Август

I thank You, Lord, for You have granted me the strength to celebrate the Liturgy in the peace of my soul, after Your grace took away my confusion and my crampedness; I thank you for the heartfelt and sonorous voice with which I served the liturgy; I thank Thee, for Thou hast destroyed all the machinations of the enemy and turned them into nothing, 106 especially the machinations before the transubstantiation of the Holy Gifts and during and after communion. Oh, fierce intrigues! God! I thank You, for by Your power You quickly delivered me from the arrows of the enemy during evening prayer, when I was carried away by dreams of guests who had been staying with me for a long time and imagined that I was supposedly offended. The enemy fired heavily, but with a heartfelt, frequent, meek prayer to You for deliverance from this hellish fire, You quickly saved me openly and turned the fire into dew. Glory to You! May I learn not to worry about food and drink. Artillery Lieutenant Colonel Valerian Feodorovich Ozhigov is smart, reasonable, restrained, self-controlled. How carefully, slowly, he eats and drinks little, without any greed! Learn table manners from him. With what respect you treated him, as a soldier of Christ, a member of Christ, the image of God, treat your family and everyone in the same way. (At first, due to the enemy’s action, I was shy, I felt cramped, awkward, and somehow ashamed; then I fervently prayed to God - and I felt good.) Serve Grigory Ivanovich and Anna Konstantinovna as the Lord, and not men: with love, humility, meekness, patience and long-suffering; to brother Alexei too, and to every person. God! Teach me, strengthen me to renounce the devil’s pride, which is painful for me and for those around me, and to wish and do as much good for my loved ones as I can or as much as I would wish and do for myself. I see, I feel, Lord, that my old man is a lie and constantly strives for malice, envy, satiety, covetousness, fornication fury, despondency, laziness, rebellion, self-will, pride, ambition, vanity. Teach me, Lord, to live not for myself, but for You, my Lord and Benefactor, or for Your members, that is, for my neighbors. For we, the strong, must endure the weaknesses of the powerless and not please ourselves. Each of us should please our neighbor for good and edification [Rom. 15, 1–2], and not to one’s belly, not to one’s many-passionate flesh, which will soon pass away and which will not need food, clothing, money, or anything. Grant me and the future generation, who are on the way to this world in the mother’s womb, to serve as I would like for myself, in every possible way reassuring the one who has given birth to him, satisfying her in everything, for this is a great sacrifice to God - serving others for free; do good for the members of Christ, do it for the Lord Himself: do it for me [Matt. 25, 40]. And the Lord is always able to reward a good deed. The life of the soul is in selflessness. Every day the devil fools and torments me with carnal passions: greed, stinginess, fear of poverty, hostility to those who allegedly take mine (although there is nothing mine), fire, crowdedness, fear, shame - and inspires me to completely forget about myself, and about all my relatives, and about all people. The Providence of God, all-good, all-wise, omnipotent, unceasing - and I I am faint-hearted, fearing impoverishment, although I have never been impoverished before; and the enemy achieves through this lack of hope, and lack of faith, and greed, a greater evil - hatred of our neighbors whom we feed (or, better, God through us). Oh dream! dream! ghost! I often call God King, but how do I obey Him? Am I not doing my own will? the will of many different evils? Do not take the cries of the old man, the cries of passions for cries of justice, for cries of self-defense, but despise them as the cries of a fierce beast that gnashed to kill you and is being killed: let him cry, let him rage. Today is a great holiday, but it’s as if I’m without a holiday, because for the sake of gluttony and the satiety of yesterday, I was extremely weak in soul and body during the liturgy today, and without boldness I partook of the Divine Mysteries of the Body and Blood of the Lord, and from the weakness of satiety I could not utter a few words of thanksgiving prayer at the prayer service, and with a shameful face I finished the prayer service. Oh, weakness of spirit and body! So, get greedy for fried bacon! I think I ate twelve fish, if not more. Nerves are low; tightness and heaviness in the insides. In the evening you need to eat extremely carefully, very little. And eating too many potatoes is also very harmful. And I ate it a lot. Loss of nerves from everything together and from the heavy air. Do not believe for a moment sinful dreams: they often represent a good person in the most unfavorable and disgusting features, arousing anger against him for one, as they say, physiognomy, or face; They whisper something strange and absurd, blasphemous about God’s holy men. The fuller I am, the more sinful, the more irritable, the more lascivious; It will be a disaster for me if anyone mercilessly consumes my sweets. (Offer to Konstantin to donate two rubles for sugar to his face.) For excessive consumption of sugar. In the morning I went to serve a prayer service, having drunk tea, in the Goat Swamp: at first I served successfully, but then suddenly, at the thought of what was intended, but not accomplished the night before, the devil, who had put this thought, confused me and choked 107 my heart, thought and word, not allowing me to utter the words, and wounded me internally. If I had not drunk tea and had not eaten, I would have been strong against the enemy, and this defeat would not have happened to me. I began to read the Gospel of Matthew. The whole essence is given to me... [Matt. 11:27] and, having come to the words: Come to Me [Matt. 11, 28], could not read further, and switched to the Transfiguration Gospel. Ugh, what diabolical malice! Please protect yourself just in case. Fasting and prayer are good armor of war. My God! How many insults from the adversary! How much mockery! How long will I deal with infant toys in adulthood, I mean food and drink, clothing, jewelry? And the immortal soul, fallen, darkened, enslaved, defiled? We must free her from sin and passions with the help of almighty grace, cleanse her, sanctify her, and make her ready for every good deed. May the man of God be complete, prepared for every good work [2 Tim. 2, 21]. Look what weakness of spirit and body you have acquired through satiety during the Dormition Fast, especially fish food. Or lean food and vegetable oil have a bad effect on me, so that my nerves weaken and therefore my spirit weakens. It was hard for me today to serve a prayer service after mass and a memorial service and a prayer service in Gostiny Dvor and in different houses: I will stand and stand silent in some places, and then start again - such weakness, fear, weakness! I sinned before God by becoming angry with my sexton Vasily Ivanovich Kutuzov before the service of the all-night vigil at Lavrenty Parf. Bakanov, the cook, because he did not want to inflate the censer (he stood up for inflating the censer, and meanwhile the devil inflated his anger - oh, terrible slander!): he sinned with impatience and malice. But it was necessary to do it meekly, slowly, with love: it would have turned out well. It is remarkable that before any public prayer, the devil tries with all his might to outrage me with something, to embitter me, and generally to bring me into a passionate state. Beware for the future! The spirit of malice strongly stung and embarrassed me throughout the entire night vigil: it embarrassed, oppressed and tripped me during the reading of litanies, exclamations, the Gospel and prayers, did not allow me to pronounce words and sayings, producing darkness and rebellious thoughts. In this case, I was obviously more to blame than the sexton, impatiently giving him the censer to inflate. The devil took advantage of my impatience, my tendency to haste, my pride, pride and inclination towards malice - and poured the poison of malice and rage into my heart. Oh, damned me! Proud, unlucky! There is no doubt that in some places and among some people the presence of spirits of evil is felt especially strongly, in a stunning and destructive way. I felt good while singing the canon's song. I need to take care and not irritate my sexton: he is generally quick to obey and diligent, and the law of the Gospel requires this. The devil - obviously from all the cases that have happened before - wants to quarrel with me in order to harm the work of serving God and force me to break the law of gospel love and live according to his, devilish, will. And who isn’t he trying to quarrel with? With his wife, with relatives, with colleagues, with servants. At every meeting with neighbors, it incites people to dislike, contempt, 108 malice, envy, pride, hard-heartedness, deceit, and fornication. Endure strong and sharp, burning sorrows, as the sick endure cauterization or cutting off of diseased parts, or as those sick with boils endure their hardening 109 or their maturation. Just as after suffering, cauterization, or cutting off a member or the development of a boil, there is most often a successful turning point and a happy outcome of the disease, so after suffering grief there is a healing of the soul from the passions with which it was tormented. Sorrows are boils of souls. Beware of eating food from the ungodly, especially from the greedy and fornicating: if you eat from them, you will join in their sins and experience the full weight of them. It's an experience. I know the degrees of wine released for the Holy Mysteries. For eating fish, I suffer severe punishment from God through slander and misfortune from demons. Seriously: do not be satiated during the Lent of the Ever-Virgin Mother of God and do not rebel against God with an unsatisfied heart and thoughts of nasty, blasphemous and evil thoughts, your malice, your pride, your pride, your self-love, your fornication, your laziness. Eat simple stew and drink water, don’t drink wine (and you drank wine). On August 9, during rainy weather, I felt very ill in my soul. It’s good not to drink at night: you can sleep peacefully. Why do I often get angry at a subordinate who sins? From satiety with food and sleep. Fast and stay awake. I thank You, Lord, for the heavenly peace (which surpasses all minds), given to me by You in the communion of Your Most Pure and Life-giving Mysteries - after the scorching, all-evil machinations of the adversary before the liturgy, during it and even after. I thank Thee for extinguishing the enmity against the reader Vasily Kutuzov and internal reconciliation with him. God! I thank You for the wonderful change in which You changed me with Your goodness and Your bounties, Your infinite wisdom and Your power, Lord, in the communion of Your Most Pure and Life-giving Mysteries. This is the glory of Your Most Pure Body and Blood, Master! Where are the machinations of the enemy, his hellish fire, cramped conditions, confusion, anger, darkness, shame! Preidosha in an instant. Great is the mercy of God: my brother Grigory Ivanovich Tsvetkov is called by God to the priesthood, like all of us, and precisely at the time when our monetary obligation must end according to the condition. Thank the Lord! Through communion of the Holy Mysteries, like scales, I throw off sinful rags from myself and am renewed in spirit and body. But often this renewal costs me great, mortal sorrows. Thanks be to the Lord and for the sorrows. Only during the most sorrows, when tormented by them, do I often forget about their benefits and become cowardly, impatient and murmuring, and only after that I see all their beneficence. My soul and body are most corrupted through satiety. How weak I am in spirit and body when I do not partake of the Divine Body and Blood for five days! How passionate! This is your task, Christian: put to death the sin that dwells in your flesh and, with the help of God’s grace, make yourself a dwelling place of the one Spirit of God. Do you not know that you are the church of God, and the Spirit of God lives in you? [ 1 Cor. 3, 16]. Share the gifts of God - money, food and drink - to the poor and orphaned with love, and they will always be for you in health and sweetness. And if you don’t, they will serve as your destruction. Don’t eat fish at night, and generally avoid it: your heart hardens, and this is already a very important reason not to eat it. Yesterday I ate in the evening - and my heart was no longer the same as it was before eating. Do not look at a healthy appetite: and do not satisfy your appetite. During the liturgy, when I offered the Bloodless Sacrifice, all heaven and earth, Angels and men, are with me, because the Lord is with me, the King of Angels and men. In the simplicity of our hearts we must believe that during the Liturgy the Heavenly Powers serve invisibly with us and the councils of all the saints, whom we commemorate. Wonderful liturgy! What do I not ask the Lord, who gave Himself to us as a Sacrifice? Only let me pray with undoubted faith and unfeigned love and unshameful hope. I thank the Lord for the heavenly peace upon receiving the Holy Mysteries and celebrating the Liturgy on August 11th. Glory to Your compassion, O Lord, and Your invincible power, perfected in my weakness. Vodka is just a burden and an addition to false appetite. There should be no more than necessary. And my need is very small. Meanwhile, I always eat a lot, damn it. Be careful that when eating sweet foods and drinking pleasant drinks with your neighbors at a meal, the viper of pity for these dishes and drinks does not creep into your heart in you, the host of the meal, and does not give rise to hostility towards those who eat! For this is the intention of this viper - through addiction to perishable things, to arouse hostility towards one’s neighbor or to convert love for one’s neighbor from spiritual to carnal, and sometimes to turn hatred of one’s neighbor because of something carnal into carnal, unclean love for him. So, when our neighbor counteracts our carnal views and aspirations with his actions, then we hate him and spare him our earthly blessings, and when he cooperates, then we love him and spare nothing for him. Thus, adulterers and adulterers spare nothing for their loved ones, no jewelry, give them all kinds of food, buy all kinds of expensive jewelry and clothes, in a word, they spare nothing. But if the beloved person refuses her carnal love to a carnal lover or lover, then enmity, stinginess, and envy will appear, and the one who previously did not spare anything for his beloved will now not give even one penny, and one stale piece of bread, and one old worn-out dress. Oh, how deceitful is the flesh and the devil who wields it! Or don’t you know that all food, pleasant and unpleasant, and all drink turn into pus, into nothing? Why are you sorry, brethren? Do you not know that all gold and silver is dust? Glorify the goodness, omnipotence and wisdom of God, which from the same earth produces such diverse and useful things for the benefit of people, but do not cleave to them, lest you anger the Lord, for we, created in the image and likeness of God, must cleave to God with all our hearts. On Sunday, August 16, there will be a prayer service for Goremykin after mass. To Uvarova on August 12. God! I thank You, for You have granted me the grace to maintain my faithfulness to You today. Grant me the grace to remain unfailingly faithful to You all the days of my life, remembering above all Your dissolution with me, the accursed, in the mystery of the communion of Your Most Pure Body and Blood. Beware of helpful talkers who sit next to you out of idleness and begin to judge everyone and laugh at their neighbors, blaming their shortcomings. Here it is easy to succumb to temptation and repeatedly condemn your neighbors, who may be a hundred times better than you. Judge not, lest you be judged. Remember your sins and mercilessly condemn yourself for them, and leave your neighbors to the judgment of God. The name of the Lord is my life: may it always be in my mouth and in my heart. Prayer is your life: may it always be in your mouth and in your heart. (This is a sweet everyday experience.) My holiness is life: may it be the portion of my soul incessantly. And may the Lord be my Helper. Who will heal the infirmities of my soul and body? During the proskomedia, when the sexton Alexander came up with a censer and, having burned his hand, soon threw it away from the censer, I was tempted by this empty incident, smiled and became so weakened in spirit that I could not say the proskomedia prayers; and all out of servility. Do not pay attention to your face, and the more the enemy slanderes, the more you arm yourself against him, the more the spirit of dumbness attacks you, the louder and bolder you say the established prayers to an iota. Not a single liturgy without the extreme slander of the enemy is complete for me for my sins. I vigilantly follow all the thieving adventures of the ethereal enemy and often, due to the weakness of the flesh and spirit, I cannot resist his attacks, against his rains, and winds, and rivers. I thank the Lord with all my heart, for He overcame all the opposition of the enemy, all his intrigues, confusion, darkness, violence with His innumerable goodness, wisdom and strength and unfailingly granted me to perform His Divine Liturgy and to partake without condemnation of His Divine and Terrible and Life-giving Mysteries of His Body and Blood. Amen. Do not leave me, Lord, Lord, Lord Lord! I thank the Lord, who saved me from poison and demonic fire, shame and violence in Goremykin’s apartment in Oparovsky’s house in Nizhnyaya Shirokaya Street on the evening of August 11, over evening tea, after I said that I spend little time talking with my family and am increasingly busy with business; I took hold of the name of the Lord with my heart - and was saved quickly, otherwise the darkness and shame of the enemy wanted to take possession of me. An instantaneous thought, originating from the enemy, darkens, shames and oppresses the soul. Beware at every moment: the enemy does not sleep, but is constantly working towards our destruction. Be sober and watchful, because your adversary the devil walks around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour [1 Pet. 5, 8]. Great is the name of the Lord, great is the power of faith and hope in Him. Truly, the very air in the homes of the laity is saturated with their sins, their sinful words and deeds, and it must be sanctified with prayers and chants, the holy cross and water. It seems that when you inhale this air, you inhale sin within yourself, for sin lives everywhere with us, sinful people, and sin follows us, sinners, and infects everything. Satan is called the prince of the power of the air. If spiritual paths were as straight and smooth as our railways or city sidewalks, we would then be God-loving and prosperous in everything. But the curves of the current are ours. If a traveler goes to a distant place lightly, without possessions, without silver and gold, without a supply of food and drinks and extra clothes, it is easy for him and he is not in danger of losing his life from robbers who are chasing after enough. Likewise, a traveler to the Heavenly Fatherland, if he travels lightly, does not have a burdensome addiction to worldly things for the soul, gives away excess, does not like to indulge in voluptuousness, but constantly fasts and gives alms, then mental thieves and robbers do not attack him, because they have nothing with which to tempt him, for the main temptations come from an addiction to earthly things. Blessed is he who always remembers this and acts in accordance with it. I thank the Lord, who made me worthy to perform the Divine Liturgy without stumbling under great weakness and the strong influence of the sinful law that acted in my life, and to partake without condemnation of the Divine Mysteries into the world of spiritual powers; only I almost fell heavily into the sin of anger against Nikolai the watchman, who said that there were no communicants, whereas there were; Confusion was already taking possession of me, the fire of hell was already beginning to burn me, the shame of sin was already appearing on my face, already cramped conditions, powerlessness and voicelessness were beginning to torment me, but, having made the absolution of the liturgy, I sincerely confessed my sin to God before the Holy Cup of Life - and immediately the Lord had mercy on me, giving me peace and boldness. He performed the water-blessing prayer without stumbling, asking God for grace to do so. I asked for strength and wisdom to hate and destroy my old man, who in countless ways was trying to destroy me every minute. Such rubbish, truly rubbish! Yesterday, August 12, Wednesday, I ate my fill and beyond satiety of soup with pearl barley, mushroom sauce, sweet pie with apples and partly herring and spoiled myself mentally and physically: sin fought in my limbs, powerlessness of soul and body appeared. From a clogged stomach due to mealy food, the voice was unclean: the insides were clogged. Avoid mealy and mushroom foods; vessel of the body, vessel of the soul to store. According to the old man, I am truly the first of sinners, having committed every sin in life; and by the grace of God - often renewed, sanctified, saved, adored - a miracle first of all for oneself, and then for others; powerless in itself, for the sake of sin and for the sake of the temptations of the enemy, and strong by grace, producing the power of grace in many; unclean and purifying, sinful and sanctifying, dishonorable and glorious; as if he were foolish, but made wise many, as if he were poor, but riched many, as if he had nothing, but contained everything. Jesus, I thank You for quickly delivering me, the accursed, from evil greed and anger towards those who eat meat, when I left the bathhouse and saw meat in my kitchen during the Dormition Fast. Heartfelt prayer saved me from the great rage that was disturbing me internally. When I tasted good lean cabbage soup, then I saw most of all that in vain I was seduced and angry and that my lot was also good! O voluptuousness! Oh, greed! Oh, envy! Now I said to myself: may it be good for you - and it will be very good for me too: cabbage soup with sturgeon! What envy! What paganism! Oh, priest! When will you become wiser? When to despise food? When will you hunger for heavenly food above all else, the drink of heaven, the Body and Blood of Christ, and despise earthly food? When will you consider it a waste to save human souls and think about their salvation day and night, and pray, and try? The power of the cross is always the same, like the power of the Lord, the Mother of God, the saints, by His grace - but our hearts constantly change, lack faith, are deceitful, grow dull, grow cold. Oh, if only the heart were always unchanging in faith and love for the crucified Lord! Then, by the power of the cross, we would constantly perform miracles, just as the saints did. Invincible, incomprehensible, Divine power of the Honest and Life-giving Cross, do not forsake us sinners! How reluctantly, lazily, coldly, even with annoyance, we priests sometimes bless our other parishioners, especially the small and humble ones. This is why the noble, the rich, and the learned neglect our blessing, that is, because we ourselves do not respect it, doing it without faith and reverence. I received great, unspeakable mercy and Thy power, O Lord, from Thy shrine during the current liturgy, having been delivered from the treachery of ethereal enemies during the communion of the laity, when, due to the slander of demons, my faith weakened, and my heart was cold, and the tightness of the heart and the shame of my face upset me with embarrassment. By consuming the Holy Gifts with simple faith, all the machinations of the enemy disappeared, all infirmities ceased, all confusion, all oppression and shame, and I tasted the heavenly peace. Glory to Thee, Lord! Your great mercy is upon me, the accursed one. May Your Holy Mysteries work in Your people! God! Preserve and keep them from this generation and forever. Confirm this which you have done in us. (The wife and sister-in-law at home came up for the blessing. They smell it. Be them.) Lord! Take my corruption away from me daily, and grant Thy incorruption to me. I thank You with all my heart. Contrast the sweetness of carnal communication, which is fleeting like a dream, with the sweetness of spiritual communication, or communion with God, an inexpressible and eternal sweetness; bodily beauty, perishable - indescribable spiritual beauty, imperishable. I thank You, Lord, for once again (during Matins on August 14) the fire of hell, sinful, was transformed into the dew of grace by Your goodness and power. This is a miracle of Your goodness. Always do me good, O Lord, by helping and saving! Today, right before the great entrance, I was indignant because hot coals were pouring out of the censer onto the cloth in the altar on the floor, due to an oversight especially by the watchman Nikolai, who laid down a censer full of hot coals. I picked them up and threw them away, but the priest shouldn’t be indignant at anything, he should bear everything calmly, all sorts of malfunctions and errors. (You yourself be moderate and attentive to your heart during the table, but don’t look at others how much they eat: this is the devil’s work; the devil is looking for a reason to enmity his brother over food, and to make us addicted to sweets, and to divert attention from the soul.) The devil creates everything in such a way that all my good things are blasphemed and become worthless, according to the Scripture: if I give away all my possessions... and do not have love, it does me no good [1 Cor. 13, 3]. We must offer everything to our neighbors with love. Sunday means ageless life and assures its certainty. So, children of the resurrection, let us live worthy of the resurrection, which we are worthy of, mortifying passions, renouncing attachments to worldly things, living holy and virtuous. Fasting has come again, again the Church reminds us of the need for reasonable and holy fasting for the salvation of the soul. Yes, fasting is necessary for a person, just as a bucket and clarity are necessary in nature; necessary for clarity of thoughts, for purity and liveliness of feeling, for the dominance of the spirit over the flesh, or for the dominance of the will of God in us over the will of the flesh and thoughts. I am always indignant because of empty things, mostly because of gluttony, and I lose love, which has nothing dearer; the direction of my heart is false, and I am a liar, according to the Scripture: every man is a liar [Ps. 115, 2]. Yes, I deign to willingly lose everything - just not love: may it always be with me. The enemy consumed me with anger today because Grigory Ivanovich Tsvetkov did not give me the opportunity to ride to Ruza, but what is this for? So that Grigory Ivanovich and his wife and his parents can enjoy it, or perceive it as good for me. You have been pleasing your belly for a long time, and because of gluttony you often have outbursts of anger at your neighbors who eat from your meal (God’s, not yours), you are exposed to extreme misfortune from demons during the liturgy and especially before the transubstantiation of the Holy Gifts, just before communion, sometimes both during and after it, you grow cold in faith and love for God and people, you experience gloomy, thoughtful, stern, gloomy, while one should only rejoice and thank God; you love self-interest, and meanwhile, because of self-interest, again the same coldness towards God and neighbor, the same enmity towards neighbors and untruth, while love is required from a Christian - and unchanging love, enduring everything, merciful, and so on. Should one please the belly and love money?.. No, no: despise it and adhere to love by all means, looking incessantly to God the Provider. Because of food and drink, and because of money and clothes and pleasures, love dries up: with such insignificant means the enemy achieves such terrible consequences for a person! What is a person without love?.. Nothing. If... I do not have love, then I am nothing [1 Cor. 13, 2]. On the last day of the Dormition Fast, how my enemy exploded with anger at the Tsvetkovs upon receiving a letter from Ruza, in which it was written that they were waiting for us, and only kneeling prayer kept me from spilling or erupting evil, from this madness. And all because of the filthy womb, because of this church of idols, the abode and work of the devil. But he also took communion on this day and served the early liturgy, giving communion to fifty parishioners. Where is my faith, which despises flesh and food? Where is selflessness?.. Where is the joy about the peace, contentment, and happiness of my neighbors? Don’t forget that Grigory Ivanovich is a sick person, and Anna Konstantinovna is likewise. God constantly generously gives and rewards me, and I constantly regret - what kind of freak is this? O my perverter - the devil! How you have distorted me with all your worldly passions! I also condemn others who have passions, such as love of money, drunkenness, and so on. Look at yourself, my soul! Do not dare to be hostile to guests and parasites, for God will reward you for them - for what they ate and drank: this has been tested, and the Scripture says that according to a person’s giving he will be rewarded; Yes, even if it were not rewarded with earthly blessings, it will certainly be rewarded with eternal ones. How senseless, angry and envious we can be when we feel sorry for them of our sweets and are gloomy and sad, as if it were a question of the destruction of our well-being or our soul, while they only take from us an excess that is unnecessary and, perhaps, harmful to us! Today I was sad and gloomy about the long stay of the guests with me (eight weeks), and meanwhile, on Assumption Day, the merchant Nikolai Grigorievich Sidorov sent a head of sugar, for which I spend a lot. Thanks be to God for His providence! How can I allow all-destroying sin to touch my soul and act in it, when I have experienced its destruction over me countless times? How could I not be confirmed in every virtue, in meekness, humility, kindness, non-covetousness, abstinence, mercy, obedience, courage, patience, hard work, in faith, hope and love, when I have experienced its life-giving, peacefulness, and bliss a thousand times over? What kind of madness is this on my part? I think little and go deeper when reading the word of God and worship. You cannot force anyone to God: leave everyone to their own will and do not be angry with your loved ones for their laziness and alienation from the house of God: not everyone has faith; Confirm yourself in faith and love - the enemy does not sleep. Remember the Lord, who is good to the ungrateful and evil, not only to the good. The devil is intensely jealous of our height to which God raised us through the incarnation and incarnation of His Only Begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore he tries with all his might to humiliate us with an addiction to the earth and the earthly blessings of God, so that we do not think about heaven and about the incorruptible and ineffable blessings there, and so that, because of an addiction to them, we fall away from the love of God and mutual love, which is dearer than anything in the world and without which a person, the happiest in the world, the richest and most famous, is nothing; so that we would be at enmity with each other, be proud, envy each other and not feel sorry for each other, but feel sorry for each other’s earthly blessings, wanting to own them only ourselves; they oppressed each other, killed, deceived each other, and so on. That's why the saints left everything red and sweet in the world. Have ears to hear and let him hear [Matt. 11, 15], and let him arm himself with the weapons of impartiality, humility and unfeigned love, and renounce vile self-interest and voluptuousness. What more could one deified and rich in the Divine Himself wish for? What will God not give him from earthly blessings, if he really will always be rich in God, constantly having Him within himself and having clothed himself with Him? How can He not give us everything? [Rom. 8, 32]. God destined you to undergo heavenly service in the rank of priest, so that you yourself would have a foretaste of the heavenly blessings here, and give God’s people a foretaste of them; you perform heavenly service, stand before the heavenly throne, perform heavenly, regenerating and adoring Mysteries. So, always be heavenly and do not envy those who are rich in earthly, vanishing goods and are busy with earthly wealth, earthly sweets, earthly honors. These are children's toys, houses of cards; these people are busy, so to speak, with dung or dirt, with which they constantly get dirty, and yet often do not feel that they are getting dirty, and do not understand that they are doing very unreasonably. Will children's toys always be with us? Will they fail or break? And heavenly blessings are eternal. Worldly addictions torment me, torment me terribly - and I follow them; love for God and neighbor makes me peaceful and blissful - and I fall away from it. What kind of madness is this? What kind of self-contradiction is this? Do I really want to go against my own good? I don’t want to, but I don’t know how to love myself: you need to deny yourself in order to truly love yourself and God and your neighbor. And I am proud. Lord, Lord, Lord, I thank You for the great strength You performed in me during the liturgy on the day of the Dormition of the Mother of God, for the strength against the forces of the enemy, who were killing, oppressing and deeply confusing me internally (a paralyzing opinion about the key that I left at home, from the table in which this book was located; I was afraid that Grigory Ivanovich would not read everything [that] was in it). You sent me strength from on high and strengthened me, revived me, and I calmly stood at the great entrance and spoke the royal name; He served the entire Mass at the cathedral successfully, with tenderness. Oh, how great is the mercy of God that the Lord drives away the hordes of enemies that disturb and oppress my spirit, especially during the liturgy - such a cross! - and gives you a taste of peace! Abstinence and abstinence! I thank the Lord, who gave me fiery prayer during the all-night vigil (from the day of the Dormition to the day of the Image Not Made by Hands) with tears and high spiritual contemplation regarding the deification of our nature and our inconsistency with God’s intentions for us. From the anger of the disembodied enemy and from some lack of prudence on my part when reading the Sunday Gospel, I doubted myself, became embarrassed and could not finish reading the Gospel - a new embarrassment; but he did not lose heart, although the enemy was overcome with despondency: he drove away the despondency, and again calmed down, that it was involuntary and should be imputed to the enemy, and I, having such a merciful Master, may I be trustworthy and at peace. The Cross of the Lord is my worker and nourisher: it gives me my daily bread, not to mention countless spiritual gifts, and all earthly blessings; when I serve prayer services and perform the Sacraments and all the prayers, or when I go from house to house with a cross on a holiday, everything humbles itself before him, bows down, and reveres as before the Lord Himself. Glory to you, the all-sung, life-giving Cross, my breadwinner! But here’s my other request to you: teach us the holiness of the Lord, teach us to live holy and kill our passions, teach us to live in mutual love! I thank the Lord, I thank the Lady, for she saved me from the deluge of demonic abomination at nine o’clock in the morning on Sunday, August 16; I also thank the Lord that yesterday he also saved me from the pouring out of the demonic abomination of the prodigal in the house of Kolmykov at Britn. clerk August 16. I thank Thee, O Lord God of my salvation, for even this day you have vouchsafed me to perform the Divine Liturgy with sincerity and sensitivity of heart, with boldness and strength, in all the inner turmoil, for the enemy pressed me hard and pressed on me, on my insides and on my nerves through the feeling of the approaching stormy and very rainy weather, which began at eight o’clock in the evening. Thank you for your uncondemned acceptance of the Divine Mysteries and for your bold preaching of the sermon on the seventh commandment. At the thanksgiving service, I could not read the entire final prayer of thanksgiving because of the strong machinations of the enemy, because of embarrassment and fear from demons. By God’s grace, I read the prayer at the prayer service before the start of the teaching, heartily and without stumbling. He served with Goremykin briskly, with heartfelt faith, but the Goremykins themselves sincerely prayed. God bless them. We were treated with complete cordiality - a good pie and tea and wine. Machtov and Petrov’s mother did not serve the prayer service well: he repeated the Gospel of Matthew three times: Ask, and it will be given to you... [Matt. 7, 7], due to the envy and malice of the devil, who embarrassed me with Petrov’s preliminary remark about our late arrival and the thought of hasty singing of the prayer service. I'll be sick soon. Don't rush in the future. Do God's work sincerely, without pleasing people. The enemy takes revenge on all the liturgy and preaching that destroy his work. God! Let his machinations turn on his head! And forgive me for my gluttony. Do not melt before human caresses and their cold receptions, do not be upset, for everything human is a passing shadow, a disappearing smoke; Please God alone with all your heart and cherish His Fatherly favor with all your heart, fear His righteous wrath. (Goremykin has affection, Petrov has coldness.) People are changeable: today they praise, tomorrow they scold; and we ourselves, who write this and experience it, are changeable. The cross for me is the dirty tricks in me, the enemies who trip me up while reading. The devil’s network is vanity and people-pleasing: because of them there is anger towards one’s neighbors. So my brother hung his stockings in the white hallway on the stove damper, and I am furious in my heart that they were hung in the wrong place, how is it possible, I think. It doesn’t matter who among the nobles comes into the white door and sees such obscenity in my house - as if it is decent before God to dream like that and hate a brother because of such vanity, while the whole law consists of love for a brother, and murder and the ruin of the whole law lie in hatred. This is how sinful and dangerous addiction is to anything visible. The same enmity occurs due to addiction to sweets, money, clothes, etc. We value the unimportant, we neglect the important; We value food, money, clothing, home furnishings, but we despise the soul of our neighbor and our own; We value perishable things, but neglect the Lord, our Creator. We must eradicate passions, and always have the law of God in our hearts. Enough has been the dream of the prodigal from his youth until now: let the reproductive members be revered from now on, as instruments and guides of life, so sweet for us. The movements of my heart are all lies and destruction, if the grace of God is not in me, for from my heart evil thoughts almost constantly emanate... adultery, fornication... false witness, blasphemy [Matt. 15, 19], malice, the evil eye, covetousness, envy, incitement, etc. My heart, my own heart, arranges my destruction, dragging me incessantly towards evil, doing everything contrary to my true good, inspiring me to consider everything material and carnal as the last and highest good, and about the spiritual and essential good, eternal, unchangeable, inspiring me not to care, giving to my neighbors, reassuring them in my house, considering feeding them loss and evil, while in the essence of the matter this is virtue and leads me to essential things. and eternal blessings, according to the Scripture: just as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me [Matt. 25, 40]. May I fight against the manifold lies that nest within me, and may I not lose heart in the struggle with my old man: the grace of God, teaching my hands to fight and my fingers to fight [Ps. 143, 1], may he grant me perfect victory. To be touched even for five minutes during the liturgy is enough, some priests say. (Words in the house of Andrei Al. Petrov.) Why, what little things do I sometimes worry about? Because the extra two or three people live on my bread for quite a long time and cause some inconvenience in something very unimportant? It’s not enough that I worry, I am sometimes indignant and hostile towards them. Meanwhile, everyone is full and satisfied from the generous God and we do not tolerate any lack of anything. So, my anxiety is in vain and my anger is in vain, and thanks be to the long-suffering Lord for me, who does not deprive me of His blessings. All prayers, litanies, exclamations, and hymns of the Church are filled with the spirit of the great, fiery love of the Church for the Lord, all-embracing, ardent love for all people. Therefore, the priest, who serves as the organ and interpreter of the Church for people, must serve God with great reverence, humility, firmness, love for God and all people, but for this reason he should not be bound by worldly love, worldly pleasures: covetousness, ambition, vanity and other passions; he must forget everything for God and the salvation of people; their salvation must be for him food, drink, self-interest, and glory. But which of us is capable of this, if the grace of God itself does not regenerate us and make us capable? Where can we get this flame of heavenly love, the love of Christ? - From the Lord. How? - By unceasing prayer, fasting, and vigil. Eradicate the habit of being angry - otherwise you will become evil. Parents and educators! Eradicate the habit of being angry in children - otherwise they will become evil. The Lord said: I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will never hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst [Jn. 6, 35]. Why, when I often eat this Bread, do I still hunger for earthly blessings? - From my lack of faith. I should be ashamed. Place in a conversation about should. husband and wife: what church punishment is a husband or wife subjected to for adultery according to church canons. God! I thank You with all my soul for the sweet and heavenly peace and perfect health that You gave me after communion of Your Divine Mysteries during and after the Liturgy of this day; for the cleansing of my sins, for granting victory over the spirits of malice that confused and raped me before communion on the occasion of the absurd singing of the sexton Kutuzov, the worthy of the music. If, after your subordinate has committed any mistake, you feel confusion of spirit and hostility towards him, anger, impatience, then know that the devil is treacherous over you, and try to immediately leave the confusion and hostility and accept calm and meekness. Just let me preserve my love for my family and the poor: the blessings of the earth will not become scarce for me, as they have not become scarce before, for the Lord is strong and righteous, generous and merciful, to give me everything I need. About the Holy Synod, about its significance for all Orthodox Christians, about its [holy] initial sanction, about its beneficial actions for all of Orthodox Russia. 19 [August] Lord! I thank You for the heavenly peace that I tasted immediately after communion of the Holy Mysteries. But forgive me that I was troubled in spirit at the sight of a sinful and mortal man and, like me, insignificant in the face of Thy majestic glory, during such a sublime service as the liturgy, during the reading of the prayer behind the pulpit! Having consumed the Holy Gifts, I calmed down, and even earlier, during the water-blessing prayer, I cheerfully read the entire water-blessing prayer. There is a seed of aphids in me, sin; this seed feeds and grows and is strengthened by gluttony and satiety, covetousness, worldly pleasures, praise, and is uprooted and dies from fasting, vigil and prayer, labor, non-covetousness, simple food, and humiliation. There is no deep, heartfelt piety in me. But hear what the Lord says about a wise man: he dug, he went deep [Lk. 6, 48]. And you will acquire deep piety, not destroyed by anything, by any temptations: neither deprivation of property, nor dishonor; neglect your belly and your body, do not worry about it, but worry only about piety, about mutual love, about meekness, gentleness, humility. Look, brethren, at the faces of the prophets, apostles, hierarchs, martyrs, saints, unmercenaries, the righteous and all the saints: they constantly serve as our denouncers of our carnal, sinful life. They were people subservient to us, but they loved God above all else, they loved and lived a heavenly life on earth, they cut off passions, fulfilled every virtue, and now they are eternally consoled. Why are we [...] passionate about earthly, transitory, momentary blessings? Why do we be malicious, hate, envy, be proud? Why self-interest? lust? The demonic fortress is within me. Holy Mighty! Destroy her with Your mercy. The evil thorns of passions are in the souls of all peace lovers, preventing them from seeing light and peace, and in my accursed soul this thorn has multiplied more than all others and does not allow me to see the light of God and peace of heart. In God is the peace of my soul. With ancient kindness 111 imagine 112 me, Lord! Oh, how desirable is this kindness! Kill the old man within you who is seeking to destroy your immortal soul. God! I have sinned without number, I am sinning - and You accepted a cruel punishment for me from the truth of God! Grant me to continually execute the old man within me. Newspapers, secular magazines, secular books do not teach us to be Christians, and how to fulfill this high calling, and what high life is like on this earthly earth, how to please God, and so on. This is what the Holy Scripture, the Church, and all books of sacred content teach us. And many do not read these latest books, reading only secular ones. So, the educated do not learn to live like a Christian, and their life little by little takes on a pagan hue, and they do the same things as the pagans, according to the word of the Lord 113. Having the Lord Himself within me, what else do I want to have? I have everything. What's wrong with being afraid? Nothing, for in the Lord and with the Lord I have everything. Let my evil flesh be silent and let it not look for an excuse for malice, for it is full. I thank the Lord for the heavenly peace that I received upon communion of the Divine Mysteries during the Liturgy, and for the destruction of the machinations of the adversary, of which there were many during Matins and partly the Liturgy. I thank the Lord for destroying the machinations of the adversary and his terrible cramped conditions that befell me at home before leaving for the gymnasium to serve a prayer service before teaching. The power of God instantly threw away the adversaries from me, who had consumed me with evil despondency and shame on my face. I thank the Lord for the cheerful delivery of the speech to the pupils and for the bold and loud service of prayer; I only stumbled a little twice when reading the Gospel about children and at the end of the Blessing of Water prayer. I thank the Lord with all my heart for the grace and strength bestowed upon my unworthiness through my prayer. I need to fast, but I don’t fast, you damned sensualist. At two o'clock today I baptized my neighbor in Sinebrykhov's kitchen, and was greatly tempted and scolded by an incorporeal enemy. I just began to baptize - at the very first prayer I stumbled from the thought put in by the devil, who was afraid that behind open doors they were eavesdropping on how and what I was reading - as if I was reading something secret or unworthy - the Sinebryukhovs, towards whom I am very distrustful and unfavorable, especially towards Mikhail Nikolaevich himself; and now false shame and fear killed me outright, deprived me of all courage, boldness, and flooded my entire being with darkness, humiliation, fire, and crampedness; I tried to read the same thing several times and stopped again, because the power of the enemy presented me with an insurmountable barrier; I, unfortunately, had just dined on a quick meal, quite heavy: meat pies, cabbage soup with fresh cabbage and a glass of milk. Because of this terrible temptation I could not finish my prayers and had to stop reading. But rightly so, the enemy tore me to pieces by God’s permission: this is my punishment for the fact that I did not go to baptize before lunch, as they were called, but went after lunch; secondly, for partiality and laboriousness in the work of God: here persons should not be known, rich or poor, - God’s work must be done calmly, boldly before every person, before the king himself, and we must remember the greatness and importance of the priestly rank, which is the rank of Christ and the apostle. Well, Satan called me back! Last night I happily ate a fair amount of sweet and sour bread with butter and Swiss cheese and didn't take a walk after the appetizer; This morning, excess and sweetness caused me a lot of grief: I was extremely irritable and angry with the sexton for his absurd outburst, that is, in singing, bless the name of the Lord, father; I was upset, as if from a great insult, and could not serve in peace. One note: the devil extremely easily tempts us to evil when our stomach is full or when there is an excess of vital seeds in our sides. Therefore, in the evening you should always not eat or eat a little white bread. Yesterday's bread still makes my sides feel heavy. A fighter against invisible, experienced, never-sleeping, evil enemies needs to abstain from everything and not get carried away with sweets, clothes, or self-interest, for all this is the adversary’s trap, a fishing rod. I tell the sexton: control your voice, don’t be nonsense, but I myself can’t control my heart - and I’m angry. What's more important? Nonsense (dissonance) of the voice or enthusiasm of the heart? Oh, I am a damned Pharisee! All because of the external, because of the physical, the devil teaches me to do his will: to be angry, to envy, to be indignant, and, having caught me in his net in an insidious way, he himself torments me, bringing upon me crampedness, embarrassment, shame, darkness. To despise appearance when the inner is in danger because of it. (Damanov sent his sister-in-law to the gymnasium on salary. But she smells of nihilism.) Liturgy. Again and again, I thank the Lord tenfold for the unfaltering, firm, peaceful celebration of the Liturgy from beginning to end (the whole royal house firmly pronounced it) and for the non-judgmental acceptance of the Holy Mysteries with a feeling of Divine warmth in the mouth and in the insides. I spent the first two classes at the gymnasium safely in the story of the Dormition of the Mother of God. But when will I completely lose interest in everything earthly? Oh, how much I have suffered and am suffering because of worldly addictions! I was very embarrassed today (Friday) when I saw cream, cow's milk and bread rolls on the table, when recently it was just lunch! Yadyahu, piyahu [Russian: ate, drank] [Lk. 17, 27 ]! Temptation, and that’s all! It won't be good for your home either. The life of the old man is money and sweets, clothes, the honor of this world, and when someone deprives us of them in any way, we become indignant, rage, are beside ourselves, forget God and His Fatherly Providence, and fall away from love for God and neighbor. And a person full of grace is calm in all the hardships and worries of this world: even if he has to lose everything, he does not become discouraged and does not despair, although he grieves somewhat, for he knows that there is nothing permanent in the world, that only God, the Angels, and our souls, created in the image of God, are eternal, and in the salvation of his soul he places all his wealth, in clinging to His law, in eating and drinking the Body and His blood; if God helps him to save some from vice and guide them on the path of truth, then in these saved ones he places his incorruptible, incorruptible wealth. Yet he looks at everything earthly: at sweets, at the splendor of clothes, houses, household utensils, at money, at household utensils, at brilliant distinctions, as if they were rubbish, as if they were ice houses that melt with the first rays of the spring sun. He constantly digs into the depths of his heart and lays the foundation of his faith deeper and deeper, so that neither wind, nor water, nor anything else could shake it. He does not know the sorrow of the age, despises wealth, does not indulge in worldly pleasures, for he knows that all this is a snare of the enemy. (It’s all because of food that the enemy is turning me over - he envied the spilling of earthly blessings on a fast day, the savory food!) Oh, what an evil demon was given to me from my youth! How he haunts me! When will I cleave completely to You, Lord, and will not pay attention to sweets, will not regret, will not envy the tuna of the brothers eating at my table? Let them eat and drink the meager food - they will be better satisfied, sooner and with less quantity. Do not be jealous of those who are evil: those who are evil will be consumed, but those who endure the Lord will inherit the earth [Russian: for those who do evil will be destroyed, but those who trust in the Lord will inherit the earth] [Ps. 36, 9]. How the enemy beats us, attacks us with worldly addictions! Doesn't give me peace. And what peace, what bliss - to cleave to the Lord with an undivided heart! He who is partial to earthly goods constantly offends himself, although no one offends him, and cries when no one hits him, has countless and incessant [reasons] for enmity, envy, stinginess, and anger. Today in the gymnasium, an evil sin incited me against Father Pavel Lamanov because he sent his sister-in-law Alexandra Petrovna to the Kronstadt girls’ gymnasium, and I was sinful, wrong in this. What do I care about their affairs? If she is a nihilist, she herself will reap the fruits of her nihilism: God will enlighten her, and they will not ask me to answer for her. If a brother is stupid, you shouldn’t hate him for it: stupidity is characteristic of every person, including myself. We are all stupid about life, for we are sinners and sin constantly. If your brother has sinned in any way, forgive him. God commands mutual love and heavenly residence on earth; the devil constantly incites hostility, and mostly due to addiction to earthly goods. I thank You, Lady, for in my sorrow, and in a demonic situation, and in the overwhelm, and crampedness, and shame of passions, You quickly stood for me through my prayer before Your Tikhvin icon in the evening. Oh, jam, oh, sweets! Our soul gets bogged down in sweets, like in snares. How to call upon saints in prayer? - So that you yourself have a sincere desire and intention to imitate their virtues: meekness, gentleness, love of God, prayer, patience, abstinence, non-covetousness, vigilance, and so on. How to call on the Lord? - Having a strong intention to fulfill His holy will. Passions extremely narrow the horizons of the soul and its life. And an impartial person hovers in the endless spaces of the sky and ascends with his mind to the third heaven. Why will I begin to thank You, Lord, my Joy, my Triumph, my Strong Warrior and Victorious, my Generous Giver? I thank You first for the victory over invisible enemies, for the victorious service of today’s Matins, for peace, freedom and triumph of the spirit: behold, the enemies rose up and confused me - and Your Spirit scattered them, and I got rid of their snares. He pronounced the great litany loudly, calmly, solemnly; the canon read in a solemn voice; he spoke the litany calmly and expressively; I read the entire prayer to Christ, the True Light, loudly and solemnly. Secondly, I thank You for your wondrous and new providence for Your poor, for through Your servant Stepanov (Salotop) You bestowed generous alms. A never-ending eye, looking down on all our deeds! thank you. Know all needs, glory to You! O Divine Liturgy! O sweetest, most peaceful, all-purifying, all-healing liturgy! O highest service on earth—liturgy! O angelic concelebration - liturgy! O most heavenly liturgy! O world-wide service-liturgy! O propitiation for the sins of the whole world - liturgy! O expression of the Father's love for the world - liturgy! O demonstration of the amazing obedience of the Son to the Father - liturgy! Oh, the sacrifice of the Son, all submissive to the Father, for the sins of the world - liturgy! O Holy Spirit triumph, power and action - liturgy! O glory to those above and below - the liturgy! How worthily I will reward and praise you, liturgy, the highest service on earth that adores the Christian race! Every tongue is perplexed to praise you, liturgy, with dignity. O eternal blessing of God - the liturgy! Glory to our God for you forever and ever. Amen. I thank the Lord, who again delighted me with His Divine Liturgy and gave me the grace to perform it without stumbling (during the invocation of the Holy Spirit, the enemy disturbed the soul) and to receive communion with undoubted faith, in the peace of the soul and the health of the body. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the snares of the enemy (after eating jam) through the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos. Our true, life-giving sweetness is Jesus Christ, the wine and source of all sweets; but earthly sweets are deceptive and, like sweetened poison, they often hide death for the soul and body or the bait of an incorporeal enemy, with which he traps us into great sins. Today, like a robber, I was furious with my wife internally for communicating our mutual displeasure to my sister Anna and Grigory Ivanovich Tsvetkov. If it weren't for shame, I would have beaten her. I have sinned before the Lord; I am still a sinful, passionate person, Christianity has not yet been implanted in the depths of my heart; I have not yet been renewed, it is still old kvass, and not a new mixture. I thank the Lord, who reconciled us after two hours of mutual displeasure and disagreement. It is dangerous to caress a servant other than your wife: jealousy is as strong as death. Here, unbelieving people, intoxicated with earthly pleasures, do not feel their orphanhood without the Savior; but how will they feel their orphanhood when, with their earthly life, all the earthly blessings with which they blessed themselves here are taken away from them! Terrible orphanhood: no consolation, no joy, no help. In Anna Konstantinovna’s present situation, be as kind to her as possible. Our ambition and pride are revealed in the fact that we grieve, become faint-hearted, become angry, and weaken our souls when others dishonor us, rightly or unjustly. The humble is calm in honor and dishonor, avoids human praise, is not indignant at their reproach, because he is pure before God and knows that God is his righteous Judge, and every man is a lie [Ps. 115, 2]. When you see human beauty, ascend to the beauty of the Lord and say: Jesus, Most Bright Beauty, keep me uncorrupted by corruptible beauty. Do not allow your heart to be wounded by any other love: this love is from the enemy. I mean substance and carnal love. When receiving unfair and caustic reprimands from the diocesan superior, one must arm oneself with patience and humility, kindness and not always look for excuses, for this justification, or a strong desire to get away with it, is often a matter of pride. [We remember] the One who, being slandered... did not slander each other... but handed it over to the Just Judge [1 Pet. 2, 23]. Be patient when the Lord hits you with unrighteous humiliation and shame through someone. It is unjust for this, but it is righteous for another offense to accuse you and cause you grief for your countless insults to the Lord. If you are right before God in what you are accused of, for which you are dishonored, then rest assured: God will justify you. Ignore the unrighteous, bilious human abuse, even if the archpastor spewed it out. And obstinate leaders must be obeyed for the sake of Christ, who endured all obstinacy from people. It is not men, but God who will judge us. For sweets - bitterness. Drink wormwood as a medicine. There is only one God - a faithful friend of my soul, who always exudes peace, light, freedom to me, when I walk right before him, and people are crafty and evil, and one should not always value their opinion; on the contrary, sometimes one must reprove mercilessly, so that the wise do not appear among themselves, especially the powerful and rich of the world. And during public prayer in the face of the powerful of the world, one must have especially boldness and bearing. Have mercy for the weaknesses of the Right Reverend: he too is a man subject to temptation, fought by invisible enemies and sometimes overwhelmed by passions; and he drinks the cup of Adam, bears the yoke of sin. 23 [August] Lord! I thank Thee, for Thou hast now delivered my soul from the underworld of hell, when, as I was leaving home for the liturgy in the Duma church, due to the action of the enemy, my heart fell into evil despondency and anger towards my family and was oppressed by my sins everywhere. Long and earnest prayer before and during the liturgy for my mercy inclined You to mercy, and in cramped conditions You gave me space, turned fear into boldness, powerlessness into strength, death into life, darkness into light, anger into goodness and love, coldness into fire, Your anger turned into mercy. The royal house spoke with boldness and served the entire liturgy with warmth. I read the pulpit calmly, but missed two or three words out of doubt. At the thanksgiving service, I read the Gospel calmly, but I read the prayer of thanksgiving under strong slander from the spirits of evil and with my face turned to the left towards the icon of the Mother of God; it seemed that the sexton Vasily Kutuzov was looking at me maliciously, but he, warm-hearted, was not at all to blame, and the expression on his face was simple, humble, kind. Believe the enemy's dreams. I thank the Most Holy Lady Theotokos, who quickly heard me and mercifully saved me from the sin that began to overwhelm me after evening prayer. I thank the Lord, who has graciously protected me even this day from my sins, which gored me like thorns in the morning. The Lord's unceasing mercy is upon me, unceasing salvation. The Lord is always at my right hand. Grant, Lord, that we sincerely hate every sin and remain faithful to You. Everything earthly is insignificant before a person, and therefore nothing should be spared by a person who needs anything to satisfy the necessary needs of nature: food, drink, clothing, housing, no matter how expensive they are, and a person should not cling to anything, because everything earthly is unworthy of him. God, those close to his soul, heaven, Angels, heavenly life - this is what should be the object of his love. And I envied my brother, who eagerly ate marinated salmon as his first course, but I don’t regret it for myself. Lord Lover of Mankind! Through Thy love earthly blessings are given to me. Teach me, generously, to give to my neighbors with love, especially to give to my family. A terrible thing: a greedy person usually always notices greed in others, suspects them of greed, internally and sometimes externally reproaches them for greed; a fornicator suspects another of fornication, a thief of stealing, an evil one of deceit, an evil person of malice, an envious person of envy. Grant me, Lord, a carefree life regarding food and drink and pluck away this earthly thorn that stings me and forces me to feel sorry for the earthly sweets of my brethren. Grant me the heavenly sting, so that I may be continually stung by the desire for the heavenly, eternal sweets of Your Kingdom. I see that with the sting of earthly love the enemy seeks to destroy me and through me many, but the sting of heavenly love will save me, and through me many. The sting of carnal love, carnal pleasures, earthly possessions, earthly adornments, kill within me, O Lord! The brother needs no more food and drink today than he needed yesterday and the third day and beyond. What do you think about the increasing food-eating need in him and do you consider yourself ruined by it? This is the dream of the devil, out of malice and envy, sparing all blessings to man, God’s dearest creation on earth, redeemed by His own most pure, priceless Blood. And you yourself also eat the Body of God and drink the Blood of God, and so often! How senseless and ungrateful you are! What a strong passion for sweets! Even the sound of tea glasses and saucers outrages us when we cannot drink tea ourselves, while others must eat and drink our (especially God’s) goodness. Yes, all this is not mine: I should be glad that I cannot eat and drink for work and do not satisfy the greedy flesh, which often demands to eat and drink when it is not necessary. This is everything that I am so afraid of, everything is alien to me; but what is dear to me is truly and eternally mine - my soul, the souls of my neighbors, my God, the Most Holy Theotokos, the Angels, all the saints - according to Christ our God, they are all mine. Remember that the ever-watchful Providence of God is extended over your relatives in your homeland, and do not worry about them excessively; but duty requires you to take care of your relatives after your wife, with whom you received all the great blessings: the priesthood, and a rich place, and honor and glory in the parish. Let brother Alexey be like your father, sister Anna like your mother. Without your worries, the Lord has generously provided for you for fifteen years of your priesthood, so that you did not need anything, and helped your family in everything. Remember how easily you get everything from earthly goods and how you yourself do a lot of useless and harmful work to think and feel sorry for earthly goods, fulfilling only the dreams of the devil and fulfilling his malice, envy, stinginess, greed, and so on. Forgive your neighbors small, material debts, and the Lord will forgive you great, spiritual debts: the multitude of your sins. The simplicity and gentleness with which we treat people at home depends on the simplicity and gentleness with which we treat people, and if at home we are passionate and angry, then when we are with people we are also angry. This is the whole wisdom and merit of a Christian, to reject all earthly passions, to despise sweets, self-interest, earthly beauty, earthly glory, for, having despised all this, we will conveniently love God with all our hearts and our neighbor as ourselves, and we will not have occasions to be indignant, oppressed, or despondent. As a Christian, as a priest, you must have a special, spiritual wisdom than the laity, who philosophize most about the carnal and worldly. In the world it is considered a loss and loss when our neighbors, for example relatives or acquaintances, stay with us for a long time, eat and drink ours, and because of this there is often mutual displeasure and enmity, as has happened and is happening to you; You must henceforth consider as an acquisition everything given and done for your neighbors, for all this is done for those created in the image and likeness of God, for those redeemed by the Blood of Christ, for the members of Christ, for whom the Lord will reward, saying: just as you did it to one of these... you did it to Me. And whoever gives you a cup of water to drink... will not lose his reward [Matt. 25, 40; Mk. 9, 41]. In the world, giving money, clothing, and other things to the poor is considered a loss—consider it a great gain: the opposite happens in a spiritual relationship than in a worldly, carnal relationship. What the world considers a gain is a loss for the spirit, and vice versa. What is forgivable for the laity is not forgivable for you, the priest: it is forgivable for them to worry about the things of this world, for you, who are provided for by God, it is unforgivable: you must constantly philosophize on high, think and care about the salvation of your soul and the souls of the people entrusted to you. You must be an earthly angel, a heavenly man every day. Look at the example of the saints: they lived heavenly on earth and therefore, after death, they were honored with the Kingdom of Heaven and became heavenly citizens in the eternal city of the Almighty. I thank the Lord, who has given me the grace to perform the Divine Liturgy together without stumbling with my heart and lips and to take communion without condemnation, into the world of my spiritual strength, with a feeling of life-giving fire, and to read the prayer behind the pulpit without stumbling. But at the prayer service, due to my carelessness and foolishness, I was cruelly wounded by the enemy through thoughts regarding the archpriest. For a long time I begged the Lord to leave my momentary anger and contempt, 114 planted in my heart by the enemy during my inner prayer for my father, the archpriest, so that he would be a father to both the clergy and the flock, especially the poor. The Lord has forgiven me. I thank the Lord, who saved me from the snares of the enemy (greed and stinginess, pity of sweets), when I, having tasted a little of the jam brought for tea, went to serve the all-night vigil on the mountain in Galkinskaya Street, in the house of Mironov to the officer Nikolai Ivanovich. My face was covered with shame, I could not look directly at people, but when I entered the house and prayed before the icons for mercy on me, I received forgiveness from the Lord and the Queen of Heaven. God! Teach me to always firmly resist the old man that exists in me, and not to allow cowardice, despondency, gloominess, envy, malice, pride, fornication, false shame, demonic fear, embarrassment, greed, stinginess, lust, love of money, ambition, laziness, vanity, gloating, murmuring and others to reach my heart. sins. There is nothing to be despondent about, but the envious enemy induces dreamy despondency, as if my goods are stolen and squandered, although I have enough of everything by the grace of God. Even if, by God’s permission, I had lost everything from people or even from my own people, or if I had fallen into grave sin, through the weakness and treachery of the enemy, then I should not lose heart at all, for the Lord is with me, abundantly merciful, generous, omnipotent, omnipresent, righteous. Desire and try in every possible way to be enriched by one highest good - the grace of God: with it you have everything and you will acquire everything. Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you [Matt. 6, 33]. (I was upset with the Tsvetkovs that they were staying for a long time - and this was my greed speaking out; know this in the future. Kill this devilish indignation and do not regret anything.) My mercy, Lord, even hitherto have mercy on me, a sinner. Long-suffering, I thank Thee, I praise Thee. Generously, I thank Thee, as I, the stingy one, do not cease to lavish with earthly and heavenly blessings. If I were poor and would give from the last to my neighbor, and then I should not feel sorry, greedy, but willingly give the last to my neighbor, trusting in God, the common Trustee of all; But I have good income, plenty, I am full of any food every day, I am dressed in luxury, I have something to send to my mother and relatives - why am I greedy, stingy, stingy? I am irresponsible. I received freely, and I must give freely, without regretting it. We are all members of one another, and we are all members of Christ. Seven o'clock in the evening. I thank the Lord, who at this moment, through my prayer, saved me from the temptation of greed and pity, embarrassment and distress, and took away the shame from my face, and protected my soul with peace. I thank the Lord for my salvation this morning, when I was tempted by the same stinginess and was in extreme confusion and distress and shame from indignation at the long stay of my guests. I went to the gymnasium, repenting internally and praying to the Lord for mercy, and upon entering the gymnasium, I was pardoned by God and tasted the sweet peace of heaven. What a stirring of passions! How long, Lord, will the evil habit haunt me? When will I rise above the earth and will it be trampled underfoot? Until I love You irrevocably with all my heart and with all my soul and my neighbor as myself? Until I kill the old man, or selfishness, in myself. Only on the ruins of self-love can love for God and neighbor be firmly founded, and as long as I love myself, that is, my many-passionate flesh, it is still impossible to love God with all my heart and my neighbor as myself. Crucify her. Slaughter and eat [Acts. 10, 13], that is, kill the old man - and you will taste the world, taste - and you will see that the Lord is good [Ps. 33, 9]. Kill anger, envy, greed, stinginess; away from property (for everything is God’s); kill fornication, lust, love of money, self-will, disobedience, vain shame, vain fear, despondency, murmuring, despair - and you will be a man of God, and not your own, not a man of this world. Oh, my all-evil, passionate flesh! How she daily displays her greed for sweets under the guise of a legitimate demand of nature and entices me to eat and drink when it is not necessary, and arms me against my fellow diners, who have the same right to this meal as I do! Oh, may it be my pleasure to forever resist the flesh, laugh at its whims and whims, and humble it through fasting, vigil, prayer, and reading the Divine Scriptures! May I crucify her without mercy, my villain, the nest of the devil! May I rejoice in God, my Savior, my eternal Sweetness, my eternal Life! May I not grieve or be discouraged by the waste or loss of material sweets or money! My Lord is inexhaustible wealth, an edge-cut stone, flowing out in abundance the water of life and all blessings, who makes the poor and enriches, humiliates and exalts... kills and gives life [1 Sam. 2, 7, 6]. May I remain faithful to Him until death, doing His commandments, loving Him and my neighbor. Know that you are the greediest of all, and you should regret and repent of your greed, and not of the greed of your companions. Recognize your illness and turn your rage on yourself. See the sting of the serpent in your heart and in your flesh, and with all your heart seek the sting of Divine, heavenly, eternal love. The flesh, like smoke, will disappear with all its pleasures, its selfishness, its beauty. Satan broke me today because of my gluttony, voluptuousness, satiety, greed, did not allow me to read prayers at the public school of the Wisdom of the Mentor... confused, crushed, crowded... Since yesterday evening I ate sweet and sour bread with butter, part of the herring, drank too much tea... today three glasses of tea, sweet and sour bread, crackers [box.] from the hand of brother Konstantin - and disaster... And the morning madness over sweets: poured jam from a jug into a jar... How long is this madness?.. Abstinence! Fast! Rejection of infant toys! May I be strong in spirit! Jesus returned after fasting in spiritual strength [Lk. 4, 14]. Fasting gives strength to the spirit. Gluttony leads the soul to powerlessness. (Lord! grant me to trust in You alone, to cleave to You alone, to love You alone with all my heart, and not to worry about worldly things - for to the priest who seeks the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, everything will be added from Your all-encompassing Providence. Let Satan not break me apart.) Tea and braiding my hair together greatly weaken my nerves; gloomy weather too. No matter who and no matter how you are deprived of God’s material gifts, humbly submit to the will of God: do not grumble, do not be hostile to those who take them, but say: The Lord gave, the Lord has also taken away... blessed be the name of the Lord [Job. 1, 21], and keep love. Wonderful thing! I was greedy for jam, I thought that the Tsvetkovs were encroaching on mine without touching theirs, but instead Anna Konstantinovna gave us a pot of her jam. Oh, how moderately and indifferently one should eat sweets! To the glory of the Sweetest Lord, Who is all sweetest Love and commanded us to love, so that in love we may taste His gifts and share them with each other. I thank You, Lord, for Your speedy salvation, which You surprised me at this hour of the morning (seven o’clock), when I cried out to You internally for salvation from enmity against my brother Alexei. I bowed three times in the kitchen before the icons - and the Lord forgave, and brought peace after the storm, and space after the cramped conditions. (Pretext for hostility: the brother went into the latrine, locked himself and sat on the seat and smoked.) The Lord God is our life: firmly grasp this life with faith and love and do not let it go. Yesterday I sinned before God and people: I tore out the hair of two beggars; we need to appease them. The Church clothes me in such splendor, internal and external, during services and outside, and places me on such a height that I cannot help but love her with tenderness and sincerity, like a mother, like the immaculate bride of Christ, and not fulfill her statutes and commandments. It would be pointless and ungrateful. We expect eternal life, but we do not want to deny ourselves, although we know that true life lies in self-sacrifice, for only on the ruins of self-love does sincere love for God and neighbor bloom. Self-love constantly stings us with the mortal sting - and we do not come to our senses, we would rather be hurt, just to love ourselves and the world. We want to enter (make our way) into heaven with our sweets, and with our wealth, and with our luxury, and with our hardness of heart towards God and our neighbors. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God [1 Cor. 15, 50]. The kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit [Rom. 14, 17]. I thank the Lord, who has vouchsafed me to perform the Divine Liturgy, to partake without condemnation of the Divine Mysteries, and to say with feeling the word of Levanda 115 about the remembrance of death: “Tell me, Lord, my death [Ps. 38, 5]". At the royal house, at the great entrance, he stumbled from internal weakness and nervous irritation. At a prayer service at Balabanov's during the all-night vigil, the sexton Kutuzov was indignant in spirit at the exaggerated imagination of ignorance during a snack at Semyon Nikitich's in Sidorov's house in Krasn. street. Some unimportant shortcomings must be covered and tolerated with love. His general spirit and character are good: he is meek, obedient, efficient - and that’s enough. What do I demand from a person? And what is he like? How I still imagined my brother Alexei to be greedy and insatiable, while I myself am greedy and insatiable! How did I until now, due to the action of the enemy, sit gloomy at a meal with my own people?.. How did I humiliate those created in the image and likeness of God and the members of Christ and mine and the children of God?.. Lord! make us wise to live according to Your will, like Your children!.. Grant us peace and love, meekness, humility, kindness, patience, abstinence!.. Sunday. Early mass. Prayer on the fortieth day before mass. I was upset that it was not on time; punishment - fire, cramped conditions. We must joyfully call upon the name of the Lord at all times, for this is our Life. Before mass for sexton Peter Al. I was very upset that I was flirting in front of the mirror; the devil's malice and his terrible incitement: completely consumed; terrible cramped conditions, embarrassment; barely a sincere prayer of repentance saved me. Lenten food, especially Lenten pies, have a terribly bad effect on me: my nerves are extremely low, I feel irritable, and feel enormous anger. I gave two beggars today (August 29 evening), one thirty-five kopecks for a shirt, the other twenty kopecks. What will happen? Early mass. I thank the Lord, who deigned me to perform the Divine Liturgy without stumbling and to partake in the world of spiritual powers, with a feeling of life-giving warmth in my heart and throughout my being, without condemnation of the Divine Mysteries of the Body and Blood, and who delivered me from the annoying slander of the spirit of malice, and who took away the anger towards the deacon, and who internally reconciled with him. He did not embitter me in any way, did not offend me, but the spirit of malice aroused anger against him for his great coquetry in front of the mirror. Do not commit this sin to him and me, Lord! Grant us, Lord, to look more often at the inner face of our soul, so that we may see its sinful ugliness, and may we strengthen ourselves to return to it its original kindness, and may we not be jealous and envy each other in appearance, for the external passes away like smoke. God! I thank You for quickly hearing the inner cry of my heart and for saving me from the uncleanness of my heart (at eight o’clock in the evening). God! I thank You for delivering me through my prayer from the spirit of malice, which, out of my envy and malice, got me drunk during the prayer service during the annual service in the girls’ gymnasium, performed by the teacher of the law, Archpriest Pavel Nikolaevich Lamanov. Inwardly I envied him and in my heart I called him crafty and cunning. To the evil one everyone seems evil. God knows everyone's inner being. What does the devil seek, what is his intention (intention) when he, confusing and shaking the soul with fear and doubt and various pities of corruptible things or malice and envy, produces in us muteness and voicelessness during the priestly service? That intention is so that we do not glorify God, do not remember our death, about judgment beyond the grave, about the eternal fate of the righteous and sinners, about the insignificance of earthly goods, so that we do not proclaim the truth of God, but speak and create only lies: here, I suppose, it will not clamp our hearts and lips so that we cannot speak, but on the contrary, it will open our hearts and lips wide, will in every possible way incite us to tell lies, words insolence, blasphemy, murmuring, despondency, or foul and prodigal words. Oh, wretched people we are, how willing we are to everything bad and how slow and resistant to everything good and good! So, man, cry out loudly the words of truth, praise, and thanksgiving at home, in the church, in society. Commas (Church Glav.) - to stain. Contempt (Church Slavic) – contempt, neglect, disobedience, obstinacy. Nardevanie (Church Slavic) – full ripening (about fruits, abscesses). Oud (Church Slavic) – a member of the body. Kindness (Church Glav.) – attractive appearance, beauty; inner perfection, kindness, good nature, goodness, mercy; greatness, glory. Imagine (Church Glorious) – to restore the previous image. Wed: don’t the pagans do the same (Russian: Don’t the pagans do the same?) (Matthew 5:47). Levanda Ioann Vasilyevich (1734–1814) – archpriest of the Kiev St. Sophia Cathedral, famous preacher; over two hundred of his sermons were published. You might be interested in: