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This morning at ten o'clock I read the message about the expulsion of evil spirits from the servant of God Philip, a local cab driver, who slandered him for drinking excessive beer. I read calmly, with faith, with jealousy, with feeling. Before, I read over it several times, and the Lord helped: He will help, I hope, even now, to the glory of His most holy name. I thank the Lord, who quickly saved me from my anger and from my confusion and heart trouble, when I cried out to Him in the spirit. Like the original murderer, the devil is rampant at the present time! You can hear incessant killings! Yes, and in us he has built a nest for himself, often producing in us an internal hatred of our neighbor, especially a comrade, neighbor, acquaintance, rich! We must hate the sin that lives in us, and not hate man, a creature in the image of God. I am very harsh and rude in my demands and threats! This day they fried fish in quick oil, and I said that from now on I will throw it in your face if you fry it in quick oil again - for deception. I told my wife rudely in the evening for not reporting Varvara Yakovlevna to me: I’ll teach you a lesson, and so on. I felt very distressed while serving today (May 2) early mass for the Neustroyevs. Such a terrible burden! Such mental powerlessness! Confusion, obsession, violence! I barely conquered through the communion of the Holy Mysteries and barely kept faith in my heart! In the evening, before the service, there is no need to be full, especially with black bread and fish or meat: bodily satiety is spiritual hunger. The devil distorts our neighbors in our opinion in every possible way, presenting them as evil, vile, and crafty, or teaching us adultery and every supernatural sin of Sodom, disfiguring us with gluttony and drunkenness, addiction to money and other things. The Church is the body of Christ, which means the Mother of God, the holy Angels, the holy men, and we, the militant Church, are all one. How gratifying, how majestic! What a blessing and bliss it is to belong to the Orthodox Church! Everlasting repentance means everlasting revival, everlasting youth. Sin decays and grows old. Evil suspicion must be destroyed and suppressed. You suspect and despise one colleague of evil. In vain: this is the whispering of the enemy. He is a thousand times better than you. Remember his piety, hospitality, quick obedience, helpfulness. You internally boast about what you do, work, but others (deacons) do not do. It is not you, but the grace of God in you that works for your salvation - therefore, you have nothing to boast about. And sometimes they do a lot, especially on Sundays and holidays. Do not rise above your brother, who is your equal in everything. The saints and all the saints completely banished from their hearts all malice, envy, pride, self-love, fornication, love of money and other passions and practiced all virtue. How great You are, Lord, in Your salvation, in Your goodness and power. Strong in mercy and good in strength, to help and comfort and save all who trust in Your Holy Name. Now I called You out of a sincere, stricken by confusion, sorrow and tightness of heart - and You mercifully and quickly saved me, giving me peace and freedom, for Your mercy is countless and Your mercies are endless, Lord! (My sin was that I was offended by the sexton for his inability to control his voice when singing stichera and cacophony and dissonance.) Lord! You are here 46 - with me: by Your presence, or by Your omnipresence; I pray to You that you grant me the grace not to be indignant at the cleric’s faults, for this is the work of the enemy, but to remain in peace and quietness of spirit. Grant me to remember our common weaknesses and to be lenient and kind to those who sin, for I myself am subject to mistakes. The cacophony and discord of the outer voice are unimportant before You, but the discord of hearts is important. Give us, the weak and the evil, goodness and unanimity of souls and bodies. I have received everything from the Lord: let me not be stingy in giving what I have received for free. Yes, I consider myself a steward of the Lord’s property, and not an uncontrolled owner. It’s easy to write, but difficult to do: we talk about goodness, but we don’t try to do goodness; We talk about correction, but we don’t care about correction. On the very thing that I wrote before the all-night vigil in large letters, that is, so that I would not skimp on what was accepted for free and give for nothing, I stumbled, walking to the all-night vigil on May 2: the beggar boy Alexei, who had been approaching me almost every day for alms for several years and had already received alms from me an hour earlier, ran up, and still asked me persistently for alms, without leaving me: I went to the other side streets, he is behind me; Finally, I lost patience and said angrily: “Get away from me, you brute.” Thus, I showed stinginess, and malice, and impatience - and the grace of God left me, and Satan entered into me with great rage for being angry with a gentle boy: I lost peace, freedom, boldness, light of the eyes, and was filled with confusion, crampedness, languor, fear, darkness and could not proclaim the beginning of the all-night vigil: Glory to the Saints, and Consubstantial and Life-Giving Trinity, and stumbled in several exclamations from confusion and cramped conditions. The enemy ate me, and only long, intense heartfelt prayer little by little bowed God’s mercy to me, and after the Gospel I acquired some tenderness and boldness, and I read the Gospel with fear: so the enemy frightened me with his dreams! He stood at the Gospel calmly and with tenderness; the exclamation spoke clearly after Save, O God, Thy people and at the canon; but at the special litany the enemy again troubled him with the thought of the candles I had set, and with the regret that many of them would burn out from the supposedly long service and very little would be left for the benefit of the church (Judas’s regret) - and again languor, fear, torment, again a prayer for forgiveness and repose; I said goodbye without boldness, with my eyes downcast, and not completely. By Christ the Light he calmed down somewhat and took strength in the name of the Lord: he pronounced this prayer firmly. (I don’t like it when beggars hover in front of me when I go to or from church, and I fall into anger, self-will and stubbornness.) Clarify my tongue, my Savior, by widening my lips and fulfilling 47; Thou hast pricked my heart, that as I say, I will follow, and as I teach, I will do first things 48: [...] creating and teaching, speaking, this one is great; If I do not do the verb, I am counted as ringing brass 49 . In the same way, teach us to speak appropriately and to do useful things, the One who knows 50 heartfelt. If I talk about patience, kindness, mercy, purity and chastity and abstinence, then let me do all these virtues. Because today I became angry with a beggar boy because of one piece of money that should have been given to him and which I did not give: I got angry and called him a beast - the one whom the Angel in heaven takes out 51 to see the face of the Heavenly Father [Matt. 18, 10]. Today I am deservedly and righteously punished by God for my wickedness by being abandoned by God and handed over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh [1 Cor. 5, 5], so that death will trample down death in me, and life will be given to me, who exists in the grave of flesh and a dumb and passionate soul. The words put into our mouths and hearts by the Church are life and peace; but the devil, envious of our belly and the world, intensifies to put his dreams, his words, which are death and confusion, into our hearts. Therefore, during prayer, one must be extremely careful of the devil’s dreams and completely cleave to God in heart and mind. I thank the Lord, who consumed carnality, rudeness, and uncleanness of the heart through fiery temptation, abandonment and surrender to Satan for the destruction of the flesh and heart! The thorns of the soul, the thorns of various passions, which grew from gluttony and satiety, were fallen: before the temptation, malice, fornication, and envy were felt. I thank the Physician of my soul and body, who heals my heart and its wild growths with strong cauterizations and strong temptations from the evil one. May 3. Sunday. Nothing confuses the ethereal enemy of the mental feet of our soul more than addiction to substances (to sweets, to money, clothes and other things; see above the incident at the all-night vigil - the thought of candles, or dissatisfaction with the abundance of incense in the censer), and pride, anger and stubbornness. The sexton Vasily Ivanovich read very well at the Sunday all-night vigil, separately, clearly - after my remark, which cost me not without embarrassment and grief of the ethereal enemy, the opponent of any correction. May 3. Contrary to the disembodied enemy, who is trying to put silence on our lips during the Divine service, we must speak loudly every word, for the word of God is life and truth. I thank Thee, my Creator, Lord, for all the odors of my body and the odors of the giving birth sex, wisely, graciously, gracefully, purely, unblemishedly arranged by the art of Thy Divine mind, and have mercy on me, who have defiled them with my sins; Take away from my heart, from my thoughts and from my flesh all bliss and wordless sweetness, so that I may pass the rest of my life in purity and in good pleasure before You. I thank the Lord, who saved me from the machinations of the bodiless enemy, the delusion of the prodigal in the apartment of Alexander Vasilyevich Salamanov and the thorns of sins. What peace did I receive after this, what grace of words flowed from my lips! Before that, I felt bound, darkened, and speechless inside. May 3. Eight o'clock in the evening. Why do I forget that my flesh and my heart are passionate for fornication, malice, pride, and why do I extensively and sweetly feed my flesh every day (??!), this vessel of sin, the food of worms, the rival of my soul and its constant accuser 52? I thank the Lord, who had mercy on me through the prayer of repentance and forgave me the sin of secret gloating about the illness of my brother Priest P. [...] and who invested me with true goodwill. By not sincerely desiring good for our neighbor, we thereby hurt and kill ourselves; By being kind, we do good to ourselves, we are calm and joyful. Salamanov is talking about a host who cordially offered his meal to a visitor, and how sweet his simple meal was for the visitor for the sake of the host’s good nature and God’s blessing on his meal; and about another man who did not cordially offer a rich and sweet meal, and how unpleasant it was due to the stinginess of the owner. When we do something to our neighbor, we do it to the Lord Himself: we are His members. On May 3, he served late mass on Sunday (Sunday of the Paralytic) with mental labor, in the tightness of spirit and body brought on by the enemy, until communion; when remembering the names of persons of the reigning house, the heart and tongue were tied from the enemy, like the hubs of a wheel; words: may the Lord God remember in His Kingdom, so necessary, desired for every faithful, did not pronounce in the first and second sections; on the third - he spoke out. So the accuser steals, confusing the heart and paralyzing it with his deadly breath. O thief! O murderer! Oh, obscurantism! He spoke his sermon with boldness, peace, and freedom of spirit. Many have gone out, but God is with them: He will bring them to their senses; I complain to him about them - about their self-will. Real life is a marketplace; merchants are beggars; the buyers are us. Oh, the Lord still protects me from evil people, they have not yet attacked me with all their malice. The words of Alexander Vasilyevich Salamanov: “When I do my master’s work conscientiously, as if it were my own, I take care of it as if it were my own, then I notice that the owner is favorable to me, with his inner instinct he senses and feels my goodwill.” This teaches us to cherish other people’s goods as if they were our own, to do someone else’s work as if it were our own, to please our neighbors not as people do, but as the Lord does. I notice the same thing: when I sincerely pray for my brother, that is, for my neighbor, as for myself, then I see his special disposition and favor towards me, as if he senses that I am praying for him. Monday of the Week is about the relaxed. Today the enemy completely weakened me during the liturgy, covering my insides with his supernatural abomination, nasty thoughts, violent excuses, which I could get rid of only after great internal labors, after consuming the Holy Gifts. My God! What violence! But I myself gave him a reason to eat liver in the evening, although until then I had refrained from eating meat, and thus to the last degree increased the excess juices, which, finding no way out, crowd me, and the incorporeal enemy, taking advantage of the needs of nature, brings his satanic abominations to the soul and body. How harmful is satiety for a priest, especially a minister! How sinful it is to serve the satiated! The cause of the unclean obsession and [crowdedness] was also a strong fog driven from the sea by the wind, the sweets that I ate at Salamanov’s, the tea that I drank at Goremykin’s (I kissed both of them), the wine that I drank at Kalashnikov’s, and, however, in the usual measure. I fought with the enemy during and after mass. He brought such evil and vile suspicion upon me. Such tightness, sorrow, confusion. Why am I ashamed of Father Deacon Alexander, internally subservient to him when reading prayers? I am not ashamed or afraid of God, but I am ashamed of man. From now on, do not be humbled in spirit in front of him, but speak calmly and firmly with exclamations and prayers. May 4. Oh, poor humanity, suffering knowingly and unknown from the machinations of the ethereal enemy, from his dirty tricks, from his abominations, from his slander, his malice, from carnal pleasures! Monday. Three and a half hours. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from great spiritual trouble through the communion of His Holy Mysteries and drove my invisible enemies far from me! Great is the power of the Divine Mysteries, received with faith and in repentance. But woe to me, the one of little faith! And the reason for lack of faith is the ever-present gluttony: gluttony is a falling away from Christ, just like the love of money, pride, malice, envy, and other passions. The heart of a faster is subtle, tender, spiritual and comfortable in preserving faith and love for God and neighbor, courageously fighting temptations and defeating them easily, but the heart of a glutton is coarse, cruel, carnal and cannot maintain faith and love and fight temptations. The devil, who constantly slanders God and men to men, instilling vain and blasphemous things about God and those created in the image of God, introduced the current liturgy into my heart through vain and vile violence about the deacon Alexander and thereby confused me, a cowardly one, when I should not have paid any attention to this, and incessantly inflamed me with evil suspicion of Nikolai's watchman, allegedly he is spying on me. After the service and after the temptation has passed, you realize that this is a dream of the enemy, a lie, slander, and you spit, neglect it as empty, and during prayer you are carried away by the stream of the devil’s malice. The rivers overflowed, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house [Matt. 7, 27]. I took an exam at a girls' gymnasium: the senior class girls answered very well. Tuesday. Today the enemy made a new evolution in me: he struck me with involuntary anger towards sexton Kutuzov during the liturgy, during and after the great entrance until communion, and I was almost unable to spew out the poison of anger until the very end of the liturgy, although it intensified a lot; Meanwhile, the sexton is not guilty of anything against me and did the job well. I didn’t like the direct look at me at the great entrance, I read something evil in him from the enemy’s action, in an instant, but if he were really angry against [me], I should be meek and gentle, like a lamb. I think that both the anger and the powerlessness to destroy it came from the fact that I ate quite a lot and tasty in the evening and did not weaken my heart with abstinence to fight sin. It was rough and painful. This kind of evil spirits can only come out through prayer and fasting [Matt. 17, 21]. Look everyone straight in the eye and don’t be afraid of the gaze. And the sexton V. Iv. Kutuzov's direct, open and good-natured gaze. Deacon Vasily Iv. he is a good-natured person, you can tell from his manner. God! Clothe me with Thy meekness, humility, Thy kindness, Thy truth, Thy holiness, Thy patience, Thy obedience. Rich cassocks and cassocks and other clothes of men and women and accumulated wealth testify to our extreme pride, vanity, vanity, pride, hard-heartedness and addiction to earthly things, and to our spiritual ignorance, to the lack of knowledge of our inner poverty, inner ugliness, with which external wealth, luxury and exquisite beauty of clothing do not agree. However, when speaking about this, one must be careful that the speaker himself speaks this according to the essential truth, and not out of envy of the rich and smart, and to be zealous about heavenly, spiritual, Christian wealth, about incorruptible, heavenly beauty and glory, for everything here is perishable and fleeting, like dust, smoke, steam, a dream. Let us sincerely wish each other every good, especially spiritual, and sincerely love each other, as children of one Father and brothers among themselves. The Ragozin official outraged me to the depths of my soul with his contemptuous, or nihilistic, apathetic standing during mass and in the most sacred moments, standing with his elbows on the candle sale and talking with the headman; He never once bowed to God and the Holy Mysteries, but stood like a fool, looking at the appearance of the Holy Gifts with his elbows, as if it were a matter completely unknown to him, alien. May 4. Monday. (1870) For Philip, who was suffering from a cold from evil demons, the cabman prayed on an empty stomach. Abstainers are always cheerful, healthy, light, sharp-sighted, because they are not burdened, not depressed, not clouded by overeating and heavy drinking; there is no stench from them, which is abundant among intemperate people and those who eat animal food. From excess, intemperate people often become disproportionately fat and become a burden to themselves; This does not happen with abstinent people, and there is nothing for them to be fat from, nothing for them to grow into a thick and wide body, to form such an excessive supply of meat, blood, juices and all sorts of things, because they always consume food and drink in moderation, in accordance with urgent needs, and not on a whim; fasters and abstinents are not rich, that is, not fat, in body, although they are not devoid of natural fertility, if they had it. Since the saints consider themselves only strangers and strangers on earth, wandering, traveling to heaven, then just as they do not stock up on anything in excess, they also do not stock up on the body, knowing that it will be food for worms; and it is easier for them to travel in a light body. Without fasting it is impossible to be saved: fasting is essential for a Christian. Some Orthodox Christians do not fast at all, and do very bad things. Their apologies: a little better, but nice and healthy. If you are unwell, eat fast food: the Church does not prohibit it, but what is the cause of your ill health? Is it from excess? If so, then the doctor will prescribe you a diet, not just the Church. And if you are healthy, then you should fast: fasting, taking away animal food and excess in it, is very beneficial to health. Some Christian societies have rejected fasting - this is unfair, it is against the Gospel. The Gospel commanded fasting in clear words: when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they fast [Matt. 9, 15] - said the Lord Himself; example of the Savior: fasting for forty days. Fasting is necessary to drive out demons from people, but which of us does not have them? This kind cannot come out except through prayer and fasting [Mk. 9, 29]. Who does not have the demon of anger, envy, pride, fornication, greed and greed for food or beer and wine, the demon of unbelief, murmuring, blasphemy, blasphemy, stubbornness? In refutation of fasting, they point out that it allegedly has an unfavorable effect on morality; When a person fasts, he is dissatisfied with everyone and everything, angry, and picky. It happens. But why does this happen? Because our old man awakens: when we please him, he seems to be asleep, because he is happy, but when we begin to deny him his favorite dishes, he begins to rage; our passions are revealed, but this is how, by the way, the purpose of fasting is achieved, that is, by the fact that it reveals our shortcomings, bad habits, passions, causes illnesses of the soul to come out - the more convenient it is to treat them. Fasting, therefore, reveals our passions, it shows what kind of animals we are, and perhaps real animals: how angry, voluptuous and greedy we are, and so on. Who sleeps poorly at night, who has stomach pains, headaches, who has cracking bones? Incontinent. Exactly, we are animals, or worse than animals, or what I say: we, perhaps some of you will be offended by this, not considering yourself in the least like a beast; I ask you to forgive me; and so as not to offend anyone with a harsh image of our old man, Adam’s, the demonic, then I will take myself as an example and will paint his image from myself, for I am the living personification of this old man, stinking of sins; if you like, you do not apply to yourself what I will say, but apply to me, apply to me - for I, truly, I say, I am the receptacle of all sin, and for me fasting is most necessary, although I am not a faster. A thousand times I have been convinced by experience of the necessity of fasting, and a thousand times, or much more, I have not observed fasting properly. I thank the Lord for the great victory and for the great healing and revitalization of my mortal frame, granted to me in the communion of the Divine, Most Pure and Life-Giving Mysteries after the celebration of the Liturgy on this day. How weak I was - and now I have become strong! How weak I was - and now I’m healthy! What thorns stung me - and now I am free! Glory to Your goodness, glory to Your power, O Lord! Oh, God's life-giving Brasno! Oh, true Drink - the Blood of the Lord! Truly, sins, and especially gluttony, satiety and heavy drinking, fornication, covetousness, malice, envy, are a heavy burden on us, with which we can barely move our feet, but the grace of Christ, His mercy is a good yoke and a light burden. How light both soul and body are after a fervent prayer of repentance - like birds! Your legs run on their own, without any effort on your part, and not like connected wheel hubs, as happens in sins. Before the rain, I feel extreme heaviness and anxiety, and all because of my constant scrofula; the temptations of the enemy intensify; I become irritable, angry, suspicious. So, before the rainy weather on May 8th (the wind changed - from the west, rainy and cold, turned into a warm southerly one) at night I was pierced by a fierce cold, and I thought that I had caught a cold; when at three o'clock in the morning they called me to baptize at the customs, I could barely move my legs; when I began to read the prayer, I could barely speak: the thickening atmosphere choked me for a long time; Having arrived home, I went to bed in a sweatshirt and trousers and could barely warm myself under the blanket; During mass I felt very heavy: I thought it was the thorns of sins, but nature also took its toll: during mass it had already begun to rain heavily. And in the morning it was clear. The day before I ate quite a lot of Polish sweet and sour bread with butter and cream, and drank tea. And this was the reason for the heaviness. From my actions I see that I am proud, self-willed and stubborn and am ready to quarrel over empty things, so that because of self-love I in no way violate the entire law of God, which consists of love for God and neighbor and peace with neighbors. On the contrary, one must sacrifice one’s self-love to fulfill God’s commandments, that is, cut off one’s whims, even just desires, in order to preserve love for one’s neighbors. Today I sinned before God and my neighbors in that I was upset with my wife for her disobedience, her reluctance to show me now a sample of the material on the cassock, taken in St. Petersburg. Vain love for oneself, that means, is in the foreground, so that love for one’s neighbor is in no way due to pride, and I have despised the living commandment of my God, and have lost the true life of God because of my whims and stubbornness. How vain I have hitherto! How angry and stubborn! Sinners! I repent! Forgive me, Lord! Why don’t I cut off my will for the sake of fulfilling God’s commandments? Why do I make my will my idol? I repent, Lord! Thy will be done! Teach me to do Your will! My heart loves sweets, and for the sake of sweets - elegant clothes, according to taste. My wife is fair, which does not satisfy all my whims. Only those who fast, pray and think about God can partially comprehend the greatness of the mysteries of the incarnation, suffering, crucifixion, death and resurrection of the God-man. Therefore, for the Christian celebration of these days, the Great and Nativity fasts were established. Gluttonians cannot truly celebrate them: they celebrate for their own belly. Every day and hourly there is an internal mental battle, and in this battle I am constantly captivated by my passions and the devil who wields them, I am constantly losing my peace. From this battle I see that I have a lot of pride, lust, vanity, dislike, envy, enmity, stubbornness and self-will, and I need to hasten to change by the grace of God. Love for materiality drives out of the heart love for God and neighbor, the flame of earthly love - the flame of heavenly love. Therefore, the saints despised earthly sweets, earthly possessions, and their very bodies; therefore, they loved their neighbor with all their hearts as themselves, they loved them with a love as strong as death. (The weakest vessel is a woman.) (You should also take pity on your wife after her journey and not be too persistent, stubborn, and wayward in your demands for your own benefit!) Each of our passions is silent for some time; but no, no, and it will rise up on occasion and cause confusion both in us and in those around us. Therefore, it is necessary to uproot passions so that they do not recur. So, voluptuousness sleeps as long as there is no reason; anger sleeps as long as there is no reason; pride, ambition, vanity - too; but the slightest temptation - and they awaken and cause confusion and devastation of the inner church in a person, and drunkenness devastates or strives with all its might to empty the material church, that is, the house, and carries everything into the drinking house. Dead water - all passions. Because of clothes or sweets, money, that is, in order to acquire external clothing for ourselves, we lose peace with our neighbors, we quarrel, get excited, and through this we recklessly take off the inner clothing of incorruptibility, meekness, peace, gentleness, we are deprived of the sweet grace of God, which constitutes the true beauty of the soul, we lose true wealth - God, who lives in dispassionate and peace-loving hearts. Cut off self-love and you will cut off all passions. Unless someone hates [his own] soul, he cannot be My disciple, says our Creator and Savior. Our first enemy is ourselves. Lust or gluttony darkens the clarity of the soul and dulls the spirit, therefore the devil, who wields passions, easily captivates an unwary soul with them. Abstinence and prayer are always necessary, as an everlasting weapon against the devil. Give yourself a commandment, or, better yet, always remember the commandment of the Lord - to love not only those who love you, but also those who hate you; and, firstly, love your wife not only when she loves you and pleases you, but also when she is upset with you for something, is not disposed towards you, turns away from you, despises you, and others. For if you love only those who love you, what more are you doing against the pagans? And they do the same. You have not yet touched upon Christian wisdom if you consider it your duty to love only those who love you and, perhaps, you are even cold and ungrateful even to them. A Christian constantly goes against the feelings of his corrupt nature. We have become like porcupines for a reason, and when our neighbors come to us, for some reason not loved, we bristle at them with hostility and enmity: but this enmity, like sharp needles, pricks us first of all - a righteous reward for sin. How sweet it is to love everyone as you love yourself. Why haven't we learned this love before? Because false love for ourselves is strong in us, and it is the enemy of the love of our neighbor. Isn’t it the fornication of the greedy and voluptuous flesh to spare one’s neighbor pleasant food and drink, and shouldn’t it despise all carnal passionate movements? Isn’t every sinful carnal movement a falling away from God, the Source of Life, or spiritual death? - Yes. Isn’t the life of the soul all selflessness out of love for one’s neighbor, isn’t life cordiality, hospitality, sincere friendship, almsgiving in the simplicity of the heart, with a good will? Firstly, I am not worth a rotten crust of bread, and yet, by the ineffable goodness of God, every day I eat the best products of nature; secondly, I, although indecent, have been given by God countless blessings in the present and especially in the future - how can I still envy my brothers in earthly blessings, when my brothers are, perhaps, a thousand times better than me! I am impatient and harsh, rude in my character: I offend those closest to me with rude words, for example, women and the like. I myself constantly and gravely sin before God, for example, I become satiated even after communion of the Holy Mysteries, and the Lord is patient with me in meekness; and if my neighbors sin against me, I become irritated. Correct me myself, Lord, and teach me meekness and patience. I am afraid to condemn my brother, who is devoted to obvious passions, for example, the love of money (Archpriest Matthew), because I myself am devoted to various passions; I’m afraid because I have little love for my neighbor and I’m afraid that envy is acting in me with indignation at my money-loving brother - in a word, isn’t the old man rising up in me and isn’t looking to plunge me into the mire of passions? To God, who knows the secrets of our hearts, I will present both myself and my brother: He does not sleep, but judges our thoughts daily and corrects our heartfelt thoughts, intentions and aspirations. God! You yourself, reprove and punish our passions for our correction, so that through us the Christian life may not be desecrated, and especially may the priestly rank not be desecrated through us - this is a heavenly service, this is an angelic dignity; let our hypocrisy not become a parable, and not in vain, not to reproach Yours, do we wear on our forearms the golden image of You, the Savior of the world, nailed and died on the cross for us, nailed to the world by the love of money, greed (love of worldly glory) and voluptuousness; Yes, not to reproach You do we bear the image of You, who died for our sins, for the salvation of the world, not wanting to serve You in the least on behalf of Your poor, turning Your face away from them and recklessly condemning them in parasitism. Amen. Do not envy earthly blessings that are dreamy like a dream, transitory like smoke: wealth, sweets, magnificent clothes, shiny vestments. The Lord has given you real, eternal, enduring blessings forever and ever: know how to take advantage of them through the contempt of temporary blessings, addiction to which deprives people of these ineffable blessings. Remember the host of patriarchs, prophets, forefathers, apostles, hierarchs, martyrs, saints, righteous people and all the saints who have achieved those blessings that eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and has not entered into the heart of man [Russian: the eye has not seen, the ear has not heard, and it has not entered the heart of man] [1 Cor. 2:9 ], and be jealous of them, and not of the hard-hearted rich people here, whose hearts are hardened like metal... God! I thank You for Your great mercy, for You have granted me the grace to perform the liturgy without stumbling, although with mental difficulty and sorrow of body and soul, and to say Your word. I thank You because You surprised me with Your great mercy during the memorial service for Fyodor Vasilyevich Rumyantsev in the evening of this day and You delivered me from the oppression of my 53 sins through my prayer, when I cried out to You about their oppression, as they fought me out of malice against my brother Matthew. I thank You, for You have granted me to see the insidiousness of sin, turning away the eyes of the heart from my own sins and inciting me to look at the sins of my brother and thereby plunging me into greater sins, instead of 54 I should look at my sins myself, regret them and wholeheartedly repent. When I cried out to You for help against the abyss of my sins and realized my guilt and that it was right for me to condemn my sins, and to despise and cover up my brothers, then my soul became peaceful and light, the confusion and oppression ceased. Glory to Your inner blessings in me, Lord! Glory to Your illumination! Glory to Your shepherding, Shepherd of hearts! Live worthy of the Divine Trinity, into which you were baptized and with which you were united. Because of addiction to sweets, to the flesh, to wealth, to honor - how many troubles, enmity, envy and other sins happen every day! Blessed is he who is dead to worldly goods and alive to God! Why don’t we imitate the saints whom we remember and glorify? Why don’t we imagine in our minds their kindness, non-covetousness, devotion to God, their patience, great faith and love for God and their neighbors? Is the sounding cymbal 55 [1 Cor. 13, 1 ] all the celebrations in their honor? Let us be imitators of the saints, who inherited the promise through faith and patience (Heb. 6:12). I would be a moral disgrace, a monster, a monster of sin, if the faith of Christ did not keep me from sin, if it did not correct the vicious aspirations of the heart and will and did not blot out the disgraces that had been committed, if it did not cleanse the defilements of sin, if it did not renew, sanctify, adorn, and strengthen me. Thank you to the Lord for His all-holy, all-saving and life-giving faith, for all His blessings, given to me by His holy faith and continually given. I pray to the Lord that He will allow all people who have not yet accepted it to accept His faith, and may He strengthen and make it fruitful in all Christians; in those who, considered to be professing it, do not have it in their hearts, may it plant (in all hearts) to their temporal and eternal well-being, to the knowledge of their all-corruption, their extreme weaknesses, their destruction and to the acquisition of salvation. May 10, 1870. Twelve o'clock at night. In a dream, the Lord showed me that the remembrance of the highest persons at the great entrance, and at the proskomedia (in this last case and many others) is very beneficial for them, their souls come closer to God, and even to my soul, they are very favorable and kind to me; consequently, it is very good for all those remembered at the liturgy, living and dead, by the infinite mercy of God; therefore, the priest must always diligently remember everyone; therefore, it is not in vain that the priest endures great sorrows and temptations from disembodied enemies during the liturgy and fulfills the deprivation of Christ’s sorrows for the Church, which is His body [Col. 1, 24]. For everything, thanks be to the Lord, who builds this! The more temptations and sorrows, the more effective the service of the liturgy. However, sometimes special sorrows are allowed for our sins, so that we recognize them and correct ourselves. Late Easter - late and cold spring. Today there is a cold north wind with gray clouds causing a severe headache. What a strong influence weather has on a person! From some you can soon die, but from others it is so life-giving, so encouraging! Thanks be to the Lord, who brings sickness upon us, may the prodigal flesh, oppressed by illnesses, not be enraged by prodigal movements, may it be crucified involuntarily when it does not want to be crucified by will. Glory to Thee, Most Pure Master, Righteous and Merciful! Everything with You is good and wise! May 11. What enormous consequences from placeless 56 carnal acts in youth! Love for one's neighbor dries up from them; the person becomes disdainful 57, angry, impatient, irritable! How impatient and irritable, angry, contemptuous I am! Yesterday my family were late for the ship, and I was angry with them for it. (Oh, if only all those who sin would think about the consequences of sin, temporary and eternal, natural, moral, hygienic! How their inclination to sin would weaken! How the heat for sin would cool down.) By being angry with my family because they were late for the ship, I thereby showed and proved my dislike for them, which would rather hand them over, so as not to see their presence in my place, so as not to be eaten, not drunk, but all this is the suggestion and instigation of the devil, who is trying in every possible way to pluck out our mutual love, which there is nothing more pleasing to the Lord of our belly, as He Himself said: love one another. By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another [Jn. 13, 35]. But the enemy has put in our hearts a false love for ourselves, for our stinking, satiated body or belly, and puts in the false thought that our neighbors are always ready to rob us, eat us, drink us - and so they appear to us as enemies, according to his false dream; and we take this dream for something significant: that’s why, sometimes, we [rage] in our souls. Oh, how our love for God and neighbor is dried up by our addiction to the all-damned, multi-passionate flesh and to earthly goods. O heavenly citizens, holy men of God, apostles, prophets, saints, martyrs, saints, unmercenaries and miracle workers, help us with your prayers to philosophize on high, like you, and not on earth, like us; teach us to despise the flesh and everything carnal, and to be diligent about the souls of things more immortal. So the demands of carnal passions turned into a law, a habit, a necessity in me. I am a slave of the flesh, willy-nilly I work on its sinful impulses, dreams, and fall away from the true path. When will I put off the old man with his deeds? When will the time of Divine freedom come for me? More humane! Whatever your household or others take from your property, do not persecute, not for the sake of 58, do not rage, be calm, maintain love for those who take it and do not torture 59: after all, matter is perishable, and sooner or later you will leave it, but love endures forever and brings its lovers into the eternal Kingdom. I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink; was a stranger, and you received Me... come... inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world [Matt. 25, 35, 34]. I thank You, O Most Merciful Savior, for your great mercy, for through the communion of Your Holy Mysteries in this early Liturgy, You delivered me from the most severe sorrows, and oppression, and the machinations of the all-evil enemy, who sought and gaped terribly to devour me for my satiety, and You delivered me from a headache; I thank You, for the world has been improved by You. The evil one butted me with terrible butts during the liturgy and confused me with terribly different misfortunes. But the Lord, strong in battle, overcame all the machinations of the enemy. Two and a quarter in the afternoon. I thank You, Lady of hearts, who always knows the secrets of hearts in Your Son, who always abides in Him and who always abides in You, for You soon saved me, through my prayer, from the feeling of lewdness implanted by the enemy in my heart, taught in my youth lewdness by the same unclean ones, and You gave me peace. Truly, You are the only One who will soon appear, O Lady, to those who call upon You with faith, with all their hearts. The love of one's neighbor does not know the accounts of food and drink or the money spent to satisfy the needs of loved ones - only gross selfishness counts the pieces and sips of what was eaten and drunk. But he is disgusting and worth damning. Grigory Ivanovich and Anna Konstantinovna are very kind, gentle and grateful to me, who is not worth their tenderness and gratitude. I thank the Lord for them, for my relatives. Give me, Lord, the grace to live with them in everlasting love and friendship, although I am unworthy of their love and friendship. May sincere Christian friendship always delight our lives. God! You be a mediator between us: let our friendship be based on You. (During mass, he disturbed me by looking at the girl, but drove him away with inner prayer.) Twice the vile adversary the devil tempted me with lustful thoughts and sensations - at the christening in Khalitov’s house and at home during evening prayer with an instant mental lust for another man’s wife. And how the adversary tormented me with his abomination - as if a beast had grabbed her in the paws and tormented her! Work with sweets after this - you will be in the clutches of the devil. I walk in the midst of many snares: deliver me from them and save me, O Blessed One, as a lover of mankind. We must feel sorry for humanity and every person who suffers terribly from sins, and not be irritated or embittered at them for their failures, for this is reckless and inhumane. Who among us does not stumble? Meanwhile, most often anger boils in our hearts against those who offend us or sin against us in some way. Just as we are not tempted by the human face, in which the image of God shines and which is the mirror of the soul - like God, so we should never be tempted by the front and back lower parts of a person, for they were created by the most pure hands of the same wise, most pure and omnipotent Artist who created the face. Meanwhile, many melt from the charm of the enemy at the sight or imagination of these parts, especially those who have acquired the habit of sin. Oh, sinful skills! How strong you are, how durable you are! How you kill the spiritual, holy aspirations of the soul, how you paralyze them! (Playing cards too, gluttony, delicacy, drunkenness, passion for clothes, for money.) All this is thorny thorns for the soul, fetters, bonds! For the flesh must be despised: it is vile and transitory, but things that belong to the soul are more immortal. I thank You, Lord, for Your great mercy, for You heard me crying out to You internally and brought me out of tightness into space, You destroyed the machinations of the ethereal enemy over me, You gave me Your heavenly peace during the testing of the disciples and You made me joyful. But what kind of impudence is this ethereal adversary? So it cuts violently and subtly with its abominations into my sinful soul. I understand you, I told him internally, I see that it’s you who stinks in me, and I fell behind, damned one. God! I will always boast in Your all-saving name, by which You always save me who calls upon you 61. The demons who reign within me cannot tolerate its power when I silently and forcefully call upon it, and they run away from me - and then what a blessed silence happens in me, what purity, what meekness, what bliss! Glory to Your holy name! On May 12, 1870, on Tuesday (the Week of the Samaritan), at seven and a half o'clock in the evening I received a golden pectoral cross, issued by the Holy Synod through the mediation of my brother, the priest of the navigating school, Father Alexander Alekseevich Lebedev, completely unexpectedly, for I thought to receive it no earlier than Trinity Day. They drank and ate in joy and sat together until ten o'clock. We all love to eat healthy and sweet fruits and throw away rotten and bitter fruits with disgust. So. But just as we seek healthy and sweet fruits, so the Lord God seeks in us the healthy and sweet fruits of virtue and turns away from the rottenness and stench of passions in our hearts. How do we daily present to Him, our Creator, Provider, Savior, Nourisher, the rotten fruits of vice and passions within ourselves? If we ourselves love and choose the best, most pleasant and healthy fruits, then how dare we present to our Lord bad, stinking, and disgusting fruits, like Cain? Let’s think about this and correct ourselves, and, like sweet bread, we will offer ourselves to the Trinity. I thank the Lord, who saved me, through my prayer, from spiritual distress and shame on my face as a result of the evil one’s gaze on the images of naked women in the picture row (at the gingerbread house). Deep inner repentance was needed to get rid of the internal bondage of the enemy, from the shackles of sin. That's how unclean my heart is! This is how carefully you need to look at things or faces! Thursday. I thank You, most merciful Lord, for You have vouchsafed me, after several defeats by the enemy, to overcome him by firmly reading the words of the oath before a large audience in the district court. God! Grant me, in the power of Your fortress, to always defeat the ethereal enemies who fight me. How peaceful and strong in spirit I am when I defeat my enemies, and how languid in spirit and powerless I become when my enemies defeat me through fear and doubt! What dirty tricks the enemy did to me in court all the time! What schoolboyism! Do not chase after the sweets that your younger brother-in-law Konstantin is insolently destroying, do not torture 62 what is taken from you, maintain love and equanimity, despite the machinations of those who incite you to enmity - and God has rewarded you, as before, and will reward you a hundredfold in the future. Be wise above all, not earthly: show contempt for pleasures and for everything earthly and leave God to take care of your everyday matters, while you yourself take every possible care of the work of God, of correcting yourself, of excelling in virtue and of saving the sheep of His verbal flock entrusted to you by God. I thank the Lord, who gave me the grace of deep peace after communion of the Holy Mysteries during the early liturgy and after the victory in the power of the fortress of God over the enemies who wavered my faith. May 15, 1870. I thank the Lord, who granted me forgiveness of sins, peace and victory over my enemies when I sat in the district court on May 15 from six o'clock in the evening. I sinned before God by getting angry and furiously shouting at the beggars for begging for alms when I gave them a nickel each. Why do I revive my many-passionate flesh through excess in food and drink, which constantly destroys my soul, when I need to constantly crucify my flesh with passions and lusts? Why do I regret this rubbish - money, which so often pierces my soul? Why do I regret the waste of my sweets by my neighbors? Why am I chasing after earthly things, I, a priest of the Most High God, who should be all heavenly, as I often stand before the heavenly throne and receive the heavenly and Holy Mysteries? Oh, the malice and cunning of the enemy! The adversary taught Christians to reject the Gospel and the power of the Cross by deeds and things in ordinary life, because the largest part of Christians do not have and do not read the Gospel and do not believe in the power of the Cross, and with his vain fear and doubt he incited, encouraged, and forced me in the district court on May 13, 14 and 15 to renounce the Gospel and the Cross and not to pronounce them before a large crowd. But in the power of the fortress of the Lord, I defeated him on May 15th, boldly and separately reading both oaths for the district assessors and witnesses. I thank the Lord, who teaches my hands to fight, my fingers to fight [Russian: my hands to fight and my fingers to fight] [Ps. 143, 1]. Oh, how I could completely avoid malice, envy, voluptuousness, covetousness, selfishness and other passions with which I still serve the most evil and most deceitful enemy. May the Lord help you! Yesterday, the case was heard in court about a woman, Marfa Ivanova, who accidentally killed a windy soldier, that is, drunk and dissolute, who with impudence at night came to the house of a married woman and mother and demanded her daughter for debauchery. The woman hit him with a hook and unintentionally killed him - because two days later the insolent libertine died. The woman was acquitted. Now Sodom and Gomorrah are in Kronstadt, and all because of taverns. On the third day, that is, on May 14, they were looking into the case of another murderer, a young peasant from the Yaroslavl province of Rostov district, also a flighty man who drank away his meager belongings and lived them with harlots. He killed a Chukhon - and for what? Because he didn’t let him smoke his pipes, but his old cigarettes came out, that is, they were smoked. The guy was drunk. Sentenced to hard labor for eternal settlement in Siberia. Notice that a man killed a man because of a tobacco pipe. And in our priesthood, the brethren beat each other with evil and envious hearts and words. It's also a kind of murder. And I don’t praise myself: and because of my sins, because of my malice, envy and ill will, I deserve the malice and envy of my brother Priest Matthew. Kindly and gratefully kiss the heavenly feet of the great saints - Equal-to-the-Apostles Cyril and Methodius, who taught you the heavenly path. The sacrament of Communion is the sacrament of deification, the sacrament of God’s endless love for man, the sacrament of eternal life, the sacrament of redemption from sin, curse and death. For this reason I have come to this hour [Jn. 12, 27]. District Court Oaths. The Lord Jesus Christ came into the world especially in order to suffer for the world and to redeem the world with His suffering and death. You had many proofs of God's Providence for you, for the sake of the poor [sending] you what you need for alms - why are you still reluctantly, indignantly and stingily giving to many of them? It's time to improve and learn to have mercy. Truly, the work of God's omnipotence is to transform our hearts from unclean to pure, from evil to good, from money-loving to uncovetous, from stingy to generous, from voluptuous to despising pleasures, from envious to benevolent, from wayward to submissive - a greater miracle than transforming water into fire, or fire into dew, water into wine, stone into an animal. May God grant you, who are imprisoned, to get rid of eternal prison. External bonds are easier to bear than internal ones - the bonds of sin and passions; it is easier to break the bonds of iron than the bonds of passions; and internal bonds lie on all the sons of Adam: the Lord alone breaks them by the power and action and authority of the All-Holy Spirit. It was He, our Lord, who gave the power to His apostles to loosen or bind the internal ties of people and in this gift showed His greatest goodness and mercy and generosity to the human race. Strictly monitor manifestations of carnal egoism (for example, when giving alms, when dealing with people - family and strangers, old and small, poor and rich, simple and noble) and be inspired by whole-hearted hatred of your old man, or your “I”, and the desire to eradicate it; fight with all your might against yourself, and not against your neighbors; be angry at yourself, and not at them. And then it will be imputed to Father Matthew and Father Paul that they always visit those imprisoned, for it is said: I was in prison, and you came to Me [Matt. 25, 36 ]; and I can be condemned for almsgiving if I boast or condemn those who do not give it. Yes, I must remember my indecencies in my youth and thank God for the fact that He has been patient and patient with me until now. It is better to die than to miss, out of fear, embarrassment and demonic doubt, the sacred words in church or somewhere in a public place where prayers or oaths are called upon to be read. Man is beautifully, beautifully, purely, purposefully, unblemishedly constructed in all his members and parts - this crown of God’s creation, this small god on earth, or the deified, this majestic animated church of the Trinity, this son of God and friend of God, if he fulfills the will of his Creator in everything. Resurrection. Early mass. I thank the Lord, who strengthened my spirit to perform the Divine Liturgy and to partake without condemnation of His Divine Mysteries, although during an internal struggle; I thank you for the unfailing, with great strength, performance of the nationwide prayer service before the Iveron Icon of the Mother of God. I thank the Lord for delivering me from the tightness of my soul due to the envy of Father Matthew that came over me when I heard that he received an income of three rubles instead of me. I repented from my heart of my madness, my lack of faith, my lack of trust in God the Nourisher, my ill will towards my brother, my addiction to corruptible things - and the Lord had mercy on me, leaving the wickedness of my heart and returning His Divine peace to me. Glory to Thee, Lord! It's amazing how blind we are internally! After all, just from mass, I received communion of the Life-giving Mysteries, received eternal life, heavenly bliss - and I wished and regretted the pieces of silver that my brother received. How life depends on a piece of silver - what blindness! Meanwhile, I condemn the same brother for his love of money, for the fact that he is ready to quarrel with me, and quarrels over the ruble and in general about the money that he is losing because of me, lowering his income. We all suffer from the same disease - addiction to earthly things; We are all blind, we all suffer from self-love, covetousness, lust, envy, malice, pride and other passions. Do not stand for the demands of your old man, that is, your corrupted nature. So the old man demands that my property, for example, my money, food, drink, various things, not be given to others, for example, relatives, acquaintances who need them; but you, who have put on the new man through Baptism and Communion, or who have put on Christ Himself, do not chase after giving your property to others, do not be angry with those who give against your desire, but willingly and meekly give up what you have to others, desiring yourself to do better without some pleasant foods and drinks rather than disrupt mutual love and peace. The old man stands and rages for phantoms, and not for reality, that is, for imaginary, and not for truly necessary things, and that means, pity on his property (but not ours yet - what is ours?), and rage at those who give and receive ours is a pure dream of the enemy and a grave sin, and a Christian must walk in the truth every minute, that is, to philosophize on high: about God and the salvation of his soul and others, practicing unceasingly in self-sacrifice and in giving, according to one’s strength. Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, shaken together, pressed, and running over, will be poured into your bosom; For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you [Lk. b, 38]. Be rich, not poor in heart, spacious, not cramped. If you want the Lord to be generous to you, be generous yourself; every voluntary, prudent generosity attracts God's bounties to us. I have experienced this a thousand times. You pity others on inexpensive gifts, although they are tasty and tasty, and you say: they already have it, they already have it, it has already been given to them without that, and you yourself willingly accept gifts from others, although you also have it yourself, although God constantly gives you tuna in abundance. For frequent and many material gifts, accept an increase in the gratitude and love of immaterial souls, an increase in the love of God Himself, because those who receive are members of Christ, children of God. Look, curb your belly, your satiated flesh: from excessive satiety, it loses love for its neighbor and wants to love only itself, the flesh, and hates its soul and its neighbor. Loving yourself means despising the flesh, the womb and everything unnecessary, and being content only with what is necessary. I was subjected to a great, grave temptation this day during the early liturgy due to indiscriminateness and excess in food and drink in the previous days: the flesh drowned, so to speak, the spirit, and with extreme difficulty I could serve and speak: in my insides there was tightness and powerlessness, and also demonic fear. With extreme difficulty, I asked the Holy Spirit from the Heavenly Father to transform the bread and wine. But in the communion of the Holy Mysteries, the Lord saved me, a sinner, from all troubles and circumstances. During Matins, the Lord showed His great mercy on me, the accursed one, through my prayer for our mutual love and the destruction of the evil that reigns in our hearts. As if out of envy of God’s mercy, the enemy then strongly attacked me, having a reason for this in me - gluttony and satiety. Your victorious right hand is gloriously, O Lord, glorified in the fortress: for it will erase the enemy. The lover of money smokes everywhere with pernicious love of money, even when performing sacred rites: it is his element. He does not know love for his brother. The passion for money intertwines a person's entire life like ivy. If God the Word united with us through the incarnation of the Mother of God, and our rejected nature was united with the Heavenly Powers, then why do we ourselves deny God through worldly addictions - love of money, gluttony, fornication, etc.? By the grace of my God, I am nobler and higher than all the laity - not on my own, for in myself I am wicked and more sinful than everyone else, but by the grace of God: for I am invested with the highest dignity of the priesthood, I enter the inner veil and not only almost daily see the Face of the Holy Offering, but I also taste the Divine Body and Blood, I intercede before the mercy of God for the verbal sheep, and By His great and ineffable mercy the Lord will cleanse their sins; I also repel 63 in the bath of rebirth those born from carnal lust and from male lust, I seal with the Divine world, I bind and resolve the sins of men, I combine husband to wife and wife to husband, bringing down heavenly blessing on them, I perform the Sacrament of Anointing, I shepherd the verbal sheep of the Lord with the word of the Gospel; the king himself bows his crowned head before me. I have been vouchsafed such a high rank by the Lord. So, let me behave worthy of this dignity and let me not humiliate him with deeds that are not characteristic of him or that degrade his greatness. How noble people often value their nobility and behave in accordance with it - don’t I more? The sting of heaven, the sting of the Holy Spirit - and the sting of earth, the sting of the devil; divine, heavenly fire - and devilish, earthly fire; the fire of divine love, the sting of divine love - and the fire of earthly, carnal love; the sting of earthly, carnal, unclean love, the sting of malice, envy, pride, covetousness, lust and fornication. Be calm and gentle: embarrassment and anger will not improve matters, but if they are spoiled, they will be ruined, or at least you will harm yourself. We must thank God for temptations: temptations show our moral weaknesses, and when tempted we must diligently correct ourselves. All rebuke 64 from my eldest brother, grant me, Lord, to accept willingly and joyfully as a worthy retribution for my sins, but not to be offended by him or anyone else. Do not be embittered at those who offend you, but pray for them, and bless them, and love them - this is Christianity: if you love those who love you, what gratitude do you have for that? [ OK. 6, 32]. Endure sorrows and misfortunes courageously, and do not be cowardly - this is Christianity. Feel sorry for the kamilavkas, ribbons and crosses that get dirty: take care of your soul so that it does not become dirty with the caustic dirt of sin or addiction to earthly things. Blessed is the one who stands in spirit above all earthly things, who has gold under his feet, and every earthly jewel, and beauty, and purple, and fine linen, and earthly sweets, who soars in the spirit of grief, who with all his heart clings to God: his spirit soars free and constantly sees the Divine light, he is imperturbable, meek, gentle, carefree. But the one who is partial to earthly things is ill-fated: he constantly gets entangled with his feet in the enemy’s snare, like a fly in a cobweb, and is tightly entangled by them, wounded, oppressed, darkened and becomes a miserable captive of the enemy, who is allowed to seduce earthly people with the things surrounding them. What is the cause of our grief when other people who have power over us hide our deeds and merits, and elevate themselves and attribute unprecedentedly excellent deeds to themselves? - Pride and ambition. For the humble, it makes no difference whether people humiliate him or exalt him: if they humiliate him, he considers it a worthy retribution for his sins; if they exalt him, he thanks God. He is confident that his only true Appraiser and Judge is God, who has to reward everyone according to his deeds. Honor your father [Mk. 7, 10]. Here, first of all, we must understand the Heavenly Father, from whom every fatherland in heaven and on earth is called [Eph. 3:15] and Who created the earthly father. He who honors the Heavenly Father also honors his earthly father as he should, and whoever does not honor the Heavenly Father cannot sincerely honor his earthly father: reverence for God and veneration of God is the basis for honoring earthly parents. We cannot help but point out this meaning of the fifth commandment, because the most important Christian prayer begins with the words Our Father, Who is in heaven, and because the Lord Jesus Christ Himself said: Do not call anyone on earth your father, for one is your Father, who is in heaven [Matt. 23, 9]. (Then we mean spiritual fathers, shepherds of the Church and through the prayers of the saints our fathers... then real shepherds.) Honor... thy mother [Mk. 7, 10]. Who will not guess that here by mother we must mean, first of all, the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom He adopted all true Christians, when, hanging on the cross, He said to His beloved disciple: behold, your Mother! [In. 19, 27 ]; then, of course, the Church of Christ, the true mother of a Christian, who reborn him in the baptismal font, nourishes him with the milk of the Gospel teaching, the Body and Blood of Christ, and constantly guides him to the heavenly, eternal life through legitimate shepherds and teachers. Then we mean our parents by nature, who, according to the will of God, gave us natural life, soul and body, defiled by original sin. Then the sovereign, as the father of the fatherland, and others. Since we, Christians, are children of God, birth and kinship in the spirit should be considered higher than birth and kinship in the flesh and put them in first place, and then put birth and kinship in the flesh as less important. Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me... there is no one who would leave home... or father or mother... for My sake... and would not receive... a hundred times more [Matt. 10, 37; Mk. 10, 29–30]. I thank the Lord, who gave me tears of repentance and tenderness during the Ascension Vigil on May 20; I thank you for the sweet peace and freedom of spirit and for removing the thorns of sins. Ascension. He served Mass in exhaustion of spirit and body because the evening before he had eaten a lot of cold fish: his heart grew cold and grew pale; I could not pray fervently and partake of the Divine Mysteries with unashamed faith and love. He pronounced almost the entire royal family name without stumbling. I firmly read the Gospel at the prayer service, although I was tempted by the enemy with evil suspiciousness about the sexton, who allegedly maliciously fixed his eyes on me. And at the christening in the evening in Turkin’s house, the enemy instilled the same evil suspiciousness; At these christenings I was extremely weak in spirit from satiation at the wake (although, it seems, I ate a little) and part of the house. Several times I stumbled due to confusion and doubt and evil views, and the enemy was reluctant to speak. Early mass. Satan almost consumed me today during mass with his malice, especially because of the negligence of the cleric Kutuzov in studying the worthy and because of his absurd singing; To the nonsense of my voice, I added, madly, the dissonance of anger and angered my Lord. But Satan had already tormented me, the poison of his malice was already fierce in me, my soul was already confused, restless, powerless, completely enveloped in the poison of malice. I barely freed myself through sincere repentance. For some reason, the watchman was breathing malice towards Mikhail, out of suspicion that he was transferring various things to the archpriest, and in the thing itself all this confusion was due to my voluptuousness and satiety. Serves it right! I thank the Lord, who saved me through my inner prayer in the apartment of priest A.S. Perov on Friday evening from bad thoughts and feelings and the accumulation of carnal impurity; hope in Your name, Lord, protected me and delivered me from the shame of demons. I thank the Lord, who has given me the grace to celebrate the Divine Liturgy with warmth of heart and to partake of the Divine Mysteries in peace and joy. (Early.) The Eternal lives in me, and therefore I should not value things that belong to the temporary life, and give willingly to the poor. I receive freely from God money and everything I need for my temporary life - and I must give freely and willingly, without stinting. Saturday before the Sunday of the Holy Fathers in Nicaea. Another all-night vigil. I thank the Lord for the extraordinary gift of tenderness and for the abundant tears of repentance, very sweet, for the heavenly and unspeakable peace. Oh, how sweet it is to pray for people with all your heart! God! With the fire of Divine love, extinguish in me the sinful fire of earthly love, charming, pernicious. God! Give me the grace to love people without distinction of tribe, language, religion, condition, gender, age. God! For You there is no separate member as a separate one - for You there is a body with numerous members. And let us look at all humanity, especially Christianity, as a single body, and let us be zealous for the good of Christianity as our own good, as well as for the good of all humanity. I sinned before the Lord by being angry with my brother Alexei because of his deception. Forgive me, Lord, my impatience! About the sixth commandment. We all breathe malice and murder or robbery and are ready, out of our pride, to exact from our neighbor, especially those who live in the same house with us and have food from us, for every offensive word that is contrary to our pride, for every act that is disgusting to us, almost for every unpleasant look; we are ready to inflict beatings and harm because beggars often ask us for alms; I was ready to inflict beatings and harm on my brother for deceiving him, that he sent Ivan Stepanovich Svechnin to my office when I did not call him and deliberately left him and when I had to deal with the rule. Where is the love that endures everything, covers everything, does not think evil, is not irritated, is not proud? I judge myself, I create guilt for myself, I am unrequited. Do not believe the disembodied enemy, who slanderes a neighbor who has committed a crime before you, and increases his guilt to enormous proportions, but reduce his guilt by the various circumstances in which he found himself. This is a matter of love. The enemy is intensifying to turn a trifle into a reason for great anger. Seeing do not see and hearing do not hear your brother’s mistakes, as if they did not exist, or reprove them with love and meekness. A person in his life is a victim of tormenting, seducing and raping sin and the devil, but also a victim of God’s infinite mercy. Let us pay attention to ourselves and be careful. I am a strange creature: and every sin - malice, envy, fornication, all lewdness, gluttony, covetousness, disobedience and other passions - are akin and close to me in the old man, and in an instant, uninvited, they are ready to take possession of me; and meekness, kindness, humility, purity, goodness, mercy, non-covetousness, obedience, patience - these are akin to me in the new man and sometimes live in me by the grace of God. With an addiction to food is connected enmity towards a brother who shares our meal with us, and in general there was and is so much enmity, envy of neighbors, even theft, murder because of an addiction to feasting and partying. I want to go for a walk, have fun, but I don’t have money: where can I get it? - Steal, and if there are insurmountable obstacles to theft, kill the owner of the money. The more we allow greed and excess in food and drink, the more we increase our addiction to it, the more our love for God and neighbor dries up, the more our addiction to earthly things increases, our faith weakens, the more sensuality gains an advantage over spiritual needs, the more people become like senseless animals, the more bestial malice, envy, animal lust, and laziness intensify. Hence the lesson: eat and drink as much as you need to satisfy your needs; with her satisfaction, do not dare to eat or drink, no matter how much they beg you, no matter how pleasant foods and drinks tempt you. Don’t say: I haven’t eaten this yet - you can eat it, I haven’t drunk this - you can drink it. Sin is the mere desire to eat and drink when the need has already been satisfied. A greedy person, addicted to the belly, is ridiculous and senseless: he is fed up, but he spares his brother who is hungry for excess food and drink, he does not eat and does not give to others. He himself is fed up, but his heart is not full and is ready to torment his brother, who takes his favorite dishes, swallows sweet or valuable drops. Amazing hunger, blindness, madness! And this is the punishment of his greed, his addiction to perishable things and neglect of the only need - the salvation of the soul, love for God and neighbor. Just as ridiculous and pitiful is a person who is addicted to money, to shiny things, to rich and elegant clothes, because of which he is ready to cry or rage like a beast if they do not give it to him, or take it from him, or dirty and tear his dress through carelessness. And everything is an addiction to earthly things. Addiction to earthly things is the greatest enemy of love for God and neighbor, paralysis of the human soul. Therefore the Lord says: whoever does not renounce all that he has cannot be My disciple [Lk. 14, 33]. The truly great wise men were the apostles, who left everything dear on earth and followed Christ; hierarchs, martyrs, saints who despised everything in the world and life itself in the flesh. Having despised this charming, ephemeral, dreamy life in the flesh and for the flesh, they acquired true, abiding life and entered into the real life. Monday. I thank You, Lord my God, for the sweetness of communion with God in Your Most Pure Mysteries and for the unfailing performance of the Divine Liturgy and prayers: one to the Forerunner and Baptist without the blessing of water, and the other to the Tikhvin Mother of God with the blessing of water. With great boldness and with spiritual sweetness I served by the grace of God, especially the last prayer service, and I loudly read the entire water-blessing prayer, triumphing over the invisible enemies who were constantly fighting me. Lady! I thank You for the faith, for the sweet tenderness that I had while performing the prayer service, looking at Your Most Pure Icon. God! May my faith in Your Divine Mysteries not fail! God! May my faith not fail, for You and Your Immaculate Mother are one, according to Your word: as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, so may they also be one in Us [John. 17, 21]. God! I thank You for the effectiveness of the national prayer offered by me according to the sacred teaching of Your Holy Spirit and Your Holy Church. God! I thank You for the Christian love of Your beings, Your pious sons and daughters! God! I thank You for the good glory that You have given me for the sake of Your name: for I am Your priest, glorifying You. May Your holy name be glorified more and more in me! God! You see with what passions of dishonor the enemy of my salvation, the foul, unclean and disgusting spirit, constantly entangles me. Deliver me, Lord, from his abominations, which he taught me in my youth and with which he corrupted my youth, depriving me of my integrity. All saints are one essence, the fulfillment of Him who fulfills all things in all. Reading about the exploits of saints, for example, prophets, apostles, hierarchs, martyrs, saints, the merciful and the unmercenary, we can only be amazed at their love of God and humanity and dispassion for everything earthly, and we can’t even reason and rant about their exploits, but do things similar to their deeds, out of our carnality, out of our pride, out of our passion for earthly goods. We can, as long as we do not deny ourselves, our pride. Therefore, all the more worthy of surprise and glorification from all human races are the holy people of God, who left earthly examples of how to believe in the Lord and love Him, how to fulfill His holy and blessed commandments, how to love your neighbors and yourself in your neighbors, how to use earthly blessings, how to endure sorrows, illnesses, temptations, misfortunes, how to fight against opposing forces, or against the heavenly spirits of evil. Oh, beautiful and precious souls of the saints! Oh, venerable and fragrant and filled with Divine holiness and the power of their might! Worthy and righteously established in honor of their celebration, praise, pleasure! May we imitate them, bearing the heavenly, holy name of Christ! Let us learn from them how to put on Christ and walk as Christ walked. I sinned before God during Matins by contemplation and empty fear of man, imagining that the famous [Belavskets] stood behind me in front of the iconostasis, although it was not him at all, but another officer, and being embarrassed when pronouncing a special litany. What do I care about personalities, about celebrities? I must look at everyone equally as sinners or as brothers, sisters, children - for we, shepherds, have been given the name and dignity and authority of the fathers. I also sinned before God in that I did not accept with sympathy from Father Matthew, Father Pavel and Ivan Timofeevich Sidorov [the news] about the death of this latter’s father, Timothy, but with coldness and deceit. Almost constantly, the enemy overthrows me because of my pride, because of my passion. God! Do not let me follow the evil and false direction of my heart, for often my heart is controlled by pride and malice, but let me resist it with all my might, act opposite to it: if, for example, it feels hostility towards a brother, envy - try in every possible way to love him, to be kind to him; if prodigal thoughts, feelings, sensations are aroused in him - try in every possible way to tame them, destroy them and arouse holy, sublime thoughts, etc.; at the sight of the beauty of a human face, let me ascend to You, Lord, the original and all-blessed Beauty, and look with purity of heart at all human beauty. Hey, wake up! Secret feelings and thoughts about the death of someone: God is with him, the road goes there, and we will still live and enjoy real blessings, or: the sheep died, and we, the shepherds, will get a wave from him. But let’s not imagine that we will soon be heading there too and that, perhaps, many will accept the news of our death with the same thoughts and feelings. With the measure we use, it will be measured back to us. We are painfully greedy for the things of others, but we tremble for our own, as if it were a matter of our life or death, as if, for example, frequent guests are encroachers on our lives, on our well-being. O wicked flesh, how you stand up for yourself, for your pleasures, for your satiety, for the abundance of bread and wine, which, however, will be enough for you if you have guests, especially your own, relatives. I will crucify you, villain, evil, gluttonous, prodigal, envious, lazy! I will make you jealous of mutual love, and not of satiety; about abstinence, and not about excess, satiety; about simplicity in clothing and home furnishings, and not about luxury - for everything will be food of corruption. Because of what empty things, because of what, often only imaginary loss or harm, a person, and even me, is ready to be hostile to his neighbor, especially because of food and drink, money, clothing! How unreasonable and stupid I am because of my heart’s attachment to things and because of the lack of love for God and His image - man, for his immortal soul! So, our first science, care, work is to take care of the good direction of the heart, about love for God and neighbor, about the salvation of the soul, about impartiality to earthly goods in hope of God. The more earthly blessings from God are given to us, the more often we tremble at their scarcity, the more stingy we become! What blindness! Malice! Covetousness, godless self-interest! Already a thousand times the Lord has shown His goodness to me, His rich Providence, for so many years supplying me with everything in abundance, so that I also give to all my relatives from the gifts of the Lord. I thank the Lord, who, after a difficult and stubborn struggle with demonic malice (I dreamed about Deacon Peter Al., as I sometimes dream about Deacon Alexander), received the Divine Mysteries into the world of spiritual powers. The malice came from my satiety the day before with curdled milk, for the spirit of malice, having found in me a reason and convenience for the temptation of malice, attacked me and incited me to malice, but there was no reason for it in the concelebrating deacon. Yes, even if he gave some reason, I would have to bear it with meekness and kindness. All sin comes from the devil, because the devil sinned first [1 Jn. Z, 8]; If a brother sins against me, then the devil sins in him first: the brother is a victim of the devil’s deceit. I sinned: I became embittered in my heart against a beggar boy of twelve years old because he came up for alms another time on the same day. Is it because we are angry with the poor that they are in constant, devouring need? Is it because we have everything in abundance? Oh, ungrateful me, greedy, evil, contemptuous, loving and voluptuous! How long will I, like an evil dog, be angry with the poor, these children of God? On these truly strangers and aliens and homeless people of the earth?.. How long will I listen to the devil - the demon of hard-heartedness and malice, how long will I be carried away by his incitements? How long will my sin-loving flesh be his obedient? Oh, let me crucify, let me crucify, let me crucify my proud, voluptuous, envious, evil flesh. Deprive your body for the benefit of your neighbors, for the glory of God, for the benefit of your soul, for the health of your body itself - deprive yourself of money, food, drink, clothing, and household items. The body is a temporary resident, but the soul is eternal. Our earthly church of the body will be ruined. God will abolish both the belly and the meat. The God of the Lord raised up (from the dead), and He will raise us up by His power. To the Divine Mysteries - the Most Pure Body and Blood of the Lady - I owe peace of mind and physical health and vigor. Glory to Your Holy Mysteries. If it weren’t for the daily Divine service in the holy churches of God on this island, if it weren’t for the daily praises of the Lord, the Mother of God and the saints, if it weren’t for the intercession of this city of the Mother of God and the saints, if it weren’t for the bloodless Sacrifice for sins every day, then this city would either fall through the ground or be consumed by flames, as it was visited many times by fire and fires, for the iniquities committed in him, especially for drunkenness and fornication. So, live with fear, my brothers, and for your common good do not forget to visit this church and pray in it with all diligence for yourself and for the city and those living in it; and while many live unrepentantly, you constantly repent of your sins before God and correct yourself in every possible way; while others drown in drunkenness and debauchery, you are zealous for abstinence and purity, and the mercy of God will be with you, and because of you the Lord will suffer with other sinners. A sane person, impartial to food and drink, does not stand, does not chase after the fact that his family eats or drinks this or that food and drink, and thinks to himself: let them eat and drink to their health, whether it be a soft bun or something else; and the greedy is furious at those who eat his favorite dishes and drink his respected drinks and is ready to start a quarrel. So that this does not happen to us, let them eat and drink whatever they want for the glory of God - just let there be peace and love between us. Oh, the bestial direction of the human heart! How can we believe him after this, his lusts, his rage! You all come to the end that you need to eat and drink as little as possible and not worry about your stomach, despise it. I curse my greed and my intemperance that, like a slave, I always eat and drink more than what is proper at lunch and dinner and thereby burden my spirit and body. Let me stop being greedy. Lord help me! Wednesday. This day, or the morning of this day, was for me a day of tightness, sorrow, weakness of spirit and body, a day of temptation. But I thank the Lord that first, through my prayer, he delivered me from the sting of stinginess and greed and bitterness, when I thought that brother Alexei was drinking grape wine from me with a horn 68; secondly, he saved me during the liturgy from the stings of anger that stung me while sexton Kutuzov was standing in the altar during the liturgy; the dream of evil bickered and pursued me for a long time, but in the power of the fortress of the Lord I won and drove it away. And he performed the entire liturgy, as well as the water-blessing prayer service to St. Nil of Stolobensky, without stumbling, with great strength. My illness and cramped conditions came from being fed up the day before with sprat and cream with wine (sherry). At the memorial service for Timofey Petrovich Sidorov today (May 27 in the evening), when uttering an exclamation, dreamy demonic fear and paralysis of the heart followed, and from cowardice I could not fully utter the exclamation. And this happened because I slyly thought about the bow of Father Matthew the archpriest after the exclamation that he bowed with his body, but in his soul he despised him. What kind of expert on the human heart am I? And how can I condemn my brother without knowing his heart thoughts? Serves me right. Grant me to see my sins and not condemn my brother. Dreamy fear, dreamy fornication, dreamy malice: something the enemy doesn’t put in, something the enemy doesn’t whisper!.. If you are angry at the beggars who demand alms from you, this means that you are fed up and that giving alms and depriving your belly of excesses is necessary for you to cleanse your sins. A great and saving sacrament is performed by the one who gives alms to the poor with faith and goodwill: he lends Christ Himself each time, as it is written: He who does good to the poor lends to the Lord... just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did it to Me [Prov. 19, 17; Matt. 25, 40]. Therefore, one must always give alms willingly, although wisely, with meekness and zeal - and with selflessness: for Christ also exhausted Himself entirely for us and became poor for us. Great spiritual storms occur in life due to the action of spirits of evil; and in these storms, the greatest good for us is the faith of Christ: with its help we can tame every storm, get rid of great troubles - and we do. Late liturgy. Behold, Lord, You have now shown me the ferocity of demonic malice, which nagged at me because of the slightest reason for the malfunction of the brethren - the deacon, the reader and the altar guard, but also showed me Your great goodness and mercy, granting me victory over the spirits of malice in the communion of Your most pure Mysteries, especially when I consumed them. I thank You for Your mercy, for Your strength, which drove away the adversaries, for heavenly peace, for lightness, for the renewal of my entire being. What tightness, what anxiety, what languor, what kindled arrows of the evil one I felt within myself at times during the Liturgy - and what grace, calmness, lightness I felt after consuming the Holy Gifts! A great and long struggle was within me. I myself gave rise to such a struggle, to such a temptation, because in the evening I ate black bread and butter with special appetite and before Vespers prayer I smoked a cigar, having not smoked for a whole year. Smoking tobacco is truly the devil's thorn! It is not appropriate to smoke. What wickedness! Even because I am embittered that the sexton does not sing in the same tone as me, that the deacon sometimes does not begin the chants at the prayer service: but the work is not standing still, but is being done? And thank God, and we must be at peace. Who among us does not stumble either in word, or in thought, or in deed? For everyone is sinful and weak, and therefore must be lenient with one another. Why does the devil fight me especially during the liturgy? Because the liturgy is the most painful Sacrament for him, destroying his power over human souls, purified by commemoration of the Divine Blood. That is why he tries by all means to depose the officiating priest, either through malice, or vain fear, or lustful thoughts and indecent movements of the heart. Lord, most merciful and long-suffering! I thank You for all Your powers and mercies that have been revealed to me, a sinner who has continually angered Your goodness, from the time when temptations befell me for the first time at the Academy, and until now, during my almost fifteen years of priesthood; Every day, several times, You demonstrated Your goodness and Your power in me, when I sought Your face and turned to You with prayers of repentance, thanksgiving, praise, and petition; how often did you bring me from spiritual death to life, from the fire and crampedness of passions into the coolness and space of Your grace, how many times did you give me, through evening prayer, tears of tenderness, so sweet that I was ready to cry constantly, how many times did you pull me out of the mud of passions in which I was stuck due to my passion! How many times has he destroyed the slander of ethereal enemies who are treacherous in me, giving me calmness, boldness, and strength to do my job! I thank You for all these powers, Almighty Lord, and I pray to You: in the foregoing 69 do not deprive me of Your mercies and do not cast me away from Your presence, sin for my sake, for I have known You, Lord, for Your name is always in my mouth, O Lord my God! We often imagine many things: it seems that our family eats and drinks a lot, that our servants steal food supplies, that many are angry with us and are preparing troubles for us or laugh at us, despising us, that many people look at us in places of public meetings, looking at how we are dressed, that such and such an eye is bad, angry, and so on; but all this is the machinations of the seducing spirit, distracting us with these chimeras and dreams from the only thing we need, from doing the commandments of God. The most precious things in the world are love and peace: for these goods one must sacrifice all material goods and not spare them in order to preserve gospel love and peace. Into the world... the Lord has called us [1 Cor. 7, 15]. The same prayers for the faithful should contribute to the affirmation and constancy of love for them (in the great and special litanies), and should not cause boredom; Only those ignorant of the spirit and intentions of the Church can become bored when repeating these prayers. Praise the Lord with firmness always and everywhere - for this is worthy and righteous. Wish well for your neighbor as well as for yourself; and do not wish for evil or losses - misfortunes, obstacles, stumbling blocks. Otherwise, the Lord, the Father of all, will reward your neighbor with good, and you with evil, that is, punishment. As if you were the only ones settled on earth [Isa. 5, 8 ]? How peaceful, free, and easy I am when I have no attachment to anything in the world - but how bound, confused, fearful, and burdensome I am when I have an addiction to something! So what? I often impose on myself the bonds of worldly addiction! I know that addiction for me is spiritual death, and meanwhile, like a slave, I become attached to everyday things: I go myself, so to speak, to swords and spears or sharp knives. So great is the charm living and acting in me! But thanks be to the Lord, who continually kills and destroys this charm in me, this old, passionate man through sorrows and distress; thanksgiving to the Lord, who burns up the thorns of my passions and, through the prayer of my repentance, cools me with the dew of His grace, like those three youths in the Chaldean oven. Christian! Despise the flesh, focus on the things that are immortal for the soul, and your spirit will rejoice like the Angels. This is Christian wisdom! This is true life on earth! May 30. 1870. (Isaac of Dalmatia.) The earthly, dreamy, untrue direction of our hearts - grant us, Lord, the heavenly, true, vital direction of our hearts, for we are called by Your name, having ascended into heaven in glory, the Master Lord our God, and having seated our nature at the right hand of God the Father: teach us to live heavenly on earth, in imitation of Your heavenly apostles, hierarchs, martyrs, the venerable ones, who neglected the earthly, and were honored with heavenly things, and standing with the saints. Do not grudge any valuable, healthy, pleasant and good-quality food and drink for your brother who often comes to you, receives a good allowance and never invites you to his place for bread and salt, and do not humiliate both yourself and your brother by placing food and drink higher, more valuable than a person and clinging to them with a heart that should cling to the one God and to the neighbor for God’s sake; confess sincerely that you, being very sinful and unworthy, freely receive from God everything necessary and abundant for life and, therefore, must give freely without regret, thereby showing your faith in the Giver, and humility before Him, and the consciousness of your unworthiness of these gifts, your undeservingness; and your brother, despite his unworthiness and, perhaps, obvious sins, also unworthily and unworthily receives a generous allowance; and we are all unworthy and all of us, by one mercy, receive from the Lord all spiritual and physical blessings. And if so, then leave the dissolute and wasteful brother to the judgment of God, and you endure him with love and meekness, remembering that God is good not only to the good, but also to the ungrateful and evil, and pray to God for him and take care of yourself, so as not to fall into the passion of dishonor, so as not to be tempted by Satan. Despise the flesh and everything that is for the flesh, but be diligent about the souls of things that are immortal, both yours and your brothers. Do not destroy him with your food, for Christ died [Russian: Do not destroy with your food the one for whom Christ died] [Rom. 14, 15]. It’s strange that for you, a priest, earthly food is still important and that your belly still dominates your spirit. Do not worry about food or belly. Meal for the belly, and the belly for food: God will abolish both this and this [Russian: Food for the belly, and the belly for food; but God will destroy both] [1 Cor. 6, 13]. If they will only be abolished for a while, then is it worth bothering so much about something that will soon be destroyed. For the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit [Rom. 14, 17], which you lose due to lack of faith, lack of hope and lack of love. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good [Rom. 12, 21]. Be wise from above, not from earth. Hold on to love, which endures everything, covers everything, never falls away, but pities a person so much more the deeper he falls. With love, which endures and condescends everything, gain your fallen brother. Because of brushes, because of money, the bodiless enemy alienated many from the love of their brothers, sowed enmity among many and thereby put a strong obstacle to the correction of many brothers. In the hands of the ethereal enemy there is a strong lever - the belly and the flesh - to separate people, to incite mutual enmity, although the flesh should remind us of the common brotherhood, that we are children of one Heavenly Father, nourished by His love. So, what is insignificant - consider it as nothing, and do not chase after it when it is destroyed, but hold on to peace and love - in a word, the Kingdom of God. Let us commit ourselves, and each other, and our whole life to Christ our God. Let us hold on to the spiritual, the heavenly, and not the earthly, bodily, and perishable. I thank the Lord, who has vouchsafed me to perform the Divine Liturgy without stumbling, albeit during strong struggles from the enemy, and to partake without condemnation of His Most Pure and Life-Giving Mysteries, into peace and joy. May 30. Saturday. I thank the Lord, who gave me the grace of fiery prayer during the Trinity All-Night Vigil on May 30, with physical and mental weakness and the unfaltering performance of the entire all-night vigil. I thank the Lord, who has not forsaken me until now because of my sins, but who is long-suffering to me with His Divine and philanthropic love. The devil cleverly leads by the nose all those who have predilections for everyday, worldly things, like a fisherman who leads the fish he catches with his hook wherever he wants. Human passions are spiritual bits, driven by the enemy into the nostrils of our hearts, or spiritual chains with which our souls are bound (whether you bind or loose [Matthew 18:18]). A person subject to passions is more unhappy than a prisoner shackled. But the king, and the nobleman, and the rich, and the learned, and the handsome, and devoted to luxury and pleasure are subject to passions. This means that the most unfortunate in the very thing of a prisoner are those who sit on the throne and shine with purple and a royal crown, and the nobles, and the rich, and those devoted to luxury and various amusements. But, wounded by passions, we still remain their voluntary slaves and do not want to give up our passions. So we are blind, unreasonable, powerless, and of little faith! Oh, the true sages were the holy men of God, who despised everything in the world for the love of God, for the salvation of the soul. The true ones were servants of God, and not slaves of passions, not slaves of the world and men. For this they enjoy incorruptible glory and life that endures forever, while we madly waste our lives in passions. There were two people: the owner of the house and a frequent guest, who lived dissolutely and lived on a large salary on a vicious affair. When a guest came to this owner to eat and drink from his table, the owner was indignant at the fact that an uninvited person was eating and drinking from him. But they were both wrong. One, that is, the owner, was a slave of the belly, a stingy glutton, and the other was a fornicator and a spendthrift. If you want to unite with the pure and immaterial God, the Source of your life and the Prototype of your soul, then give up your addiction to matter and live purely and chastely. In order not to spare the earthly sweets from your table to brother K., who generously destroys them, imagine the endless sweetness of spiritual goods for the enjoyment of which you were created - and then the scorching thirst for earthly pleasures will be destroyed. We are greedy for earthly sweets and stingy in giving to our neighbors, because we have very weak faith in future blessings and we have clung to the earth and not to God, or we are carnal and not spiritual. Is it not because of your gluttony and satiety that your heart becomes of little faith, deaf and insensitive to these very heavenly, immortal, life-giving and terrible Mysteries, to which you were once so sensitive? which once so wonderfully gave life? Let not the evil one blindfold you, so that you do not see your shortcomings. Oh, what a wicked eye I have! If I see someone wearing something good, expensive, beautiful, soft, I think to myself: oh, if only this were for me, and I fall into envy, violating the tenth commandment; If a brother at my table stretches out his hand to my favorite piece, I am stung by pity and envy and again say to myself: oh, if only it were for me; If I see a worthy or unworthy person adorned with distinctions, I sometimes think again: oh, if only I could wear such distinctions! I am ready to divert everything good, pleasant, and dear from everyone and appropriate everything for myself. Oh, my crafty heart! My passionate heart! But I'm still so angry! Not only do I not tolerate obvious insults and try to quickly avenge them, but also for the evil imagined against me in my brother, dreamy, not real, I often breathe malice or evil suspicion, hatred, I cannot bear his gaze, his presence. My God! What an abyss of evil I have! Poor man I am! who will deliver me from this body of death? [Rom. 7, 24]. Lying in the abyss of sin, I call upon the unfathomable abyss of Thy mercy: from aphids, O God, lift me up! This is Your glory, All-Good Father, may you save, may you protect, may you protect us from demonic malice. Trinity day. He celebrated the liturgy in the Duma church alone, with many sorrows, in great mental and physical weakness before the rainy weather. The temptations from the evil of the enemy are severe. Inner cross. By the grace of the Holy Mysteries I got rid of mental and physical infirmities and after sleeping during the day I felt very calm and healthy. God bless! I worthily and righteously endure grief for my gluttony, and over-eating, and over-drinking, for my idolatry. Do not be... idolaters, says the Apostle Paul, like some of them (the Jews), about whom it is written: the people sat down to eat and drink, and stood up to play (1 Cor. 10:7; Exod. 32:6). (Gamblers.) Both during divine services and when visiting the laity in their homes, there is often at first some kind of dryness, coldness of heart, some kind of darkness, crowding, violence of an evil principle - and this principle must be overcome, trampled, exterminated; Only after the struggle comes silence, well-being, warmth and sincerity. Everywhere man is a victim of sin, everywhere the mental Amalek and Pharaoh oppress us. Therefore, a person who sins is worthy of leniency. And our love for our neighbor should not fall away because of his sins, but rather be put into action. The proud, envious, stingy, greedy, glutton, fornicator constantly fight according to the flesh, stand for their flesh, for the corrupt needs of the old man, and not for the spirit, do not crucify their flesh with passions and lusts. Take away from me the sting of the earth, the sting of sweets, the sting of flesh, the sting of gold and silver, the sting of serpents, O Lord, and sting me with the sting of Thy love! I thank You, Lord my God, for You quickly took away the earthly thorn from me, through my prayer, when I went to my meal with my guests and with my brother Constantine, and I read the Our Father prayer peacefully, rationally, heartily, with strength. May the dew of God’s grace descend on each of you, as dew from heaven descends on every plant, on all parts of the plant, on every flower, every herb. Oh, how we need the dew of God’s grace! Just as plants withering from the heat of the sun need dew, so we, scorched by passions and sins, need the grace of God: it revives, quenches the thirst of the soul, strengthens, cleanses, sanctifies. I thank Thee, Lord my God, for Thou heardest my prayer in sorrow, confusion, and crampedness, and the darkening of my soul at Thy throne just before the consummation of the marriage, and, having forgiven me the sin of anger towards the beggar and forgiving me all the crampedness and confusion, gave me peace, and boldness, and the strength to unfailingly, loudly, firmly consummate the marriage of Nicephorus and Seraphim. Forgive me, Lord, my sin that I slyly received Deacon Alexander in my father’s apartment, with a double heart, remembering his search for my apartment, and did not listen carefully to his news about the prayer service at the “Standard” because my heart’s thoughts were directed to the wrong thing. O my frivolous heart! Everything seduces you: a large, clean apartment, beautiful faces, beautiful clothes, good food and drink, money, and shiny jewelry! How unsteady you are in God! How sick you are with wickedness! How partial you are to earthly things, how far from heavenly things! I cry and sob for myself, because I am seduced by the short-term and despise the eternal! Saints of God! Help me with your prayers to improve my soul and establish it in the true path, the path of Christ’s commandments. Slander (Church Slavic) – slander, slander, slander; slander - an insidious act, intrigue, cunning attack. Zde (church glory) - here. Pervee (Church Glorious) - before, in the old days. To be imputed (Church Glav.) – to be equated, to be owed something, to be likened. The whole phrase is a retelling of the Gospel of Matthew, ch. 5, art. 19: Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches people so, he will be called the least in the kingdom of heaven; and whoever does and teaches will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven. Knowledgeable (Church Slavic) – in charge, knowledgeable. Vynu (Church Glav.) - always, unceasingly, at all times. Navetnitsa (Church Slavic) – a traitor. Coldness, coldness (Church Slav.) - oppression, annoyance, chagrin. Hedgehog (Church Glorious) - so that. Cymbal (Greek) is a percussion musical instrument, consisting of two copper plates that hit one another. The sounding cymbal is used in the meaning of “empty sound”, “action that has no consequences.” Placeless (Church Glav.) – obscene, indecent, inappropriate. Disdainful (Church Slavic) – proud, arrogant, arrogant, impudent. Radeti (church glory) - try. Torture (Church Glav.) – demand back, take away. Bodets (Church Slavic) – a weapon for goring, jabbing, stabbing. Reflect (Church Slavic) – give birth again, revive, regenerate; in this case, to perform the Sacrament of Baptism. Repression (Church Slavic) – threat, punishment. Pretiti (Church Glorious) – prohibit; threaten. Vinna (Church Slavic) – guilty; vinny - guilty. Abiding (Church Glav.) – constant, unceasing. Rogom is a variety of red wine. Anterior (Church Glorious) – future. You might be interested in: