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I thank the Lord with all my heart for delivering the servant of God John (the peasant) from evil spirits, through our common prayer, and especially through the prayer of the Church, which compiled such beautiful, powerful prayers for the expulsion of demons. This encourages me more and more to pray for poor people tormented by the devil. Glory to Thy goodness, wisdom and power, O Lord! I thank You, Lord, for through my prayer You marked the early morning of this day with Your mercy and Your salvation, revealed to me, unworthy, in deliverance from flattering, prodigal lust when meeting a girl. God! grant me to keep my heart faithful to You all the days of my life. Tribulation and distress on every soul of a person who does evil [Rom. 2, 9], deprivation of lightness, light, freedom, peace, consolation and joy of the Holy Spirit. When meeting with different people, the evil one tries to instill in us either lust, or disgust, envy and hatred, depending on the person’s physical and spiritual qualities, but the Angel of God instills pure love in Christ, combined with respect, as for the image and likeness of God, as a member of Christ, a member of His Church, as a child of God and the heir of the future blessed Kingdom. For the old, Adamic man, everything is not enough, due to his greed, gluttony, his desire to possess everything alone, although he needs very little, and he rages when others constrain him in his (imaginary) possessions or property, when he, willy-nilly or unwillingly, must share his goods with his neighbors. But he needs to bring to mind death and the restraint house more often: a coffin and just a fathom of earth - this is his last possession! Let him not expand and become arrogant, but get used to the cramped space in advance and be content with a small piece of bread and a glass of water. God! My Savior, I thank Thee, for Thou hast granted me this day grace and ineffable mercy to perform the Divine Liturgy without Matins, and Thou hast granted me remission of sins in the communion of Thy Divine Mysteries, and Thou hast made me worthy to receive communion of Thy servant Peter (Alexandrovich Vasilyev) on his sick bed. I thank Thee, for Thou hast twice saved me from my malice in my house. Grant me, Lord, to hate myself and love my neighbor as myself, for then I will love my neighbor when I hate myself forever. Self-love, or self-love, and love for one’s neighbor are incompatible, like poles, which is why the Lord said: if anyone... does not hate... his very life, he cannot be My disciple [Lk. 14, 26]. God! Give me the grace to hate myself and forget and forgive all the insults of my neighbors, for rancor is opposition to the love commanded by the Gospel: remembering evil or insults is hidden malice. Let me remember my evil behavior - the cause of others’ evil towards me, and sincerely repent of it, and humble myself before everyone; let us remember the common illness, the common illness of evil and not increase it with our malice, but heal it with patience, condescension, prayer for all those who offend or seethe with anger, malice, hatred, resistance, pride, envy. Give me wisdom to the serpent and integrity to the dove. God! have mercy on us: behold, sin burns 141 in our members. If I do not tolerate fair or unfair contradictions from others, especially those at home, and I want to put everything on my own, whether it is good or not, then it means that I am proud, proud and angry, and this happens to me; and not others are the culprits of my anxiety, but myself. I must be simple-hearted and kind: if in a minute I was offended and a minute later they make peace with me, I must immediately make peace with joy and not remember the evil; if in a minute they cut me off and chase me away, or make a sharp remark for something and a minute later they caress me again, immediately reconcile, putting aside any rancor, and hasten to take advantage of the affection. With this you will delight the kindly Angels and the saints of God, who shone in kindness. Only petty pride tends to indulge in impatience, irritability, envy, stubbornness, and rancor. Forgive us our debts, just as we forgive our debtors. We ourselves have an extreme need for the forgiveness of sins, we hunger for it, like the earth during the heat of cooling dew or rain, and yet we ourselves forgive others reluctantly, we remember evil for a long time, we melt in evil. What kind of anger? What kind of rancor? I thank the Lord, who saved me yesterday from the oppression of the enemy, the oppression of malice. By not punishing youth in a timely manner, we leave them to sacrifice to passions, and we are preparing for them great misfortune in the future. What father doesn't punish his son? God! give me the grace to be content with what I have and with those with whom I live, and not to yearn for more, for all family, social, and international troubles—mutual enmity and hatred in families, societies, nations—come from dissatisfaction with one’s condition and from a burning thirst for self-interest, honor, and pleasures. Blessed is he who is content with his condition. The enemy of the human race has found a powerful means, a lever to arouse, support and intensify mutual dislike and hatred between people - through people's addiction to earthly things and pleasures; Through this same addiction, he makes them alien to God, and alienates from God people created in the image and likeness of God, redeemed by His Blood, His beloved children. Therefore, a true Christian despises both his flesh, greedy for earthly goods, and these very temporary blessings, which soon disappear, but holds with all his heart the love of God and neighbor, which is the fulfillment of the whole law and for the observance of which eternal life is granted. Tea without cream and sugar greatly irritates the nerves. Drink as little as possible. (Prayer to the mother in labor and prayer service with Kuroyedov, captain of the 2nd rank.) In the morning you should not eat anything. Today I ate raw carrots (one and a half carrots), ate almost one prosphora, and my heart was very heavy until lunch. I drank tea on the side. It's also bad. What is to blame for the sacred words of church prayers: do they not bring life to my heart, do they not bring light to my mind? And yet the disembodied enemy produces disgust towards them, does not allow them, so to speak, sometimes, does not allow them to reprimand. Likewise, people are not to blame for the fact that the spirit of hostility, the devil, instills in us hatred and enmity towards them or incites them to flare up and become angry with us. You need to forgive them from the heart for these outbursts and this anger, momentary resistance, envy, especially when you see repentance and change in them. Otherwise, we will please our worst enemy, who incites us to anger, rancor, contradiction and resistance. But I say to you: do not resist evil, says our Lord and Savior. But whoever strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other also to him; and whoever wants to sue you and take your shirt, give him your outer garment too [Matt. 5, 39–40]. To offend is bad, but [to be] offended or offended by others, unjustly or righteously, is good. They accepted the plunder of your property with joy [Heb. 10, 34]. Blessed are you when people revile you (are rude), scold you, and unjustly contradict you [Matt. 5, 11]. Because of whom do I have everything? By the way, isn’t it because of Anna Konstantinovna? Who am I obligated to support? My father-in-law, the late father Archpriest Konstantin Petrovich Nesvitsky, served as a priest and archpriest for thirty-four years and handed over his place at the Kronstadt Cathedral, deserved by such long service, to me, an unworthy man. How can I not be grateful to him, and after his death to my wife and his family and, of course, first of all to the God of all, who was pleased to be a priest for me. How hard it is for a sinner’s vanity to deny himself! It's like being crucified on a cross. Let us suppose that a person is accustomed to occupying several rooms alone and not sharing his goods with relatives who live separately and their means, and now these relatives must, willy-nilly, settle with him and share his home and board with him, although they are not deprived of their means - oh, how difficult this can be for him, especially if there have previously been hostile clashes with these relatives, who were hostile to him in some cases. But here he must deny himself, forget all hostility and willingly share his home, bread and salt, tea and sugar - for the sake of the Lord and His commandments; go against yourself, against your sinful feelings; For the sake of the Lord, bear the burdens of your neighbors without complaint, so that the Lord will lift our burdens; embarrass yourself for God's sake. If anyone wants to come after Me, turn away from yourself, and take up your cross, and follow Me [Matt. 16, 24]. But Christ had no place to lay his head. The holy saints, apostles, hierarchs, martyrs gave their very lives for the sake of Christ, and loved their persecutors, and prayed for them with love. And the holy fools? Oh, what completeness of self-sacrifice! These were heavenly angels on earth! What are we like? If our relatives or strangers live with us, in our home, and take advantage of our goods, we grumble, get annoyed, hate parasites, almost gnash our teeth - so great is our pride! Meanwhile, we have everything we need, and in abundance, according to the goodness of the Lord, who endures us sinners on earth with His goodness. Why am I jealous of the devil, and not of Christ my God - why, that is, do I remember insults, and not forgive them from my heart, as the Lord forgives me? May we not remember evil, this common ulcer. And is sweetness a remembrance of evil? – isn’t it bitter? Is it strength? - isn't it weakness? Is it honor? - Isn’t it dishonor, isn’t it shame? Is it light? – isn’t it darkness? If we thought humbly about ourselves, we would not accumulate wealth, hoarding it in our treasuries, and consider ourselves worthy of great excesses and the owners of them, but would give with all our hearts to the poor; we would not wear luxurious clothes, but would love different thinness, as corresponding to our spiritual thinness and the ugliness of passions; they would not enjoy selected dishes, while others do not have a piece of bread, but would eat simple food, and not much at that. All our luxury reveals our manifold pride. Until death deprives us of God’s gifts, let us, with warm hands, give from our blessings to those in need, especially to those close to us. Many are unworthy, you say? But you are not worthy either - however, God gives you everything. Are some of your relatives who live with you evil, or disobedient and disrespectful? But are you good, aren’t you evil - and yet God does good to you. Common evil must be healed with love, meekness, kindness, humility, patience, mercy; Evil is the fire of hell, which increases the more the more we resist it, and the sooner it goes out, the less we resist, humble ourselves, tolerate, show love to those who are hostile to us, or leave malice unattended. Don’t blow on a hot coal and it will go out on its own, but if you blow on it, it will ignite. And we inflate everything with some kind of gloating - and that’s why we get badly burned. The Lord has honored you and continues to honor you so often with such a wonderful, life-giving gift - the Holy Mysteries of His Body and Blood: what else should you care about, what else should you begrudge from earthly blessings for your neighbors, especially since the Lord provides so richly for you. You must be all heavenly, all love, meekness, kindness, patience, non-covetous, non-covetous, fasting, unambitious, despising all earthly glory, seeking the glory that is from the One God [Jn. 5, 44]. Extinguish the fire hidden under the ashes, so that the flame does not come out, that is, extinguish the hellish fire of passions hidden in the heart under the veil of flesh, so that it does not turn into the unquenchable fire of hell and consume you all. Do not incite him 142 with sweets, honors, things of this world, on the contrary, distance them from him, that is, do not have an addiction to them, so that a strong inflammation does not result. Oh, how ill-fated we are all in this temporary life because of the hellish fire of passions smoldering in us! An internal fire constantly threatens us with danger to our spiritual and sometimes physical life! I, a corrupt sinner and burned by many passions living in me, provoked my family to anger and opposition to me, I am guilty before them and should not blame them, weak creatures, also subject, like me, to the inflammation of passions, but I must pity them, respect them and love them, take care of them as myself, in which may the Lord help. It often happens that we ourselves - owners, bosses, fathers, elders in the house - through our weaknesses or whims, countless passions, caprices, deserve the anger and indignation of our younger ones, subordinates, children: and in this case, let us endure this anger or disobedience with meekness, and from now on we will behave with restraint and not give reasons for indignation at us or disobedience, rudeness, insolence. As you want people to do to you, do so to them [Lk. 6, 31]. God! The sadness of this age is evil in me, turning me away from the love of Thy and my neighbor: take away this daily sorrow from me, let me trust in You alone and be carefree and at peace, according to the word of Scripture: Cast all your cares on Him, for He cares for you [1 Pet. 5, 7]. While giving a prayer to G. Kuroyedov, I became confused and doubtful at the word of the kindly prayer and, wounded, could not read further; At the meeting of the late notary Vasilyev, at a meeting of a large crowd, the exclamation of the first litany was spoken unsteadily, hastily, with gaps, out of undignified fear and embarrassment; Only through tearful prayer did he beg for boldness in prayer. Oh, my internal disasters! My Savior, save Your servant from troubles. Mistress, save Your servant from troubles. To find out how great or little respect or love a person has for a person, look at how he treats his neighbor during the table or when asking for alms: if he does not spare anything to the truly needy or hungry, then his love is great; if he spares a person in need a penny or a piece of sweets, it means that his love is at the level of freezing - he is a self-lover, not a lover of God. I thank the Lord, who made it worthy to celebrate the Divine Liturgy at the cemetery at the cathedral for the servant of God Gregory Sidor, and to partake in the sweet peace and freedom of the spirit after the burning of passions or demons. Oh, what grace! What life-giving dew! What a cool, fragrant, pacifying, strengthening, enlightening drink! I thank the Lord, who gave me the grace to perform a memorial service for Petra A. Vasilyeva without stumbling after the first exclamation, at which I was embarrassed by demonic fear. October 8, 1870. I thank the Lord, who destroyed the machinations of the enemy after dinner at home by the power of the cross. After dinner, I greedily grabbed Sidorov’s meat soup and meat broth from roast meat and potatoes, and then in the evening I drank tea with cream - and my heart became weak for prayer, my spirit became deadened. I thought that tea would make my voice better. Oh, I don’t need to eat meat: it’s my spiritual powerlessness. Eating meat and wine greatly coarsens the heart and becomes powerless in the face of temptation. It is better not to eat meat, not to drink wine [Rom. 14, 21]. All ascetics abstain from everything [1 Cor. 9, 25], but I entered into a feat - and I do not want to abstain, knowing the cruelty and vigilance of my enemies. Friday. I thank the Lord, who deigned me to receive communion without condemnation this day during the liturgy on the occasion of the funeral service for the late Peter Al. Vasilyev, a former notary, and read the prayer of permission loudly to the end; I thank you for the victory over the fierce and all-evil adversary, who embarrassed me throughout the mass before communion and partly during the funeral service (at the first exclamation I lost my voice from embarrassment). I thank You, Lord Jesus Christ, my Benefactor, who honored me with help in the marriage of Your servant Gregory and Marina. I thank You for salvation several times these days. And I consider it to be the ineffable grace of God that the family of the deceased was completely comforted through our prayers before God, as the wife of the deceased herself, Marina Avvakumovna, said about this. Their burden probably fell entirely on me, and how hard it was for me during mass, the funeral service, and before that at the memorial service. Nikolai Yankovsky, an acquaintance of mine, told me that no matter how many times he was at christenings in St. Petersburg, he never heard any priest clearly read the exorcism and baptismal prayers; that he seemed to be the first to hear me reading clearly. It may be true, but my work is the work of God’s grace. One body, one spirit, just as you were called quickly in the one hope of your calling: one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all [Russian: One body and one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father] [Eph. 4, 4–6], – great words! We must firmly adhere to them, fulfill them every day and hour. Let us be unanimous, let us not alienate each other, despise each other, hate each other, envy each other: let us be one body, one spirit. I sinned before the Lord on this October 10th with impatience and anger towards the servant Anna, who was brought up in our house, for her faults, for her inhospitability and opposition: twice with annoyance he pulled out her hair, and when her wife came running to her cry, he threatened to hit her. I sinned against the Lord, meek, long-suffering and abundantly merciful. How long-suffering and abundantly merciful the Lord is to me! And how impatient and unmerciful I am! (The servants still don’t want to light the stoves properly, and they do dirty tricks, stacking firewood carelessly and closely, and often smoke the rooms with smoke: for this I was very angry with her and became indignant.) Lord! Give me the grace not to be disturbed in spirit by anything, but to do everything calmly, in quietness, meekness, kindness—reprimands and punishments. For me, who so often eats the Lamb of God, it is high time for me to become the lamb of meekness and [patience], having rejected the effeminacy of the flesh. Why was I indignant after Brother Alexei’s words regarding the fact that it is only worth going to church when the singers are singing, and when they are not there, then it is not worth going? Because my pride is hurt here, because I, a priest, am humiliated here, a clergyman who is neglected is humiliated; because here the very essence of the divine service is neglected, and only musicality and harmony are taken into account. But I had to meekly endure this one-sidedness of my brother, who had not risen to the understanding of the essence of worship, and not be upset with him, not burn with anger, not be indignant in spirit. Am I really going to be so angry at all my opponents? Yes, then I will completely damage the truth of God, and not elevate it. Nothing proves the truth more than calmness, love, and thorough prudence. And this ardor shows pride, dislike, extreme pride. On holiday there are special temptations from the spirit of evil: trifles outrage. I must remember that I am corrupted in the depths of my soul and body, and I am morally weak precisely because of my corruption in my youth, which I must constantly mourn, for which I must constantly humble myself before God and people, considering myself the worst and most wicked of all and the most humble servant of all. The incorporeal enemy constantly clothes and fetters my insides with various passions. Every day I am captivated either by voluptuousness, or by pride and envy, or by greed. Lord, have mercy. Forgive me, Lord, for, willingly and unwillingly, I fulfill the will of my adversary. Teach me to do Your will and not to be indignant at anything, not to be afraid of anything or anyone. Lord, save the hedgehog 143 in me according to Your image and likeness. Remember that you are the greatest sinner, and you will never be irritated. Acquire a friend of the Lord, and not flesh, not people, not sweets, not self-interest, not the glory of this world - so that you may stand at His right hand and hear the blessed voice. God forbid that I should be embittered against someone created in the image and likeness of God for any weaknesses, passions, or misdeeds that he does at the instigation of the devil. Oh, I know from experience how much the enemy constantly incites us to sin, how difficult it is not to sin! Our nature is corrupted, has become akin to, has become accustomed to sin. Every day [the devil] tries to pervert our soul, created in the image and likeness of [God], and implant in it all kinds of evil instead of virtue: instead of truth - lies, instead of sincerity - hypocrisy, instead of love - enmity, instead of virtue - envy, instead of ardor for God and for each other - coldness and alienation, instead of heavenly love - addiction to earthly things, instead of humility - pride, instead of meekness and without malice - irritation and anger, instead of abstinence and fasting - greed for food and drink, intemperance, overeating and drunkenness, instead of peace - confusion, instead of joy in the Holy Spirit - sinful sadness, instead of space - tightness of the soul, instead of courage - despondency, instead of boldness - fear, instead of faith - doubt, instead of hope - despair; just as [the devil] completely perverted himself, so he wants to completely pervert us, so that we do not believe in God, do not hope in Him, do not love Him, but live in enmity, malice, envy, gluttony, covetousness, and so on. We live in a world of God's miracles; but the greatest miracle that happened in our world, which saved humanity from destruction, granted it purification, sanctification, resurrection and life and elevated it to heaven and raised it to the Divine heights, seated it on the throne of the Divine - this is the incarnation of the Son of God, His suffering, death, burial, resurrection and ascension to heaven. How do we relate every day to this greatest miracle of God’s mercy, omnipotence, and wisdom? Is it not indifferent, is it not cold? Sometimes not with little faith? Woe to us who have come to know God and Christ and fall away because of vain earthly wisdom and because of addiction to earthly sweets, to the deceptive and fleeting glory of earth. What will happen to us at the Judgment? Wouldn't it be better, wouldn't it be more joyful for the Sodomites and Gomorrites? And what a blessing to the faithful of Christ! How good it is for the saints of God who have benefited from the fruits of the saving incarnation, suffering, death and resurrection of the Son of God! Even now they are glorified with imperishable, imperishable glory; they are now blessed by the Church day after day and will be blessed until the end of the age; Even now God glorifies them with various miracles and signs at their graves or when the faithful zealously call on them; the bodies of many of them are now incorruptible and serve as a receptacle for the grace of God, richly poured out on the faithful. Wonderful Christian faith! How it corrects, renews, sanctifies, adores, and immortalizes the human being! And we - alas! - are not sincerely devoted, with all our being, to our faith! We don’t try to follow its rules, commandments, statutes! We are so frivolous until now that we chase after worldly goods, momentary in comparison with eternity; we are not jealous of mutual love and often live in enmity and envy; We are not jealous of abstinence and spend our time in excess and drunkenness! Alas for us, alas for us! God of miracles! Work with us the miracle of conversion, correction and salvation! In any case, smoking tobacco is censing the multi-passionate flesh - this many-headed idol - and is equivalent to idolatrous incense. I thank Thee, Lord, for Thou hast raised me up and had mercy on me, who fell into fierce anger and malice against the servant Anna and brother Alexei. Monday. I thank the Lord, who admonished me not to spare the food and drink of my neighbor and not to cleave my heart to this dust, but to hope in His mercy and bounty, which never left me; I thank the Lord for crushing the enemy’s snares and for speedy deliverance from them and peace of mind. I thank the Lord, who has vouchsafed me to perform without stumbling Matins, the early liturgy and the general prayer service to the Queen of Heaven, Archangel Michael, and the holy Apostle Philip with the Blessing of Water; I thank you for the victory over invisible enemies, for the uncondemned communion of the Holy, most pure, heavenly, immortal and life-giving Mysteries. I thank the Lord for the quick help and salvation given to me by the Lord in my apartment, in the hall, with a firm gaze with faith at the miraculous image of Christ the Savior, which was in the corner of the hall, when I was sitting next to my sister Anna Konstantinovna, the mother in labor, and the devil’s hidden enmity pressed me; I turned my pleading gaze to the Lord, that he might forbid malice and pluck out the very root from my heart—and He plucked it out, and the tightness went away, and I felt free and at ease. Glory to Thee, Lord, glory to Thee. God! Teach my brother Gregory to zealously visit Your holy church and diligently pray for himself, for his wife and child, and for us, and for his relatives, and for all those near and far. Today (19th Sunday after Pentecost) the Gospel was read about love for enemies and about lending without repaying: But you love your enemies, and do good, and lend, not expecting anything; and you will have a great reward, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked... And if you love those who love you, what gratitude do you have for that? for sinners also love those who love them... And if you greet only your brothers, what special thing are you doing? Don't the pagans do the same? And if you lend to those from whom you hope to get it back, what gratitude are you for that? for even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount [Lk. 6, 35, 32; Matt. 5, 47; OK. 6, 34]. A Christian must go against the desires of his corrupt heart, against the customs of this world. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to get it back, what gratitude are you for that? [ OK. 6, 34]. And we, sinners, do good to others only because we hope to receive from them, especially if those who owe us are wealthy people themselves. Looking with intelligent eyes at what is happening in the inner world at other times due to the influence of the unclean spirit on my unclean heart and as a result of my extreme corruption, I must decisively renounce myself, from love for myself, from fulfilling not only the lusts of the flesh, but sometimes legal, innocent actions and movements; I must stop believing in my so-called old man, declare complete hostility to him and go contrary to him all the days of my life, I must once and for all [leave] all anger towards my neighbor who is hostile to me or who offends me, who robs me, who ruins me, who is rude to me, who is contemptuous 144; give up every form of arrogance, pride, self-will, stubbornness, disobedience, envy, greed, stinginess, covetousness, lust, absent-mindedness, murmuring, despondency, laughter, idle talk; I should not do anything in spite of my neighbor that could lead to mutual cooling, displeasure, or enmity, even if I could hit the heel of my boot or open a window in a window or a door in a room, if my neighbors do not want this, fearing harm to myself due to some kind of weakness; one must be compliant with gentleness and quietness, submissive without displeasure and grumbling. Glory to Thee, Lord Jesus Christ, our God, who extinguishes in us with His grace the demonic enmity that rushes towards our neighbors, and sends down upon us the dew of goodness, mercy and peace. All the charm and power that captivates passions lies in the fact that the disembodied enemy, as if with fiery butts, incites us to them, promising charm, sweetness in satisfying them; for example, he incites to voluptuousness, burning and seducing us with sweets, to anger - burning with adoration, to honor - burning with the desire for honors, distinctions, titles, to covetousness - inflaming the imagination with the imagination of a lot of silver and gold or things of gold and silver, rich chambers, rich decoration of rooms, luxurious clothes, carriages, many admirers. But we are pampered and impatient and therefore are alien to the fiery temptation, and as soon as the sting of the enemy burns, we are immediately inflamed with the corresponding passion (for every passion has its own sting) and are carried away by its flow, sometimes resisting, and sometimes without resistance - while we should not change our previous state of peace and dispassion and, looking firmly with the eyes of our hearts to God and loving with all our hearts virtue, to despise the sting of sin and not in the least agree to it. We hate everything that is evil in our neighbors, as well as them ourselves, but we willingly excuse everything that is evil in ourselves and, despite the evil that is in us, we continue to love ourselves, nourish and warm ourselves; Even if we hate ourselves, it is only for a very short time, and for that we reward ourselves with greater love. Well, if only we treated our neighbors like that! Any excess in food and drink is a strengthening of the old man in us, a strengthening of carnal evil and carnal passions; any excess is an impoverishment of grace and weakness of the spirit, while, on the contrary, both abstinence and fasting are strength of spirit and body, strengthening in virtue, weakening of passions. This is due to the close connection between soul and body. (Do not eat meat or anything too nutritious, but everything light and in small quantities.) In very damp weather, eat and drink especially little, because even without that nature has an aggravating effect on the soul through the nerves. I thank the Lord, who soon saved me from the anger smoldering in my heart against Sister Anna, when I, with faith, sincerely cried out to Him at nine and a half o’clock in the evening. (Anger came out from behind the window.) Who doesn’t know that the ethereal enemy bothers us with empty things that we shouldn’t pay attention to! Why the anxiety, rage and anger? The envious person confuses everything; untruth outrages people, but we ourselves live in untruth before God. To endure unrighteousness for the sake of God is commendable: this is why the Lord called us, and the Lord judges us to oppress unrighteously. God does not command one to be embarrassed or angry at the oppressors. From the 15th to the 17th, go to the district court in the Duma and take the oath. (The archpriest and the dean acted extremely unfairly: they appointed me alone to go to court for two weeks, while I will be the next one, and I will have classes, and the archpriest and the cleric are both idle.) Let the Lord judge. The disembodied adversary found a reason to torment me because of the lies of my superiors - and now he torments, confuses, oppresses, sets fire to, darkens. O evil spirit! Away from the name of the Lord! Why be indignant at human untruth? Don’t you know that the earth from the beginning of the human race until now has been filled with untruth and that the Eternal Truth itself, embodied, has suffered in the most shameful way from human untruth? Do not be indignant at the untruth that befalls you, as if from something extraordinary, and do not be angry at those who do untruth, but, pitying them as lost ones, pray sincerely to God for them; prove by this that you are a true Christian, a follower of the meek and long-suffering Lord. Rest in God and His truth. You have known God, His goodness, mercy, obedience, His holiness, justice, power, wisdom - why do you continue to live as if you did not know Him? Why don’t you constantly walk before His face, don’t rely in everything on His Providence, why haven’t you hated yourself, your sinful soul, your passionate soul, your manifold sin, and don’t you please Him in everything? If you know Gehenna, beware of it. You know the goodness of the Lord - rely on Him. You know His justice and wrath - beware of sin, you know infinite mercy - never despair of it, you know power - trust in His power and despise the imaginary power of demons and vicious people: they, like dust, will disappear. I thank You, Lord, for with Yourself, with heartfelt faith in You, You have pacified me, covering me from human unrighteousness. By Thy righteousness deliver me and redeem me, make me a Protector God and a place to save me firmly [Russian: Be me a firm refuge where I could always hide; You commanded to save me] [Ps. 70, 3]. There is no need to smoke tobacco: it is the devil’s sting inside. I smoked last night - and what happened in class today? Extreme internal burning by sweets in one class and irritation in another - in the 7th grade at the student Bubnov for immodest sitting, and in a dream at night there was a temptation for prodigal (do not eat at night). Why am I in a hurry in my thoughts, heart movements, words and actions? Because of this, I often act very rashly and become agitated by passions, because I do not give myself time to think about the matter coldly, calmly and impartially. Do everything without getting excited, calmly, kindly, in the name of the Lord, by the Lord and in the Lord; If you are irritated with your boss for his untruth, leave your truth and his untruth to the just Lord and do not take revenge on him with your ardor, do not repay evil for evil, annoyance for annoyance, so as not to add your own untruth to someone else’s untruth and no longer harm the cause, but defend yourself calmly, with love and quietness. He got excited with my father, the archpriest, about appointing me alone to the session of the district court and said insolently that he was attacking me because of my income, that is, because I was invited, but he was not, to funeral services and removals! and so on, so he noticed that I could vomit anything on him, anything. This is what the enemy hurried me to, forced me with such haste, this is why he confused and irritated me - and it turns out that there is no need to be embarrassed and irritated and in a hurry, but to accept everything calmly, with reasoning, giving yourself time to think about everything in detail. Dream for October 14th. I was in the hospital garden, and near it there was a stone wall; behind the stone wall is a thicket of trees - American spruce, tall and short; the short ones stand calmly, but the tall ones bend from side to side and bend over; It was almost like autumn, and they ate everything dry. It is I who am a dry and fruitless tree, for the sake of voluptuousness. I sinned yesterday: I was upset with the reader Vasily Ivanovich Kutuzov after a prayer service with Polyakov in Kasatkin’s house because he sat down without an invitation while I was standing. Let him sit and eat for his health, while I stand in humility. I must humble myself more than the sexton, because I am placed above him. Humility is the first virtue of a priest. Blessed are the poor in spirit [Matt. 5, 3]. I thank the Lord, who did not leave me without His all-powerful help in the presence of the district court, and trampled down many of His invisible enemies, unclean spirits, and gave me boldness when reading two oaths. October 15, 1870. How damned I am, proud and petty, and over what trifles I sometimes start a quarrel with my family! For example, today I almost quarreled with my wife because she doesn’t use the new samovar I bought, but uses the old one, in which the water allegedly smells bad, and so on. Bitterness was already spreading through my heart and limbs! Or, for example, a false thought came that the Tsvetkovs, my brother-in-law and sister-in-law, were robbing me under a plausible guise, living with me for several months and using all my goods (especially God’s) - and this thought worried, upset, armed me against them; I was angry with them for their insults, but then, when it became hard for me, I prayed to the Lord Jesus Christ, confessed that I was worrying in vain, that by His grace I had everything I needed, that I was not worth it because of my sins, that I did not need much, that the Lord fed me with His Flesh and Blood and through this gave me eternal life and for all this requires me to love Him and my neighbor and selflessness. Then I calmed down in trust in His all-effective and rich Providence. What if sorrows and faith had not kept me on the path of my passionate suspiciousness! I would be in trouble because of my sins! So, we need to keep ourselves constant! By depicting the sign of the cross on ourselves, we thus depict on ourselves Jesus Christ, who was ascended to the cross for our sins and for our salvation, and that is why we have the greatest power when we depict it on ourselves with faith. The members of a Christian are members of Christ; their babble 145 is the babble of Christ; nothing is blissful 146, nothing is unclean or nasty; Only the devil is unclean and vile - may he be covered with his own abomination, and may he protect us, may the Lord save us from all his uncleanness from now on and forever. Amen. 1870 October 16th day. Sincerity and reverence for the deed being performed - the oath and its words! Vanity fear or false shame or neglect away! The Lord exhausted Himself completely for my salvation, descending from the most bright and pure heaven onto our dark and unclean land, tasting reproachful death for me, so that I would deny myself, that is, the worst part of my being, damaged by sin - the body, or the old man, the multi-passionate flesh, so that the best part of my being - the soul, or the new man - would live forever, so that I would love others with selflessness, the way He He loved us so that I would not spare for them, in case of need, either myself or my property, even for my enemies or for people, relatives or strangers, to whom I am not inclined, whom I would not want to see at my place; so that I willingly forgive everyone everything, conquering evil with good and not remembering any evil against anyone, conquering everything with love, and conquering myself with the same love: for, truly, we must first of all conquer ourselves, the evil nesting in ourselves and the various passions with which we so often provoke others to evil, in order to defeat evil in others; not to spare yourself in the least, like a poisonous snake, like a spawn of vipers, but to do this, completely renounce this hidden snake inside and your flesh, in which this spiritual snake has clothed itself, as in its clothing. What is the devil's intention in fornication, adultery and supernatural lewdness, or sodomy? In order to mock the crown of God’s creation, at His dear creation - man, and at the sacred, wisely, holyly, with excellent artistry, organs of man-creation, and thus transform the wonderful order of God, although partly, in the reproduction of the human race, in order to cover people with their hellish uncleanness, distort their nature, turn away from them the eyes of God and the Divine Spirit, which hates the filth of sin, and expose them to eternal destruction unless they repent from the bottom of their hearts of all their indecencies. Having no children of your own, serve your sister-in-law and her child born to you as your wife and your child, or, even more so, as Christ Himself and His Mother, for we are all Christ’s. My wife, who so diligently serves, with such love, the mother in labor and the baby, perhaps, by the bounty of God, will be freed from the ordeals of the air: forty days should serve for forty days of posthumous existence, or procession, through the ordeals of the air. Give it, Lord! We need to think about the future, not only about the present; We need to prepare everyone's affairs for the outcome - settle scores, give reports. I am amazed at everything in general and each individual work of God’s creation, the unity of wisdom, purposefulness, purity, beauty and grace, and I glorify my Creator and all creation. Do not expect gratitude and love for your good deeds to your neighbors, for this will be reciprocity and retribution, but expect ingratitude and enmity and envy and be prepared for any bad chance, for people are sinners; accept this ingratitude and malice indifferently, without becoming upset or embittered in return, and you will receive a great reward from God. Agree that you have no power in the thoughts, feelings and dispositions of your neighbors or relatives, for they are free and powerful in themselves, and look indifferently at their ingratitude and malice or - what am I saying? - pity them, and love them, and pray for them all the more, the more you notice ingratitude in them. God shows us so many blessings every day, but how ungrateful we are before Him, not fulfilling His most holy will! How evil, envious, money-loving, voluptuous, and not God-loving we are! We complain about people’s ingratitude, insensitivity and anger towards us! And what are we like towards them? Aren't you insensitive to them yourself? Aren't you angry, aren't you envious?.. Extreme heartfelt weakness was felt today in [...] the district court due to yesterday's satiety with meat and milk gruel, and I could not control myself when reading the oath: I was embarrassed and dismounted. Oh, what weakness eating meat brings to the heart! We ourselves play pranks, quarreling with our neighbors, and when these neighbors express their dislike towards us, then we become upset with them because they speak badly of us: we act badly, but we want them to speak well of us, and that they are not cordial towards us. Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap [Gal. 6, 7]. We sow thorns, but want to gather bunches of grapes. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? [Matt. 7, 16]. If we change and correct ourselves, others will change and correct themselves. And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not feel the beam in your eye?.. Hypocrite! First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see how to remove the speck from your brother’s eye [Matt. 7, 3, 5]. It is dangerous to get carried away by suspiciousness. Yesterday I almost committed a great sin: having written a letter to brother Gregory following my evil suspiciousness, I almost sent it to him and almost saddened him; changed his mind, tore it up and threw it into the oven, and he himself calmed down in prayer, and he was delivered from suspiciousness. In the district court, the spirits of evil shot terribly at me, scorched me all the time, doused me with the stench of uncleanness, confused, crowded, frightened me before the reading of the oath and during the reading; I swallowed the right words and didn’t pronounce them. Thanks to Mikhail Osipovich Britnev for telling me: the members of the court want to reprimand you for eating your words. I needed this due to my inner disposition. Due to the action of evil spirits, I imagined that the members of the court were getting tired of my reading the oath. And now I heard that they wanted separate reading, I began to boldly, and calmly and separately, and did not miss a single word. Oh, the deceit of evil spirits! Either they whisper evil to me about people, representing people as evil, unrighteous towards me, or they whisper that all the noble and learned are unbelievers and are burdened by the pious work I am doing. In every case they offend me; and everything [the devil] deceives and slanderes people, as if they, and not he, the all-cunning one, does this, while he acts in all people, teaching them every sin. We must pray fervently to the Lord for all people, so that He will deliver them from their manifold deceits. Where two or three are gathered in My name, there I am in the midst of them [Matt. 18, 20], - that is, where the Church, or tribe 147 of heaven, earth and underworld, there is the Lord; where, that is, there is communication or unity in the prayers of the Church, heavenly, earthly and underworld, there is the Lord. Lutherans and English do not have this fellowship. (Regarding the reflection on the words of the litany: Remembering our Most Holy, Most Pure, Most Blessed, Glorious Lady Theotokos with all the saints...) We must remember the evil that the devil causes us, arousing intense anger against our neighbors and scorching us mercilessly, and in general all his evil, and not have the slightest evil against anyone, remembering that all evil is from the devil. Let everything happen to us through love. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him [1 Jn. 4, 16]. With this love, both Lutherans and the English can partially please God, although they do not have pure faith; however, where there is no pure faith, there is no perfect love, which is the fruit of the Orthodox faith and the Sacraments of the Orthodox Church and its prayers. In the life-giving air of the Orthodox faith and the Church, pure, perfect fruits of love grow, moistened with the dew of the Holy Spirit, who abides and acts in it, and the holy saints of God. By indulging in delicacies and intemperance, or by consuming food and wine or beer in excess, you sow thorns in the soul and weaken it, depriving it of the grace of the Holy Spirit, which flees from the incontinent and lives in the abstinent. Having remembered our Most Holy, Most Pure, Most Blessed, Glorious Lady Theotokos with all the saints... This means that we belong to the society of saints, in which the King is Christ God, and the Queen and Lady are the Most Holy Virgin Mary, Mother of Christ God according to humanity, that we are members of Christ: we are members of His body, from His flesh and from His bones [Eph. 5, 30]. A high title is a Christian title! May we be worthy of him. Resurrection. Twentieth week after Pentecost. I thank the Lord, who has given me the grace to perform the Divine Liturgy without stumbling and with strength, with holy fire and zeal, and to partake of the Divine Mysteries without condemnation, and to pronounce the word with boldness, and to be in sacred fulfillment until the evening, until six o’clock without ceasing. He was at peace in his labors in the service, but at home he was upset, greatly indignant in spirit from the written attacks of his father, the archpriest, and wrote to him in strong, rather harsh terms. He doesn’t think good about me, but everything is evil, he still suspects that we are ready to do anything for money, and where there is no retribution, we run from there. The love of money is strongly reflected in Father Archpriest; however, the person is surprisingly cold, indifferent, calm. This is a stoic. Until now, I allow myself great stupidity - I am greatly indignant in spirit when I see, hear or read about the boss’s untruth and vindictiveness. What good can I do if I am indignant in spirit? I’ll only upset myself, but I won’t help the matter at all; on the contrary, I can easily make it worse. The most sacred and reasonable thing is to remain calm when attacked by enemies, meekness, and kindness. Confusion, like a whirlwind, quickly covers the soul and the body, like a whirlwind, excites it. And the Lord grants me another summer of His goodness, and the Lord also vouchsafes me to see the day of my Angel, our venerable father John of Rila! Remember, Lord, in Your Kingdom my mother Theodora and visit her with the visitation of Your mercy, and all my relatives according to the flesh. Rest, O Lord, in a green place, in a bright place, in a place of rest for my father, Thy servant Elijah; Forgive him, Lord, every sin, voluntary and involuntary, and grant him Thy Kingdom, for Thou art a merciful and philanthropic God, and Thou Himself offered the Living Sacrifice for our sins to God, Thy Father, and to Thee we send glory with Thy Beginning Father, and Thy Most Holy, and Good, and Thy Life-giving Spirit, now and ever and ever forever and ever. Amen. I thank the Lord that my Angel’s day went well, and as I asked the Lord in the morning, so it happened: I treated all the guests with love, and the guests were all pleased with me. For everything I thank You, Lord, My joy! How tender, kind my sister Anna Konstantinovna is, and how harsh, angry, wild, proud I am! I sinned against my brother Gregory, calling him two-faced and being angry with him, but now I repent, seeing that I was lost and my opinion and anger were the work of the devil, to whose tricks I surrendered. Grant, Lord, that we may live in everlasting, unchanging love. When you treat me, even though you are a bad person and ugly, you seem to me the height of perfection - why? Because you caress my pride. And when you are my enemy, then everything about you is unpleasant to me, ugly, your very beauty, your very intelligence. This is how people change in our eyes, like a kaleidoscope. What a divine treasure of life, love, shrine, power - the Divine Liturgy! What adoration! What a cleansing! For others of my brethren, the most common thing is to perform the liturgy, all-night vigil, and prayer service in front of a multitude of people, especially the nobility, on holidays or special days of celebration. For me, these times and celebrations are a time of confession, a time of spiritual anguish, crampedness: it costs me great effort to overcome demonic fears with the grace of God and boldly speak all the words of prayer. Having such a merciful and quick-to-obey Master - the Lord - and such a Most Merciful, Quick-to-obey Lady - the Mother of God, Queen of the whole world, how, I don’t know, we are still lazy to pray and glorify our Creator, Provider and Savior and our Savior! Burdened with sins, overwhelmed by sorrows, raped by passions, stricken by illnesses, how do we sometimes leave ourselves only to ourselves, and not turn to heavenly mercy for help? Why does this happen? From our lack of faith or unbelief. But how we suffer! How our passions torment and humiliate us! What a state of speechlessness we are descending into! How we distort our nature, created in the image and likeness of God! Stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and mind, your neck is brass. About the vineyard - from the prophet Isaiah 148. Let us commit ourselves, and each other, and our whole life to Christ our God. Why? Because we are entirely God's: let God's be given over to God. The enemy attracts you to anger, but you constantly overcome his attraction; Resist the devil, and he will flee from you [Jas. 4, 7]. (I sinned by being angry with my sister at dinner (October 20).) And how bitter, cramped, heavy it is in my soul - I myself am not happy, but the enemy pulls me in, brings melancholy, despondency, sadness! The Lord easily gives me, unworthy, everything I need for life and in abundance, enriching me daily with His bounties, and promises me an immeasurable and endless wealth of incorruptible blessings in the future life. Out of gratitude for these blessings bestowed upon me, I must love Him with all my heart and with all my soul and wholeheartedly fulfill His commandments, especially to love my neighbors and always be kind, helpful and merciful to them, with generosity and joy, as if serving the Lord Himself. And I am often angry, proud, envious, stingy; and if you imagine that I am like this in relation to my own people or relatives, then I will turn out to be a monster of humanity; With a proud eye and an unsatisfied heart, I often sat at the table, and in my heart I let anger smolder against my neighbor, created in the image and likeness of God, against this member of Christ and His Holy Church, which He acquired with His Blood. I admitted this, partaking almost daily of the immortal table of the Body and Blood of Christ, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world - Love crucified for us. If you love those who love you, what gratitude do you have for that? [ OK. 6:32] says the Lord. And I, a sinner, only love those who love, and sometimes I hate them. I am bitterer than any pagan: I am a beast in human form. Love your enemies and do good [Lk. 6, 35], - and I hate not only real, but also imaginary enemies and want to get rid of them, so as not to feed me bread and salt, of which I need very little. And it is said: if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink [Rom. 12, 20]. Pray for those who use you and persecute you [Matt. 5, 44], and I mutually enmity against those who attack me and try to take revenge. All malice and envy comes from our pride, from addiction to the flesh. Therefore, one must certainly despise the flesh, sometimes not worry about air, and about food and drink, and about clothing, and about money in order to do what is pleasing to one’s neighbor. And with what greed I, damned one, sometimes have dinner or drink tea, although there is no urgent need for food and drink. Don’t open your mouth wide at other people’s sweets: they often contain the bitterness of other people’s sins; if you eat them, you will take upon yourself the sins of others, just as Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, was enticed by Naaman’s treasures and begged from him two clothes and two talents, and took upon himself his leprosy 149 . (It was hard for me after Anna Konstantinovna’s sweet cream and sugar pie and cold meat from the kitchen; I don’t need to eat meat: it’s burdensome.) We offend, and we also hate our neighbor (Anna Konstantinovna): don’t you dare contradict us in what we want to do. Be one heart and one soul with your family, sharing everything sweet with them with joy, and above all, avoid sweets yourself - so that you don’t get bogged down in them. On my name day I drank quite a lot of vodka, and it was harmful to me: headache, heaviness, restless sleep. Caprice and anger: when a person is caressed, he becomes deliberately angry and stubborn. Is it the fault of the words of prayers that we cannot quickly pronounce them, although we quickly and conveniently pronounce others? No, of course: this happens through the action of the devil; Is it the fault of beautiful, smooth faces that we are sometimes seduced by them? No: we are to blame, uncleanly, carnally looking at them. Are other people to blame for the fact that we are disgusted to look at their faces and talk to them? No: but we are to blame for our malice, the primordial enemy of the human race is to blame. Family grief comes from our passions and shows important shortcomings hidden in ourselves: greed, stinginess, pride, malice, fornication, covetousness; Through family troubles, the thoughts of our hearts are revealed, hidden mental illnesses are brought to light. Be zealous, O priest, constantly about abstinence in food and drink. Our passions, unbridled at the beginning, grow more and more with days and years and can finally drown out everything good in a person, suppress, kill. Therefore, everyone must diligently eradicate passions. This is the same as cancer. Look at every Christian person as God’s property, with respect and love, and try in every possible way to maintain mutual peace, suppressing passions. I thank the Lord, who has deigned me to appear before His terrible life-giving throne and to perform three daily services without stumbling and to be sanctified by the communion of the Holy Life-giving Mysteries during the Liturgy. (We must prepare Gifts for the sick.) I thank the Lord for tenderness, for grace beyond peace, for boldness and wise speeches in class VII. It has been proven a thousand times that sweets give rise to some kind of thorns in the soul and body. The enemy first of all sows enmity between households, as was the case in the family of Adam in Cain, who killed the meek Abel out of malice and envy: here he constantly inflames each other, especially if the two families are related; here the devil has many means of inciting coldness, enmity and malice. Save me from this spiritual beast - the devil, hidden and nesting in my heart and constantly oppressing me with passions. Do not recognize a person in the service of God: neither a king, nor a ruler, nor a rich man, nor a noble, nor a relative, nor an acquaintance, neither handsome nor ugly, neither male nor female, nor farmer, nor soldier - let them all be equal before you, as before God; serve boldly, courageously, undistractedly. I thank the Lord [for] his unspeakable gift - Divine peace, joy, freedom and space of spirit, given to me in the communion of His Divine Mysteries during the liturgy, and for bodily health. What will I repay to the Lord for all His good deeds to me? [Ps. 115, 3 ]?! Yesterday the enemy annoyed me just before the beginning of the liturgy, forcing me to remain silent when it was necessary to bless the deacon at the beginning of the liturgy; today he annoyed me at the great entrance, stopping me while listing the persons of the royal house and not allowing me to speak for the sake of his violence, darkness, madness, embarrassment! May the Lord forbid him, the treacherous, evil, crafty one. May the Lord save me from his malice towards my relatives, and may I love everyone with the womb of Christ: love is safe. I glorify Your immeasurable mercy, O Lord my God, for the repentant one accepted me, quickly listened to me, forgiving my sins and raising me, who constantly falls, snatching me away from my evils, from my rage, from my sorrows and the sorrows and hardships associated with them. Resist, man, from outbursts of anger at soulless things and animals, for if you get angry at soulless things or at animals, then you will get used to being angry at people; anger and irritability, which are accustomed to manifest themselves in things, will usually be expressed in people and will become more and more intensified in a person. The disembodied enemy today (October 21) paralyzed me at the all-night vigil two or three times: while reading the Mother of God, the Gospel, while reading the prayer to Christ, the Light, and especially when asking forgiveness from the Church for sins, he terribly confused and wounded me, and for a long time I could not heal from the spiritual wound, I was irritated for a long time due to grief from the enemies of the Church. To remember the Arkhangelsk tradesman, the servant of God Matthew [Tochin], Varvara (for his repose), Mikhail, Peter (for his health), Ivan Nastanchukov and Zinaida, his wife (for his repose). God! Let me maintain love: enmity does not sleep and wants, strives to reign in me incessantly: so brazen! so ugly, ridiculous, deadening! You should fight against yourself with all your might. Equalize my desires into a lie, the all-evil serpent, the Creator, as if he were to delight a captive. The desire for equality between the lower and the higher is a sign of pride. If anyone equates himself to someone superior, he is obviously proud and is under the deception of the devil. We must constantly remember that we live and walk, think, desire, do in the presence of God, the Mother of God, holy Angels and holy people, and act carefully, not sin and live in love. Forgive me for the sin of resisting the archpriest, Lord! It is better to sit in the stuffy air, eat stale bread, dress in rags, it is better to endure any bodily deprivation, than to be at enmity with your neighbor because of a lack of fresh air, because of bread or delicacies, because of smart clothes, because of a few coins, because of a room or a home, for enmity and malice ultimately remove us from God, Who is the light and breath and life of our souls and bodies, Who gives us food and drink, and air, and clothing to cover the body of a sinner, and all the blessings of earth and heaven related to the soul and body; malice strangles a person worse than any stinking air, strikes with a terrible famine not the body, but the immortal soul, deprives it of spiritual, life-giving light and plunges it into utter darkness, strips it of the clothing of incorruptibility and life, of the grace of God - meekness and humility, and clothes it in the foul robe of sin and malice, or drags off Christ and clothes it in Satan, for it is said: all of you, Those who were baptized into Christ have put on Christ [Gal. 3, 27], and: a worker who worked in every possible way against the devil. A person who lives in anger and envy is extremely pitiful; even if he has earthly wealth, but with malice and envy he is the poorest man, as if he does not have the grace of God, which is our true wealth, our light, our food and drink, our incorruptible clothing, our strength, our boldness, our priceless treasure. So, do not pursue the blessings of this world, man, but above all, above all wealth, and sweet food, and elegant clothing, and spacious chambers, and above all worldly distinctions and advantages, seek the grace of God, imitating the saints, everything red and sweet and lofty in this world, who despised and chose only God’s grace as their companions. Let us constantly remember, in order to avoid sin and advance in virtue, the simplicity of our soul and the simplicity of God and the cunning of the enemy and the sin that came from him and is happening. God and our soul - His image - are simple as thought, quick as lightning; and the crafty enemy, as a result of his fall, did not lose the spirituality of his being, the property of which was and is spirituality: simplicity, speed, like lightning or the blink of an eye, remained with him and with him. And therefore, let our soul constantly watch over itself, over its thoughts, feelings, movements of the heart, over the movement of its free will, so as not to allow the devil to catch in the blink of an eye either an unclean thought, or a movement of malice towards one’s neighbor, or an addiction to something perishable, for example, to fading beauty, or to the glory of this world, or to wealth, or to worldly pleasures and intemperance, or to an elegant robe; but let us continually walk in the simplicity and purity of God, in love for God and in mutual love, constantly having our mind and heart fixed on God and His holy law. The Lord our God is a simple, beginningless and omnipresent spirit; We can infuse Him into ourselves with perfect faith in Him, perfect desire for Him, perfect love for Him; He is simple as a thought, and quick as lightning, like the wind: and still speaking to you, he says: behold, I have come [Russian: you will cry out, and He will say: “Here I am!” ] [Is. 58, 9 ]; a breath of quiet wind, [and there is the Lord] [Z Kings. 19, 12]; He walks and flies on the wing of the wind [2 Sam. 22, 11; Ps. 17, 11; 103, 3], that is, on the wings of the wind. Have you not noticed that in an instant our soul was sometimes illuminated by spiritual light, imbued with a feeling of inexplicable sweet love for God and neighbors, filled with a feeling of sweet tenderness, or poured out in tears of repentance, or suddenly felt cheerfulness and strength in sorrows and misfortunes after despondency and relaxation? It was a visitation from God; but sometimes, on the contrary, suddenly you felt in your heart despondency, melancholy, cowardice, an incomprehensible fear or envy, malice, a lustful thought, an unclean movement of the heart, greed, drawing you as if involuntarily towards sweets, towards self-interest, or a thirst for honor, or insult due to deprivation of honor, strong melancholy due to the loss of something - this is the dirty trick of the devil! He, like lightning, like a whirlwind, quickly invades a careless or passionate soul. You see, you constantly feel, with what impudence, with what violence, with what captivating, flattering force the enemy constantly intensifies to attract us to malice, envy, greed, fornication, despondency, gluttony, pride, rebellion and what is common in all these and similar sins - the sin of embarrassment; how difficult it is for us at the very beginning to spew out of ourselves the sin that attracts us by force, especially if the sin has become stronger and stronger through frequent repetition; how difficult it is to stop on the sinful path; humble yourself before God, humbly acknowledge your repentance, your extreme corruption, your powerlessness for good, repent unceasingly and diligently always call on God’s help; and towards your neighbors who sin against you, for example, with malice, envy, pride, untruth, stubbornness and willfulness or greed and other sins, be lenient, knowing and remembering our common sinful corruption and how our common enemy, the devil, almost constantly incites sin to sin and incites enmity against each other; remember that when a person sins, he is almost always a suffering person, violated by the devil, just like you - and forgive him, pity him, like your weak member, pierced by the serpent’s sting and imbued in your heart with his fiery poison. I thank You, Lord, for this spiritual light, my Light, for in Your light we see light. In the morning prayer to the Most Holy Theotokos, which everyone who is literate must certainly read, the corruption, damnation, poverty and poverty of our human nature is shown in the following words: drive away from me, Most Holy Lady, despondency, oblivion, foolishness, negligence, and all the nasty, evil and blasphemous thoughts from my accursed heart and from my darkened one. my mind; and extinguish the flame of my passions, for I am poor and damned. And deliver me from many and cruel memories and enterprises, and free me from all evil actions. Children and adults need to be pointed out to this corruption, so that they protect themselves, so that they always humble themselves before God, acquire the spirit of humility and repentance, so that they know how necessary we need the Savior every minute, how necessary it was for His coming to us on earth, His incarnation, His teaching (the Gospel), His suffering for the world, death, burial and resurrection; what would have happened to us if He had not come, had not become human, had not enlightened us with the light of His Gospel, had not suffered, died and risen; how necessary it is to belong to the Church, to use its guidance, how necessary it is to attend divine services and attend them with attention, especially during the liturgy, how necessary it is to begin the Holy Mysteries, how necessary we all are to fast, pray, give alms - may we be heard and have mercy - reading, frequent reading of the Gospel! (With these writings of mine I got rid of the confusion and tightness of spirit that was due to sinful indignation and passions since the evening. Glory to God!) Church prayers and hymns are the fruit of the Spirit who dwelt in our God-bearing fathers, who composed these prayers and hymns, and therefore they have the power to enlighten, purify, sanctify, pacify and comfort our souls, darkened and defiled, outraged and offended by sins. These prayers are as much superior to the ordinary works of ordinary worldly people as they are superior to heaven and earth, and spirit to flesh. They are superior to any worldly poetic work, any literary work, all the wisdom of this world. Everyone should remember this: both priests, deacons and readers and singers, and the worldly - learned and unlearned, noble and simple, rich and poor, adults and young, male and female. The priest should never forget that the strong, noble, learned and rich of this world are just as corrupt and damned as all other people, even more so, and therefore should not hide words of prayer and edification from them, and remain silent before them out of false shame or fear, and share, so to speak, with them the disbelief and coldness towards God that often nests in them. Those who sinned against the Lord - irritated my sister Nadezhda: I did not endure a small insult to the one sent [to] her husband from me, so that we would not equate her husband with a sexton, so that I myself would take the bundle and go to the service. How I calmed down just now at the prayer service, when I decided to forget this small offense, and how now I was offended, noticing the deacon’s wife’s rudeness and injustice! What a rage he drove her into with his unpeaceful remark! One must deeply pity poor humanity, so much subject to the indignation of passions, and oneself, so prone to indignation, but not at all be angry with the irritable and evil, for this would only strengthen the evil. We must treat everyone gently, forgetting insults! (I have to be careful with Nadezhda Vasilievna.) The remark of a secular journalist is true that many clergy are afraid of the higher spheres, the highest circle of society due to some kind of savagery. But aren’t people the same – persons of the highest sphere, like everyone else? A prayer service of gratitude is served once a year, therefore it must be served with special feeling and strength, with special expressiveness. I thank You, Lord, for you do not allow the enemy to triumph over me and torment me, but, accepting my repentance mercifully, destroying his machinations and extinguishing the fire of hellish passions in me with the dew of Your Holy Spirit! Glory to Your long-suffering, glory to Your mercy, O Lord! I thank You, for you have rewarded me for deeds worthy of me. I thank You, Lord, for You have performed a great miracle of Your mercy with me this evening, transforming enmity into peace, anger into kindness, languor into calmness, fire into dew, crowdedness into space; I thank You for reconciling You with the deacon’s wife Nadezhda. I thank the Lord with all my soul, for this day (October 22) has made me worthy to stand before His holy, heavenly, life-giving and terrible throne without stumbling, and to perform sacredly in the grace of His Life-giving Mysteries, and to partake of them without condemnation. Glory to Your endless mercy, Lord! I thank You, Lady Theotokos, for on the day of the celebration of Your Kazan Icon You deigned me to pray to You, to call upon You, to glorify You with our unworthy lips from morning to evening. This is Your great gift, to my Most Blessed, Most Holy and Most Blessed Queen, for I hope that through Your praise I have been and will be vouchsafed great blessings and have avoided and will continue to avoid great evils. Extinguish the temptation that happened between me and Deacon Peter and his wife, O Lady! False shame before the powerful of the world - aside! Celebrate in spirit, for you have the good fortune to converse with the Creator Himself - to open your vile lips to supplication, thanksgiving and praise to Him! Oh, how inconceivable is His majesty! How immeasurable is His goodness in obeying us and fulfilling our requests! Who, like God, lives on high and despises the humble! What do I have in my holy, heavenly faith, if with its help I do not curb my passions or do not eradicate them, namely: natural malice], pride, irritability, envy, gluttony, covetousness, self-will, self-love, lustful rage, luxury and the like? Glory to Your heavenly faith, Lord, for which I am vouchsafed countless and great blessings every day, and will still be vouchsafed during my life and after my death, in the next century! Glory to Your saints, who have pleased You in this faith, teach me to imitate them. Glory to Your faith, by which I rise daily from great falls, I pass from spiritual death to life. Glory to Your grace, which has mercy and saves us. I thank the Lord, who worked miracles of His grace over me and over Deacon Peter Alex. Sofronov and, probably, over his wife - for the husband is the mirror of the wife who reconciled me with them; I thank you for the grace of peace and with my father, Archpriest Pavel Vasilyevich; I thank you for the excellent state of peace that the Lord gave me through the prayer of faith after the unpeaceful and irritating state of my soul during the liturgy, and for my tenderness, and for the uncondemned, tender communion of the Holy Mysteries, and for the bold, with strength and sincerity, pronunciation of my speech at the gymnasium act, at twelve o’clock in the afternoon. Glory to the Lord in everything: His action is in everything. I was honored to receive commendable feedback on the fact that I deliver both sermons and speeches clearly for everyone. Thank God for this too. May my Lord and His wonderful grace be glorified in everything; but for me, let me be ashamed of my face for my sins, for I am a sinner more than anyone else. One must strive for incorruptible life, despising perishable life; must neglect earthly life and strive for heavenly life. For this reason, God came down to earth so that he could lead us to heaven. During the prayer service at the act, the enemy greatly embarrassed and frightened me with the faces of the powerful and learned of this world, but in singing the song We Praise You God, which I deliberately sang loudly with the singers, I, by the grace of God, defeated the opposing forces, and with singing on my lips, I went boldly into the middle to speak to the congregation and to the disciples. He said it loudly and boldly, in an accusatory spirit. I thank the Lord, who gives me victory over my enemies! And how they took me into their clutches! What fears they created! During his wiles, how often did my strength leave me, and the light of my eyes, and that one is not with me [Russian: and the light of my eyes, - and that is not with me] [Ps. 37, 11]. I thank the Lord, who granted victory over invisible enemies during the celebration of the Sacrament of Baptism in the house of Karpov (in the outbuilding) of the peasant Gorbunov, in a tobacco-smoked room! Again the evil enemy fought hard! Confusion and fears again! But how powerfully the grace of God strengthened me! How easy it felt for me after the victory - both mentally and physically! With what pleasure I ate whitefish caviar and drank vodka in moderation! How peacefully I slept that night! How cheerfully I woke up! Glory to the Lord the Savior, who preserves me under His wings! I thank the Lord, who in His good providence graciously and wisely saved me from the treachery of invisible enemies and granted the service of prayer in the face of the mighty of this world to my brother Pavel Nikolaevich Lamanov, who by the will of the director was called to serve during his illness. He served, replaced my weakness, and left, and was not at the snack. We joyfully go to those who offer us a free meal, but with displeasure we turn our faces away from those who ask us for food and drink or money for food and clothing and housing, as if they are not of the same nature as us and they do not need the same things as us. We are generous with the things of others and extremely thrifty or stingy with our own; Others are afraid to eat a tasty morsel at home, but when visiting, they greedily rush into the delicacies, become satiated and drunk. (Yesterday’s two or three rich meals at the director of the gymnasium and at Gorbunov’s christening with drinking wine and tea at Nazarov’s mother with honey and wine resonated bitterly with me today at matins, during the service: the misfortunes and temptations of the enemy were completely drowned, overpowered me; I was helpless, powerless, embarrassed, darkened, confused by enemies, afraid of fear [where there is no fear] [ Ps. 13:5]; prayers for the departed (parents' Day of Demetrius) I could hardly speak from embarrassment and fear of the devil. Moreover, oh, the absurdity! I was disgusted then with all this earthly decay - even at home, before morning, the handkerchief rags stung my heart. They don’t have a sting, but they bite, but they smolder the soul. And the fault for everything is the addiction to earthly things, the addiction to live - the teaching, work and power of the enemy. Like Esau, again yesterday I sold the birthright and nobility of my immortal soul for food and drink to my enemy, enslaving the spirit of the flesh! Again I grounded myself, again I covered myself with cold clothing 150 woven by my enemy out of my gluttony and my greed! Again thorns and thistles in the soul! Again Satan built a nest in my heart, seeing my [porn] disposition. But thanks be to the Lord, who through temptation reveals everything sinful in me and circumcises my heart from the corruption of passions, although this circumcision is painful, and destroys the nest of the enemy, and again makes my heart a place of His habitation. Those whom I love, I reprove and punish [Rev. 3, 19]. (You should drink as little wine as possible, and only a little vodka when necessary and during special celebrations.) Someone said: vodka is the blood of Satan. This is not unfair in some respects. 24 [October] I thank the Lord, who saved me from the extreme cold of 151 evil spirits, who stung me with their stings during the proskomedia and at the beginning of the liturgy, announced by passion and greed for the prosphora, which were great, and who cooled me with the dew of His grace. The Lord inspired me: let the parishioners be comforted by the fullness of the prosphora, just as you, earthly, are comforted, and do not grieve about someone else’s contentment, about the fact that a large piece is in your neighbor’s hand. The royal house pronounced names slowly and firmly. He took communion without condemnation, into the world of spiritual forces; the enemy struggled when invoking the Holy Spirit for the Holy Gifts, but was defeated by hope for God’s help. The commemoration of the deceased was carried out safely. (Income from late mass is fifty rubles, from early mass - nineteen. More than last year.) I thank the Lord, who graciously saved me from the oppression of sins (I was angry with the servant Anna for a malfunction) before the all-night vigil and during the all-night vigil. The Lord surrounds me with the joys of deliverance. I thank the Lord, who saved me from the burning of anger against my family Gregory and Anna; The enemy strongly incited him with evil despondency. O Quick to Hear the Deliverer, glory to Thee! He who has cognized the beauty, incorruptibility, kindness, and the superiority of spiritual goods over the local corruptible goods, which are partly tasted in the present century and will be fully granted in the future, will not chase after the local corruptible and ephemeral pleasures that make a person incapable of enjoying the most excellent goods there. I thank the Lord for the renewal of my entire being, given to me in the communion of the Holy, most pure, heavenly, life-giving and terrible Mysteries, for spiritual strength, for the premium state of the soul, for every storm and every heat, every violence of passions passes, disappears from the Divine Mysteries; for the health of my body, which is miraculously renewed and strengthened always by the communion of the Divine Body and Blood of the Lord. God! Confirm me in Thy love, so that I may not appear in any way ungrateful before You for all the great benefits to me, unworthy; plant and establish deep in my heart the love for Your commandments and teach me to love my neighbors as myself, tuna, with selflessness, not seeking retribution, willingly enduring both the ill-will and ingratitude of my loved ones. If you don’t love sister Anna for her tough, proud, hot-tempered character, then don’t love yourself, because you have the same character; but if you love yourself, despite the bad sides in you, then love her too; There is not always evil in you: you are good, meek, a lover - and not always in her, and she is for the most part kind and loving, helpful, helpful, pitying you, protecting you, apologizing, forgiving, attributing much to the weakness of your nature. I thank the Lord, who gave me the grace to boldly perform two prayer services with the sailors in the naval barracks, in the presence of the officers. True nobility, adornment, glory are given to me by the truly noble, as born of the Truly Good, the flightless Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ: may I always cleave to Him with noble thoughts, desires, words and deeds, and may I flee ignoble thoughts, enterprises and actions; But let me not consider earthly nobility or earthly noble people to be great and amazing, and let me not servile them with fear. I thank you, Lord, Creator, Judge, my Master and my Savior, for you have delivered me hitherto without number from the evils of my corrupted nature through sin and from all the evils that Satan intended to inflict on me with his hasty force, and for deliverance from countless troubles that rushed at me day and night. I thank you, for until now Your right hand has carefully protected me, an indecent sinner, protecting and saving me, punishing and merciful, enlightening and delivering me from the darkness of temptation and all sin. And always keep me, O Lord! I thank the Lord for the unfaltering, bold celebration of the liturgy in the Duma Assumption Church and for performing the prayer service on the clipper “Emerald” going to the Amur: a crew of one hundred and seventy people, ten officers, commander M. Nikolaevich Kumanya (Greek). Have mercy, O Lord, on this military vessel throughout its voyage, according to Your great mercy, and save it from sinking and all troubles with all those on it, despising, as good as it is, their sins. On the clipper they ate and drank. Before the prayer service, I went into the midshipmen’s cabin and, at the invitation, drank two glasses of strong sherry, which quite stunned me on an empty stomach. Through the fear of God and faith I overcame demonic and human fear. I thank the Lord for saving me at this hour from dissatisfaction and annoyance with my married sister-in-law Anna Konstantinovna, who is staying in my house, and for the deliberate arrangement of living in our apartment in addition to their own in St. Petersburg. I thank the Lord for instilling in me contentment with my condition and calming my heart; I thank the Lord for His bounties towards me, a sinner, constantly poured out, and for all the contentment sent down to me from Him. Speaking about the simplicity and holiness of God’s being, tell your disciples or parishioners that because of this simplicity and holiness, the Lord abhors and turns away from even the thought of an unrighteous, or unclean, or evil person, who allows a restless thought into his head and into his heart, and that even lawless thoughts, not just words and deeds, should be guarded. Let us diligently leave debts to our neighbors and accustom ourselves to gentleness, which should be so characteristic of us and in which we, if I may say so, are such ignoramuses, savages and novices; Let us, I say, diligently leave our debts to our neighbors, so that we may shame the enemy who backs us up and turns us away from love, and may our Heavenly Father forgive us our debts, of which there is no number. Where there are no insults, there is no place for gentleness or meekness. Therefore, the unrighteous or righteous insults of others to you is a brilliant field, for which crowns of incorruptibility are woven for you in heaven. In every person there is hidden both good and evil; Try by all means to bring good out of him, for his good and bliss, but do not cause evil, so that you do not draw fire from a person against yourself; leave it to God to reveal anger, pride, envy, greed and other human passions. And you take care of yourself, eradicate your anger. But I say to you: do not resist evil... overcome evil with good [Matt. 5, 39; Rome. 12, 21]. I thank the Lord for celebrating the conciliar liturgy at the cemetery in the Trinity Church under my primacy, which I do not like; there was great weakness in my heart and some kind of shame and humiliation; however, he served decently, only he unsteadily called upon the Lord with the words: Lord, who is Thy Most Holy Spirit... and: My heart is pure... He performed the funeral service firmly, together with the burial. I read the oath in court firmly: my nerves were strong after a long journey in the fresh air and after the funeral dinner, and most importantly, the grace of the Holy Mysteries strengthened my soul and body. But there was a great misfortune and discord at home - due to the excessive watering of flower pots and saucers, which were too small and from which water stood on the windowsills and on the floor. I poured it into the latrine. He spilled water from the window sill on the servant Anna of little understanding who met him; she screamed. The wife came running and started swearing; I endured it, and finally lost my temper and began to tell her unpleasant things, she said more. Finally, I left home to avoid big sins. I walked and cried in Bellingshausen Park, asking the Lord for peace and forgiveness; The Lord calmed the restless heart. Glory to His goodness, wisdom, strength, and prompt obedience! I need patience: I could not tolerate the instigation of the enemy and, in annoyance, I splashed water twice on the culprit of the uncleanness: she roared and thereby irritated my wife. Woe to us because of our addictions to worldly things: because of them there are all our quarrels and discords, enmity and hatred! Blessed is he who despises all this earthly rubbish! Blessed are the apostles, hierarchs, martyrs, and saints! They are verbal heavens, for they lived heavenly on earth, having thoughts and desires in heaven, in God, and having no attachment to anything on earth, not to their own flesh or soul. These are pompous eagles! I was the cause of discord, and I’m angry?.. What an absurdity! I thank the Lord: through my tearful prayer, a good change followed with my wife - from a viper she became a lamb, from a tigress - a heifer. Why am I delaying? Why am I oppressed in my womb? How angry I am! When, after insults, my wife turns to me with affection, I don’t trust her and am still angry with her! Oh, how deeply evil and rancor still nest within me! Where is the lamb's meekness? Or shall I say: the insults are too great? But not more, but a million less than the insults to which Jesus Christ was subjected to by the Jews. And the devil, who inspires such insults, costs nothing to say to you through your wife a thousand of the most poisonous insolences. But you know that he is a lie, and everything that is said at his suggestion is a lie, and therefore despise lies, offensive words, this wind. If you are right and your conscience does not accuse you of what you are being reproached for, then you have no need to be embarrassed by offensive words. But isn’t your irritability a sign of the passions hidden in you? Don’t you need to be more impartial about the worm of passions hidden within you, which is eating away at your heart, and kill it with fasting, vigil and prayer? Is it not from gluttony, gluttony and drunkenness that it comes to life, grows and strengthens in your heart and begins to suck it more and more and torment you?.. Acquire immediately love, which is the basis of perfection: and let the peace of God dwell in your hearts [Col. 3, 14–15]. My God! Every day I am tormented by the passions of dishonor. And all because of empty things! Oh, how cunning, vigilant and malicious the enemy is! Oh, how weak and receptive my heart is to sin! Christians should live as children of the one Heavenly Father in Jesus Christ: in everlasting love, forbearance, patience, mutual compassion, mercy, purity, self-control, meekness and kindness, obedience. We, the children of our earthly father, or the same parents, must also live in mutual love. Smoking tobacco heats up the blood, clouds the head, and relaxes the body. (This is a kind of opium. What stinking air after smoking! What rust in the mouth!) Do not be angry with the one who bitterly offended you, but say to yourself: it was not he who offended me, but the enemy: he influenced him, incited him to offend me, just as I myself feel towards others, for he also often incites me with his goad to insult others, and I often offend, especially my own family. We must feel sorry for people who are so weak and prone to evil, and not hate them and thereby give the enemy an opportunity to triumph over us and mock God’s image in us. Humility and kindness are unchangeable. The disembodied enemy looks out for weaknesses or addictions in each of us and, knowing them perfectly, uses them to our confusion, hostility, chagrin, and quarrel. In order not to fall into his snare, obviously, you need to abandon all attachments: do not be partial to a single thing; Also, do not be capricious, do not contradict and do not do the opposite, in your own way, when it comes only to things; yield: let it be according to the desire of those inciting a quarrel, or bend them with affection to a concession, but do not get excited at all, otherwise you will irritate passions and stir up a storm. Isn’t it because our quarrels happen that one will start a fever and the other won’t let it go down, and with mutual contradictions and opposition we only irritate each other, seasoning our speeches, for greater force, with various stinging reproaches. Because of what empty things sometimes major troubles and family feuds occur: because of a flower pot! In order to maintain family calm, peace, silence, harmony, you just had to leave the pot alone, that is, do not pour excessively poured water from its tray! On what trifles can peace or confusion in the house depend! On what empty things depends the fulfillment or non-fulfillment of the commandment of God, in which the whole law consists - the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself! I thank the Lord for the gift of His goodness - as a reward for my alms to the poor: I was invited quite unexpectedly to take out, serve the liturgy and funeral service for the servant of God Irina, a gardener whose son is an official, and received five rubles. How not to give to the poor? Not to give would mean to deprive myself of God’s generous rewards, which constantly come to me. Glory to Thee, Lord, All-merciful Provider of the poor and my unworthiness! I thank You for the life-giving influence at this moment in my heart and for taking away the deadness and spiritual distress that befell me for my rage at the poor: a boy and a girl who came to me for alms a second time (other boys did not share the alms I gave and ran away). God! I thank You for the great salvation that was revealed to me this day before taking the oath in the district court, delivering me from the arrows of the enemy and from the embarrassment of the enemy, darkness and cramped conditions and storms and giving me deep peace, so that I read the oath loudly, firmly and clearly and sat in court calmly, not disturbed by the enemy’s slander. I thank You, Quick to Hear, and also for delivering me from the sorrow and distress that befell me after I was insulted (by a note) by Archpriest Pavel Trachevsky, as if I wanted and want to concentrate all the interests of the parish towards myself, and give them only what I cannot take myself. You soon drove away demonic oppression and you gave me peace when I went to serve the all-night vigil at Yudenich on the day of the Holy Martyr Paraskeva. We need to go see Alexander Vasilyevich Murashov. I thank You, Lord my God, for you have again delivered me from the oppression of the enemy and his embarrassment as a result of the offense or slander of the archpriest instilled in him by the devil. Deliver me from human slander, and I will keep Your commandments [Ps. 118, 134]. Constantly learn to manage yourself and conquer yourself and your passions. This is the science of sciences. My sister Anna Konstantinovna (with whom I was unreasonably angry) thinks very prudently and sensibly and sincerely wishes me well. Let satanic enmity, absurd and violent, flee far from my heart. Anna Konstantinovna reasoned about the insane note from the archpriest’s father, full of slander, malice, and envy regarding me. May God reward him for his greed, slander, malice and envy. I tell you not to resist evil: but if someone strikes you on the right side of your cheek, turn the other one to him [Russian: And I say to you: do not resist evil. But whoever strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also] [Matt. 5, 39]. The archpriest hit me on the cheek, slandering me, - let me turn the other one to him, that is, I will not be angry with him, for he did this according to the teachings of the devil, but let me endure everything with love, patience and long-suffering, and prayer for him to God, may the Lord enlighten him, may he soften his heart, may he give him the consciousness of his error regarding his brother. An income book for reference. (Perhaps with the consent of other members of the clergy?.. This is not the first time such a reproach has occurred.) Voting of parishioners; for the peace of mind of the father, the archpriest consulted in the book up to x [one]: it’s true that he forgot how much he received. From Burakov’s wedding guests I heard today about the boldness of Archpriest Polisadov in preaching the word of God, in which he does not spare the powerful of this world - dressed-up countesses in low necklines, with footmen in liveries, and denounces them mercilessly for taking up a lot of space in front and pushing aside the pilgrims (example: Carthaginian women). Many complained to the Metropolitan about him, but he did not look at it. I must imitate him in courage and not tremble at the mighty of this world, but look at them as ordinary mortals. Seeing a beautiful person, one should be surprised at the Creator of this beauty - God, and not a person who cannot make a single hair white or black, and be inflamed with love not for a beautiful person, but for God, who has Ineffable Beauty: this love is holy, pure, legal, natural, and that love is carnal, sinful, unclean and supernatural. Let the beautiful Image of God be cleansed from the aphids of sins and cleave to the Prototype, infinitely beautiful, who beautifully created everything. Do not relax in happiness, and do not lose heart in misfortune, trusting in God, who arranges everything for the good. Adversity in life is inevitable. One must speak calmly against those who offend, without worrying, without getting excited, without getting angry, because ardor and anger darken the mind and heart and bind the very tongue, interrupting speech in its flow, for can speech flow calmly from the mouth when there is a storm and excitement in the heart? Both prudence and our own benefit require that we speak calmly with our enemies, remembering that God, the Righteous Judge, and the Guardian Angels, witnesses of our deeds, always mediate between us. May God see and judge us. The calmness of the offended will always surely strike the enemy, for when he sees that we are restless and embarrassed by his attacks, then he will triumph. Temptations, misfortunes and sorrows must be accepted wisely, as signs of God’s care for us, cleansing us through temptations and strengthening us in faith and love for God and neighbor. When there are no temptations and sorrows, then we stand on a dangerous path, then we become servants of the devil; temptations show that we are opponents of the devil and that he is stirring up war against us. He carries out this war mostly through people he pleases, through their envy, malice, and slander. These people are worthy of pity, as instruments of the devil’s will, caught alive in his will; we need patience, complacency, and trust in the Providence that watches over us all. Remember the Cheerful One, who pronounced judgment on the lawless king Nebuchadnezzar; remember how the king became a beast for his arrogance 153. Deliver me from human slander, and I will keep Your commandments [Ps. 118, 134]. In a conversation about the ninth commandment. God! Teach me to endure human slander and malice with indifference and not to respond to it with hostility, lest I repay evil for evil, annoyance for annoyance, slander for slander; teach me to overcome evil with good, so that evil does not nest in my heart under any form, so that I, in the likeness of God, will be all goodness, meekness, patience, gentleness. Lamb of God, Lord Jesus Christ, teach me to be a lamb in the very thing, so that the evil one does not outrage me with his attacks, malice, envy, slander, or lustfulness, or gluttony, laziness, vanity, pride and other sins. Let there be a village of the Spirit and no one 154 a village of sin; let the devil belong to one devil - the parent and the culprit of sin; let the image of God—man—belong entirely to the Prototype, so that the man of God may be perfect, equipped for every good work [2 Tim. 3, 17]. My position and my deeds before God and people do not change in the least due to the slander brought against me (by the archpriest) by people: I am the same as I was. Therefore, I should not be indignant at human slander, but continue to serve with zeal, and God will punish the slanderer. I thank the Lord for saving me from rancor and the associated cramped conditions and sorrow before the communion of the sick Olga in the house of Murashov and especially in the house of Ivan Timofeevich Sidorov before the reading of prayers to his wife in labor. I also thank you for saving me from the same sin upon coming home: I said in prayer: Lord, forgive me and Your servant Archpriest Paul: we do not know what we are doing, - and the Lord had mercy. Is our whole life on earth great, is it long? How can one not endure for the sake of Christ, without malice and zeal, insults from people, leaving vengeance for them to God? We are offended, but why do we still offend ourselves, becoming upset and embittered at those who offend? Why don’t we rest in God, the Protector of innocence and the Judge and Punisher of those who offend? The enemy manages to arm us against each other, slandering one another, inciting anger at each other, and we, senseless, carry out his all-destructive will! How have we not yet learned his deceit and malice? How do we obey him? How angry we are against ourselves! If your colleagues slander you out of envy and malice, do not be offended by them, and do not repay evil for evil, and do not justify yourself to them, leaving yourself to God to justify yourself, but carefully consider your actions in relation to your subordinates or those close to you: have you upset anyone with your envy and hatred, and if you have upset, then the enmity and envy of your neighbors towards you has not caused you retribution for your own malice and envy, which must be healed with the same. When you experience for yourself how bitterly it is to endure vain slander, malice and envy, then you yourself will not envy others or be hostile to others, be angry, be angry, or slander. Elisha once exclaimed after Elijah ascending into heaven: My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and his horses! [ 2 Kings 2:12] - knowing what Elijah was for all Israel, what kind of power. We, New Testament Israel, instead of Elijah have chariots and God-bearing horses, lifting us up as if on chariots and horses, the apostles, hierarchs, martyrs, saints and righteous ones; They themselves, having been on earth above, despised everything earthly, all earthly passions, and they uplift us to this day with their writings, their angelic lives, their hymns, their laws and statutes, compiled at the inspiration of the Holy Spirit acting in them. Where would we be without them? Flesh and blood, earth and ashes; everyone would grovel to the ground, working with earthly vanity and various passions. They are, indeed, spiritual chariots and horses, they, with their prayers, scriptures, and life on the heavenly earth who mediate for us to God, lift us up, as if on a chariot, from earth to heaven. Who has not experienced, as when reading the Gospel and the Apostolic Acts and Epistles or the writings of the holy fathers, when listening to church sacred songs, sometimes he forgot everything earthly and was delighted with the spirit of grief - to God, to the supernatural life there, which the Angels and saints enjoy? We can truly cry out to them: Fathers! Fathers! The chariots of the New Israel and its horses! Do not cease to carry us as your children and lift us up to heaven with your prayers, your writings, your life as equals to the angels on earth. Lift us up with your sacred chants, kindle in us the fire of Divine heavenly love, tear us away from earthly, soul-suffocating passions, for because of slavery to passions we completely forget to work for the Lord and live on earth for heaven and strive for the life there. Verbal 155 heaven! Take us to heaven! Citizens of heaven! Pray to the Lord, that we too may be honored with this eternal citizenship. How yesterday evening I spoiled myself with smoking tobacco, smoking half a cigar when I really wanted to sleep! I raped my nature, destroying the natural need by unnatural smoking tobacco, and I slept badly and heavily all night; and what a disgusting feeling in my mouth, and what irritability, what heat throughout my whole body! This is a worthy punishment for playing a dirty trick on yourself! After this, God forbid I never do this stupid thing and do not force my nature, so that I may not lose God’s grace. Like yesterday I was stunned after smoking tobacco! What intoxication, unnatural excitement, irritation, excitement, relaxation! This is the consequence of unnatural pampering! Forgive my sin, Lord! October 30, 1870. Morning. Isn’t God the Judge of me and all my people and my slanderers? Isn't He the one who will judge everyone? Why am I embarrassed and worried about human slander? Why do I breathe hatred towards slanderers? I must feel sorry for them that they are carried away by malice and envy and torment me with slander, blacken their souls and irritate the Lord. Judgment has long been prepared for them, and their destruction does not sleep [2 Pet. 2, 3]. We don’t allow this to happen to us, that is, we don’t take all life’s troubles and insults to heart. Dream. The words of old man Dvuglazov, saddened by the loss of his married daughter Trapeznikova. Another dream: some old man dies, whom I thought would die; Headman Ivan Timofeevich invites me to the grave, where a treat has been arranged, and says: “Go, it will soon be flooded here.” And the third day has not yet happened: the day of death is only. I thank You, most merciful and quick to obey, Lord, that You heard me when I prayed to You for Your servant Anna, my maid, who upset me with her disorders, and You apparently influenced her meaning, and heart, and will and corrected her. Correct me too, Lord! How long will my heart persist? How long will my will remain unyielding? I slept well last night (October 31, Saturday), despite the four glasses of strong tea I drank from Alexander Vasilyevich Murashov and the unfavorable damp weather. Saw overlay; there was no carnal excitement through the grace of prayer and the sign of the cross. Thank the Lord! The Great Anthony said that when he was sitting with an Abba, a certain pious girl came and said to the elder: I spend six days of six weeks in fasting, in the study of the Old and New Testaments every day. The elder answers: was poverty like abundance for you? She answered: no. He continued: what about dishonor as praise? Again he answers: no, Abba. “What about enemies, like friends?” the elder continued questioningly. Answered: no. And this wise old man says to her: go, train yourself in doing the commandments of God, you have not done anything yet. Temptations overtake me: elders, or family members, or others slander and persecute me, although I really would not like this; but it has been so since the beginning of the world, and especially in Christianity, that temptations were inevitable with people who wanted to live piously, and even seemingly natural. Which of the saints did not endure temptations?.. Therefore, we need patience and condescension towards those who tempt us, who in turn are tempted from their passions and from demons: we should have all the malice towards our common enemy the devil, and we should have pity on the members of Christ, that is, people, Christians, tempted by him, so that the Lord would deliver them from the evil one and not allow them to perish for us, or from their passions, for all we are passionate and all in trouble. He who has not been deceived by beauty in this age, or who has been deceived for a time, and who has repented from the heart, will enjoy the contemplation of the uncreated infinite beauty of the face of God; he who is not carried away by the sweets of this world will enjoy forever the incorruptible, unimaginable sweets of the future life; whoever did not work for local wealth, or mammon, and who lived in voluntary poverty will receive as his inheritance an inexhaustible wealth of eternal, incorruptible blessings that will console him for endless ages. Let him who understands, and has ears to hear, hear and understand what a Christian, a stranger and a stranger on earth should do, and where to direct the gaze of his mind. October 31st day 1870. Morning. Eating and drinking in the morning is an extra burden. Instead of receiving gratitude and praise from those who work for the common good, these good people receive envy, slander, malice, and persecution as a reward from their own brothers. For this reason, they are despicable in the eyes of God, and among people everyone despises them, pushes them away, while they think that they are pushed away by these unselfish workers, as if imposing services on others. And it would not be so difficult if they acted only with the spoken word, otherwise they spread their slander with their pen, and sometimes slander the whole world. One must be indifferent to praise and blame and slander in good hope in God, who sees everything, and one must not at all weaken in spirit from despondency, which is insane. Blessed are you when they revile you... and slander you in every way unrighteously for My sake [Matt. 5, 11]. They reviled Jesus Christ - it is natural for His faithful followers to endure reproach from the malice of this world. If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you too [Jn. 15, 20]. In the world you will have tribulation [Jn. 16, 33]. If anyone wants to come after Me... take up your cross and follow Me [Matt. 16, 24]. The time is coming when everyone who kills you will think that he is serving God [Jn. 16, 2]. And it is scary, and painful, and pitiful that man, created in the image of God, has become a participant in the devil’s sin, devilish pride, malice, envy, ill will, gloating, vindictiveness, deceit, and is darkened by the darkness of evil, and with all this he extremely humiliates, dishonors himself, and often does not feel his humiliation, and amuses himself with his sins, while his destruction happens as they say, on the nose, close, today or tomorrow. How pitiful is the sinner! Well, how can one hate him for his sins? You need to feel sorry for him, you need to pray for him. But we are most often angry and hostile against him, and thus we increase the insult of others with our own, increasing the number of captives of the devil and enemies of God. Morning. Four o'clock. Resurrection. I thank and glorify You, Lord Jesus Christ, my God, for through my prayer you saved me from the evil despondency that weakened my soul and body, when the evil slander of the archpriest’s father came to my mind, and you did not allow me to be carried away by the devil’s despondency and malice. Behold, always snatch me, O Lord, from the clutches of the fierce enemy. Everywhere and in everyone his machinations; There is no need to pay attention to them and become faint-hearted because of them, but to be strengthened in the Lord and in the power of His strength. Let all those who slander and innocently attack Your servants be weak, O Lord, and strengthen those who suffer for Your name. Now the moment comes to serve a public prayer service in a church, or in a house, or on a ship in the company of the scientists of this world - and my spirit begins to be faint-hearted, despondent, wavering with doubt: strengthen me, O Lord, the weak, and again destroy the wiles of the evil one, wipe away, and make Thy servant glad, encourage, strengthen. The devil himself usually inspires a person to insult and slander us, and he himself instills cowardice and despondency in the slandered person and anger in the slanderer, and so keeps us constantly in the cycle of evil. But this is the wisdom of a Christian: to despise evil, not to resist evil, and to pray for those who offend, and to repent diligently ourselves, for war, war truly is this life, and we are warriors. If Father Archpriest complains that I have taken his parish away from him, then let him go everywhere when he is called and not send to me unless absolutely necessary. It is worthy and righteous; let him go to the poor as to the rich. Our heart is either besieged, like a fortress and a city, by invisible enemies, sending their arrows or, as it were, red-hot cannonballs at it, then they fatten in it and plunder it, until the Lord, strong in battle [Ps. 23:8], through the prayer of repentance, will not drive them away and will not give us again the Comforter of His Holy Spirit in our hearts. Condescend, forgive weak people in the days of their temptation, when they are irritated, embittered, and do not irritate them with contradiction: this is a great mercy for them, as you can judge about it by yourself. Then, after the temptation has passed, when they calm down, they will extend their hand to you in a friendly manner and kiss you like a friend. After all, 156 are the enemy’s red-hot arrows. Resurrection. He served the early liturgy with Matins. I thank the Lord, who has given me the grace to cheerfully, firmly, loudly serve Matins and the Liturgy and prayer service; I thank the Lord for delivering me from the great temptations of the enemy that befell me before the dismissal of the all-night vigil, when I recalled with a feeling of hostility the slander of my father, the archpriest: the Lord saved me through my prayer from indignation and from losing myself; then Christ, Light said well; release and forgiveness he said firmly. During the Liturgy, the enemy offended and embarrassed me with envy that some prosphora were large and others were small; repented and was saved; received communion without condemnation; At the water-blessing prayer service, I stumbled over the Gospels at the beginning, and the enemy confused me with the thought that many candles would burn out from the long prayer service. Grace has won. After the prayer service, the elder came to the altar and said that the account of the church money would be tomorrow, but the archpriest would not be on the account, although I wanted this, but this too passed through the prayer of repentance. Let there be no self-justification: endure meekly, with kindness and gratitude and with a cheerful spirit of slander of your neighbors, so that you will be involved in Christ: Being slandered, He did not slander each other; while suffering, he did not threaten, but handed it over to the Righteous Judge [1 Pet. 2, 23]. After all, you are a sinner and worthy of slander: if you are sinful in something other than what they are slandering you about, then in something else. I thank the Lord, who gave me the spiritual strength to perform the Sacrament of Marriage over two couples with singers and a private mechanic, Semyon Bogdanov. A person subject to passion is a person who is sick in soul, and often in body; he is always somewhat crazy, overly tense, irritated, inflamed with hellish fire. Therefore, it is necessary to treat him carefully, meekly, with love, so that the opposite course of action does not irritate him further and does not strengthen his passions and no longer arm him against us. So, for example, a person devoted to the passion of the love of money is a sick person and delusional: it seems to him that everyone is robbing him, seizing his income, imposing their services on wealthy people in order to take advantage of the profit from them that he could receive, and therefore he invents stinging slander against his fellow employees, that they are seizing all his interests into their hands. All those possessed by various passions are the same or similar. They are sick, and we must feel sorry for them, and not be angry with them, and pray for them to God, who enlightens and heals our souls. I explained to my father the archpriest about his note to me, which was full of slander against me. It turned out that he was upset by my note and was in a misunderstanding about me. But he was not in communication with Father Matthew and acted alone; on the contrary, he has a complaint against Father Matthew. In general, he is not as angry as I thought: he softened and made peace, hugging me twice by the waist. I got excited. One could notice that all the heat was about money, and sitting for free in court was like an eyesore for him: he was not strongly favored. Thanks be to the Lord, who reconciled us! How much a person can sometimes be excited by a non-malicious but false word! How we ourselves need to be careful in our words, so as not to upset, humiliate, or embitter anyone. How disgusting it is to braid your hair at night! You can’t sleep: there’s tightness all over your body! Lipstick is also bad for me. Dream. He climbed onto the crossbar of the bell (where the tongue is) and hung his stomach over the enormous height: what a fantasy! Isn’t this a condemnation for my loudmouthing and self-justification! Again I was going to my homeland, but didn’t make it on the ship: I got to [Kevrolo]-Trinity, to the house of the local sexton, and then stopped and woke up. Children, women: kissing. The more a person cleaves to earthly things, the more he does not care about heavenly things; the more towards the material, the less towards the spiritual; and no matter how much he assures anyone that he loves God and cares about the soul or the souls of men, do not believe him: he lies: inside, in his heart, idols stand in their holy place. Lutherans lost sight of the fact that Christianity is a struggle, a war with the spirits of evil, and Christians are fighters and warriors, and deprived Christians who profess Lutheranism of all spiritual weapons; they forgot that Christianity is the mortification of the old man, the crucification of the flesh with passions and lusts, and they revived the flesh, or the old man, by destroying fasts and monasticism; in addition, they have stopped the connection between the earthly Church and the heavenly one, they have stopped the apostolic succession of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which passes in the Orthodox Church through the ordination of bishops, they do not have a single true Sacrament, except Baptism. Our soul is a simple and subtle being: it does not tolerate anything superfluous in the body with which it is connected, but only allows what is necessary: ​​it does not tolerate tobacco and is greatly tempted because of it if someone rapes himself with it. We often say and sing: Lord, have mercy. What is the power of these words? Whoever says: Lord, recognizes himself as a servant of the One to whom he says this. God is our Lord, and we are all His servants naturally; but a slave is a slave because he does not do his own will, but the Lord’s, while we, sinners, constantly fulfill our will, not the Lord’s, and thus constantly deserve His righteous wrath, condemnation and torment. Conscious of our sinfulness and not wanting to be subjected to deserved punishment, with all our hearts desiring to correct ourselves and live according to His commandments, we say: Lord, have mercy, that is, do not punish us for our sins, but graciously bear with us sinners, and save us through our destinies, without depriving us of both temporary earthly blessings and Your Heavenly Kingdom. Let us always remember that it is a great thing to be called servants of God, or servants of Christ, as the Lord says through Isaiah the prophet: It is great that you should be called My servant (Isa. ch. 49, v. 6). From Heaven we receive all blessings, all light, all help, all consolation, but we do not strive for Heaven, we stick to the earth, we are caught and wounded by earthly things. Oh, vanity, and damnation, and our blindness! I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains, from where my help will come [Russian: I will lift up my eyes to the mountains, from where my help will come] [Ps. 120, 1]. Fasting is an essential accessory of Christianity: without it, the mortification of passions is impossible: those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts [Gal. 5, 24 ] (November 4, 1870). Therefore, if you want, my soul, to be a true servant of Christ, maintain constant fasting and constantly keep your flesh in check, exhausting it with fasting, vigil, prayer, labor, and contemplation of God. I thank You, Lord, for You saved me from fornication and gave me tears of repentance and tenderness. I love the Artist, but not the art, or I love the Most Holy Artist in His all-wise art - a man who must be holy, just as his Artist is holy. How unreasonable and blind I am as a result of passions before mass, when I have to serve it and see that my brother-in-law is drinking tea with rolls: I am at enmity against him internally and envy that he eats and drinks too much without me, and I don’t take into account the fact that even if he eats and drinks twice as much as before (which is impossible, because he has the same stomach), it still won’t work out more than usual food and drink, because that morning I do not eat or drink, but instead the Lord feeds me - and with what? - With Their flesh and Blood, with Their spirit and belly, and with prosphora and warmth, or good people (if there is a funeral) feed and water me, and, therefore, I have both spiritual and material profit! God! Forgive me for my passion! Take away my blindness, which covers me rightly! How often I am honored to serve the liturgy! And how often do I have homemade food and drink left over from me! All Your bounties, Lord! Do I still not understand this? I did not tell you about bread... Strive not for food that perishes, but for food that endures to eternal life [Matt. 16, 11; In. 6, 27]. I must pay attention to myself so that I never eat or drink too much, so as not to lose the grace of God and not be subjected to the violence of passions and the ridicule of ethereal enemies. Γορέ we have hearts and let us be wise. For the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit [Rom. 14, 17]. Two idols together: one wants to be adored, and the other wants to be adored. These are two lovers. I thank the Lord, who deigned me to perform the funeral liturgy at the cemetery and to perform the funeral service for the departed servant of God Olga, the wife of the staff clerk. By the grace of God I joined without condemnation. During the liturgy, extreme weakness of the heart. If I love beautiful faces and don’t love ugly ones, if I love rich and noble people but don’t love poor and ignorant people, if I love friends but hate enemies, if I love benefactors but hate those who do me no good or do me evil, then this is hypocritical, worldly, not evangelical love: I love only myself, and not my neighbors. Treat the vessels of God with all respect, with all purity, and never hold unclean views on them. I mean animate vessels, male and female people, especially young ones, the sight of whom Satan usually tempts. If you are given a vessel as a companion (I mean your wife), be pleased with it, but you have nothing and no need to pour into other people’s vessels; There is also no need to cleave to them with your eyes and heart, and sooner or later the vessel itself will lose its attractive appearance, become rough, collapse (die), leaving pus and dust. Cling with all your heart to the imperishable and most beautiful Artist, Who from the earth creates such blooming, beautiful vessels, animated by His Divine Spirit, rational, verbal, in His image and likeness, which is in the soul. Love Him, worthy of perfect love, and love them for His sake and in Him. The monastery is a spiritual hospital (the words of Father Leonid). How to treat the painful image of God! With what meekness, kindness, with what wisdom, patience, love, respect, constancy! Acquire spiritual, heavenly love in your heart, trampling down earthly, carnal love, which constantly hinders the love of God, clinging to heavenly love, drying up the love of God. Its seed is holy [Russian: the holy seed will be its root] [Isa. 6, 13], that is, of this world: that is, both pious people in general, and especially those through whom sanctification and the manifold grace of God, the manifold gifts of God are given to all Christians: the gift of rebirth and renewal in Baptism, the gift of Divine sanctification (in Confirmation), the Divine Gifts of the Body and Blood of Christ, the gift of remission of sins, or the gift of decision 157 (in Repentance), the gift of pure unanimity for the blessed birth and Christian upbringing of children and the gift of apostolic healing of bodily infirmities. This holy seed is the priesthood of God; You should especially appreciate, love, and respect these friends of God, doing God’s work, for their great and beneficial work for the whole world and for you, pray for them, help them in everyday things, forbear with them in their weaknesses. The seed of the holy standing of the world: for their prayers, for their pious, God-pleasing life, the world stands, human societies prosper; through them, the Lord sends down His manifold grace on people. They all bear the image of Christ and continue His Divine work - the work of saving people; they are clothed with His dignity, they perform sacred functions with His priesthood, they are clothed with His spirit, they preach His word, they rule and rule with His authority. In particular and most abundantly 158 we must have in love the Most Holy Governing Synod, through which every spiritual gift descends to us from God, and especially the grace of the Sacrament of the Priesthood, the grace of bishops and priests, quiet and silent Christian life, the constant sanctification and salvation of members of the All-Russian Church. We must always pray to God, may He make wise and strengthen all his members the right to rule the word of God's truth, and may the number of those saved under his rule be like the sand of the sea, like raindrops. His seed is holy and his standing [Isa. 6, 13], that is, the world. Who is this? This is, firstly, our Lord Jesus Christ; then His saints: apostles, prophets, hierarchs, martyrs, saints, righteous ones and all the saints. For the sake of ten righteous people the city is built, and even for the sake of five or less 159 - all the more will it stand for the sake of many righteous people, whether the saints living on earth or those who have departed to eternal life. Our service is imperfect: we want to serve both God and mammon, which cannot be combined, because serving mammon excludes serving God in spirit and truth and strongly opposes it, paralyzes it, disfigures it. One can serve God and a loving mammon, but this service is external, superficial, formal, powerless, and in his heart there remains the abomination of desolation, spiritual deadness, impenetrable darkness, and cramped conditions. In such service, a person appears to be two-faced: he has one face for people, the other for himself; before people he appears pious, reverent, having the appearance of all virtue, but in himself he is the depth of all wickedness, the receptacle of coarse self-love, pride, insolence, enmity, envy, lustful impurity, covetousness, gluttony, wickedness, hard-heartedness, unmercifulness, negligence about his soul and, if souls are entrusted to him to guide them to salvation, fulfilled carelessness about the souls of other people redeemed by the blood of Christ. It is great for me to be a servant of God, a priest of Christ. May I, by the grace of Christ, be able and worthy to undergo this highest, heavenly, angelic service on earth. I can do all things through Jesus Christ who strengthens me [Phil. 4, 13]. Know that by looking with lust at the face of a girl or woman, firstly, you humiliate your nature and desecrate your soul, created in the image of God, and cause a great insult to God, and secondly, you offend a person’s personality with a shameful, humiliating view for him, you dishonor the church of God, for don’t you know that you are the church of God, and the Spirit of God lives in you? [ 1 Cor. 3, 16]. And these and similar daily stumblings come from a lustful life, from frequent and immoderate eating and drinking: a person gets out of bed in the morning and from early morning drinks hot sweet drink and is filled with the desired bread. How can lust not exist in sinful and passionate flesh? Whoever wants to preserve spiritual and physical purity must constantly maintain abstinence and suppress his flesh with long prayers and labors. Isn’t it humiliating, isn’t it dishonest for our nature, exalted by the image and likeness of God, to use man as an object of our voluptuousness, as if it were some kind of soulless thing, and to pervert the creative law of the blessed reproduction of the human race? Will you allow every person to put anything in their mouth, any food or drink, perhaps unclean and harmful? Don’t you yourself do this with extreme discernment and moderation and with prayer and God’s blessing, so that food reaches its goal, so that you can be alive, healthy, strong and vigorous and not offend your Creator, who created everything by number, measure and weight? The same must be said about the venerable, unblemished, vital entrance of a woman. This is her second mouth, receiving childbearing seed for the propagation of the race, and not for sweetness, and her beauty is the beauty of the image of God; may the first, uncreated Beauty be known comparatively, loved and glorified from us. Man by nature receives an inclination towards love, but in man there are two natures - old and new, spirit and soul, holy nature, received in Baptism from God, and sinful nature, inherited from parents, and therefore love is twofold: carnal, sinful and spiritual, holy; and by succession from the progenitor Adam, the sinful nature, or sinful love, or, better, the devil, the teacher of such love, acts with violence, through temptations and temptations; the saint requires stimulation on our part, cultivation, education; that one deadens - this one revives the spirit; it butts and bites, like a snake, but this one calms and relaxes the heart; from a young age, both begin to act in a person, and happy are children who are brought up in the fear of God, in the rules of piety and are guarded from all temptations and seductions of the unclean; Those who are neglected by spiritual education and are not kept away from temptations can develop passions in them from an early age, with which they will have to fight all their lives or die from them. So, protect the child from carnal love, to which he is inclined from a very young age, and cultivate in him spiritual love for God and humanity, instill in him that carnal love is bestial love, identical with the instincts of animals, and should be used by a person only at a certain time and for a certain high purpose, and spiritual love must be constant and unchanging, unhypocritical. How many young men, men and elders perished from the development of carnal love! Having sinned before God and the Queen of heaven and earth - he spared brother Alexei oil for the lamps in front of the icon of the Queen, the Mother of God, and said that he too should buy wooden oil, not all at someone else’s expense to burn his lamp - as if they were not the common gifts of God, as if the Lady and Mother were not common. Because of this, it was hard for me during mass, although I repented. Both contempt for man because of natural lower needs and passion for him because of carnal pleasure are equally vile and vile from the devil, but in human nature there is nothing vile except sin: everything was created wisely and purposefully. It’s enough for me to be a working church of sin: it’s time to work for the Lord with all my soul and with all my heart. Each new gluttony, new pleasure of the flesh is a carnal step (and the devil in us) forward and a retreat of the spirit back, its weakening. And we must continually stretch forward. Has the hand of the Lord become weak for you or in the whole world, that you spare your brother food and drink to eat as full as he wants? Is this your faith in the Lord, this is your trust in His Providence and Providence, this is your love for your neighbor? Or are you not full yourself? Or when were you not full? And if you yourself eat and drink your fill, then let your brother eat his fill: the earth is the Lord’s and what fills it [Ps. 23, 1]. Away with the evil, greedy, stingy, insatiable, envious eye! With the same measure you use, it will be measured back to you [Lk. 6, 38]. How stinginess, greed and envy hurt! Definitely a scorpio. All passions bite the insides of a person, like a viper. But we still don’t come to our senses, we don’t stop sinning! Early mass. I thank the Lord, who has made me worthy to perform the Divine Liturgy without stumbling and to partake in the world of spiritual powers of the most pure and life-giving Mysteries of His Body and Blood. The weather is cloudy, snowing. My head hurt badly before lunch and especially after lunch, during tea and after tea at three o'clock. It blew off. What's the reason? Yesterday I ate a lot of salted undercooked cod in sunflower oil, drank a lot of tea: at home three glasses after dinner and at Leopardov’s three glasses of sweet tea with two kinds of jam (rowan). Yesterday I ate barley porridge with vegetable oil, and today the same porridge with quick butter; I got up early: I didn’t get enough sleep (at four o’clock in the morning). At lunch I ate fatty roast meats and fatty cabbage soup. Sin in human nature is like a murderous cancer, a known disease in the body, gradually, and sometimes very quickly, killing a person’s spiritual and physical life; there is a pierced, many-branched evil thorn that inflames the human being with hellish flames; there is a poisonous, destructive sting that stings to death - and eternal death - a person who lives unrepentantly. Therefore, every sin must be plucked from the soul at the very beginning, so that it does not intensify, grow, or become stronger. Especially dangerous and mortal sins: pride, covetousness, envy, gluttony, fornication, laziness, rancor, despair. If you eat abundant and fat food, then at the same time you give abundant food to the passions nesting in the body, and you revive the old, bad person; but if you want to be healed of passions associated with overeating, then endure the diseases associated with healing the flesh and soul from passions, for they are inevitable. He who suffers in the flesh ceases to sin [1 Pet. 4, 1]. Sicknesses are necessary to heal and cleanse our gluttony, our fornications, our greed, envy and other sins. Resurrection. Late liturgy. I thank You, Lord, who has given me the grace to perform the Divine Liturgy with tenderness and to partake of the life-giving Mysteries without condemnation. Thou hast poured out all, O Lord, in love, mercy and generosity to Thy creatures; the visible and invisible world is a mirror of Your endless perfections: they are reflected beautifully in this world. The heavens proclaim the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims the work of His hands. How numerous are Your works, O Lord! You have done everything wisely [Ps. 18, 2; 103, 24 ]! Do not covet a wife... [Ex. 20, 17]. The gaze of a person (voluptuous) is greedy for human beauty and sometimes, so to speak, drinks into a beautiful face; they desire someone else's wife because of her beauty, not so much because of her intelligence or kindness, because these qualities [...] are sometimes invisible. So, man, the crown of creation, created in the image and likeness of God, and especially the other half of the human race, created from the rib of Adam, is beautiful - but is it really possible to make everyone ugly for an unclean eye? What is not wonderful about the Lord? All creations are beautiful, and the image of God, and the crown of all creation - man - is the most beautiful: his body is beautiful, but his soul is even more beautiful. So what of this? But here’s what: in order not to be seduced by beauty, do not peer into it with a greedy gaze, raise your thought and heart at the sight of this created, temporary, so to speak momentary, beauty to the beauty of the Creator Himself, to the spiritual, eternal, imprecise beauty that created us in His image and draws us all to eternal union with Him for eternal bliss; and then in general to spiritual beauty, for example angelic, to the beauty of human souls, to the beauty of the soul [...], and love this spiritual, enduring beauty, considering the beauty of the body, this hay, as an unimportant thing, according to the Scripture: All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field [Isa. 40, 60]. You see every day how this bodily beauty wears out, fades, disappears. On the other hand, remember that sometimes an unkind and unclean soul lives in a beautiful body; as beautiful as she is, she is sometimes shameless, evil, capricious, stubborn (this is the other side of the coin)... So, apparently, one should look not only at appearances, but also at something else, internal: at the soul, at the heart. How sometimes those who are greedy only for female beauty are punished! (Beholding the infinite sweetness of Your face is an indescribable kindness.) And it turns out that in a person what is worthy of all love and respect is not physical beauty, but the beauty of the soul, which often gives even a not quite beautiful face a very pleasant expression, so that even an ugly person can be very, very good in appearance, in his soul. The beauty of a woman is greatly helped by the art of dressing up, but this art takes too much time and effort, too much coquetry to love your wife because of this; rather, it repels her as clearly vain. A Christian woman should constantly have in mind the clothing of incorruptibility, the clothing of humility, purity and chastity, meekness, the garment of Christ - good deeds, according to the Apostle 162. The devil, who perverts everything, has also perverted the feeling of love in man. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house... [nor his field,] nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey [Ex. 20, 17] (the intentions of the devil are shown in every violation of every commandment). We want to have a lot, eat and drink a lot and sweetly, but meanwhile this much is harmful to the soul and body, and we, being greedy, constantly harm our soul and body. Blessed are those who are satisfied with little. The commandment do not covet teaches us to be content with our condition; in this contentment there is peace and happiness. Grief - discontent and greed; this is hell on earth, from this discontent comes envy, intrigues, murders, deceptions. I thank Thee, quick-to-obey Master, for Thou quickly heard me, Thy servant, yesterday, when I, during the fiery pain in my right leg, cried out to Thee in my heart for deliverance from the violence of the disease: immediately the pain stopped, it went away at Thy wave. Glory to You! I thank You, Lady, for yesterday you interceded for me many times during the Liturgy, and especially during Vespers, when I, looking at Your image, prayed to You for the cleansing of sins and to speak the litany with power and truth. You gave peace and firmness to my soul without fear. The narrowness of carnal, material love: a person becomes passionately or painfully attached to one well-known person or to a certain thing and grows cold towards others, grows cold towards God and other people, and yet the word of God and a sound conscience, or natural law, command to love everyone, to embrace everyone with your heart, and most importantly to love God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your thought and strength. This carnal love binds a person’s being, oppresses, darkens, kills, but spiritual love expands, enlivens, enlightens. The Church shows an example of spiritual love every day, offering prayers to God for the whole world in general and in particular for all cities, villages, for all classes, for every soul. I thank You, Lord my God, for delivering me during Matins and especially the Liturgy from great, bitter temptations from the spirits of malice, who with cruelty carried me towards anger towards the reader Vasily Ivanovich Kutuzov. Through my prayer, by Thy mercy, by Thy power, by Thy wisdom, all enemies are defeated, the tightness in my being has passed, my soul has expanded, calmed down, revived along with my body, and I, a spectator of so many blessings, will sing 163 thanks to God, my Benefactor. All church services and prayers at home are our conversation with God, with whom we are face to face, lip to mouth, there is communication between the creature and God. How great, or majestic, it is for a creature to converse with the Creator, an insignificance with immeasurable Greatness, darkness with an ineffable Light, decay with Fire, the weak with the All-Powerful, often falling into malice with the All-Good, the stingy with the All-Bountiful! Do we always begin a conversation with our Creator and Savior? Are we not shying away from this all-saving conversation, from glorifying and thanking Him? In the church itself and during prayer, do we always stand reverently, remembering where we are and before Whom we stand? Oh, how important and beneficial it is to talk with the Creator! What silence settles in the entire being, what heavenly life begins to spread in all components, what space, what light shines in a soul hitherto darkened by passions! Oh, what a great thing it is for a creature to converse with the Creator! What an honor the goodness of the Creator has bestowed upon us mortals! Last night I ate stale prosphora (tightly grated) from the Nevsky Monastery (more than half of the prosphora), and at night it made me sick; I couldn’t sleep by morning; he was irritable during Matins and at the prayer service at Matreninsky’s; I frowned at sexton Vasily Ivanovich Kutuzov because he frowned at me, as it seemed to me, although this was not the case. You should not eat anything heavy in the evening. What an endless difference between perishable food and incorruptible food of the Most Pure Body and Blood of the Lord! That one burdens, oppresses, corrupts the soul and body; this one creates extreme lightness, spaciousness in the soul and body, renews the entire being of a person. I have always experienced this, and I experienced this with particular strength today after communion of the Holy Mysteries! Glory to Thee, Lord! Director Janisch did not order the boys to ask Vera at the reception, but now they have polished us nicely in the “Petersburg Leaflet”. Let him read it. Lamanova notice. In your sermon on the day of St. Andrew the Apostle, do not forget to say from whom the martyr of the army and the venerable councils shivered 164 with Divine agriculture and grace: from the apostles. I sinned before God by drinking a lot of boiled tea and bread in the evening! That is why there is irritability today, the temptation of the enemy! He was furious at the beggar boys for constantly begging and begging: he tore one by the hair. I was inwardly furious at my brother Alexei for eating and drinking early, without washing, without praying (what do I care! He himself is no younger than me in his mind), and forgot his sins. It is remarkable that the flesh goes berserk especially when it has become overeating and drinking heavily. I need to drink tea with wine so that my nerves don’t fall; Do not drink anything that has boiled over. Greed and stinginess: I am greedy for food and drink, for large, so to speak, portions; as for money - I feel sorry for the poor, who come often, money for extreme needs, I am offended that they come often, but I should give with joy, because this means growing rich in God. But we would most like to grab for ourselves, although we feel harm from many things, especially from overeating and overdrinking. We are damned people, and I am the first! I sinned before God and people by becoming angry at the beggars who ran after me into the yard when I did not care for them and thought of resting quickly from my labors. Isn’t this true life to serve the poor and wretched all day long and forget about yourself, about food and drink, which are of no benefit to the soul? And I'm still a pathetic vain person! Just as we are generous for ourselves, we are stingy for the beggars: we ourselves don’t have enough rubles and tens and hundreds to satisfy our complex needs and whims, but to the beggars, if we give a few kopecks, we consider this money sufficient for everything: for renting an apartment, for bread and grub, and for clothes - spend it as you know. Oh, if only we would help as generously as the Lord generously helps us! Then the Lord would be even more generous to us, for with the same measure you use, it will be measured to you... good measure, shaken down, pressed together and running over, will be poured into your bosom [Matt. 7, 2; OK. 6, 38]. Remember how the Angels forced one man, who received gold from a rich man, to weed a field overgrown with thorns that belonged to this rich man. This is how good it is to give alms, and how difficult it is for the recipient to answer for it! Therefore, do not be flattered by other people's goodness. I thank the Lord, who saved me through the celebration of the Liturgy and the communion of the Divine Mysteries from fierce temptations and incitements of the enemy to anger and from my internal and partly external falls into sin (in a rage he tore out a beggar boy by the hair) and who granted me complete victory over my enemies and the cleansing of sins with the desired peace and spiritual and physical space! Glory to the all-reconciling Sacrifice of the Divine Body and Blood! After spiritual death, here I am again alive, after my cruel sins, I am again right in my conscience, by the power of the all-justifying Sacrifice. I thank the Lord, who saved me in class from the disgrace brought on by a bad thought after student Sergeev (in the 7th grade) addressed me with a question and my answer to him. I looked up to the Lord with an internal prayer for salvation - and I was cleansed and freed from the violence of my thoughts and the shame of my face; The thought of unhypocritical love saved me, that I had to treat everyone with composure: both beautiful and ugly people. From the 11th to the 12th I slept very peacefully; I woke up early, but, thinking that it was not yet five o’clock, I fell asleep again, slept through the morning bell: the maid did not wake me up; I washed myself at six o’clock ten minutes and didn’t have time to pray; there are many temptations during the morning service, among other things because of the three rubles of Lieutenant Makarov, who yesterday served a prayer service and drank tea with a pretzel; I was in the smoking room: there were Leopardov, Velikanov and someone else - gamblers. I sinned again - I was angry with the poor boys who often and early in the morning come for alms, whom God sends to me for my salvation and their food: they are impossibly poor. Who, what rich or noble person will I envy? To no one - because even to me, unworthy, the Lord God, rich in love and alms, gave so much that one could not wish for more: He gave me a rational, free, immortal soul, in His image and likeness; He gave me a future eternal Kingdom with endless blessings; more: He gave me Himself, inhabits me, adores me. Here is my treasure, here is my invaluable wealth, before which every earthly treasure and wealth is insignificant; This is my celebrity and glory, before which all earthly glory pales! May I value this wealth and glory, and may I not be seduced by earthly wealth and glory, may I not seek them, and may I not envy any of the rich and noble of this age. May I love that age! Buy "School of Piety". Today is the memory of St. John the Merciful; Through his prayers, Lord, teach me to be merciful to Your people, the poor, the suffering, the weak and to everyone; grant unshakable hope in You, Unexpected Treasure. Freely, freely, you receive from the Lord and from His people the material means for an abundant life - do not be stingy and give freely to the poor, for this they have been given to you and will always be given; and do not stretch out your hand to someone else’s property and do not covet your brother’s property, so that you do not accept upon yourself the sinful leprosy, hardship and punishment of those whose sacrifice you would partly want to take advantage of for the benefit of the poor; you will get a part according to the general division - give from it. (It was very rare with you that you used someone else’s part, but don’t do this in the future; for travel you can take a ruble or more, depending on your income and travel, but don’t touch anything else.) I sinned before God and people - by being angry with the beggars and yelling at them in the street, and by pulling one by the hair with anger. It would be necessary to meekly and with love give to everyone what I could and wanted, and if I didn’t want to, there was no need to be angry: after all, I am free in myself and in my own good. How long do self-love, covetousness, malice, envy not die in me? How long will I anger my greatest Benefactor, God, who generously bestows His blessings upon me? How long will I value money and not value poor people? Where is the love for others? How long will love remain for one’s flesh, for this insidious, multi-passionate flesh? 12 [November] I thank the Lord for the Divine Liturgy, for the desired peace, for the purification of the soul, for sanctification, freedom, lightness, space in the whole being. After this, nothing earthly should occupy me. What, what trifle, what dust have I spared today for those for whom the Lord Himself suffered and gave Himself to a blasphemous death? Did I spare a penny for the members of Christ, who have no place to lay their heads? Oh, how I must respect and love them - more than myself! For they are pitiful, hungry, naked, without shelter, without work, even if they wanted it, without education, without worship, without instruction, even - alas! - without the Sacrament of Communion, for due to extreme poverty, lack of clothing, many do not even partake of the Holy Mysteries! What a terrible deprivation for the soul! And we, fed up, proud, gobbling 165, are angry with these people, shouting, screaming, pushing them, scolding them! Meanwhile, we daily accept within ourselves the Lamb of God, the gentle one who laid down His soul for His people! Oh, ungrateful and malicious! Oh, blindness! Oh, satanic pride! Blessed are the ascetics who have given up sweets (you don’t need to eat sugar - give it up: because of it there are many temptations and all sorts of passions for material goods). A quarrel with his wife almost resulted from her disobedience regarding the fact that the maid crushed sugar in the kitchen and not in the dining room. I wanted to stand my ground, but she didn’t listen to me: so she was offended. One should not pay attention to everyday trifles, but preserve peace and love by all means, observing compliance. Entire nations go to war over trifles, but trifles still remain trifles. How terribly people suffer because of their impatience, pride, pride, addiction to material benefits, to sweets, to self-interest! How blessed are all who live in God! How blessed are the meek! Poor in spirit! Hungering and thirsting for truth! Dear ones! Pure in heart, peacemakers, persecuted for the truth, but not persecuting others, slandered unjustly! The further we deviate from the spirit of the Gospel, the more unhappy we are: woe to us then. Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it [Lk. 11, 28]. 13 [November] I thank the Lord for the unfailing performance of the Divine Liturgy and the unfailing communion of the Holy Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ with faith and reverence and the performance of the requiem; I thank you for granting victory over invisible enemies, for deliverance from sins, for granting blessed cleansing through the Blood, for the outpouring of Divine Life into my heart, into my entire being, for peace, freedom and space of soul and body, for boldness! I thank the Lord for deliverance from countless evils, malice, and spiritual troubles! God! Deliver me now from the evils that have befallen me! See, Lord, and save, Lord! Give me the grace to sincerely respect and love my squad! Over others, like me, the enemy in his heart, constantly acting, has long uprooted love and planted enmity among his closest relatives! May we know this and may we kindle or restore love, which has nothing dearer in the world. Enmity is, first of all, a robber and a murderer of the one who carries it in his heart. Oh, if only all those at war with their neighbors would constantly remember this! Deliver, Lord, from the darkening of passions of every person! While the people were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went away [Matt. 13, 25]. Sleeping not only spiritually, but also physically, is harmful: during sleep, the enemy sows the tares of passions. Stay awake. From my actions with my family, I notice that I am proud, willful, angry, envious, stingy, greedy, lascivious, selfish, argumentative, quarrelsome, stubborn, partial. Correct, Lord, me, the indecent one! The enemy tries to look with his inner eyes at the sins of his brother (neighbors), real or imaginary, in order to arouse enmity against him and in order to distract attention from his sins, so that, in this way, he can reign in us and conveniently sow and grow in our hearts his hellish tares of passions. Therefore, humility and self-reproach are necessary; Let us leave our neighbors to judge by God, and we ourselves will surrender to Him with all our sins and weaknesses. We reproach our neighbors, but we ourselves commit the same sins as them. The Lord wakes us sinners so that we do not fall asleep in sinful death; awakens with sorrows and illnesses, the disasters of war, famine, fires, and pestilence. I sinned against the Lord that yesterday I slandered and scolded the deacon at the all-night vigil in the church and at the all-night vigil at St. John’s. Vishnyakova. I thank the Lord a hundredfold, for once again I have been filled with inexhaustible grace and His life in the communion of His Holy, heavenly, life-giving and terrible Mysteries and have been rewarded with the resolution of all my sins, peace, joy, cheerfulness, boldness, strength and every Divine gift and victory over invisible enemies. November 15. Resurrection. The first day of the Nativity Fast. Two and a quarter hours in the afternoon. He spoke a sermon on Gregory, Archbishop of Kazan 166, about the importance of the Christian faith. I greedily hurried to drink tea and was furious over it - and the Lord punished me with deprivation of peace and freedom for greed and obstinacy (for finishing and not preparing tea for me), and yet tea was harmful and unnecessary for me. I fell before the Lord up to three times, and the Lord had mercy on me. To pray means to be moved, to ask with tenderness, to thank, to praise. Treat the poor who come to you for mercy with meekness, humility and kindness, remembering that they are members of Christ, that they have nowhere to bow their heads, that they come to you for their goods, which the Lord has entrusted to you for distribution, that you yourself use many of the comforts and means of life undeservedly, being a great sinner, and also remembering the words of the Apostle: only so that we remember the poor, which I tried to do exactly [Gal. 2, 10]. The devil usually kindles in us a passion for self-interest when beggars approach us, and thereby arouses extreme dislike for the beggars, especially if there are many of them and there is a lot to be given to them. But we must remember the words of the Lord: for I was hungry, and you gave Me food; I thirsted... I was naked, and you clothed Me [Matt. 25, 35–36] - and the reward for deeds of mercy is the Kingdom of Heaven. Try in every possible way to serve the Lord in all services or prayers, public and private, without stumbling, undoubtedly, with a triumphant spirit, for otherwise Satan will sting you with a strong wound and will torment you for a long, long time. Prayer is calm, light, strength, boldness, the life of the soul. If you yourself pray calmly, with boldness and strength, then you will shed calmness, boldness, light and strength into those praying with you. If you pray restlessly, cowardly, sluggishly, with doubt, then you will lead others into confusion. Today I feel weak in my soul because of yesterday’s gluttony with Father Peter Preobrazhensky, the navigator’s priest - I drank a lot of sweet tea. He was offended by the twelve-year-old boy Sofronov for not taking off his cap at the meeting, like a priest and teacher of the law. Ambition! Isn't the greatest honor in humility? I am the vine, you are the birth [Russian: I am the vine, you are the branches] [In. 15, 5]. Christ, or His Church, of which He is the Head, is the Vine, and all Orthodox Christians are the birth. Whoever will be with the Church of Christ will create much fruit, just as all the saints who were in communion with the Church have done, and whoever does not remain will fall away from the Church and from Christ, he will be cast out like a rod and dry up: and... they are put into the fire and burned up [Russian: he will be cast out like a branch and wither; and such branches are collected and thrown into the fire, and they burn] [Jn. 15, 6]. Is it possible, because of the skin (of the face), to despise the image of God, that is, the immortal, rational, free soul; a person with a beautiful face should be loved, but an ugly person should not be loved and hated; love a person because of his body and hate him because of his body? (What could be more absurd than this? And it happens so often. Oh, vain man!) Why chase after sweets? Provide them to those who wish, and be content with simple food. Do parasites with highly developed stomachs consume a lot of these sweets? Provide them with fewer expensive dishes and more simple, inexpensive food - it’s harmless on both sides. And just to say: the Lord will send you anything, just stick to peace and mutual love. Let us lift up our hearts and stop groveling below. (Grief of the heart.) Let those who need to eat for you and for themselves, and you rejoice that the need of your stomach is small. This is grace. And fight with greed and wordless avarice by all means: it extremely humiliates man, created in the image of God, and reduces all his godlikeness to dust, likening him to senseless cattle. Pride (from mount) - so called from the exaltation of a person over others. Man is the wise creation of God, as His image and likeness: the Lord put everything under his feet: all the sheep and oxen, and also the animals of the field, the birds of the air and the fish of the sea [Ps. 8, 7–9 ]; finally, He gave him Himself as food and drink, if only he would live and not perish forever. What will I spare for someone for whom God Himself spares nothing, not even Himself? What is my own that I would not accept from the Lord to the tuna and which I should not willingly give to the tuna? It’s amazing to me how the earthly trash, or so-called earthly goods, still occupies me as if it were something important. I myself see later that everything is dust, insignificance, and meanwhile I become addicted to this dust and because of it I fall away from love for God and my neighbor, I rise up in a storm of enmity and envy towards my neighbor; I value expensive and pleasant things as if they were really expensive, whereas for me they are not expensive at all, but cheap, free. How long will the enemy deceive me and laugh at me? How long will I be so crazy that I will attach value to earthly things and neglect heavenly, immortal things - the commandments of God, the love of the Gospel, peace, freedom of spirit, goodness, generosity, humility, kindness, mercy, abstinence? (Sleeping for a long time is harmful to the soul - the temptations are strong: it is defenseless, weak.) Not mine, but God’s goodness, all that is eaten and drunk: how can I spare my brother what is given by God equally to him and to me? It would be crazy and daring. And because of the caviar - a storm! My soul is not exalted, but on the contrary, low, that it spares its neighbor a tasty morsel, although not a cheap one (isn’t man cheap, not a priceless creature, not the king of the entire sunflower world?), and envies him, looking at him with hostility. Damn man I am! Until now, after all the grace-filled means and strengths, have I not changed for the better? Am I still crawling on the ground? Haven't I been wise up here yet? Are you still not grateful to the great-gifted and generous Creator and Provider? Have I not yet crucified my flesh with its passions and lusts, but do I tender and cherish it, giving food and strength to the passions? My God! The roots of passion are still in me! I am also bound by satanic networks - and all because of the love of earthly things. Am I forgetting the mystery of redemption? For whom did the Son of God come down from heaven, so that He might bring to heaven those who fulfill His covenants? For whom is the cross? For whom are miracles? Prophecies? For whom are so many examples shown from the lives of the apostles, martyrs, hierarchs, and saints? For whom are these countless hosts of witnesses to the truth, life-giving, saving faith of Christ, the future resurrection, the future Judgment, the future bliss and future torment? Will I still be chained to the earth and not contemplate grief? How long to be low, insensitive, ungrateful? In the morning, and at noon, and in the evening, and at night, the devil resists me and forces me to sin - and let me resist him at all times and at every hour. Amen. Yes, I resist malice, envy, selfishness, pride, disobedience, despondency, lust, greed and all sin. To fight sin you need a lot of faith, vigilance, energy, and constancy. Millions of people of all ages, and very wise ones, have been overthrown by sin and suffered from it in a terrible way; and those who conquered sin were relatively few. It takes a lot of spiritual wisdom and self-sacrifice to overcome sin. It was not in vain that the Son of God Himself came down to earth in order for us to defeat sin and its culprit - the devil, in order to teach us to fight sin and defeat it, in order to deliver us from sin, curse and death. Without His help no one can overcome sin: without Me you can do nothing [Jn. 15, 5]. If the Lord were not in us, no one from us would be able to defeat the goats [...] against the enemy. Those who overcome are lifted up from here. Every minute you need to be with the Lord. Abide in Me, and I in you [Jn. 15, 4]. I thank the Lord for his countless mercy on my lewdness, for accepting my daily, secret repentance. Behold, even now, with great mercy, I have been pardoned by the Lord, and now my anger and irritability are forgiven me, the fierce tightness of my soul and body is taken away! Thanks be to the Lord for His inscrutable gift: the sick servant of God Maria Vasilievna (wife of Mikhail Timofeevich Zarudnev), by the grace of His Holy Mysteries, recovered from a very dangerous illness. It was not the doctor, but the Lord Himself who saved her. How healthy and blooming she has become! May the Lord be with her. November 18. Wednesday. We sinners, greatly impoverished in spirit, must always be aware of our spiritual poverty, poverty, our repentance, heartfelt contrition and sorrow for sins with tears of repentance - and God save us from conceit or coldness, petrified insensibility. If we have what we said now, and save ourselves from what was said now, then the grace of the Holy Spirit will always be with us, cleansing, sanctifying, enlightening, revitalizing, pacifying, comforting, strengthening soul and body. Nature, with its invariably wise order, exposes me daily in my disorders, moral and physical, and with its scattered generous creative gifts, it exposes me of lack of faith and stinginess, with its beauty and purity – of my moral ugliness and impurity. You, as it were, she tells me, are the crown of creation, especially adorned by the Creator, as His image and likeness. But where is your spiritual, holy beauty and valor? The passions of everything have disfigured you, overthrowing and disfiguring the image of God; passions are imprinted on your forehead, and in the end - alas! - you decay in the dust, you stink in your tomb; You have no appearance, no kindness. Depicting the sign of the cross or worshiping the cross of Christ, we remember the suffering and death of Christ for peace and the redemption of the world from the power of the devil and give due honor and reverence to the sacrament of redemption and the Redeemer, testify to our gratitude and love for Him and mutual love, according to the Scripture: as I have loved you, so love one another [Jn. 13, 34]. Thou shalt not covet [Exod. 20, 17]. A wonderful, wise warning and commandment. Sinful thoughts and desires are prohibited by the tenth commandment because sinful thoughts and desires give birth to sinful words and deeds. Our soul is simple, quick and fiery, like fire, like lightning: from one instant thought or desire it can be inflamed with sinful passion: hatred, envy, unclean love and fornication, covetousness, pride and ambition, vanity and others. Anyone who observes himself, the movements of his soul, his heart, his thoughts knows that, [for example], sometimes one thought, an instantaneous idea of ​​​​some person or object, is enough for enmity, envy or lustful passion to be born or resurrected in our soul and the whole soul to be engulfed almost instantly in the flames of sin. Sometimes it is necessary to exert a lot of effort on oneself, calm reflection, and prayer in order to extinguish the sinful fire that has formed in the soul. Blessed is he who at the very beginning, in the bud, suppresses every sin, who watches over himself incessantly, keeping the image of God in his soul from all sinful defilement and keeping the church of God, his heart, pure from the corruption of passions. Blessed are all those who do not give in to their desires, are satisfied with their condition, and moderate their bodily needs. To begin, with God's blessing, to draw up a synodal proposal: firmly, thoroughly, clearly, but in every possible way concisely prove [glorified] by Divine and church history the Orthodoxy of the Orthodox Church for Lutherans with a firm, thorough, clear, but possibly concise refutation of the evidence with which Lutheranism defends its opinions. Late lunch at two and a half hours. Today I had a hearty dinner before the all-night vigil: cabbage soup with smelt, cod with potatoes and buckwheat porridge with Provençal butter and almond milk - and I thought that everything would go well, but how I ran into the adversary of the devil! How he pressed me and pressed me (justifiably so) during the all-night vigil, how he weakened and frightened my heart! How he stole the sacred words! How inspiring fear and embarrassment! A hundred times I repented that I dined before the all-night vigil and burdened my heart against the commandment of the Savior: Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be burdened with gluttony and drunkenness [Lk. 21, 34 ]! Wouldn’t the day of judgment suddenly come upon me! Save me, God! Satan ate me up four times during the all-night vigil in the Assumption Church at the lithium prayer (I could not utter the words: the intercession of the Honest Heavenly Powers of the Incorporeal... by the power of the Honest and Life-Giving Cross), at the consecration prayer for bread, wheat, wine and oil of the words: For You bless and sanctify all things, and on the Gospel (And as soon as I heard Elizabeth [Luke 1:41]); at the cry, out of some fear, I could not utter the words: Thy only begotten Son, etc., but only said: forever and ever. I felt a strong demonic obsession in my soul, terrible pressure, oppression, darkness, fear, timidity. But I thank the Lord, who strengthened my spirit with His grace at the end of the all-night vigil and without stumbling [allowed] to say the prayer to Christ, the true Light. The history of the human race is nothing more than the agony of sin or passions. What terrible agony! Here are the consequences of eating from the forbidden tree! The entire history of mankind is living proof of the fall at the beginning precisely through eating the fruits of the forbidden tree. Look how we are still ready to fight with each other over food and sweets. He served the Liturgy in the Assumption Church with extreme mental weakness, with nervous irritability and fear of demons; received communion (with the deacon) without warmth of heart; he spoke his words cheerfully and expressively. Resurrection. Early mass in the cathedral, and before it - matins. I served Matins quite well, but with extreme sinful irritability and voluptuousness: the ghost of one pious beautiful woman frightened me so much, or rather, Satan confused me, that I did not utter the exclamation after the devilish fear of the devil after “Save, O God, Thy people” and at the end of the all-night prayer to Christ, the true Light (I only uttered before the words “Let it be marked upon us”, and these words twice I couldn’t pronounce it because the demon of voluptuousness was nesting in my heart, given to me for the sake of gluttony and satiation the day before with a pie with cabbage and whitefish). My God! How irritable I was after that, in what devilish captivity, in what demonic despondency! And throughout almost the entire mass the enemy amused himself with me, and the Lord seemed to become deaf to my prayer, because of my sins! Here I learned again and again how the enemy captivates souls with various passions due to gluttony and satiety! The glutton himself is the cause of severe temptations from the enemy: while admitting the cause, he naturally admits the consequences. The Lord punished me for not keeping the fast. I feed extensively, the accursed one, and therefore my soul has become a spacious field through which demons prowl, inciting it to various passions and mocking me cruelly. But, Savior of the world, I thank Thee, for Thou didst intercede for me now during the solemn memorial service for the maiden Seraphima Murashova, when evil and unclean spirits scoured me and raped my soul in misery, confusing, oppressing it, plunging it into fear, shame, powerlessness, and despair. Contrition for my sins and tears of tenderness returned to me Thy grace, Thy power, and I uttered an exclamation with boldness and strength when it was my turn to shout. I thank the Lord, who heard my heartfelt prayer for the eradication of anger and envy towards Father Matthew, who served with me, and who inspired sincere love for him. Oh, how the enemy worried me, confused me, and pressed me! At the funeral service, speaking out loud, he hurried, embarrassed by the demonic obsession. At the great entrance during mass, the king [Vortemb.] and his wife and Catherine Mikhailovna and her husband did not finish speaking; the rest he said firmly. In class I felt the enemy’s tightness and arrows in my heart. In the evening after class I went to see the merchant Al. Dmitrievich [...], drank a glass of vodka, sherry, champagne and got drunk; came to baptize Al. Ars. Estafiev - and could not read; had difficulty performing Baptism. The devil stood decisively on the road, because of my gluttony and intemperance and for the sake of not reading the pre-dinner prayer: he was afraid to disturb the guests and the host. Then in the evening there was a prayer service at Al. Moiseevich is good, firm. Again a snack, a little drink. Early mass. Strong temptations from Belial, flaming arrows; languor, embarrassment, extreme irritation; invoking the Holy Spirit in confusion and cramped by the enemy; until the end of mass and prayer service, irritation - after consuming the Holy Gifts, everything disappeared as if by hand: embarrassment, cramped conditions, all the machinations of the enemy disappeared like smoke. Glory to the Divine Mysteries! Thou art wondrous and great, O Lord, in Thy holy Mysteries! How wisely everything is arranged in church worship! What peace and love the entire divine service breathes between the shepherd and his flock and with each other! Peace to all! – And to your spirit, – the deacon has been placed in such obedience and dependence on the priest! How he often asks for his blessing, bows! [Peace be upon you!] I thank, praise and extol the most merciful Lord for the gift of pardon and cleansing of sins and deliverance from invisible enemies who irritated me during the reading of the rules for communion at Matins and during the early mass that I served - for heavenly peace, warmth, lightness, boldness. And it’s light and warm at heart. A voluptuous person becomes so coarse in heart that he becomes incapable of maintaining faith. How conveniently a voluptuous person is overcome by temptations! How conveniently the arrows of the prodigal demon, the demon of stinginess, greed, and malice pierce his heart! On the contrary, the abstinent and prayerful person is free from them: fasting and prayer for him are a shield against which the arrows of the enemy are broken. What am I afraid of when I call on the Heavenly Father and pray to Him to send the Holy Spirit on the gifts that are presented? God is Love. This is what I thought today during this terrible calling - and I calmed down and peacefully called on the Lord. The Lord, in His extreme philanthropy and condescension towards us, shares His royal, priestly and judicial power with people, and those honored by this rank must sacredly perform their office. Forgive me, O Lord who loves mankind, for I give alms to the poor with reproach and bitterness: give me the grace to give it with love, compassion, and willingness. Let us remember that You Yourself accept the poor, as You said in the Gospel 168. If we want You to be generous to us, then how stingy and hard-hearted are we ourselves? Ger rightly pointed out to me. Murashov, when buying honey, that now during Lent one should eat bread with kvass, and not drink honey, although I noticed that I rarely allow myself this delicacy at home. I am amazed by the all-encompassing love and unity of the Church, the unity of all members of the Church, heavenly, earthly and underworld, this spirit of love breathing in all supplications and prayers, in all rites of the Church. Truly the Church is moved and controlled by God's Holy Spirit! Is this spirit present in the Lutheran and Anglican churches? Integrity (church glory) – simplicity, kindness. Podgneshchat (Church Glav.) – put wood chips under the firewood; set fire, kindle. Lepota (Church Slavic) – beauty, grace. Blissfully (Church Glorious) – tempting, stumbling. Knee (Church Slavic) – generation, genus, department, variety (from “kolo” – cool); in the Epistle of the Apostle James (3, 6) it is used in the meaning of “the whole composition”: the tongue is installed in our souls, desecrating the whole body and scorching the circle of our birth (Russian: the tongue is in such a position between our members that it defiles the whole body and inflames the circle of life). I will sing to my Beloved the song of my Beloved about His vineyard. My Beloved had a vineyard on the top of a fattened mountain, and He surrounded it with a fence, and cleared it of stones, and planted choice vines in it, and built a tower in the midst of it, and dug a winepress in it, and expected it to bring forth good grapes, but it brought forth wild berries. And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between Me and My vineyard. What more should I have done for My vineyard that I have not done for it? Why, when I expected him to bring good grapes, did he bring wild berries? Therefore I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it will be desolate; I will destroy its walls, and it will be trampled down, and I will leave it desolate: they will neither prune it nor dig it, and it will be overgrown with thorns and thistles, and I will command the clouds not to rain rain on it. The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are His beloved planting. And He waited for justice, but behold - bloodshed; I waited for the truth, and behold, a cry (Isa. 5:1-7). Stud (Church Glorious) – shame. Not to anyone (church glory) - no longer. After all (church glory) - know (from vedati - know). Reshati - to allow from something, to free: the Lord will resolve the chained (Russian: The Lord releases the prisoners) (Ps. 145:7). Popreizlikha (Church Glav.) – excessively, very. Compare: The Lord said: if I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, then for their sake I will spare [the whole city and] this whole place. Abraham said in response: Behold, I decided to say to the Master, I, dust and ashes: maybe there will be five missing to fifty righteous people, will you really destroy the whole city for the lack of five? He said: I will not destroy if I find forty-five there. Abraham continued to talk to Him and said: Perhaps there will be forty there? He said: I will not do this even for the sake of forty. And Abraham said: Let not the Lord be angry that I speak: perhaps there will be thirty there? He said: I won’t do it if there are thirty there. Abraham said: Behold, I decided to tell the Lord: maybe there will be twenty there? He said: I will not destroy for the sake of twenty. Abraham said: May the Lord not be angry, what will I say one more time: maybe there will be ten there? He said: I will not destroy for the sake of ten (Gen. 18, 26 - 32). Izssheti (Church Glav.) – dry up, dry up. So that wives, too, in decent attire, with modesty and chastity, adorn themselves not with braided hair, not with gold, not with pearls, not with costly clothing, but with good works, as is fitting for women devoting themselves to godliness (1 Tim. 2:9-10). Inscribe, inscribe (Church Glav.) – dedicate, attribute to someone, reward, send back; Let us sing a song of thanksgiving to You - we send up thanksgiving, we sing a song of thanksgiving to You. Vegetate (Church Glav.) – to grow, to occur, to be born. Wed: Then the righteous will answer Him: Lord! when did we see you hungry and feed you? or to the thirsty and gave them something to drink? when did we see you as a stranger and accept you? or naked and clothed? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and came to You? And the King will answer them, “Truly I say to you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did it to Me.” (Matthew 25:37–40). You might be interested in: