masters, and you were a servant. Whoever wants to be first, be... a servant of all [Mk. 9, 35]. So treat your brothers who live with you as guests who come to you, not counting the length of their stay with you at all; let love be no more 138 falling away; consider food and drink as nothing. Resist your adversary the devil by all means. To meditate on a mountain, to philosophize on a mountain means not to cling to anything earthly, to be indifferent to everything, to willingly give to those who demand what they need for life; do not get angry when they take ours or live on our support or when relatives are placed in our apartment; not to be greedy for food and drink, but always indifferent and abstinent; do not have a passion for elegant clothes; live in God and for God, in fasting, vigil, prayer, contemplation of God. Love your neighbor as yourself, as your own member; love someone else's child as if it were your own; Consider someone else's benefit as your own; Take care of other people's things as if they were your own; Guard someone else's honor as if it were your own; Treat other people's shortcomings as if they were your own. You do a lot to your relatives; grant also to your wife, who is one flesh with you, to do good to her and your relatives, of whom there are few. This is worthy and righteous, especially since because of your wife and her family you have a truly good place, flowing with milk and honey. An example for you is the Lamb of God, take away the sins of the world: be a lamb of kindness and patience. And don't look gloomy. Oh, if you were really offended by strangers or your relatives, you would be worthy of it for your sins. But no one offends you: you live in peace, only your passions will offend you. They take what is yours, but much more than that and the excess is in your hands. Beat your “I”, otherwise it will kill you mentally and physically. I thank the Lord, who has given me the grace of forgiveness of my sins and the unfailing, in the strength of my heart, celebration of the Divine Liturgy with non-judgmental communion of the Holy Mysteries and with victory over the fierce invisible enemies who mercilessly oppressed me and irritated my weakness. (Green’s relatives were at the mass.) I thank the Lord, who had mercy on me and saved me from the great spiritual anguish of hell that befell me for my sins: for my rage at the beggar girl who pursued me to my door, and at my brother Gregory. For a long time I knocked on the doors of God’s mercy, and finally I got through. (The rage also came from the fact that my heart was heavy from the buckwheat porridge with Russian butter and from two glasses and a half of unleavened milk drunk at dinner.) In the life of every Christian there are inevitably fierce days or hours, during which his old man is greatly enraged by passions and scorched by rage. For these hours of temptation, a Christian must stock up on faith so that, having overcome everything, he can stand [Eph. 6, 13]. Woe to the weak-hearted and the faint-hearted! God bless! I renounce Satan and all his works: malice, envy, greed, stinginess, despondency, delicacy, covetousness, uncleanness, waywardness, disobedience and other things. I know that the enemy will force me to sin, confuse me, oppress me, but I place my hope in the Lord - my wondrous Provider. May He guide me. Today I slept rather poorly, restlessly, probably due to the fact that I drank a lot of sweet tea in the evening. Everyone tells me that Anna Konstantinovna’s release from the burden in my apartment is God’s work. Let the Lord be the glory in everything; I feel ashamed of my face for my cowardice and impatience. May God bless the mother, father and baby. May God grant me to do more good to father, mother and daughter for the glory of God, contrary to the desire of the old man to deprive them of good. May the machinations of Satan be destroyed in me against this family, for the enemy breathes malice against them in me. Let me be a lamb, Lord! The enemy either arouses in me partiality and lust for the beautiful, and, moreover, with extreme languor and cramped conditions, then disgust and hatred towards my own people for using my apartment and table. What terrible hostility towards me! What kind of persecution! It’s as if the mental burdens of Grigory Ivanovich and Anna Konstantinovna lie on me: because of them, the enemy is bothering me. And how do they feel when I suffer so much for their sake from the enemy! And why? Because of trifles. If they did not exist, there would be no bitter temptations. But not my will, Lord, but Yours, be done: You destined me to follow a narrow and regrettable path. What a fierce, fiery war the devil wages against me daily! How terribly I fall! How hard it is for me to rise! How I melt, willy-nilly, in passions! God! Have mercy on me. Teach me abstinence and fasting, love, meekness, kindness, chastity, patience. This is what our Christian faith consists of: always trusting in God and being careless about earthly goods, and joyfully serving our neighbors, out of love for them, and suffering for Christ, for piety, and not in eating and drinking and greedily collecting property and giving comfort only to ourselves. Remember with what readiness sister Anna Konstantinovna served you when you asked her for something, and do not forget this, and love her, and endure the sickly Grigory Ivanovich with love and love with patience. Because I try to serve God to the best of my ability, the enemy beats me, torments me, torments me with passions, inciting me to them with terrible force. He drinks from the stream on the way: for this reason he will lift up his head [Russian: From the stream on the way he will drink, and therefore he will lift up his head] [Ps. 109, 7]. Abstinence leads to spiritual fruits and heights of spirit. I thank, praise and extol the God of our salvation, who heard my fiery prayer for the healing of baby Elena (daughter of the merchant Gerasim Murashov) from her relative. She has been healthy for three weeks now, whereas before she was beaten three times a day. Three weeks ago, I fervently prayed at the throne of God in the cathedral for Helen, Basil and Mary. Is anything being done with these? Have you recovered? If only the Lord would give the news! Henceforth hope and boldness before the Lord! Wed: without Me you cannot do anything (Russian: without Me you cannot do anything) (John 15:5). Compare: But everyone who listens to these words of mine and does not fulfill them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand; and the rain fell, and the rivers flowed, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and he fell, and his fall was great (Matthew 7:26–27). Disgrace (Church Slavic) - a spectacle, a spectacular place: circus, theater, lists. Vzymati (Church Glav.) – take away; those who collect are those who take away. Baba is the popular name for the waterfowl pelican. Wed: So do not worry and say: what shall we eat? or what to drink? or what to wear? Because the pagans are looking for all this, and because your Heavenly Father knows that you need all this. Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all this will be added to you (Matthew 6:31-33). See also: Mk. 10, 29–30; OK. 12, 29–31. Flaw (Church Slavic) – damage, loss, overhead. Osten – sting, butt (see note 60). Basilisk is a mythological monster with the head of a rooster, the body of a toad, the tail of a snake and a crown on its head, killing all living things with its gaze. Poszhde (Church Glav.) – after. Pokoliku (Church Glav.) – how much, how much, since. Compare: And all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, and the children of Israel said to them: Oh, that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots, when we ate bread to the full! for you brought us out into this desert to starve this entire congregation (Ex. 16:2-3). Zelo (Old Russian) – very, very. By many (Church Glorious) - many times, many times. See: Matt. 14, 15–21; Mk. 6, 35–44; OK. 9, 13–17; In. 6, 5–13. Nikolizhe (Church Glav.) - never. You might be interested in: