Июль

Shlyakova's early mass. After a walk to the dacha, after breaking the fast on Wednesday and smoking cigar tobacco (I indulged a little), in rainy weather, after eating fresh salmon with black bread at tea and dinner, I felt extremely ill during mass, sick in spirit and body, and irritable. I barely completed the liturgy. The devil incites everyone to sin in accordance with his position and his inclinations: if someone is the owner of a house and family or the head of an establishment, he incites him to stinginess, to the pity of consumed food and drink; he inspires, whispers to him incessantly, that a lot of money is spent on food and drink, that his household, or his pets, or his workers eat and drink a lot, that their stomachs are bottomless wells. The merchant is embarrassed by his suspiciousness about the infidelity of his clerks; he forces a rich man or a nobleman, princes and princesses to rearrange and redo everything in the house or torments him with various undertakings, for example, he induces him to build palaces, dachas, etc.; the ambitious person is confused by the desire for distinction; and chains everyone to the earthly, taking them away from the heavenly in every possible way. The brother consumes enough food and drink to be satisfied, to be vigorous and strong, and at the same time uses the freedom of a rational being, which God gave him and which you also use; and he needs no more today than he needed yesterday and the third day, because he does not have any special upheavals in his body or special labors. By inflating and intensifying our addiction to earthly things, especially sweets, what terrible consequences does the ethereal villain lead us to: he tears our heart away from love for God and neighbor and roots enmity towards God and neighbor, kills all goodness and every higher aspiration in the soul. Why are you, satiated, even more greedy, sparing your neighbor the necessary food? Do you see the malice, envy and deceit of your most deceitful soul killer - the flesh, this opponent of the Gospel? Oh, crucify, crucify your flesh with passions and lusts, so that it does not kill you. What effect does the sign of the cross make on our body? He flogs the dark rulers, says the Church. The beginnings of darkness are cut, we imagine, by the Cross. Your height, O Life-Giving Cross, beats the airy prince and the depth of the entire abyss slays the serpent; he imagines the breadth again, overthrowing the worldly prince with Your strength. Glory, Lord, to Your Honest Cross! 93 In God we glorify love for mankind most of all, so that we may learn from this name to love all people, especially those close to us by faith. Hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done... Reflect more often, especially at the end of the day: did you try to spend the day holy, did you do any good deed - for the glory of the name of God, for the good of your neighbor; Did you fight with the proper firmness against evil sin, did you not stand in the way of sin, did you not satisfy the lusts of the multi-passionate flesh? May Your Kingdom come... Reflect: have you not alienated the Kingdom of God from yourself or from others by your sins, by your unrepentance or obstinacy in sins, by your evil or envious, stubborn character, by your arrogance, or fornication, or drunkenness and gluttony, or foul language, or other sins? Thy will be done... Reflect: have you tried in good conscience to do the will of God, have you often put your own, carnal, corrupt, vicious will in place of God’s will? Did you deny yourself to fulfill the will of God, did you despise the pleasures of sin, willingly enduring the bitterness of purifying sorrow, mental and physical labor to train yourself in virtue? Think about this - and let the words of the Lord’s Prayer not ring like brass in your mouth. I thank the Lord, who saves me from the violence of filth, dishonor and the darkening of passions. How good it is to despise the belly and what is for the belly, but look with love at your brother and not spare him what is needed for his body and belly! Sin does not spare us, every day and hour it seeks to mock us by instilling absurd passions in our hearts and by tormenting us. How wrong I was about the sexton Kamenogradsky! How badly I thought of him, what hostile feelings I harbored towards him because of the false belief that he was doing dirty tricks during mass by not wanting to sing! I explained it to him and was dissuaded. Sinful before God. The enemy laughed at me. How wrong I was about Brother Alexei and Brother Grigory in terms of dining! But the enemy always stirs up enmity - through addiction to food and food and drink! How good it is to despise the belly and the flesh! Don't worry about them and give them only what they need! Make you wise and confirm, Lord! At dinner and after dinner, the merchant Alexander Ivanovich Dmitriev spoke about the greed for money of Father Matthew, who dared to tell his spiritual son in confession about the debt for the takeaway or funeral services, then after communion of the Holy Mysteries he dared to remind him of the same. He spoke out about me, being unworthy, that society was strongly disposed towards me. God arranges it this way: Glory to Him, and shame on my face. How many people in our city live in civil marriages? And in St. Petersburg, in other cities, in villages? I thank and glorify You, Lord, for Your great salvation, revealed to me [indecent] during the all-night vigil from July 4th to 5th. As a result of my grief at brother Alexei and brother Gregory for smoking tobacco and tearing out the heart of the newspaper from the hands of brother Alexei in indignation, a spirit of malice attacked me: it confused, darkened, scorched, oppressed me terribly, and this tyranny, according to the wise and good structure of God, lasted for a long time: God, apparently, abandoned me and betrayed me to the malice of the enemy; I didn’t see the light: it was so hard for me, despite the inner prayer of repentance; fell at the entrance to the altar to the throne; the flames and crowding [...] decreased, but did not disappear; the ulcer of the soul was not healed; the embarrassment continued, although less so. This was before the sixth psalm. Here God gave a prayer of tenderness and tranquility. While reading the Gospel, I was confused several times by the spirit of fear and doubt, and several times I stumbled, missing words due to some impetuosity of spirit and unnatural thought. The Lord deservedly and righteously punished me for my effeminacy, gluttony and satiety! It was a purifying fire; it was the knife of the Heavenly Physician, cutting off wild meat, the rod of the Heavenly Father, bringing to reason. How not to tolerate the slight haze from cigarettes! Yes, I probably can’t stand much smoke from incense – and that’s effeminacy. So that you always know and love the Savior, and not fall away from Him, you must be exposed to various troubles more often. Only in times of trouble do people turn to the Savior with all their hearts and cling to Him, but in times of prosperity do they relax and fall into lack of faith and lawlessness. An ungodly person has a false view of many things, but a pious person has a correct view of all things, because he is enlightened by grace. A drunkard becomes worse than an animal in relation to his family. Every animal loves and protects its children, but a drunkard does not love and does not protect; Yes, he looks at them not as people, but as puppies or piglets, without any thought about their high purpose with God. The drunkard does not believe in God, nor in the future life, nor in the future judgment, nor in the future Gehenna: he does not have a spirit with its heavenly needs, but only a soul with earthly, animal aspirations: an earthly mind, an earthly heart, an earthly will - everything earthly. A heart burdened with food and drink can be weak, viscous, unclean, like a marshy swamp, and it costs nothing for the devil to stir it up, disturb it, or create passion in it: malice or envy, fornication, wickedness, stubbornness, or anything else; on the contrary, the heart, lightened by abstinence and fasting and purified by prayer, is as hard as granite, from which, like arrows from a stone, all the machinations of the evil one are reflected, it is pure, calm, and unperturbed. Thank the Lord for everything that has been communicated to you in Divine revelation, in the Bible, in the Gospel and in Church Tradition, for all this is life, light, strength, greatness, salvation for you - and do not think in your own way about what is above your mind. How many times have we absent-mindedly prayed to God because of our addiction to worldly things, how many times have we been embarrassed, how many times have we lost our love for God and our neighbor because of our addiction to food and drink or money and fallen into enmity with our brother - and yet we do not abandon our addictions, despite their obvious destruction! How many times has the fear of dusting or smoking a red ribbon or a golden cross embarrassed a priest during the most sacred service and, like a press, chained his heart to the ground, turning him away from God and the holy cause he serves! How many times have you been seduced by the soft prosphora of the altar? Earthly thoughts and addictions to earthly things are paralysis for the soul: they hurt the soul. All earthly things must be counted for the dust that is under our feet: we should not have the slightest partiality for dust - so we should not have the slightest partiality for all things tasty, soft, shiny, rich, but cleave with all our hearts to God, the Source of our life and the Giver of all good things. Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and earthly things will be added to you [Matt. 6, 33]. I thank the Lord, who gave me grace and strength during the pangs of birth, or spiritual rebirth, to safely and without stumbling block the Divine Liturgy and say a word about the sixth commandment. The main thing is to receive communion without condemnation, with unfaltering faith and boldness of the Divine Mysteries. Thank you also for celebrating the Sacrament of Marriage after the liturgy. After a stubborn struggle with the bodiless enemies and with their hellish fetters in my flesh and after defeating them with the help of the grace of God, acting especially through the Life-giving Mysteries, I am decisively renewed in spirit and body, I put off the old man, decaying in seductive lusts, and I am filled with heavenly peace; everything becomes easy, joyful, spacious for me, just like a prisoner released from a stuffy prison into the light of God and freed from the shackles that burdened him! Glory to the Lord for everything, who builds this! Oh, if only I suffered not for myself alone, but for everyone during the liturgy or other public service, and not for myself only - oh, if everyone were cleansed of sins, everyone was renewed like me, everyone felt as good and easy as I do! But this also happens. This is evidenced by many upcoming liturgy and other services during my celebration! After all, we are one body, interaction is inevitable. I fulfill the deprivation of Christ’s sorrows... for His Body, which is the Church [Russian: I fill the lack... the sorrows of Christ for His Body, which is the Church], says the holy Apostle Paul [Col. 1, 24]. Our carnal corruption is great, the struggle is strong, but the victory is sweet, the heavenly peace is sweet, the heavenly freedom is coveted, the most holy communion with God, the Source of Life and the Prototype is priceless, coveted. Glory to Thee, the Conqueror of sin, Lord! Before mass, the devil struck me with strong regret for the food and drink at home, he was upset internally, without showing, however, that he was eating and drinking often and when he shouldn’t have. Through this pity, the serpent stung me and took possession of me, and only with long internal prayer before and during the liturgy did I drive him away: he bound me completely, made me earthly. And this is from one instant feeling! A lot of babies die in the city. It is necessary to establish a Society for the Preservation of Babies and the provision of good accommodation and decent food and drink to poor mothers in labor. July 5, 1870 My heart! You are heavenly - cling to the heavenly, and not to the earthly; not what is for the belly and for the body, but what is for the soul. Despise the belly and body, sweets and treats. This is especially required of a priest and a shepherd: he who leads others to heaven must first of all himself renounce earthly things and love what is above. Otherwise they will say: doctor, heal yourself. Our God is a jealous God: He will not allow the soul, created in His image and likeness and redeemed by His Honest Blood, to cleave to earthly things, but will punish it with His fatherly rod every time it creeps toward earthly things. Glory to Your righteous zeal, O Lord, our Lover! Another late mass. You have pacified me and healed me, you have blessed me with Your Most Pure Mysteries, O Lord, my God! Thank you for your gift beyond words. I thank Thee, O Lord my God, for Thou didst quickly hear me praying inside to Thee, looking to Thy image, when the waters of evil reached my soul after sleeping during the day and while sitting at dinner. If your own people or those who come devour you, do not chase after it, do not regret it, do not be upset, but willingly desire and give more with love, for God is able to bestow His gifts upon You, and He does so continually; and in general, rejoice when your flesh is stripped away, and your neighbor is comforted by your goodness. Laugh at the wisdom of the flesh, which spares its neighbor sweets and money in order to greedily satiate and enrich itself and destroy the soul. Live by the Word of God and think about heavenly things. The Giver of Life - especially spiritual, Christian, virtuous, holy, and eternal life. The promise that He promised us is eternal life. If you want to enter into eternal life, keep the commandments [1 John. 2, 25; Matt. 19, 17]. Do not be discouraged if God betrays you in sorrow and torment for the sins you have committed internally or externally: For the Lord punishes whomever he loves; But he beats every son whom he receives, says the apostle [Heb. 12, 6]. Those whom I love, I rebuke and punish, says the Lord [Rev. 3, 19 ]; and this in order to hate and loathe sin with all my heart and with all my soul, and love virtue with all my heart, and cleave entirely to God. For if, despite all the bitterness of punishments for sins, we continue to fall into them, then what would happen if God did not send us sorrows and did not punish us? Then we would drink iniquity like water. A carnal man, following his carnal wisdom, is annoyed at the low acceptability of food and drink because he can eat and drink little, while others, his parasites, eat and drink a lot; and the spiritual one rejoices greatly in the fact that this need, common to him and animals, is weakening and he rarely has to resort to satisfying it, and that others take advantage of his gain, for he considers it service to Christ, of whom they are members. Another mistake, or rashness, or an insult to a neighbor should be left without attention, as if it had not happened - and we ourselves would be at peace, and our neighbor would be more corrected by our meekness and patience; And we, meanwhile, are picky and, presenting our brother’s error in black form and in an enlarged size, we ourselves become irritated, and we irritate him - and thus we destroy the world both in ourselves and in our neighbor; and this is due to the action of our pride and pride and the devil who wields these passions. (On the occasion of a letter with a photographic card to Father Mikhail Pervushin.) I thank You, Lord, for interceding my weakness and destroying the machinations of the enemy over me, many-passionate, when the devil confused, oppressed, darkened, and burned me with indignation at my father, Archpriest Mikhail Pervushin, for not honoring me with a written answer to my letter. It was my own fault for praising myself in the letter. With the Great Litany he performed all the good things; I read the prayers of light with feeling and partly with tears, repenting of my sins - and the Most Merciful soon heard and interceded. From the corruptible, know the imperishable; from the corruptible, ascend to the imperishable, seeing the infidelity and deceitfulness of the corruptible; love the faithful - the incorruptible, love God, love the soul, love the good, which 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 ]; despise the flesh, despise food and drinks, despise wealth, despise beautiful clothes, despise luxurious chambers, these temporary tabernacles, which we must certainly and, perhaps, soon leave, for we have from God a dwelling place in heaven, a house not made with hands, eternal [2 Cor. 5, 1]. The more you please your flesh, pleasing it, the more it fights, worries, torments, mortifies the spirit, the more it strengthens itself against you, and therefore it is necessary to curb, mortify, and humble it at every moment with fasting, labor, vigil, and prayer. I thank You, Lord, my Lover, my Savior, for You saved me from the oppression of my sins through the sincere reading of prayers preparatory to communion, and You gave Your peace to me, unworthy. Amen. July 7, 1870. Oh, if only I could cool down to earthly pleasures and kindle with love for God! But no, the serpent constantly hurts with the sting of earthly pleasures, arming me against God and desecrating His image in me. Oh, all-damned serpent! O destroyer of humanity! But, Christians, woe to your hearts! Let us flow after our Lord, who reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit! Let us be jealous of the angelic life, granted angelic honor by the Lord in adoption, and fix our minds to the heights, and let us imitate the eagles soaring on the mountain. I thank the Lord for the boldness with which I celebrated the all-night vigil with prayer service on July 8th. And before Vespers, the enemy hit me hard with anger at my brother Alexei for his censure of the Kazan clergy. Grant me, Lord, boldness before the mighty of this world, as before ordinary mortals. I thank the Lord, who with the abundance of His strength and His life overcame my powerlessness and my spiritual death, healed my infirmities and revived me in the communion of His Holy Mysteries. The all-night vigil, with the assistance of the grace of God, he performed safely, solemnly, in a loud voice, and he also sang a prayer service to the Kazan Mother of God. At night I insincerely prayed after evening tea and a glass of cold chocolate and cheese with black bread and berries: my heart was cold and absent-minded. We must only revere what the Lord God has done for our salvation and give thanks for what he has done with all our hearts: I mean - for the mystery of the incarnation, for the suffering and death of the God-man, for the resurrection and co-resurrection, for the ascension and ascension of us with Himself, for the Sacraments: rebirth, sanctification, forgiveness and permission, deification in communion, priesthood, or terrible mediation between God truth and sinners, Marriage and the Blessing of Anointing, through which the immeasurable oil of God’s mercy is given to the faithful in the forgiveness of voluntary and involuntary sins and in the healing of bodily infirmities; for the Gospel, for the order of worship, for holy fasts, for holy icons, for spiritual festivals, for all the spiritual creations of the holy church hymns - this is the richest treasure of the Church, enriching and enlivening the souls of the faithful. Is it necessary to desire, I dare say, for those who do not know the true God and our Lord Jesus Christ to convert to our faith and Church? Wouldn’t they also become such rotten and stinking members as many, many of those who outwardly belong to members of our Church? Don't they live better than many who call themselves Christians?.. O Christians! Christians! Why do you not live as you have come to know Christ, as Christ commanded? Why did they leave the Church? Why don’t you follow the regulations? Why don’t you go to the church of God?.. Where is our ancient Russian piety? Oh, our connection, our friendship with the Gentiles! They are the reason that Orthodox Christians have considered neither divine services, nor the Sacraments, nor the reading of the Gospel unnecessary and think that cold faith in Christ alone and being Christians only in name is enough. God! Look down from heaven and see and visit these grapes [Russian: Look down from heaven and see and visit these grapes] [Ps. 79, 15]... Everyone is involved in politics, but what is our spiritual policy? In what relation are we to God, to the Angels, to the saints - is it peaceful? We do not have a permanent city here, but we are looking for a future [Heb. 13, 14]. How will the Angels and saints meet us when we leave this world and move to the afterlife, the world of spirits? How will evil spirits greet us?.. This is the policy we need to take care of. Why in church during worship do we pay attention to nobles and officials as nobles? Consider them on an equal basis with other sheep of the verbal flock and do not humiliate your dignity by servility before the powerful of this adulterous and sinful world. This is a sin before God. In the simplicity of your heart, be the same towards everyone. God does not accept the face of man... For God has no vision of the face [Gal. 2, 6; Rome. 2, 11]. Despise the flesh... that is, malice, lust, covetousness, laziness, perseverance, etc., but be diligent about the soul... that is, meekness, gentleness, purity... How skillfully one must handle the flesh, always keeping it within the limits of the law! Otherwise, at the slightest intemperance, she will shame you, tie you up, laugh at you! Oh, how the slightest excess harms the soul and body! The soul is in demonic shackles! How earthly addictions stumble the spiritual feet of us, travelers marching to heaven. And not only do they stutter - they bind, they hurt cruelly, they darken, they put them to shame! Father Vasily Saltykov (archpriest of the Vladimir Church) boasted to the guests and to me that he and the priests of Revel and the seminary inspector Joseph (now Bishop of Kovno) drank twenty-four bottles of rum in half a day. It is not good to boast about this before the laity. Not kind praise. The wicked boasts in the lust of his soul [Ps. 9, 24]. Let's assume that this is friendly frankness: but the said drunkenness still degrades the clergy. What about a card game with a pectoral cross?.. It doesn’t work... What agreement is there between Christ and Belial? [ 2 Cor. 6, 15]. Lord, give us understanding about everything... Carnal wisdom boasts in sins or carnal deeds. Thus, a fornicator boasts about his fornication, and an offender boasts about his insults: I, he says, gave him the task, he will remember. I thank You, O Most Blessed Lady, for You saved me from the villainy of my bodiless enemies, who tormented me in the morning, for I sincerely called out to You. July 8. Mass. It was almost crazy for me during mass because I had eaten too much in the evening: salmon, cheese, cream, black bread and drank strong tea. I received communion into the world of mental strength and health of the body. I really broke down during mass - my insides were so tight! With the temptations of bread and because of it, anger towards my neighbors, the devil wants to decisively destroy me - his temptations are so strong and continuous: with terrifying power he renews his ancient dreams in me; in these dreams everything around us is presented in a black form, and all the beautiful light becomes unkind. Now he raises a storm because of the prosphora, now because of the rolls, now because of tea and sugar, now because of various dishes; and wants to chain me to the earth and destroy the mystery of redemption in me, plant enmity in me and bind me with sweets. Oh God! Destroy the machinations of the ethereal enemy in me, for his malice has reached its extreme limits. Teach me to despise the belly and everything that is for the belly, and to thrive in the love of my neighbor. Teach me not to be jealous of sweets and not to be hostile to my neighbor because of them, for I have infinitely more: the incorruptible Food of the Divine Mysteries. With them alone I can be alive, well-fed, peaceful, rich. I prayed to the Lord for my family, my brother Alexei and Grigory Ivanovich and Anna Konstantinovna, who live with me, and God heard me and, who was in languor and anxiety, pacified me - and I, as an imam, have a request from Him, and will fulfill the desire of my heart. I will not leave the imam to you, but the imam will retreat from you [Russian: I will not leave you and will not forsake you] [Heb. 13, 5]. Our speeches about our neighbors do not change the essence of the matter, but as they were, they remain as they were, as they behaved, and will continue to behave, and, therefore, there is no need to torment ourselves with suspicion. God alone, acting on the conscience and heart of everyone, can bring them to reason. Our job is to endure them with love, and to endure long, and to live in peace and harmony, and to strive for the souls of things more immortal, to seek the Kingdom of God and its righteousness, yet consider earthly things no better than dust. I cleave to the one God with all my heart - my endless life and the fullness of all blessings: He will add everything to me, and if my heart falls away from Him, then earthly blessings will be taken away from me or will not be to my benefit, but to my detriment. I will tolerate the Lord when my neighbors rob me: I will not press in; I will accept it, and I will give it. If the Lord gave me eternal life through the cross, then won’t He give me everything I need (as He has always given and is giving and will continue to give) for temporary life? If he has given infinitely great things, will he not give infinitely small things? Why do we often worry, worry, quarrel, and enmity? From June 24 to the present day - July 8 - the weather has been excellent: warm, dry, except for July 1, on which there was heavy rain; as if in a heated bathhouse - so warm in nature, such a blessing, such heat, such silence! Thanks be to You, our Lord God, for the goodness of the air. At the Last Judgment, the Lord will not ask us whether we have preserved our property, but will ask: have we preserved mutual love? Didn't they quarrel over food and drink, over greed, over the honor of this world? If anyone needs a lot, the Lord gives a lot to him or anyone else, for God knows the needs of everyone and provides for every one of His creations. Therefore, may we be at peace, having such a caring, all-good, all-wise, omniscient and omnipotent Provider and Father, and may we philosophize on high, and may we live in mutual love, and let us never listen to the accuser the devil, who puts in us thoughts of doubt, despair, stinginess, greed, covetousness, enmity, and let us point out to him the experiments of providence about us God in the past life, and in the present: of course, they will continue in the future, for He Himself said: I will never leave you nor forsake you [Heb. 13, 5]. Deny yourself and God will be in you; renounce earthly things - and heaven will be your property. Protect the image of God from aphids, that is, the soul from passions. The stomach tears at the heart and soul, but it’s as if we’re not full and hungry for more. Every extra piece, extra sweetness, extra sip of drink is the powerlessness of the spirit and the power of sinful flesh over the spirit, or the power of the spirit of malice. Our greed is not directed towards what it should be: we need to insatiably hunger for the Lord God and heavenly treasures. To the fornicators: through you the devil abuses human nature, deeply humiliating and desecrating it, and you yourself abuse your own nature, desecrating it at the very source of life, desecrating the door through which you entered the world and into life. God’s long-suffering towards us, sinners and wicked, is marvelous: how the wrath of God does not strike with death or severe diseases the fornicators at the scene of the crime, as Phinehas once pierced with a sword a fornicator and a harlot in a fornication and thereby satisfied the wrath of God against Israel 94 . Christians should be especially disgusted by this sin, because our nature is purified, sanctified in Baptism and Confirmation and deified in the communion of the Holy Mysteries - we are members of Christ and temples of the Holy Spirit: will I take away the members of Christ in order to make them members of a harlot? [ 1 Cor. 6:15] For just as those who cleave to the Lord are one spirit with the Lord, so those who cleave to the filthy woman are one flesh with her [1 Cor. 6, 16 – 17]. Look at the bodies of the saints - how glorified they are by God for purity, abstinence, vigil, prayer, how fragrant they are, what miraculous powers they perform? And you hold the same faith that the saints held, you belong to the same sanctifying Church to which they belong, the same saving grace is given to you, as it was given to them, the same strength for life and piety is given to you, as it was given to them. You must imitate them. When you go to perform the heavenly service of the liturgy, then the adversary especially entangles your spiritual feet with worldly addictions, making the soul cold, constrained, whereas it should be all like fire and free in order to soar to heights. Therefore, run away from worldly addictions: everything is under your feet - sweets, money, clothes, and beautiful distinctions. After you do not serve for some time, standing before the throne of God, and do not partake of the Holy Mysteries, a forest of passions grows in your heart, as if it is clogged with rubbish and various impurities, and it is necessary to cut down and burn this forest and rubbish, cleanse the impurity, then scream 95, and then sow pure prayer and Divine thoughts. Watch over your heart every minute and cultivate it. Do not miss a single iota of the gospel law so as not to fulfill it. Do not look at the fact that at home I am subjected to weakness and the malice of passions - in church, at the throne of God, I am no longer like that: I am completely changed by the punishing grace of God, and under punishment I am meek, like a lamb, by the same grace. Oh, if those who are unrighteously at war would constantly remember that when they are at enmity against their neighbor, they are at enmity against God Himself, of Whom they are the image. He who does not love his brother whom he sees, how can he love God whom he does not see? And we have this commandment from Him, that whoever loves God should also love his brother [1 Jn. 4, 20–21]. Brother Alexei does not need more food today than he needed yesterday and the day before. And the incorporeal slanders him every day, as if he eats and drinks more every day. A stingy and greedy person encroaches on the sacred rights of food for his neighbor, invested in him by nature itself, and is ready to deprive him of what he himself uses daily and with pleasure. He eats and drinks as much as he wants, and no one tells him, while others are ready to count every bite. This is absurd! France declares war on Prussia. And maybe soon human blood will flow and thousands of heads will fall to the ground. This is what our sins, our passions do. But this is a big, bloody war. The same enemy of the human race who incites bloody wars between nations, incites war at home and in families; just as there it comes from pride and passion for dominance, because of acquisitions, so in families it is aroused by our earthly passions, and for the most part because of bread and salt, because of money, because of ambition. Let us beware of all sin, so that there may be peace and quiet in our homes, and above all in our hearts. I thank You, Most-merciful Lord, for the gift of unfailing celebration of the liturgy and communion with faith and love of Your Divine Mysteries into the world and the revitalization of my unworthy and sinful soul. I thank You, Lord, for after the liturgy in my house You kept me from feeling angry at my sister (sister-in-law) Anna at a time when she expressed herself bitterly at the shoemaker: I looked at Your image, realized that I myself was often ill with the same thing as she, and sincerely asked You, Lord, for forgiveness for her, as for myself. I thank You, Lord of the Heart, for You soon heard my inner prayer for the creation of mutual love and respect between me and brother Alexei, and instantly drove out the tightness and fire of anger from my heart, and poured out the coolness and dew of love into my heart. I said inside: Lord! unite our hearts with mutual love and respect, good morals, habits, virtues. Oh, truly the Lord is everywhere, and everywhere we are before His face. God! Thank You for saving me, my Grace! Grant me to walk in the midst of my home in simplicity of heart, with love and respect and thrift for my household. If they do this to a green tree, what will happen to a dry tree? [ OK. 23, 31] - said the Lord, carrying His cross to Calvary: that is, if the truth of God gave Me up to such suffering for the sins of the world, Me, the Righteous One, then what will happen to unrepentant sinners?.. What kind of torment will they be subjected to? (And Father Matthew, my colleague, preached on Great Friday that there is no need, that we are sinners: God’s mercy will cover everything. This is heresy!) I thank You, Lord, for the grace of the unfailing celebration of the Liturgy and for the non-judgmental communion of Your Holy Mysteries, despite the extreme violence of the opposing forces that appeared and weakened my heart. I often feel that the devil overloads my soul with his abomination, just as the Lord with His holiness; or - with malice, pride, envy, as the Lord - with goodness and mercy, goodwill, humility: it wraps around my ribs, through my loins and pierces me all, like a scorching fire. The soul travels to heaven - and all obstacles must be removed from it; and excess in food and drink is like shackles, bonds on the feet of the soul: it is brought down by intemperance to the earth, to earthly passions, it becomes coarse, becomes fleshy. In addition, the soul must fight invisible forces, it must be elusive from them, but it is conveniently caught through intemperance. (Drunks, gluttons, fornicators.) A balloon filled with gas, a clutch with a load. Life flows into the heart only from the Source of Life - the Lord, therefore, whenever you lose the true life of the soul and fall into spiritual death, fall diligently before God, and when you receive forgiveness of sins and peace of soul, thank God with all your heart for the gift of life again, so that the Lord will continue to have mercy on you. Those who smoke tobacco can receive a moral lesson from tobacco ash that their bodies will turn to ashes, and from fire - to fiery Gehenna, and from smoke - that the smoke of sinners ascends forever and ever, or that torment is eternal. Do not spare your brother expensive food, because he has conquered the earth and what is in it. He has been redeemed by the priceless Blood of the Lord, he is a member of Christ and a child of God, a partaker of the Blood of the Lord and the Body of the Lord, and [remember] that the Lord honors you daily with the incorruptible priceless Brashn. So arrange your thoughts and feelings (especially during prayer) regarding the brethren, so that it is as if their sins did not exist, but only yours existed. Know your abyss of sins, mourn yourself and humble yourself before God and your neighbors, and do not jump on them. This is why we should not condemn our neighbor because we do not know his life, especially his inner life, but we know ourselves. Like Lazarus, You revive me, O Lord, who was dead in sins, You loosen the bound one, You ennoble me, stinking with Your Divine Mysteries, You enlighten the dark me, You strengthen the weak, Heal the sick. The Lord continually renews me, and I continually corrupt myself. The enemy is trying to deprive us of future heavenly glory by thirsting for here, vain glory, and many will accept their reward here; the inexhaustible wealth of future incorruptible blessings - the thirst for local, vain, perishable wealth; future incorruptible sweets - a thirst for temporary sweets, future joy - a thirst for earthly joys. In the Lord I am united with the Mother of God, and with the Angels, and with all the saints. What would we all like to get rid of? From decay; We all really want to live and not die. Why are we working so hard? To decay: we are all slaves to decay. Fire is now a humble servant for us: it warms us, cooks, fries and bakes our food, illuminates us, our affairs and our idleness or disorder, promotes the convenience and speed of our communications; but the time will come when he will burn and torment us mercilessly and forever. In place of the fear of God, the enemy puts in us his own, demonic fear. Respect every word about an image, as an image of the Hypostatic Word; Honor all the saints, for God rests in them. Why doesn't anger die in me yet? Why do I not pass in the innocence of my heart in the midst of my house [Russian: in the integrity of my heart in the midst of my house] [Ps. 100, 2 ]? Or am I not yet tired of the deadly addiction to earthly things, because of which all the enmity and hostility towards the brethren, who enjoy the fruits of my blessed labors, so life-giving for me, for which, in most cases, there should not have been a monetary reward, or should have been five and ten times less? Am I not fully fed and provided with everything? Why don’t I look at my older brother as if at a father, whose place he took at the table? Why don’t I condescend to his weaknesses and infirmities? What is the secret, why am I hostile to my brother Alexei, and not he to me? Because of the belly, because of self-love and because of pride: I do not have humility, the constant consciousness of my thinness, unworthiness, that I am worse, lower, meaner than everyone else, that everything is not mine, where I live, everything I eat, drink, what I dress with, but God’s, and everything is given in common for us, and not for me alone. Our pride is the reason that sometimes some people interfere with us, although it would seem there is room in our home, or in God's world. Therefore, we must fight with ourselves every day and suppress our passions with the grace of God, deny ourselves, hate ourselves, despise ourselves, but not our neighbors. Pray unceasingly, because the devil is constantly fighting us towards sin, and there is no stronger weapon against him than heartfelt prayer. For those who expect an inheritance of eternal blessings, it is indecent to hoard earthly inheritance or earthly blessings, which are corruptible and tear the heart away from God and from heavenly wisdom. In whom the Spirit of God lives, in him He completely extinguishes the love for this world, its splendor, splendor, sweets, honors, and incessantly ignites love for the honor of the heavenly calling, for the heavenly light, for the heavenly sweetness and for the heavenly wealth of incorruptible blessings. When, Lord, you extinguish earthly love in me, so that I may love You alone with all my heart and with all my strength; when will you extinguish created love, so that I may love You, my Creator, with all my undivided heart? Grant me, Lord, to continually converse with You in public and domestic prayers, as with my Lord and Savior, as if someone were to speak to his friend. The Judge of all is the Lord. Who should we judge? Only ourselves, and each of us will be judged and judged by the Lord alone. I myself do not judge myself... but the Lord is my judge [1 Cor. 4, 3–4]. Love God with all your heart, so that some part does not belong to the world and the devil; and your neighbor as yourself, as your member, as your soul, long-suffering, merciful, not envying, not being arrogant, not being proud, not seeking your own, not being irritated, not thinking evil, not rejoicing in unrighteousness, but in the truth, and so on. The glorious lands are only great sinners, often glorious only in their vices, and we, the servants of Christ, have nothing to fear from them; on the contrary, we must boldly expose them. Either the spirit reigns life-giving in us, or the flesh is deadly. May we always arouse our souls to fervent, fervent prayer. He celebrated the Liturgy (in heavy rain) with mental and physical weakness; in the sides there are sharp demonic stings, relaxing and extremely raping the soul, drawing it to evil; by the grace of God temptations are overcome; served loudly and cleanly; At the great entrance, at the end, he hurried and stumbled - he did not finish saying, may the Lord God remember in His Kingdom (you and all Orthodox...), he took communion in the world and belly. At home at the table, I lost patience with Anna Konstantinovna’s small contradiction and sinned - I got angry. Repented. Today I received two rubles and ten kopecks from the bounty of the Lord, and I receive everything from Him - and I don’t regret giving. Addiction to earthly goods produces great devastation of life in the heart, deprives of peace, freedom, space, plunges into confusion, crampedness, darkness. God! Grant me to make a break with the all-destroying flesh, which so often plunges me into sin, as people declare a break with people and fight mercilessly until they win or die for their independence. Direct my life yourself. (Yesterday I was capricious about halibut to Anna Konstantinovna and Grigory Ivanovich. And all because of the belly.) I thank the Lord, who has given me the grace to perform the liturgy in the Duma church successfully and to partake of the Divine Mysteries without condemnation. I thank the Lord, who saved me through my repeated kneeling prayer from the spirit of malice, from its fiery, inflammatory sting (against brother Alexei), which incited me to feel sorry for the devoured one and, therefore, my belly, myself, my flesh - and to hate my brother. Oh, disgusting, hateful, insane, absurd sin! God! completely save me from anger! You should never eat or drink in the morning: it’s ridiculous; there is no need, but only a whim, an unreasonable habit that entails a burden on the spirit and body. The grief of the heart - there is our peace, our freedom, our true, priceless, effortless, shameless, endless life. And here is decay and languor from passions. Oh, absurd, senseless passions! We ourselves are overwhelmed by sweets, wealth, honors, and yet we thirst more and more for sweets, wealth, and honor. How long will this last? We don’t spare anything for ourselves, even if it’s for satiation, if only to fill and overflow our pantries and drawers, but we spare our neighbors for the real needs! How long will this last? For every sacrifice to one’s neighbor, the Lord returns ten, thirty times more, but we are all trembling over the waste of good food, like Judas over the precious ointment. 1870 A conversation on the boat with a German about debauchery in St. Petersburg and in many other cities: marriage, they say, is only a formality, you can live with whomever you want; take poison to destroy the fetus; they boast of their adventures as if they were exploits. Many people in our city live in civil marriages, that is, without getting married, they live as husband and wife. Lately, the zeal of the shepherds will cool completely, so that the ancient zealots of faith and piety will be needed - Elijah and Enoch, as they believed in the Redemption in the Old Testament, in the Law and before the Law, outside of grace. I am going to that city, to that house in which everyone is gathering, who have lived from the beginning until now and who are yet to live. God is not ashamed of them, calling Himself their God: for He has prepared for them a city [Heb. 11, 16]. There are newlyweds, of whom one person was quite pious before marriage or marriage, but unfortunately was married to an ungodly, free-thinking, depraved person: even the pious is corrupted and both become unfaithful to the Lord; they forget, neglect the house of God and the prayer of praise and thanksgiving to God; They don’t care about the church, the services, or the Sacraments. But can those who are unfaithful to God be faithful, sincerely, ardently devoted to each other? No. And then displeasure, quarrels, and sometimes a fight begin between the newlyweds. And then they often diverge. What is the reason for such disgrace? Unbelief, alienation from the fear of God! It was the same with the descendants, for example, of Seth and the wicked Cain: when the pious tribe mixed with the wicked, then the pious were corrupted from this mixture, and all people became vile in the eyes of God, and a general flood became necessary to cleanse the defiled land. Now the purification is the blood and fire of war and various disasters. Parents should make every effort to marry off their daughters or marry their sons wisely, first of all, keeping in mind not whether the person whom they choose as a lifelong friend for their son or daughter is noble, rich, educated or learned, but whether he is pious, God-fearing, prudent, hardworking, kind, sensitive in heart, meek and peace-loving? If you have these qualities, then rejoice and thank God: you have found a person, you have found a friend for your child, because you have found a Christian, and a true Christian is both a good family man and a wonderful citizen. I thank You, God, my Savior, who saved me from the evil despondency of demons, from bitterness and gloominess, through my prayer. July 15. In simplicity of heart, let me live in the midst of my house and my parishioners and all Your people. Even if I am a sinner, I thank the Lord for delivering me from the spirits of evil before performing the Sacrament of Baptism and for the successful completion of the Sacrament itself. God! May our malice and the demonic malice in us not overcome Your unspeakable goodness and mercy. We, as humans, have sinned, but You, as a generous God, have mercy on us, seeing the weaknesses of our souls and bodies and our evil will, of which we repent with emotion before You. You Yourself know how much instigation, and violence, and incitement of the devil to evil, weight and self-love, and all our passions, every time, like a rushing river, rushes over us and drowns us. Forgive us, O Lord, who knows our hearts, forgive us and do not remember our iniquities, but strengthen us all in mutual love. I thank You, Lord, for You have created peace with us. Lord, strengthen this world by pouring out Your love into our hearts. Wake up. And know how to turn a family outburst into love, especially you, the owner of the house. This is practical wisdom for which God and the Angels will praise. (First thought - Grigory Ivanovich Tsvetkov.) A sinner corrupted in heart and body, I must constantly humble myself before everyone and mortify my flesh with abstinence and fasting, for I, I am the culprit of family worries and worries. I must yield to the desires of others, even if they are self-loving, in order to preserve peace and love, and I must firmly curb my pride, avoiding arrogance and pickiness in every possible way. If you give to strangers, but bite and devour your family, then your alms are in vain. First let the children be satisfied [Mk. 7, 27]. Look at your own corruption, not at someone else's; deny yourself, do not shun people; sins, don’t hate people, pity people and pray for them. Do not resist evil, but yield and endure: Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good [Rom. 12, 21]. Grigory Ivanovich Tsvetkov is gentle and meek: he showed this in yesterday’s quarrel. We are all full of malice, pride, deceitful, envious, greedy, selfish, lust-loving, prodigal, lazy, all weak in spirit and body, and therefore we must tolerate each other, be forgiving of each other, forgive, pray for each other, love each other, driving away further the enmity created by the enemy of our race. I am the chief of sinners. I repent of my voluntary and involuntary sins, my impatience, anger, arrogance, envy, enmity, quarrel, gluttony, drunkenness, fornication, lasciviousness, laziness, waywardness and stubbornness, partiality, hatred of man, despondency, blasphemy, murmuring. It’s all because of the womb that I fight with my neighbors, and I fight against myself. Shameful! I received everything for free from the Lord: but it is a pity to give for free, and not even for free. Such a crazy, greedy, blind, ready-to-devour womb to its own destruction! The blessing is constant abstinence and fasting; It is good to crucify the belly, because of which there is so much anxiety, shame, shame, crampedness, so much spiritual passion! It is good not to drink wine, because of which there is so much disturbance and omission in matters of salvation! It’s good to eat and drink little and rarely, only to satisfy the needs of nature. From June 24 to July 20, the weather was excellent, so hot that we had to walk down the street in our shirts and sleep without blankets at night - and then the sweat poured from our bodies. However, on July 1, it rained heavily in Kronstadt and its environs. I thank Thee, Lord, for Thou hast saved me now from malice, envy and stinginess through my prayer. (Brother Alexei drank vodka - I was sorry and annoyed.) I felt sorry for nothing, and embraced everyone with love, and was ready to throw everything I ate and drank at the feet of my relatives. God! Tenfold, sin, or its culprit, the devil, deceived and corrupted me - tenfold and Your grace, merciful, saved me through the prayer of my repentance. But we know that Your mercy is endless and does not allow the enemy, who seeks my destruction with so much malice and effort, to devour me, and Your goodness will overcome the immeasurable multitude of my evils, deliver me from them and all those who believe in You and sincerely repent and save me and them into Your Heavenly Kingdom. For You came into the world to seek and save the lost [Matt. 18, 11; OK. 19, 10]. We are entwined along our ribs with alienation from God from our mother’s womb. Standing at the throne of God and performing the service, especially the Divine Mysteries, the Eucharist, remember that near this throne stood God's apostles, hierarchs, holy martyrs, saints who pleased God, that around him stand now hosts of bishops and priests throughout the entire universe, and with all reverence stand before this heavenly throne, on which terrible things are happening, divine Sacrament. Remember that the Heavenly Powers stand before this throne with fear, and you form 98 Cherubim yourself and sing the Trinity with them. At the beginning of the visible world, an extreme perversion of the moral order in primordial people occurred from Satan, which passed on to all their descendants; We all experience the disastrous consequences of this perversion, for we all suffer from sin, we are all slaves to passions, we experience illness, sorrow, and death. The incarnate Son of God, Jesus Christ, came to correct this perversion and destroy the works of the devil. To save the lost, He preached unceasingly, performed miracles, and finally suffered and died like a criminal: having not the slightest sin - for us criminals; and rose from the dead, resurrecting fallen humanity with Himself. The Incarnation, Death and Resurrection are the greatest events of Sacred History, incomprehensible to the mind, events in this world. They brought immeasurable benefits to humanity, and so that people of all centuries would not forget these saving deeds of our God, the Holy Church decided from the first times to remember them annually and daily in church services. Christians are obliged to attend divine services and stand with attention and reflection on what is being done during the performance of Divine services. These services are: Vespers, Matins and Mass. There are other services called Sacraments, through which our rebirth and renewal by the grace of Christ, purification, sanctification, deification, healing are accomplished, namely: Baptism, Confirmation, Communion, Repentance, Priesthood, Marriage, Blessing of Anointing. Christians should know the power of these Sacraments and, with thanksgiving to God, accept them from the Church or its clergy. I thank You, Lord my God, for all Your powers, revealed to me, a sinner, at all times, especially during special times of worship, when my weakness was especially revealed and my ethereal enemies took up arms against me with particular fury; I thank You for Your obvious, unceasing help throughout my life: if it weren’t for Your omnipotent help, I would not have been able to perform such a great service: my enemies would have strangled me with the violence of passions, spiritual rivers would have drowned me, storms would have toppled me in powerlessness, and would have scattered me. But do not leave me until the end, my Lord, my strength, my belly, my shrine! God! Often in me there is a manifestation of envy, stinginess, malice, self-interest, greed, gluttony, delicacy, fornication, perseverance, self-will, despondency, murmuring, laziness, pride and other passions: heal me from these and many other falls into sin, including fate! This is my petition to You! Ask, and it will be given to you, you have spoken with Your unfaithful lips, seek, and you will find: press, and it will be opened to you [Russian: Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you] [Matt. 7, 7; OK. 11, 9]. Resurrection. I thank the Lord, who through my prayer gave me the grace to perform the liturgy in the Assumption Church without a deacon (in the Sturmanskaya School Church they buried the Green Young One) successfully, loudly, easily, life-giving and to partake of the Holy Mysteries without condemnation, with a taste of the heavenly peace. Do not forsake me, Lord, even before 100. At first there was some timidity and unfaithfulness of tongue and voice, but then he gained strength and boldness. Why do people drown in water, or shoot themselves, or stab themselves to death, etc.? Because they don’t have faith in God, don’t go to church, don’t live like human beings, get drunk, etc., despondency and melancholy take possession of them, and a terrible thought comes to them: to take their own life by force. I thank You, Lord my God, for Your power, revealed to me during the cathedral liturgy, and for taking away the great weakness of spirit and body, coldness and petrification and insensibility of the heart and the gift of tenderness during the offering of the Bloodless Sacrifice; also for tranquility at the great entrance and prayer behind the pulpit. Early mass. I thank the Lord for resolving the hellish captivity 101 with which Satan surrounded me, shackling all the freedom of my soul and not allowing me to utter the words of prayer, and for giving me freedom, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, especially after communion of the Holy Gifts, and for the loud, powerful service of the liturgy and requiem service. O Divine Liturgy, how life-giving, sweet, and most peaceful you are! Truly, you are Divine. The sting of the earth still stings me! Even earthly addictions do not leave me, I still regret a lot of food and drink for my brother (the sting of sweets), I still regret money (the sting of the love of money), I still regret all property (pride). But be above all earthly things, so that you do not fall away from the love of God; be indifferent when deprived of any sweetness, any amount of money, considering everything as nothing, as rubbish, trampled under foot. Heavenly heart: love God and His heavenly image - man; everything is for man, everything is under his feet! He put all things in subjection under His feet [1 Cor. 15, 27 ]! Do not disturb the Divine order. Tear everything 102 from your heart, attribute everything to man. Draw the attention of the gymnasium authorities to the student Modest Danilov, to his pranks and moral infection. Evgraf Andreevich, my former acquaintance, the manager of the customs office, about Father Gabriel Mark. We love him, he said that he was unusually patient in worship and when performing church rituals - processions of the cross in hot and cold weather, when performing prayers for the blessing of water and with akathists; that during divine services there is always order in his church (the antidoron is cut into small pieces and distributed to everyone in the church, and much like that). We must follow his example in firmness and order. The evil one persecutes the pious especially in their home life, trying to constantly disturb them and violate domestic harmony with everyday trifles, in order, through domestic indignation, to make them incapable of social activity and of arranging their own salvation; so that, through disagreement, having removed the spirit of grace, it would be all the more convenient for him, the spirit of malice and confusion, to reign in us. You, Lord, are my most fragrant Garden, fragrant with countless incense; You are the most beautiful Garden, painted with countless flowers; You are the all-life-giving Garden, reviving all who come to You with faith and love, infinitely superior to all earthly gardens. He who has You within himself has no need of fragrant gardens. Rain and dew fall from heaven on every grass, on every leaf, grass, on every flower, on every twig and leaf or needle on a branch. So may the grace of God water the entire multitude of souls of Christians and infidels; Thus, the grace of God descends from heaven onto the souls of all believers who stand with faith and fear of God in the church. Thus, may the grace of God enlighten all who diligently listen to the word of God, and may it water the hearts of all. I thank the Lord for the peace that the Lord gave me through my prayer in the meadow near the prisoners’ gardens. July 25, Saturday. Damn man I am! It’s still not enough for me, it’s still cramped for me that I find fault with my family! Forgive me, Lord! Today (July 25) at lunch I ate raspberries with milk excessively and greedily. Not good after lunch sleep: dissatisfaction, irritation. He served the All-Night Vigil with extreme embarrassment and irritation, having received extreme nerve irritation at home from his wife and servants from the large consumption of raw raspberries with milk and from the afternoon nap (immediately after dinner). It is terribly harmful to eat a lot and greedily! My God! Keep me from being angry: I get used to inconspicuously sulking and getting angry at everyone, and the source of anger is my unclean heart, satiated with earthly goods, various sweets! Yes, I cry my soul, I have destroyed 103 evil! Post needed! Why am I faint-hearted and angry at my parasites and the beggars because they have some contentment from me? God continually multiplies the loaves and fishes for me, as in the desert, and God’s bounty has never failed on me. And how much hostility and enmity, envy and stinginess there is! Oh, I of little faith! Until now I have not yet acquired the properties of the Lamb of God - Jesus Christ, and I am still embittered at those who take my wave. With greedy eating and drinking, the devil invades the soul. Eat and drink without greed, to the glory of God, in moderation, with prayer and thanksgiving. If you eat sweets or drink drinks with a handful or a mouthful - oh, then trouble will come to you, my soul: the adversary will strike you with the greatest oppression, sorrow and shame and will remind you of your previous sins, the sins of your youth. Worldly passions do not allow me to ripen grief, where all my hope should [be], where my eternal life is, where the spring of my life is God; they do not allow me to embrace the love of the hearts of all people and fervently pray for them; they darken, bind, petrify, burden, confuse my soul; they make me a prisoner of the ferocious mental pharaoh. Woe to me from addictions! But there is no strength to get rid of them. Only the Lord, through my prayer, saves me from them. I definitely need to fast. God! So I often praise in words, out of duty and out of inner motivation, Your goodness and mercy, Your generosity and philanthropy. But most of all, by deed, grant me to glorify these Divine perfections of Yours. For You Yourself command: You shall be holy, for holy am I the Lord your God. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful [Lev. 19, 2; OK. 6, 36]. I thank the Lord for celebrating the Divine Liturgy and overcoming by the grace of Christ the machinations of the enemy and my sins, passionate habits (greed: the prosphora seemed small and callous, I spoke sharply), and for the life-giving communion of the Holy Mysteries. Today I insulted the memory of the unmercenary and wonderworker, healer and great martyr Panteleimon, insulting a beggar, an orphan, with irritability and giving twenty kopecks without the mercy of my heart with the addition of words so that he would not come to me again. Because of this, I was tempted to attack during the all-night vigil. The sin was barely forgiven. From the evening of July 25 there is a sharp, sharp turn from summer to autumn with a north wind. Gray rain clouds cover the horizon. I thank You, Lord, with all my heart that You, in Your great compassion, saved me twice from the great serpentine malice that was planted in my heart before and during the Liturgy, and granted me to perform the Liturgy quite peacefully and to pronounce the word with boldness; then before the all-night vigil, after sleep, when I became embittered at the beggars and at home, especially at my brother Alexei - what a fire of hell was inside me! What rage of the serpent! For this reason, the Most Pure Lord was born from the Most Pure Theotokos, so that I, the all-unclean one, may generously give the medicine of cleansing. Cleanse me, the all-unclean one, who bears the weight of fate. For this reason, O omnipotent Lord, you became incarnate, so that you, who are weak, may give me strength. Grant therefore to me, the weakest of all, Your strength, so that I may be strengthened in the war against my passions, and may I accomplish every virtue in the days of my short life. I am not worthy, Lord, to be called Thy child, for I do not sanctify Thy name with good deeds, for I allow passions to reign in me and I do not allow the Spirit of Thy grace to reign in me, for I do my will and reject Thy will, for I indulge in gluttony and immoderation in food and drink, for I do not thoroughly drive out sin from myself, and, moreover, I not lenient towards neighbors, towards their sins, irritable, malicious, envious, vindictive, vindictive; For I am often tempted, I go into temptation and work for the evil one in deed, word and thought. Save me yourself and snatch me from the jaws of the serpent who seeks to devour me. Before the liturgy and during the proskomedia - strong oppression and embarrassment from the enemy due to the deduction of prayer money from prayers for not previously accepting prayers from poor parents (seventy kopecks). According to the recording, instead of these seventy kopecks of a ruble from my pocket, I calmed down. He celebrated mass loudly; at the great entrance, while reading the royal name, he became confused, embarrassed, weakened in spirit and could not speak; then he asked for forgiveness, calmed down and served loudly and with strength; during the invocation of the Holy Spirit, the enemy viciously confused and raped; overcome by grace. He finished well and took communion without condemnation. At the prayer service with the blessing of water to the Smolensk Mother of God, while reading the Gospel about Elizabeth’s visit to the Mother of God, I got lost in one place and missed a few words, due to the action of the enemy; at another prayer service Guria, Samon and Aviv were confused by the action of the enemy on the Gospel of Matthew: Behold, I send you [Matt. 10, 16]. While consuming the Holy Gifts and singing the requiem, the sextons laughed, and I became angry with them, embarrassed, and inflamed; cramped. He begged the Lord and consumed the Gifts in peace and into the world. At the prayer service of Mikhail Andr. and Anastasia was fine; had a snack, drank a glass of vodka and muscatel; pie with fish and cabbage, sweet; his heart grew cold, and Britnev was embarrassed at the laying of the steamer in front of the generals and ladies; the voice was interrupted by fear and demonic embarrassment. Don’t look at faces ahead, but look at everyone equally; contemplation and false fear from the devil: thereby he turns the heart away from God. Everywhere boldly and loudly, calmly sing and read, in vain to God. I am not afraid of the coffin, because Christ Himself, the Giver of Life, lay in it and on the third day after His death He rose from it, making death for us a sleep, and the coffin a bed; That is why among us Orthodox, coffins are sprinkled crosswise with holy water, that is, to remind us that our coffin is sanctified by the three-day stay in the tomb of the crucified Christ our Lord and that our very death is the guarantee of eternal life beyond the grave, or that from our very death the spring of living water, or ageless life, will one day break through, when the dead hear the voice of the Son of God and, having heard, will come to life [ In. 5, 25]. That is why it has long been customary for our coffins to be arranged in the form of a bed, with beds and a pillow, that is, because our death is a dream, and the coffin is a bed. The priest walks in front of the tomb, like a shepherd in front of his sheep (he walks before them: and the sheep walk along him [John 10:4]), leading it as if to hand it over to the Chief Shepherd Christ. Having in front and behind you the strong and rich of this world (and in your being the weak, insignificant and poor) during the priestly service, do not be afraid of them and do not pay timid attention to them, but imagine vividly that you are standing before the face of the Living and Almighty God, who gives life and breath to everyone and everything, before the Angelic Powers and councils of holy men - and fear Him, the Ever-Living One, and His Angels saints, zealots of His glory, and holy men, His saints. And don’t be afraid of sinful people. Every day I destroy from the Lord many material gifts: air, food, drink and other things. How can I thank Him? With great attention, perform the proskomedia and the liturgy itself: it is a propitiatory Sacrifice for your sins, all people, all your relatives: mothers, wives, brothers, sisters, teachers, students, widows, orphans, beggars, parishioners and non-parishioners. This is immense, inexplicable - a great, saving and terrible Divine Sacrifice. Do not slyly shy away from the temptations of demons when evil spirits set you on fire with passions, but boldly go towards them and defeat them; if the demons see your fearful avoidance of fighting them, they will attack you more strongly. Strengthen your heart in love, meekness and kindness. Woe if there is enmity against anyone in your heart. Demons, like mosquitoes or bedbugs and fleas or poisonous flies, launch into us the sting of anger, envy, pride, fornication, despondency, laziness, greed and other things; their sting is subtle and sharp and suddenly infects the whole soul with poison. Be sober and vigilant and cheerful everyone. God! I thank You for worthy of me to celebrate Your Divine Liturgy in the integrity of the heart and lips and for the uncondemned acceptance of Your Divine Mysteries with the revitalization of my insides and complete 104 peace of mind. God! Forgive me, for I twice condemned my brother and co-servant Archpriest Matthew and spoke angrily about him and even spat on him in anger in his absence. God! It is natural for us to sin; forgive us our sins - both me and my brother. Give me the grace to be patient with one another, to bear with one another, for our common ulcer is an all-destroying sin, our common madness is the madness of passions. Forgive me, Lord, as I, having You living in me with the Father and the Holy Spirit through the communion of the Divine Mysteries, saw my brethren eating meat food at my meal on a fast day, and took pity on the lean fish - whitefish, considering such a table very expensive and luxurious, although there is no luxury in it. Oh, evil eye, stingy, envious, greedy! Have mercy, have mercy on me, the fallen one, and correct and transform me; grant me to despise all kinds of food and drink for the sake of love for You and love for my neighbor, and to impute them to nothing, for the devil wickedly inspires and incites us to value food and drink highly, so that we despise our neighbor who eats them, while the Lord Himself has subjugated everything under his nose. Grant me, Lord, to have everything under my feet in the will of my heart and not to consider anything in this world as great, so that I may not disgrace You, the only one truly without measure great, and my neighbor, great after You, like Your image. You should never eat or drink anything especially pleasant alone, but share it with others if possible, so as not to envy your family when, in my eyes, they eat and drink such pleasant foods and drinks that I cannot eat or drink for the sake of fasting or other reasons. Food, whatever it may be, is considered not worth your attention, for only pagans tend to chase after food. And that’s not what we’re called for. Remember, we are not called for this. Mountain rank. Mountain wisdom. Why do I value what is given to me so easily and almost completely freely, that is, money and food? O wicked flesh! Oh, the devil's trap! How long will you value vanity (trifles) and despise what is truly great and priceless - soul and virtue: faith, hope, love, meekness, kindness, humility, chastity, patience, non-covetousness, mercy and other virtues? How long can I consider as my own that which is not mine—all earthly blessings, for all this is God’s, mine is only my soul, and that is from God; Why, because of food, consider as strangers those who are truly my own, as my fellow members and members of Christ, and whom Christ God, as Creator, Provider and Savior, feeds, preserves and saves along with me? Let us cast all our sorrow upon Him, for He cares, cares wonderfully for us, constantly, vigilantly, openly, generously, and without giving us His gifts. We depict the sign of the cross on ourselves to remind us that we are Christ’s property, redeemed by His blood, and we must live not for ourselves, but for Him, working hard for Him, and not for our own lusts, loving each other, as He commanded. Where is my sincere, brotherly love for my sister Anna, my brother Alexei, my brother Gregory? In their place, isn’t self-love, an addiction to sweets, self-interest, and honor reigning in me? Oh, perversion of nature, of the Divine order! I thank You, Lady, who quickly interceded for me during a time of fierce passion and, through my prayer, saved me with Your all-good power. July 29, 1870 At the grave of a dead man, I should cry that I am spiritually dead, for I am constantly struck by spiritual death - anger, malice, envy, covetousness, lust, uncleanness, despondency, laziness or laughter, gloating, rancor, servility, partiality, hypocrisy, coldness towards God and neighbor, hard-heartedness, stinginess, gluttony, greed and other passions, also indifference in faith, indulgence, double-mindedness. This is what I should cry about, and cry bitterly. I shed a tear about this today at the coffin of the dead Elizabeth, which was held by Arkhip Ilyin. What an infinitely great miracle of God’s goodness and wisdom took place on earth in the incarnation of the Son of God from the Virgin and becoming man! And this miracle of goodness and wisdom was performed by God for us, for our salvation from sins and their consequences. Do we use this work of God’s goodness as we should, do we assimilate it to ourselves? Do we care about our salvation? Do we repent wholeheartedly? Are we correcting or updating? Do we think about things above? Do we despise longer? Why not? Why else do we love vanity? What's the end of this? Shall we fall away from the faith? Isn’t Satan working on our internal and external falling away? Have not many fallen away? What is the end of those who have fallen away? Burning. With countless sins, with countless fiery temptations, the mercy of God is countless, the powers of God and the Mother of God are countless in me, a sinner, all the days of my life, especially from the days of the priesthood. Glory to the Lord! After being treated to sherry, strong coffee and tea by the English pastor, I became constipated and had severe nerve irritation, coupled with irritability of spirit and demonic temptations (anger, pity). During the cathedral mass I felt as if constrained. It's so cramped and crowded inside! Because of irritability and fear of incomprehensible things, I could not pronounce all the names of the royal family. When I looked at the candles lit in all the chandeliers, I felt sorry for them for a moment, and cramped conditions and fear overwhelmed me again. Before dinner, Chernitsky was overcome by anger at the sexton of Kamenogradsky for his loudmouthing: he barely prayed away the anger with inward, intense prayer, looking at the image of the Mother of God. Then it became easy. But I struggled and writhed for a long time before that. Where there is satiety, there is the devil, and there the devil’s malice conveniently takes possession, as in me today: the janitor Ivan Sokolov came to the altar for vestments and, seeing me, did not nod his head, nor asked for a blessing, and my heart was indignant and embittered against him - the enemy incited him; and it so embarrassed, wounded, stung that I could not calm down for a long time, and only after a fervent prayer of repentance, already at the end of Matins, did the Lord forgive my unworthiness. It was obvious to the inner eye how the devil was raping and tormenting me, confusing, oppressing, darkening me and not allowing me to pronounce the words of the litany. This is what he does often. But there is no need to be discouraged, embarrassed or hasty - and by the grace of God all his slander will be destroyed. Hate with all your hatred the instrument of evil - the devil, and not those whom he incites. O crafty one, who hides his tail and his fiery paws, the chief of wickedness and all malice! May the grace of God destroy all your works in me! I remember how you incited me to be angry with the sexton Kamenogradsky because of loud singing and earlier with the Tsvetkovs, brother-in-law and sister-in-law, from behind the table. God! Teach me a true and God-pleasing fast, so that by Your grace I will drive out from my heart the devil, hidden and nesting in it, and to despise the flesh and everything that is eaten and drunk. Grant me, Lord, to always see through the wickedness of the devil and overthrow him with the grace of Your Holy Spirit. Walking with carryings and processions of the cross, I am apparently exhausted. But this exhaustion is visible, it is exhaustion from excess strength. There is no need to feel sorry for yourself, to be cowardly and weakened in spirit, but to take courage, cheer up and strengthen yourself, say the prayers, litanies, exclamations and so on prescribed by the rules. Otherwise, even here the enemy makes us cowardly, despondent, and relaxed. During the proskomedia and liturgy, the enemy caused me extreme cramped conditions and embarrassment due to my satiation the day before, but with fervent, unceasing inner prayer I asked the Lord for forgiveness of sins and freedom from the enemy and his cramped conditions. After that he was calm and prayed earnestly. At the great entrance, I did not finish the last two names of the royal persons out of embarrassment due to the thought (O Mat. Prokof.) of my spiritual daughter standing behind the railing, and I was greatly ashamed. I swore to hate sin, which so much and incessantly causes me shame and distress, and to adhere to virtue in every possible way, to firmly observe abstinence and fasting in everything and never to be satiated, for satiation is the root of sin; to hate all the works of the devil, no matter how plausible and pleasant they may be. A letter to Russa, a letter to home. Evdokia Mikhailovna Salomanova - letter. Tomorrow, no further. We are so full that sometimes it is useful, and very useful for us, for others to eat our extra piece, and for others to drink a different cup of drink. Apply this to wealth as well. And how many, even with contentment, become depressed, as if they are being eaten and drunk by their loved ones. Crocodile tears. Pity for food and the anger and envy associated with it regarding household parasites who live freely, without work, comes from your satiety, which has become your illness, and from your unclean heart, which cannot hold within itself the heavenly, most pure, precious treasure - love for God and for your neighbor. The enemy constantly drags my sinful soul into hell, instilling all kinds of nasty, evil and blasphemous thoughts and cruelly violent, scorching passions. All spiritual troubles come from satiety and gluttony: anger, envy, pride, fornication, despondency, grumbling, blasphemy, hypocrisy, laziness, various quarrels, enmity among relatives, and all the disorder in families and societies. We have an evil adversary - the devil, who constantly embitters and defiles us, but we also have an all-good Father and Master, all-powerful, all-holy, all-righteous, generous and humane, who saves and cleanses: we will continually fall to Him in repentance and tears, asking for mercy and salvation. From saint to sinner, from high to low, from smart to stupid, from kindness to malice, from humility to pride, from goodwill to rancor, from courage to cowardice, from generosity to stinginess, from zeal to laziness, from purity to abomination - in ordinary people like me, a sinner, there is only one step. Thus, humanity is infected with sin to the bones and brains, to the very depths and throughout the entire being! So great is the common ulcer, the common scab of sin that has infected humanity! It takes a lot of struggle, fasting, prayers, tears, sighs in order to acquire, with the help of grace, a pure heart in order to be unshakable in virtue. Only he who abides in Christ will produce much fruit, and whoever does not abide in Him will be cast out, like a dry rod that is thrown into the fire to burn forever [Jn. 15, 5–6]. Some give God's gifts to their neighbors with an abundance of a good heart, while others give them sparingly, out of greed and an evil heart: he gives and he regrets and gets angry. As God gives to us, so we must give: ungraciously, graciously, and generously. Wonderfully generously and unceasingly, the Lord rewards the poor, monks and nuns, and households, for small gifts given to them. Glory to Your all-good and all-generous Providence, Lord! (From Chernitsky ten rubles for take-out and mass.) August 1st, 1870 Take, cook for yourself all the sea fish, and a little - both lake and river; Take, cook for yourself the meat of all the livestock of the earth and the birds of the air - and devour it all, if your insatiable belly can accommodate it. Collect for yourself all the gold and silver, if you can, and make everything out of gold and silver, if you need and like it, or lock it up in your storerooms, don’t give it to anyone: what would happen to you after that? Would your soul be satisfied? Oh no: she would still be dissatisfied, and would still desire more, her unbearable thirst, a deadly thirst would still burn; and the more a person has of these earthly blessings, the more restless and pitiful he is, because he knows no peace either day or night, because he does not have in his heart the true treasure of life - God, he does not have love for his neighbor, which constitute the true life of the heart. Block the windows through which sin enters, and first of all the eyes, and then hearing and smell and taste, and the faculty of memory and imagination. You want to cleave to things above and think about things above, but the sin that lives in you with all its might, like an ardent, ferocious dog, pulls you to the earth, through your blind womb: you know, it has its place in it. I thank You, Lord, for the countless removal of the corruption of passions from my soul and body and for my revitalization and renewal: without number I corrupted myself with malice, envy, lustful thoughts, despondency, gluttony, laziness, selfish rage - and You saved me without number. Oh, innumerable Grace! Thin or unusable grass is extremely fruitful if, from the very beginning of spring, you do not dig up the soil in which it grows and sow it with useful seeds. (My garden in 1870.) So, thin grass grew in my garden almost as tall as I was and took over the entire garden. In this way, the tares of passions grow in our hearts, and if we do not pluck them out in time, they will soon take over our entire soul and become so strong that they will surpass our head, according to the Scripture: my iniquities have exceeded my head [Ps. 37, 5]. An evil spirit strongly attracts a person to sin, but a person must resist the attraction, praying to Christ, who is angry with the Destroyer. Sometimes the enemy attacks us the more, fights, torments us, the stronger our prayer and the more it benefits us and the people for whom we pray, especially as a priest and primate for people before the throne of God. The leader is subject to the strongest hostility and abuse of the enemy. Earthly love extinguishes heavenly love. Every sensualist, money lover, and ambitious person should know this. Where there is earthly love, there is no true friendship, sympathy, compassion, joy, purity and chastity, patience and long-suffering, because every virtue rests and is rooted in faith and love for God, and everything earthly is fragile and fleeting. You cut through the beginnings of darkness, the Cross we depict. Life-giving Cross, your height (your upper end) strikes the airy prince, your depth (your lower end) pierces the serpent of the entire abyss (i.e. the devil), the breadth (right and left ends) again saves us, overthrowing with its strength the worldly prince (Satan). Glory, Lord, to Your honorable Cross! (Canon of the Honorable and Life-Giving Cross, hymn 4.) And behold, one of the children of Israel came and brought the Midianite woman to his brothers, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, as they wept at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, seeing this, rose from the midst of the congregation and took a spear in his hand, and followed the Israelite into the bedroom and pierced both of them, the Israelite and the woman in her belly: and the defeat of the children of Israel ceased (Num. 25: 6-8). Orati (Church Glav.) – to plow. Punisher (Church Slavic) – teaching, instructing (punishment – ​​instruction, teaching). Eliko (Church Glorious) – how much; How great is the instigation - how strong is the motivation, the teaching. Educate (Church Slavic) – depict, reveal, represent. Wed. Cherubic hymn: Like the Cherubim secretly forming... - that is: Mysteriously revealing the Cherubim... Dovleti (Church Glav.) – to be sufficient, to be abundant; have the ability or strength to do something. Captivity (Church Slavic) – chain, bonds, shackles. Otrevati (Church Glav.) – sweep away, reject, push away. Yuzhe (Church Slav.) – which. Kupno (Church Slavic) – together. 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