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At a christening in Golovarev’s house at a soldier’s house (the successor is a German, the baron’s maid [G...]). For some time I could not read prayers well, calmly, without hesitation; Finally I forced myself - and went to read out loud. Why? Yesterday afternoon and in the evening, while walking a lot, I drank and ate a lot: sweetness and a lustful disposition reigned in my limbs. I sinned before God. Korovpanov’s prayer service with an akathist to the Intercession. Rejoice, our Joy, in several places I could not utter due to the resistance of the devil. He overcame himself by reciting. In the evening Palisadov was there: he drank tea and sherry and asked with impudence. Before going to bed, I sinned - I regretted earthly blessings for him, and the enemy cruelly hurt me for this: I could not sleep peacefully, I was bothered by a feeling of indignation and pity: indignation at the parasite, pity - the sweets and wine that I often eat and drink for nothing. It was as if he had come for the book. Thanks be to the Lord, who listened to my repeated prayer on my bed and had mercy on me for the fifth or sixth time. After all, I received and receive everything for free, I eat and drink for free, and sometimes I also like to treat myself at someone else’s expense. God is collecting a debt from me. It was in vain that I ate buckwheat porridge at night: it was like a burning fire inside me. In the morning I felt better: it is good for the body when eaten on time. At the same time, yesterday I was wounded by the enemy and by my evil custom with voluptuousness, selfishness and bitterness, when I regretted Palisadova’s evening treat and - alas! He left his Lord in his heart, counting sweets and money as God and relying on them and thinking to find life in them. For that he deservedly suffered. See sorrow and do not cleave to vanity. In order to dry up the love of God in the hearts of people, the devil opposed it with his own, sinful, carnal, or worldly, unclean, lawless love - the love of adulterers and fornicators, the love of money lovers for the soulless metal on which they place their hopes, the love of overeating and drunkards for delicacies and drinks, the love of spendthrifts and spendthrifts, and so on. Do not love the world, nor the things that are in the world (1 John 2:15)... For everything that is in the world: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not from the Father, but is of this world (from the devil) (1 John 2:16). Whoever loves the world does not have the love of the Father (1 John 2:15). I, the accursed one, belong to the number of lovers of the world, for I love the glory of this world, and the pleasure of food, and the adornment of clothing, and the beauty of the face, and the beauty of the home, and the wealth of this world, through which - alas! often, often, love for God and neighbor dries up or has already dried up. God! Change me by the change of Your Holy Spirit, so that I may not perish for the love of this world. (Love for the theater, or passion for it, also refers to the love of this world, and not to the love of the Father.) December 4, 1871 Saturday. I thank the Lord, who had mercy on me, the accursed one, when I fell to Him in heartfelt repentance in Paletsky’s house in Upper Shirokaya Street, where I was invited to a prayer service; I fell down in repentance that, in irritation with the beggar who was pursuing me, I shouted at him for a long time and barely gave him the amount he needed for boots (40 kopecks). The Lord took away the tightness and inner death from me, and gave me peace and life again. I glorify the goodness of God, mercy, long-suffering, good-will, and benevolence of the Lord of our life. Resurrection. With the help of God, I performed Matins and early mass safely. Christ, the True Light spoke without stumbling, but at the liturgy he could not say the name of the empress; the voice was generally unclean, as if the lungs were clogged. This evening I was at the German meeting of the Charity Committee, had the imprudence to smoke a cigar and generally behave in an unlenten manner. This echoed the next morning, during matins and early mass. When he sang stichera on Praise with the sexton, the enemy managed to sow grief in the heart of the sexton for his hasty, inattentive, irreverent singing; confused me extremely, as a result of which I could not calm down for a long time and could not utter prayers to Christ, the true Light, which saddened me terribly and plunged me into despondency, for it was in front of a multitude of people (a full church). At the proskomedia he could not say prayers under the protection of the Holy Gifts and prayers of offer and dismissal; I was in a hurry to start mass as soon as possible for the sake of the upcoming prayer services (and then I had to wait half an hour or more for the commander in the 1st wing, sailor); During mass I cried bitterly from the violence of the enemy (even now I cannot remember without tears about these minutes of God’s abandonment - oh! how bitter it was for me! Undoubtedly, where there are many people, there are more temptations for the priest! I was full of ulcers and embittered from my enemies, in trouble, cramped conditions, darkness, despondency, grief). But as the devil grieved me and I cried tears of sorrow, I felt that the spiritual serpent that was entwining me was leaving my heart, I received spiritual strength, my voice sounded light, clear, loud, like an organ. Only - alas! - how many weaknesses I have! The enemy would soon overthrow me again! Oh, what a victim of insult I was given to him. How fiercely the adversary tyrannized me! Everything was put into action, all satanic machinations, nothing was left out of sight - he took advantage of my physical and mental weaknesses and constrained me to the utmost. But the will of the Lord be done. This is according to my deeds, according to my sins! I'm worth it. After the Cherubic Song and after the Great Entrance, he performed mass safely, read the entire prayer behind the pulpit, served the prayer service safely, only at the Holy Gospel, I remember, he stumbled - he did not utter the last words due to the slander of the spirit of darkness. There were enough prayers yesterday and today outside the Church: God sent 30 rubles to the clergy. I thank God for providing for us! God! grant me the spirit of love when communicating with all my neighbors, especially subordinates and the poor: give me the spirit of meekness and gentleness when I notice the faults of a sexton or deacon or when frequent beggars ask for alms; give me the gift of abstinence and fasting and the memory of what little I need to maintain my mortal life or mortal body; let me willingly, peacefully, complacently, and tenderly give alms to Your poor, as to You Yourself! God! Your beggars have multiplied in this city and they are more than 103 for me than all the gobblers 104 in this city! build for them, in Thy providence, a House of industriousness for them, so that each of them earns food for themselves in this house through the labor of their hands! God! may these words be a miracle in my mouth, according to the action of Your almighty Providence, at the wave of Your creative right hand, may I glorify You again and again, may I thank You. December 6, 1871. Evening. Canon. A Christian poem in which the incarnation of the Son of God and his saving fruits for the human race are glorified with a joyful, solemn voice, as well as the miracles of the Son of God in the Old Testament, evidence of His everlasting, ubiquitous, all-good, wise and omnipotent Providence for the human race, in which, finally, the Author of the incarnation and the countless benefits that have come from the incarnation for the human race, the Most Holy One, is solemnly glorified Virgin Mary, Mother of the Lord. The bodiless enemy annoyed me in the prayer of Christ, the True Light - correct our feet to do Your commandments, enlighten us all, Lord, and correct our feet every time to do Your commandments, with the prayers of Your Most Pure Mother and all the saints, correct my heartfelt and bodily lips, so that I will never stumble in word or deed to the glory of the name Yours and for the salvation of me and Your people. Wake up! Pronounce the name of God with extreme reverence, remembering that God brought everything from non-existence into existence and everything that exists is contained in goodness solely by His goodness, His omnipotent power and wisdom. With extreme reverence, pronounce the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, by Him all things were and are governed, Who up to now carries everything that exists with His powerful word, produces the seasons and changes of the year - summer, autumn, winter and spring, produces all the fruits of the earth, populates the earth with animals, the air with birds, the seas, lakes and rivers with fish, multiplies the human race and satisfies it with all the good things, saves from sins and evil spirits and prepares mansions for those who love Him in the Kingdom of Heaven; Who until now brings out the luminaries to illuminate the earth or moderate the darkness of the night, who still pours out such life-giving air for the breathing of all living creatures, created such a wonderful property of fire that warms, burns and shines; an earth capable of revolving with the ease of an air bubble around such a huge luminary as the sun, and around itself, capable of growing, at His word, countless genera of plants; water, capable of being transformed into an innumerable variety of juices, in an innumerable variety of fruits, trees, shrubs and herbs. Our God is the God of miracles, the all-good, all-powerful, wise God, the God of mercy, generosity and love for mankind. Who is a great god like our God? [Ps. 76, 14]. Pronounce with reverence the name of the Most Pure Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Ever-Virgin Mary, who gave birth to Him for our salvation: through Her we have been granted countless blessings from the goodness of the Lord: forgiveness of sins, sanctification, enlightenment, renewal, deification, deliverance from eternal death, elevation to heaven, adoption to God, deification and eternal life. Pronounce with reverence the names of Christ’s apostles, witnesses and His servants, who carried His Divine teaching throughout the world and planted on earth the saving faith of Christ, the faith of renewal and salvation; the names of the martyrs who were born with their blood into eternal life; the saints, who through the exhaustion of their bodies exhausted sin and passion within themselves and achieved blessed renewal and eternal life; unmercenaries who, through their lack of covetousness, have acquired the priceless treasure of the Spirit and the eternal life, and all the saints. Where did the word and deed of the all-night vigil come from? – From the words of the Savior: watch and pray, so that you do not fall into misfortune [Matt. 26, 41; Mk. 14:38], and: if the master of the church had known at what hour the thief would come, he would have been vigilant and would not have allowed his house to be broken into [Lk. 12, 39]. Watch out, for you do not know the hour of the day, in the same place the Son of Man will come [Matt. 25, 13]. And from the words of the Gospel about Jesus Christ: I spent the whole night in prayer to God [Lk. 6, 12]. The present life is a minute compared to the future life. Do we want to take advantage of one minute of pleasure to forget God and eternity? Silver lovers! Come to your senses! Overeating and drunkards! Come to your senses! Ambitious people! Wake up! My soul, my soul, arise, what are you writing off? The end is approaching 105. In our dealings with people, it often happens that at first or for the first time we are sincere and respectful, kind to each other, and then, as a result of various clashes or simply due to the inconstancy of our hearts, we grow cold towards each other or one of us and finally become completely indifferent (indifferent). The same is observed in the attitude of people towards God. At other times, for example, in illness, sorrow, misfortune, need, they are ardent towards God, and when they are healthy, cheerful, happy, rich, noble, then they grow cold towards Him, do not pray to Him, do not thank Him, and do not visit the church of His saint. But if we are offended by human coldness, human neglect, although perhaps we have not deserved their respect, love and gratitude, then isn’t our coldness towards Him offensive to God, isn’t it worthy of His righteous anger? - for we owe God infinitely every minute, because in Him we live and move and have our being [Acts. 17, 28]. And yet how common is coldness towards God among people, as if they do not depend on Him for anything, as if they owe everything to themselves! Verily, the Lord will vomit out of His mouth [Rev. 3, 16] such people. Oh, grant us, Lord, constant ardor for You! And for this, grant us the grace to be cold towards the blessings of this world, for ardent attachment to them freezes our hearts towards You. December 7th day, 1871. I thank the Lord for the unfaltering celebration of the early liturgy for the deceased Nicholas (relative of [Ch...]) Dimidenko and for the uncondemned communion of His Holy, Most Pure and Life-Giving Mysteries. I thank the Lord for the opportunity to pray - for four prayer services (one in the church and three outside it: at Bazhenov’s in the shop and chapel and at Murashev Gerasim’s house in the shop). Clouds of beggars - who hasn’t seen?.. Who hasn’t seen that among them there are many young and healthy people, presenting a very pitiful figure in their extremely dirty and tattered clothes, shaking at the threshold of the church or at the fences in anticipation of some passing benefactor?.. (But has everyone delved into it?) Who hasn’t seen among them many children of both sexes, presenting the same pitiful spectacle of poverty and homelessness?.. And who can imagine the whole picture of Kronstadt poverty? But has anyone delved into, thought of the true reason for such a multitude and such poverty of beggars in Kronstadt?.. Probably, many either had no time to figure out the reasons for this evil, because everyone brings up their own goals, their own pleasures, or many stopped at the thought that poverty is an inevitable evil of all cities, not excluding villages, and many citizens probably did not have to see the full picture of Kronstadt poverty, a picture that is far from pleasant. So allow me, honorable citizens, to focus your high attention on these reasons and on this picture of poverty. We all need this. First, let's look at the reasons. There are many reasons for these, the main ones: the poverty of the region in which the poor initially lived; here are the main ones: poverty from birth, poverty from orphanhood, poverty from various calamities, poverty from inability to work due to old age or illness, or disability, or young age; poverty from lost place; poverty from laziness (for some), poverty from addiction to intoxicating drinks, and in most cases from lack of labor and lack of means with which to take up work: decent clothes, shoes, daily bread, tools. (All these reasons for poverty.) But why are there especially many beggars in Kronstadt? Why are there so many poor townsfolk in Kronstadt?.. This is also worth delving into. The most venerable capital, our brilliant neighbor, cleans up its rubbish, which is unnecessary for it, and gives it to us. Why exactly to us? - Because we don’t have palaces in Kronstadt: you can’t send beggars to Rambov, Peterhof and other palace cities to live - there are palaces there, but there are no palaces in Kronstadt - you can come here; and now the most venerable Chamber, without hesitation, accepts and accepts all the homeless beggary in Kronstadt, and in Kronstadt over time there were so many beggars that [sometimes there are countless numbers] - clouds, just clouds. Do you want to make sure?.. Go out on Saturday morning and admire them in Gostiny Dvor and all the streets: on this day they collect alms, like on a collection day, on which there is a quarter of a kopeck in some places, rarely a penny (if you please, collect at least ten kopecks a day). However, so that poverty does not greatly disturb the eyes of the public and does not terrify them with its large numbers, the police seize it into their premises and put some under arrest until the evening, and then release it in reverse. To get a closer look at the number of Kronstadt beggars, it would be good to have statistics on poverty in Kronstadt at hand. Does the Kronstadt public want to see an unattractive picture of the poverty of our beggars?.. Do you refuse to see it in advance, do you turn your face away? Do not disdain - these are our members, these are our brothers, although unattractive in appearance. Here is this picture: imagine the damp basements of houses that have grown into the ground and which for the most part are the refuge of our poverty; Fifty or more people can be accommodated here. Here are adults, here are small children, here are babies, sucking their nipples - in dampness, in dirt, in stuffiness, in nakedness, in hunger and cold. Anyone interested can check the accuracy of these words for themselves. But why do I tire the imagination of readers, and especially our public, with such a picture? Not, of course, so that the reader just says: thank God that God saved me from poverty, thank God that I have capital, that I am happy with everything; thank God that I live comfortably, thank God that my houses provide for me, or: this does not concern me, or: I make my contribution to the almshouse, to the shelter - I don’t care about these beggars. No, gentlemen: this matter concerns all residents of the city, both those living on wages and merchants, townspeople and others who have some kind of fortune. What's the matter? - you ask. The point is for the entire Kronstadt society - spiritual, military, bureaucratic, commercial and even bourgeois - to form a guardianship or brotherhood, following the example of existing brotherhoods in some cities of our fatherland, and with united forces take care of finding and establishing a common home for the poor, a workers' house and a vocational school. Do not be afraid, gentlemen, of the enormity of the undertaking: God helps a good deed; The city authorities will assist this in every possible way and, if possible, will cede to the brotherhood one of their unnecessary, empty buildings: a salt store or one of the huge, empty buildings behind the ditch near the summer garden, because the brotherhood will contribute to the plans of the government itself to establish labor and contentment among the poor. A good mind, says the proverb, but two are better, a piece of the world makes a shirt for the poor: whoever can do what he can will help. Well-intentioned, friendly actions of the brotherhood can bring great benefits to the city, and especially to the poor (labor hands in our city, commercial and military, are always needed, and Kronstadt will have its own people), just as the brotherhoods brought similar benefits in the capital and in other cities. So, brothers, all who are interested in the good of humanity, who want to seek great mercy from God through mercy towards their neighbors, let us gather and unite into a friendly society and devote our leisure time and excesses to a good cause - to finding a home for the working people and to supplying it with necessary things, also to the establishment of a vocational school. Those who wish to take part in this good deed are invited to the Duma building to draw up a project for the proposed society or its actions. (Since the capital expelled the townspeople from itself, then ask the St. Petersburg Duma for assistance in building a house for the poor, or from the Treasury - through the governor.) Your own seal with a coat of arms. (Tantalus' position 106.) Society, I repeat, has an obligatory duty - to give work to healthy beggars, to force them to work, because work is the duty of every person. But this cannot be achieved otherwise than by setting up a workhouse for them and a vocational school. All classes, men and women, are invited to become members of the guardianship or brotherhood. The purpose of these institutions will be to force poor adults to work, and to teach young people and children to work and to make both of them useful for themselves and for society, for extremely many efficient and healthy hands remain idle and many capable young people remain without training in crafts and literacy. It would be extremely sinful for our society to continue to ignore our poor Kronstadt bourgeoisie and, in general, all the Kronstadt beggary, which, in the extreme, can cause citizens a lot of trouble over time with its industrial adventures, 107 because in the extreme there is nothing a person will dare to do. I thank the Lord, who granted me the freedom to pronounce the words of the requiem litany and dismissal for the servant of God Olga Sharapova. May I, Lord, continue to serve without stumbling. (Before the funeral service, I asked the Lord for help; I realized that I myself was spiritually dead!) Eternal memory is a sign and proof of eternal love for someone we remember. I will remember you forever, says the one who is separated to each other. But anger sometimes says: I will always remember you for this and that. This is rancor. It is absurd and in a Christian there is a particularly grave sin, mortal. There is a petition against him in the Lord’s Prayer: forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors [Matt. 6, 12]. Where their worm does not die and the fire does not go out [Mk. 9, 44, 46, 48]. The undying worm is mortal sins in which people lived unrepentantly: pride, pride, malice, envy, love of money, gluttony, gluttony and drunkenness, fornication, unbelief, despair; this is the demon itself, wielding some kind of sin, for demons, having moved into a person and living in him, die with him forever, tormented forever in eternal fire. The worm does not die, because the sin in which a person dies unrepentantly cannot be blotted out by repentance, which has no place after death, and lives forever, for demons are eternal, like human souls. Don’t get involved with poor charlatans who don’t want to work, don’t get angry at them and don’t tear their hair, but go away from them to your place silently in order to maintain calm and goodness. You cannot satisfy every request, even if you are as rich as Sinebryukhov, for there are many beggars and many needs every day, and I am alone. God! You are zrish. Judge between me and the hard-hearted and money-loving society. Today, December 9th, I am guilty with my own hands before God and before my neighbors: I tore out one beggar, who came several times for alms (when I already had a hundred beggars), by the hair because he often asks for bast shoes. I sinned before God through malice, cruelty, stinginess, covetousness, and disrespect for my neighbor as the image of God and as a member of Christ. It is not my place to punish a person with my hands; This is especially not appropriate for a priest: he must always be meek, kind, patient, non-covetous, teaching, humble-minded, simple-hearted, loving, merciful and compassionate. Priest I. Sergiev. God! accept my repentance and have mercy on me; blot out my iniquity and disgrace the crafty and evil demons who beg me with various passions. I am Yours, even if I have sinned before You: I cast into the abyss of Your mercy the multitude of my iniquities! Behold, the Lord had mercy on me, having heard my prayer, and again He gave me His peace. There is nothing more important in the world than the salvation of human souls, and there is no subject more worthy of constant and everlasting remembrance than the redemption of the world by the Son of God from sins, damnation and eternal death. Therefore, the Church has forever inscribed in indelible letters and images, rituals in its worship the entire economy, or economy of our salvation, so that people, so inclined to forget God and the salvation of their souls and everything that God has done for our salvation, eternal joy and bliss, would constantly have, so to speak, before their eyes and, as it were, at hand, all the great, wise and good deeds of God regarding us and incessantly aroused themselves to repentance, correction and salvation and fled the vanities of the corruptible and fleeting world. The world passes away, and so does its lust, but he who does the will of God abides forever (1 John 2:17). Pay attention to yourself constantly so that your spiritual life and spiritual wisdom do not dry out. Think often about all that you read and sing or serve in church or sometimes at home. Live the life of the saints, prayer, their wisdom, their virtues: meekness, humility, gentleness; mercilessness and denial of oneself, one's peace, contentment and pleasure for the sake of love for God and neighbor; patience, courage, struggle, their faith, hope, love. May your loins be girded and your lamp burning, and you may be like a man who waits for his Master when he returns from marriage [Lk. 12, 35 – 36]. I confess to You, my Lord God, the knower of my heart, all my sins, hidden and rooted in me: self-love, the root of all evil, and the resulting vanity, vanity, pride, envy, malice and enmity, self-indulgence, gluttony and internal fornication; ill will and secret malice towards enemies, covetousness, withholding part of the income from the generous sacrifices of parishioners and outsiders for the benefit of the poor; waywardness, stubbornness, impatience, ardor and irritability; an old feeling of hostility towards his sister Anna Konstantinovna (by his wife, and towards his brother Matthew for his former insolence, slander, greed for money, unfriendliness and pride); laziness in matters of service, unpreparedness; grumbling, blasphemy and insolence before God in the face of temptations and failures, cowardice and fear in public prayer and in general the practice of the priesthood. affairs; disrespect for superiors and disrespectful judgment and even condemnation of them; carelessness about human souls, often insincerity when praying for the living and the dead; cruel treatment of the poor - all these and similar sins, voluntary and involuntary, known and unknown, I confess to You, my God, who searches my heart and womb, I condemn myself, I condemn myself and I ask You for mercy and the dew of Your grace, which quenches the hellish heat of my passions, cools my inner being and strengthens me in good dispositions. Behold, I repent my sins to You! Have mercy on me and make me steadfast in the face of my invisible enemies who fight me and harass me in the assemblies of people. December 10, 1871 Morning. 7 o'clock. We lack the depth of prayer, sincerity, the depth of faith and love for God and neighbor and the firmness of hope, at the same time a hidden life in God, inner self-deepening, inner contemplation of the works of God: our prayer is superficial, cold, insincere because of the passions and lusts that nest in the depths of the soul: gluttony, delicacy, satiety, covetousness, vanity in clothes, about which we We cannot forget in prayer and which seduces and confuses us even in church, servility towards people, people-pleasing and partiality, a lustful disposition of the heart, etc. From the depths I have cried to You, O Lord: Lord, hear my voice [Ps. 129, 1]. Learn to treat your neighbors in such a way that your every word and movement breathes sincerity, straightforwardness, and love; throw away coldness, severity, rudeness. Be kind to one another with brotherly love; Warn each other in respect, teaches the holy Apostle [Rom. 12, 10]. Throw away all kinds of self-love - the self-loving person is not a brotherly lover. I thank the Lord, who has given me the strength from above to read the word of the oath in the District Court without stumbling, boldly, loudly, with inner strength and sincerity, and to enjoy reading the Gospel of John, which everyone read there. I sinned before God and people by becoming angry at the table at home with poor Anna Andreevna for some reproach she had made to me in response to my reproach, or for insulting her because it was a very easy task to wait for coffee because of a full dinner. This was at 5 o’clock, then in the evening at the table I held a grudge against her, but soon I realized my injustice, my pride, my pride, envy, my whim, and repented before God, and He had mercy on me, giving me peace. Oh, how easily, quickly, for what insignificant reasons do wealthy people become angry with the poor, how they despise the latter and despise them! But these last will be first, and those first will be last [Matt. 19, 30]. How many people I am unfairly angry with! That includes Father Matthew! But let there not be a shadow of evil in me against anyone or for anything. This is the flattery of the serpent, that is, malice, like prodigal sweetness. I believe in the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Do you believe that all Orthodox Christians are members of one and the same body [Eph. 4, 4] and that therefore we should all guard the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace [Eph. 4, 3] and take care of each other, take care of each other, help each other? Do you believe that the saints are also members of the one Body of Christ, that is, the Church, and our brothers who intercede before God for us in heaven?.. Do you respect every Christian as a member of Christ and as His brother in humanity? Do you love everyone as yourself, as your own flesh and blood? Do you generously forgive offenses? Do you help in need if you yourself have enough? Do you instruct the ignorant, do you turn a sinner from the error of his ways? Do you console the sad?.. All this is inspired in you, obliges you to do by faith in the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, and for all this you have been promised a great reward from the Head of the Church, the Lord Jesus Christ. What causes enmity against guests or against one’s own? Due to the fact that they eat a lot, sleep a lot (or better yet, don’t sin), often go to our house, do little work, and charge us a lot for their work (about outside seamstresses). But it is obvious that all these are empty reasons and because of them it is not worth breaking the entire law of God, which is love. (On December 10, after early mass, I came home and became angry with the seamstress Anna Andreevna, who had been sleeping for a long time.) Keep your eyes on God, love Him and treat man as the image and glory of God - respectfully, humbly, simply, sincerely, kindly, compassionately, generously. For those who do not attend the church, the devil... takes away the word from their hearts, so that they do not believe and are saved [Lk. 8, 12]. Look, O priest, what an honor you have been awarded - you have received access to the throne of the Lord of all and the power to perform the Mysteries of God and intercede for the verbal sheep! Do not be associated with foolish cattle and do not be like them [Ps. 48, 13]. A man of honor is not wise [Ps. 48, 21]. How many such priests there are! Look at the elder brothers - Father Paul and Father Matthew - as fathers and patrons! Beware of one thought of malice, fornication, covetousness, for the enemy is subtle and cunning: he enters the soul and devastates it through thoughts. Truly, the person who sins is pitiful - for sin in itself is misfortune, darkness, oppression, spiritual bonds, dishonor. Pity anyone who sins against God, against you and your neighbor, and pray for him sincerely, as for yourself. Don't offend anyone: to offend someone else means to offend yourself. All-night vigil. I thank the Lord for the gift of fiery prayer and for the tears of tenderness given to me from above at the very beginning of the all-night vigil. It is better for you that one of your members should perish, and not that your whole body should be cast into hell [Matt. 5, 29], where their worm does not die and the fire does not go out [Mk. 9, 44]. Who is speaking? - The Creator of the world, who spoke, and was... commanded, and was created [Ps. 32, 9]. The same must be said about all the words of the Gospel. Parishioners give me money without reproach, and I must give to the poor willingly and without reproach, without cursing, with a clear face, in simplicity of heart. January 13, 1872. Today the enemy burned me hard with carnal delights. I barely got rid of it through prayer (in 3rd grade). But the bodies of children are straw, hay, decay, dust. I sinned before God by eating fried fish in quick oil without a compelling reason. I broke my fast. If you read secular magazines and newspapers, extracting from them what is useful for yourself as a citizen and a Christian and a family man, then most of all and most often read the Gospel and the writings of the Holy Fathers, for it is a sin for a Christian, when reading secular works, not to read the inspired writings. You keep an eye on your brethren in the outer world, but don’t lose sight of your inner world, your soul: it is closer to you and dearer to you. To read only newspapers and magazines means to live only with one side of the soul, and not with the whole soul, or to live only according to the flesh, and not according to the spirit. Everything worldly will end in peace. And the world passes away, and its lusts, but he who does the will of God abides forever (1 John 2:17). I sinned before God by desecrating and wounding my soul with thoughts of hostility, stinginess, envy, covetousness, ill will towards Anna Andreevna, who is temporarily living with me as a freeloader because of work, and towards my brother Father Matthew and his wife. Oh, they are members of Christ and members of my own: how I dared to have such thoughts and feelings! How did he not curb them in an instant! But glory to the Long-suffering and Merciful One, who accepted my repentance and healed me, wounded by the serpent’s sting. O corrupting poison of sin! When will we be freed from you by the grace of Christ? Christ! Change and renew us, wounded by sin! Remember what happened after sincere prayer for the king and for the royal house: how affectionate and fatherly the king was to you in a dream, as if in gratitude for your warm prayer for him and for your goodwill, and do not be lazy to pray fervently for him whenever the Church or home custom calls you to pray for him. Also pray for the queen and for the entire royal house - prayer is effective. Coldness, despondency, laziness, which turn us away from prayer for our neighbors, are the work of the devil. Pray for one another [Jas. 5, 16]. How often during litanies the enemy stumbles in prayer for the king and for his house! Overcome. And sincerely pray for everyone: the Lord, who knows the secrets of the heart, will Himself reward you for your love. Your dislike for certain people has increased. This is also the devil’s leaven: away with it - love them passionately, act contrary to your proud and passionate heart, strive against water, and winds, and storms and do not get carried away by them, lest Satan drag you into the abyss of hell. Addiction to things immediately leads to cooling towards God and to the cause of one’s salvation, cooling towards one’s neighbor or hatred and envy of him, if it depends on him to give us certain things and he does not give them, or if we are obliged to involuntarily give them to him. Therefore, it is good to have complete indifference to things, so as not to have any reason for hostility towards your neighbor, which is a great sin. Is it because of shiny clothes that you quarrel with the archpriest? – Love clothes of simplicity and humility. Are you indignant at the poor and your anger smoldering because of their frequent requests? - Give to them willingly, without sparing, as much as you want or can, and be at peace. Be above the addictions of this corruptible and vain and fleeting world; live in heaven with your heart and love the imperishable blessings there, prepared for those who love God and their neighbor. The priest as the Angel of the Lord Almighty, he must be above all passions and disturbances of the spirit, all worldly addictions or vain fears induced by demons, he must be entirely in God, love and fear Him alone. Man's fear means that he has not clung completely to God. Do not stare at the physical face, but look more closely with your inner eye at the face of your soul, what it is like: whether passions have disfigured it, destroy this disgrace with prayer and tearful repentance. Do not look at the beautiful clothes - they are perishable, but at the incorruptible clothing of your soul, what it is: is it not vile and unclean due to frequent secret and open falls into sin - and acquire the clothing of the soul in the imperishable beauty of meekness, humility, chastity and purity, mercy, truth. I want to heal others, but I need to heal myself: I myself am all in the wounds of various passions, and above all, I am sick with pride, love of glory, malice, envy, greed, gluttony and greed, lustful rage, impatience, irritability, cowardice, guile, vindictiveness, despondency, man-pleasing, servility, dejection and laziness. I thank the Lord, who had mercy on me through my prayer of repentance for refusing alms to a beggar, who lost the saw given to him (from me) and blamed the loss on his comrade. I vehemently refused him and ordered him to be thrown out of the church. I thank the Lord for the unfaltering celebration of the Sunday liturgy, for the strong, sincere delivery of Archbishop Gregory’s sermon on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers. There were about two hundred beggars in the church, that is, in the porch. Almost everyone was given two kopecks, a few were given one and a half kopecks, very few were given one kopeck. A true Christian acts in this life so that it is a preparation for the future, and not a life for this age only; In his actions and words, he does not think about what they will say about him here, but what they will say there, in heaven. He always imagines himself in the presence of God, the Angels and all the saints and remembers that one day they will be witnesses of his thoughts, words and deeds. To be angry with anyone for anything is recklessness, because rage is voluntary madness, voluntary rage, voluntary illness, blindness and deafness, voluntary untruth and lawlessness. Man's anger does not create God's righteousness [Jas. 1, 20]. Stop being angry and leave rage; do not be jealous to the point of doing evil, for those who do evil will be destroyed [Ps. 36, 8 – 9]. It is especially insane and absurd to be angry with the poor for their constant requests, because even without our anger they are pitiful, meek and gentle, like sheep. It would be fair to pour out just anger on the hard-hearted rich, but we, unfortunately, are servile to them, servile to them, probably because their rubles are dear to us. They are worth the wrath! And the poor, like sheep or doves, because they want to eat and drink, so they ask us for bread and drink, just as those in need of clothes and shoes ask for clothes and shoes. And common sense says that it is foolish to be angry with them for this. And I - alas for me! I get angry and furious with them often. Before Matins today in the porch I became furious with three or four beggars for asking for bast shoes; I said: there are two hundred of you, and if everyone is given bast shoes, then I will not have enough means to live. I have little faith: has the hand of the Lord become weak and does not the Lord provide for His people? Isn’t he able to repay me for them a hundredfold? But I thank the Lord, who accepted my repentance and had mercy on me and gave me peace. And on my way home, I again turned my face away from the beggar who was asking for bast shoes. I gave him two kopecks and left. Did Christ stop accepting alms from the poor? Has He renounced us as His members? Are we not His property, acquired by His Blood? Are these not His words: You have created with Me [Matt. 25, 40 ]?! Have we forgotten His self-exhaustion for our sake, His incarnation, His wretched manger, His poverty, His labors, His suffering and death for us?.. Eternal blessings prepared in heaven, for the sake of which all the saints labored, for the sake of which the martyrs neglected all the blessings of this life! For my stinginess I am worthily subjected to sorrow, embarrassment, and cramped conditions. Every day I experience the bounties of the Lord, countless alms, and yet I find myself stingy and unmerciful towards my neighbors. Little by little I am ready to give to many, and when several beggars in a row ask for 20 kopecks, I lose my temper - such a stupid and malignant, bad habit! Where is the selflessness? Where is the renunciation of all one’s possessions, as Christ teaches [Lk. 14, 33 ]? Where is the fulfillment of the words of the Lord: Give to everyone who asks you [Lk. 6, 30 ]? I thank the Lord, who delivers me daily from my dead deeds, that is, from passions: rage and its harmful consequences, impurity, greed, lust, envy, hard-heartedness, despondency, etc.; glory to the Lord, who daily resurrects me from spiritual death, the death of sin, and gives me His life according to His mercy. We collect, we skimp, we huddle, but we don’t know the hour of death, when we will need to stand before the Judge of the living and the dead and give an account of everything. Meanwhile, because of our stinginess and hard-heartedness, how much suffering the poor have! Where is the providential love that cares about the good of others as if it were our own? Addiction to earthly goods leads to a constant violation of the law of God and the main and essential commandment of love: the ambitious, the lover of money and the lover of voluptuousness are true idolaters and enemies of humanity; The rich man every day sees crowds of beggars, hungry people who do not have clothes and shoes or an apartment and calmly enjoys his chosen dishes and drinks at home, counts his treasures with eyes sparkling with joy, sleeps on a soft feather bed, dresses in expensive clothes, cleans his apartment with rich carpets and valuable furniture, furnishes the table with a set of the best porcelain. Addiction to earthly goods leads to hostility towards relatives, neighbors, neighbors, comrades, to irritability, to confusion, and illness. The enemy contrives in every possible way to destroy my alms, plunging me into irritability, despondency, sorrow and distress, whereas I should rejoice in having such an all-good and generous and righteous Lord and Provider, Who promised to reward the cup of cold water given in His name [Matt. 10, 42; Mk. 9, 41]. To irritate me, the enemy creates various dirty tricks through those who receive alms themselves, teaching them to sell what they have or deceive me with various pretexts. But this should not upset me and lead me into relaxation and despondency. If I am a warrior, then I must complacently endure the struggle to the end and have complete indifference to earthly acquisitions, relying in everything on the Providence of the Lord God, Who miraculously, graciously, vigilantly, generously appeared over me in all my service. My stinginess, irritability, anger, despondency in the case when I had a lot of people demanding alms or unexpected guests did not lead to anything good, they were the fruits of the multi-passionate flesh and the work of the devil and on my part madness and spiritual senselessness, brought upon me confusion, cramped conditions, internal dishonor, darkness, and inability to do any work. Do not destroy what you do good (2 John 1:8), warns the Apostle. Do alms meekly, with a gentle and cheerful face, as if you yourself were receiving a hundred times more, and not just being deprived (for alms is really an acquisition), willingly, according to strength, fearing the serpentine poison of addiction to money and in general to substances consumed and dearly valued by us (that will be squeaks), or to things, and create love for God, who gives us everything abundantly, and for people, long-suffering and condescending to their weaknesses and mistakes; seek not enrichment, but above all else the grace, righteousness and peace of God - everything else will be added to you according to the promise of the Lord [Matt. 6, 33; OK. 12, 31]. Woe, when grace leaves us - then we are pitiful victims of passions: there will be neither peace nor joy in us, but constant confusion, constant oppression. Remember the words of the Savior: Fear not, little flock! for your Father has been pleased to give you the Kingdom [Lk. 12, 32], that is, Heavenly. How comforting this is for those who have renounced the blessings of this world and despise their flesh. What does it say next? Sell ​​your property and give alms. Prepare for yourselves sheaths that do not wear out, a treasure that does not fail [Lk. 12, 33 ] (and earthly things will become scarce sooner or later, or they will be taken from us by death). For where your treasure is, there your heart will also be [Lk. 12, 34]. How good it is to transfer your heart and your earthly treasure to heaven. This is the reward of the generous and impartial to earthly goods. The hearts of those who are addicted to corruptible wealth are on earth, and not in heaven: they do not think about heaven, only the earth and earthly blessings are dear to them, they have no taste for heavenly things. Like cattle, they look only at the ground and do not raise their spiritual gaze to grief - they do not know what it means to have hearts! Purify, Lord, my heart, so that I can love my neighbor as I love myself. Why are you indignant at the present state of things and are faint-hearted when you see the rich amassing great wealth, eating and drinking luxuriously, dressing richly and living in magnificent chambers and despising the poor lazarus? The present life is the denouement of everything, and the current state of affairs is not final - the denouement will be in another life: then the rich will be the poorest and most pitiful, having no spiritual treasure, having destroyed their souls because of wealth, then the first will be last, and the last will be first [Matt. 19, 30, etc.]. Walk after the one lost sheep until you find 109. Having destroyed your drachma (the image of God), light a lamp (the word of God) and mark the church (repentance, fasting, prayer, alms) and search diligently until you find (the new man in yourself). Hearing singing and choirs 110 [Lk. 15, 25] - an image of joy in the house of the Heavenly Father on the occasion of the discovery of his lost son. This is our worship, standing in the singing of choirs. The face sings. What solemn voices in our worship! This is an angelic and human celebration of the redemption of the lost human race through the suffering and death of the Son of God. He slaughtered a pitomago calf for him [Lk. 15, 30]. Not a calf, but the Flesh and Blood of the Lamb of God Himself, Jesus Christ, will be slaughtered for us daily by the Heavenly Father! Oh, immeasurable mercy! Oh, unspeakable bounties! And I don’t understand this! I do not generously and willingly give material alms to the poor. I'm furious with them! I have no hope in God, who has previously provided for me so generously; I have no love and respect for the members of Christ! Damn man I am! Is it because of you, multi-passionate flesh, that I am doing this?.. Away, corruptible slave! People live in poverty and in labor and illness, adversity - and do not complain; but I live in contentment, abundance, I do not work to the point of exhaustion, I am healthy - and out of cowardice I grumble! I repent before the Lord! In the person of every Christian, especially in the person of the priest, honor Christ, in this show the breadth of your love for God, loving His image for Him. Remember that you are constantly being caught by an incorporeal enemy, and be extremely careful in thought, word and deed: eat and drink little, talk little, do not be irritated by anything. I thank the Lord with my unworthy thoughts and lips for my great, merciful and wondrous salvation from my anger at the poor young man who pestered me relentlessly, for which I in anger pulled him by the hair on the street in the middle of the road. How cramped and bitter I felt after this before mass and during mass, and what deep and lasting repentance I needed, what frequent falling with faith and fervent prayer before the throne of God in order to again receive peace and boldness! But after communion of the Holy Mysteries, the Lord took away my guilt and gave me peace. Glory to Thee, Lord, who took away the devil’s malice from me. How impudent, violent, annoying she is! In vain today, before mass, I was upset at one beggar who did not give another beggar the 20 kopecks given to the first one to buy a caftan! He is a kind guy, kind, patient. I should learn from him. I thank the Lord, who gave me the grace to perform Vespers and only christenings in the house of [A...] and Fedorov nearby. The Eminence Makariy (now of Lithuania) 2 and Kirill (formerly of Melitopol) 111 were at the grave of my former comrade Klyucharyov - at a memorial service, and I seemed to present a funeral speech to Eminence Makariy, and he was so pleased that he donated me, it seems, 21 rubles, but soon after that, to my sadness, I found out that the chest was mine (the bottom drawer [...] in the table), in which my money was kept at the bottom, it was broken by scammers and the money was stolen; I also saw daring thieves - tall, drunken Kronstadt townspeople or artisans who walked past our house, stopped and talked about something, but when they saw that I was paying attention to them, they left. These are demons - true thieves, undermining our heart cage and stealing our true spiritual possessions - faith, hope and love. (And my remembrance of Bishop Kirill is beneficial to his soul! May it be, Lord!) Today after Matins, during a prayer service, an unclean spirit attacked me through a lustful thought and a fiery sting of lust: I drove it away with intense prayer. Oh, how unceasing, intense prayer is needed! It extinguishes passions. With what strength the disembodied enemy strives to tempt us in every possible way! Let us be sober and vigilant! Today is remarkable because I fought with Father Deacon Alexander Ivanovich Taratin, which happens extremely rarely, because of the intended service by both deacons in the Assumption Church on the occasion of Alex’s funeral. Sergeevich Prokofiev, Secretary of the Duma, and leaving me alone in the Cathedral. After this there began to be a burning fire within me, scorching in my bones. Only intense repentance and prayer saved me and brought about the reconciliation of both. Glory to Thy mercy, glory to Thy power, O Lord, for Thou hast delivered my soul from sorrow and shame, sorrow and oppression, and placed it on my broad nose [Ps. 30, 9 ], especially after consuming the Holy Gifts according to the liturgy! Oh, what space, what heavenly peace was in me then! In the evening, during vespers, the enemy embarrassed me, killed me with suspicion and the opinion that my sexton Kutuzov was drunk; under the influence of this thought, which cut my insides in the proper sense, I could not serve without stumbling and fell, and lost spirit and got confused in my words. After Vespers he explained: the sexton swore that he was not drunk and never drinks before Vespers, that he always drinks a glass before dinner, but no more. I warned him. In the evening I visited Ivan Yegorovich Brown; they talked about setting up a Workhouse for the poor townspeople in Kronstadt, about their unworthy behavior in the summer. I drank tea with two spoons of rum, ate sardines and caviar; After tea we went into the living room, drank a glass of sherry and ate an apple. This all had a good effect on the organization. I didn’t eat or drink anything at home. I slept very peacefully and well. Fresh Bavarian kvass can be used instead of soup: it is so pleasant and healthy! Only after it you need to drink tea. I thank the Lord for the supremely peaceful and very light state of soul and body after communion of the Holy Mysteries during the Liturgy and their consumption at the end of the Liturgy: sacred, life-giving fire in the mouth and in the whole being, peace, freedom, joy after extreme hardship and cramped conditions before and during the Liturgy. The food taken at home (fried fish, smelt) somewhat drowned out the supernatural gift of God, so there is no need to eat after mass; It was quite hard in class, especially in the 4th lesson (first). Last night I drank strong tea with a little rum at Brown's. Strong tea has a bad effect on the inside, suppresses, paralyzes. A great blessing is a meek person living with an irritable person: with his silence and compliance, he saves him from further outbursts of anger and calms him down, while another person, proud, proud and irritable, arouses greater anger and malice, sometimes deliberately setting him on fire. Blessed are the meek, blessed are the peacemakers [Matthew, 5, 5, 9]! They say: monks do nothing. No, this is exactly what true monks do. What is the true work of a Christian? – Correction of the heart, eradication of passions, zeal for every virtue: patience, meekness, humility, obedience, kindness, simplicity, repentance, purity and chastity, goodwill, non-covetousness, hard work, constant progress in faith, hope and love. This is true doing! And this is precisely the task of a true monk. We who live in the world constantly serve our passions and are carried away by them; our life is a constant bustle. What is our activity, that is, the activity of the laity? – Sisyphean work (we roll stones from mountain to mountain). This work is often useless and, in any case, does not bear fruit in eternity, does not give eternal life. The work of a true monk or a true Christian is work that bears eternal fruit. My sweetest Jesus! I thank You, because by You, by Your Blood, I defeated the fierce serpent, which bit me just before the communion of Your Holy Mysteries and confused me with the idea that the prosphyra delivered today to the Liturgy were stale and that the bread of the Lamb Himself was stale, as if the power was in the bread, and not in the Lamb of God, who was essentially present on the throne under the guise of Bread. How painful was the struggle with the serpent, so sweet was the victory gained by faith in the Body and Blood of the Son of God: after cramped conditions, what space, after confusion, what peace! After sadness and despondency, what joy! After shame, what a triumph, after slavery, what freedom! Glory to Thee, Lord, glory to Thee! Thank You, my sweet singing! I thank the Lord for victory over the machinations of the enemy when reading the prayer before confession: behold, child, Christ stands invisibly... let me testify before Him... He said boldly, raising his head. I sinned before God, before people and before myself, by going to visit Ivan Fedorovich Palyanov and staying in the smoking room for two hours, to the detriment of my lungs and my entire body; sinned by drinking four glasses of sherry; I sinned by laughing a lot at the story of the Dane Lev Khristianovich; I sinned by drinking two glasses of liquor at home (from Grigory Ivanovich). Greed and voluptuousness are what carry me away! And this is on the next week, on the eve of the communion of the communicants and mine! I thank the Lord, who has magnified His mercy on me with His salvation and His help in the service of Matins of this day, when invisible enemies brought fear and embarrassment upon me while pronouncing the litanies. I thank the Lord for healing my body with fresh air during my morning walk at the end of the 5th and beginning of the 6th hour in the morning. The accursed one doubles my heart during divine services and thereby overthrows me, therefore I must firmly fix my mind and heart on the one God and, through His fear, protect my soul from the cunning of enemies. In place of the fear of God, the enemy thrusts his fear, the devil's, into my heart, just as in place of God's love he thrusts into us love for ourselves, for the world, for carnal beauty. Man is a mixture of good and evil, high and low, smart and stupid, simplicity and guile, generosity and cowardice, purity and abomination, strength and weakness, laziness and hard work. Pathetic confusion! Blessed is he who cleanses and purifies himself from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. Having strangled a beggar, you have strangled Christ. I cry about this, Lord! Am I repaying You for Your bounties? I sinned gravely before You, all-merciful and all-generous Lord, by daring to pull out the hair and hit the doe with the hand of a beggar for his persistent request for money for clothes and for his reluctance to work when a place in the mast factory was secured for him. I sinned before You, Lady Theotokos, Your member, Your servant, created in the image of God and redeemed by the Blood of Your Son, by strangling it with an insolent hand and speaking angrily to it, with malice; I sinned against you, holy Archangels and Angels, and especially the Guardian Angels, by strangling our Lord Jesus Christ, redeemed by the Blood, and preserved by you; I sinned against you, holy men of God, by striking your member on the cheek, whose salvation is so dear to you that even over one such member there is great joy among all of you; I also sinned against you, people living on earth, and especially my Christian brothers, for I insulted yours, or our common member, because of a few kopecks, which I did not want to give due to my greed for money. But what is more expensive? Is it close or a few pennies? Is it money or God's mercy for alms? Pray for me, all saints, that the Lord will forgive me my insolence, and may he not remember it forever, and may he never allow me to dare with any hand. To her. Amen! Priest! Think what your soul and your lips should be like, praising the Lord, Whom Angels and holy men stand before and worship with fear! The prophet Isaiah, who was once honored to see the Lord, exclaimed: woe is me! So! I'm dead! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, Jehovah of hosts. Seraphim cleansed his mouth with a burning coal taken from the heavenly altar [Isa. 6, 1 – 7]. And with what unclean lips do you sometimes praise the Lord? For what passions are you not enslaved to? Cleanse yourself more often with repentance and almsgiving. Another boy, about eighteen years old, asked his landlady for money for a week, and I didn’t give it, but only gave two and a half kopecks - and what wards do I live in?! Will God condemn me that, having such chambers, I do not want to give 15 kopecks to a beggar for a week’s lodging? With awakening in bed, sin begins to suggest itself and creep into the soul through thoughts and through imagination and memory. Early in the morning your struggle against sin must begin: immediately drive away sinful thoughts and feelings and instead think about God, about His infinite goodness, wisdom and omnipotence, by which the whole world stands and which preserves everything in existence, in wonderful order and harmony, for the good and contentment and joy of creatures; think especially often about the redemption of the world, that is, the human race from sin, curse and death by the Son of God, about the granting of resurrection and eternal life, and with all your mind and heart and with your whole life, assimilate to yourself the system of Christian teaching and piety, willingly and diligently attend divine services, participate in the saving Sacraments and obey the church authority and church statutes. The world always sins purely and severely 112 before God: a) by fearlessly violating His commandments and, violating them incessantly, justifies itself, or excuses itself, or even boasts of what it violates. A true Christian keeps the commandments of God and is afraid to break them, and having violated them through human weakness or being carried away by passion, he immediately repents, so that the sin does not turn into a habit or skill, does not become obsolete, and so that liberation from it does not become extremely difficult, and does not cause many sorrows and tears or drag him into the abyss of destruction, so that he does not infect other people and make them participants in our sins. Sin intensifies incessantly, although imperceptibly (through underground paths), kills our spiritual life through various worldly addictions and laziness towards repentance and prayer, cooling our hearts towards God and our neighbor; especially, cooling towards God and towards those created in His image is produced through the rooting in us of greed for food and drink (that’s how harmful it is to feast and be satiated!), especially for money, since the love of money is the root of all evil, and through addiction to primacy, in general through self-love. Therefore, the most important commandment of our Savior is self-sacrifice and bearing one’s cross. If anyone wants to come after Me, deny yourself, and take up your cross, and follow Me [Matt. 16, 24], that is, following My life, My statutes. And then in love: love God with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself [Lk. 10, 27]. Be warm to Him, not cold [Rev. 3, 15 – 16]. Whoever allows himself to do something that leads to sin or strongly predisposes him to it, is partly guilty of that very sin, although, perhaps, he does not commit it by deed: for example, whoever feasts on food, is satiated, or gets drunk, is guilty of these sins and is subject to strict judgment for them, is also guilty of the sin of prodigal sin, to which the above-mentioned sins strongly predispose and attract, which is why it is said: do not get drunk with wine, it contains fornication [Eph. 5, 18]. I am sinful in this, for I feast on food, am satiated, drink wine, and therefore I do not sometimes avoid the momentary prodigal movements of my heart. This is where the need for fasting lies, the absolute necessity. But because of our addiction to the flesh, we neglect fasting. Blessed are those who have fasted and abstained a thousand times, who have accomplished their feat of goodness. But we are likened to senseless cattle and become like them [Ps. 48, 13]. Woe to us who love corruptible pleasures! The world passes away, and so does its lust, but he who does the will of God abides forever (1 John 2:17). Food is for the belly, and the belly is for food; but God will destroy both. The body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body (1 Cor. 6:13). December 19, 1871. Morning. Seven and a half hours. You, priest, should not have any attachment to earthly goods, for you partake, almost daily, of eternal Life - Christ; your good is Christ, He is your life, sweetness, your treasure, your inexhaustible wealth, your bright robe, your honor and glory, your help and your shield. Yesterday I angered God with a word of unbelief and lack of hope, telling the beggars who had gathered in large numbers in the Duma church that I myself would become poor if I gave alms or whatever the beggars wanted from me. Has the hand of the Lord shortened and shrunk for me? Am I not happy with everything? I sinned - and I repent to the Knower of the Heart. If sincere prayer dies in you, then your soul will also die. Therefore, let your prayer always burn like fire for yourself and for everyone. Is your Christian faith alive in you? Hasn’t the vanities, worries and displeasures of life dried up?.. When is the Christian faith tenacious in us? – When we pray, when we think about God, when we love to read the Gospel, when we love to fulfill what is written in the Gospel, when we diligently repent of our sins, we do good deeds out of obedience to the Gospel. I sinned before God by murmuring and impatience during yesterday’s leg pain. Addiction to the body and to the goods that are for the body leads me to destruction every day. I have experienced this many times and experience it incessantly: why should care for the flesh extend to lust [Rom. 13, 14 ]? Why drink and eat a lot? Why save and spare money for the poor? Sow abundantly into the soul, and not into the flesh, this corruptible sinner; Mortify the stinking flesh so that it does not kill you. I thank the Lord, who revived me, who was dead in sins, through the communion of His most pure and life-giving Mysteries, and who destroyed the cruel machinations of bodiless villains, and gave peace to my soul. You, strong of the earth, you, the rich, you, blooming with health, you, admiring yourself - do not be seduced by power, nor by wealth, nor by health, nor by beauty and brilliant gifts, for this is all temporary and fleeting, for you have not yet reached the abiding life, but are only traveling towards it. Watch how you travel, whether you use your power, wealth, strength for good... What happens in our lives with each other? for example, we have dislike and even enmity towards someone - so the ethereal enemy, having irreconcilable enmity towards all people, but especially towards God's chosen ones, intensifies to take out this enmity on them through us or directly, if this person is on earth and if, of course, God allows it - for example, when we publicly pray to Him for that person, he firmly prevents us from pronouncing the name of this person or these persons and through this gives, as it were, a slap in the face to you, the one praying, and the one for whom we pray, for after not pronouncing this name, there is a scorching fire in the soul, tightness, darkness, shame, anxiety, and when you pronounce it, then there is peace, freedom, and ease in the soul. Avoid these satanic slaps in the face and kick him yourself, give him a slap in the face, as it were. He stumbles with speed and confusion - and you, with the speed of faith and trust in the Lord of hosts, defeat him in an instant, so that the mighty does not boast of his strength [Jer. 9:23] and the evil one in his wickedness. I thank the Lord, who, after struggling with opposing forces, made me worthy to partake of the Divine Mysteries into the world of my spiritual powers, with a feeling of life-giving warmth in my mouth and in my womb and in all my insides. The elements of evil and the elements of matter often rise up against me and fight me, and my spiritual and physical life is subjected to extreme disaster. If, due to the action of the enemy, you do not pronounce certain words or names of saints at public prayer, then it means that the power of prayer and the saints are far from your heart, you have grown cold towards them, and this is a bad state of soul. Turn immediately to repentance, for your soul died a sinful death due to voluptuousness or other passions. I thank the Lord, who has vouchsafed me, in the spiritual girdle of power from above, with a clear and loud voice, to unfalteringly perform the early liturgy and life-giving participation in His Most Pure Mysteries, for the remission of sins and the driving away of ethereal enemies; also perform the funeral service with feeling. God! praying for the dead, so that I myself will not be dead in soul. Let me sincerely pray for the departed as for my own soul. When I consumed the Holy Gifts after mass, the ethereal enemy brought a strong storm and a fiery temptation, instilling in me fear and apprehension that Sofya Vasilyevna Zhukovskaya, who had been with me since the evening and heard my unfavorable review about one of the principal. colleague (D...), will convey my words through Lamanova to this boss. I was agitated by this fear as soon as I conquered it with the Holy Blood of Christ. When I stood during Matins in the Cathedral, reading the rule for communion, I was upset and troubled in soul at the thought that Archpriest Matthew, my co-celebrant, had saved and was saving a lot of money and did not want to give to the poor, although he saw that there was a great abundance of them. A consuming fire burned inside me. But when I said to myself: it’s not my business, I won’t answer to God for it, but for myself, and I must condemn and cleanse myself with repentance, then I calmed down. I realized that envy and my own self-interest were speaking within me. I thank the Lord, who has made me worthy to partake of the Divine Mysteries without condemnation. He served the Liturgy with difficulty, in extreme cramping on the right side; after consuming the Holy Gifts, all distress passed: the peace of the soul is complete, and so is health. I read the prayer behind the pulpit with difficulty, with omissions. At home I sinned before God and before myself - I drank enough tea and ate two soft rolls. I burdened myself with this. We needed a lot of exercise in the fresh air. I sinned and spent the day in idleness. There were no classes. The being of our soul is constantly covered with impurity and blackness; we must continually wash away this impurity with tears of repentance, destroy the blackness with unceasing prayer and deeds of love for God and neighbor, with everlasting thoughts of God. You do not pay attention to the consequences of your unkindness towards the poor (to many), and they, perhaps, do not often dare to approach you for alms, although they have extreme need for everything and, perhaps, grieve in their souls that they are forced to approach you and hear reproaches from you. But with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you [Matt. 7, 2]: someone from the powers that be will shout at you, even if you really don’t like it and are offended. Before the arrival of Father Matthew, he served the early mass in Duma quite calmly, but with his arrival he began to be indignant in spirit and served unevenly: he missed some words out of incomprehensible embarrassment and fear; I didn’t read the entire prayer behind the pulpit. This confused me even more. But after communion of the Holy Mysteries I felt peace and life-giving fire in my lips and limbs. After consuming the Holy Gifts, I completely calmed down. At one o'clock in the afternoon Lilov unction took Timofey, having waited a long time before the unction for the sexton, who had gone to the funeral service in the province. outbuilding near the Summer Garden. I repeatedly prayed from the depths of my soul to the Lord to have mercy on me and grant me peace and freedom, which I lost as a result of irritation with the poor, and I received what I asked for. Thank you for what you received. I went and served a memorial service; they came to give unction; I performed the unction by the grace of God with complete freedom, sincerity, and depth: I myself had a lot of fun. Having arrived home, I was tempted by my impatience and caprice, and I was tempted extremely badly: when my wife was watering the flowers, I asked her not to pour too much water; she did not listen to repeated requests, spoke and did her own thing (she had to be given freedom), and I was so angry with her that I almost hit her: I became all agitated, embarrassed, but soon turned to the prayer of repentance, plunging myself with my many sins into the abyss of God’s mercy; I prayed for quite a long time, and again received mercy from the Lord. I sat down to dinner, at the invitation of Anyuta’s servant and then my wife, who herself had not sat down at the table for a long time, still busy with [the share]; sat down, they didn’t speak, I spoke - she did too: and the storm passed, love returned. Thanks be to the Lord who has mercy on us. Let these outrageous and disastrous passions perish and disappear. Yes, I deny my will, my whims and caprices. In the morning, getting up early from sleep and washing my face, I was outraged in spirit at the idea that my wife’s sister, and my sister-in-law Anna, would come to me again to give birth to a child, with the intention. And if so! Don't drive her out of the house. We must submit and be patient. We all walk under God and everything is in God’s hands. God knows the future. You must go against the desire or reluctance of your heart, that is, carnal reluctance. If you have to worry, God’s will be done, if the mother and the baby take away everyone’s hands, God grant me patience. My sister-in-law’s apartment is inconvenient – ​​mine is comfortable, large; We must serve our neighbor as Christ God Himself: we are His members and for each other. At the same time, one must deny oneself and not insist on the fulfillment of one’s desires, which stem from increased and extremely excited pride; selflessness is required; We must take care of our neighbor as we take care of ourselves, and God will protect us and save us from troubles. With the measure we use, it is measured back to us [Matt. 7, 2]. Let us surrender our entire life to Christ our God. You need to force yourself to love those to whom your heart has grown cold, who is alienated, who runs away: love everyone: If you love those who love you, what is your reward? [Matt. 5, 46]. And I don’t like, damn it, those who paralyze my self-esteem. But let me serve everyone, let me deny myself and hate my soul, which is smoldering in deceitful lusts, but what it considers a loss, I count as gain. We are constantly disposed to work on corruption and not on incorruption, on self-love and not on brotherly love. So great is our corruption and our tendency to decay! For all our passions have their beginning, their root in addiction to the corruptible things of this world, to our flesh and to everything that is for the flesh, as its need or as its pleasure. December 24th. Funeral mass in the Duma Church of St. Basil the Great. Although in the weakness of the flesh and spirit, the Lord unfailingly granted the grace to complete it and partake of the life-giving Mysteries without condemnation. After mass, I slept at home, then had lunch of oatmeal soup with roots and black bread crumbled into the soup (two plates), and sweet potato jelly with cranberry juice. This dinner was terribly difficult for me in terms of consequences: heaviness, cramped conditions, mental weakness and nerve disorder, which gave rise to despondency, fear, and loss of spirit. I cursed my greed, which forced me to eat two bowls of soup, harmful to me, scrofulous. It would have been better to eat raw salmon, even though it was Christmas Eve. He served the All-Night Vigil with extreme difficulty due to spiritual weakness, cowardice, fear, cramped conditions, abandonment by God. Oh, how an excess of food suppresses the spirit, how it alienates you from God and His grace! And I, the accursed one, did not fast properly: I always ate plenty, drank sweetly and a lot, and that’s why all this became a gouge for me, against which I was so cruel. Addiction to secular learning cools the secular scientist towards God, the wisdom hidden in the Holy Scriptures and in church worship, in the writings of the fathers and teachers of the Church. Man falls into pathetic one-sidedness. The Church is pure in meaning 113, her words are kindled with silver [Ps. 11, 7]. A passion for finery or rags cools one’s feelings towards God and the church. Women flutter around the shops like butterflies around flowers, but you don’t see them in church. The devil turns the many different substances that we use into a destructive weapon for us if we use them immoderately. What hard work we endure if we hope to receive a good material reward for it! And work is made easier by the hope of receiving a material reward. Why don’t we properly undertake spiritual work, the work of salvation, purification, correction, improvement of ourselves and our neighbors? Isn’t it promised by the Faithful and True Rewarder and Judge by it [Rev. 19, 11] the greatest reward is eternal life? Posting again soon. Why frequent posts? Fasting is a spiritual weapon, but we have a constant battle, a spiritual war with the evil hordes of demons, with the multi-passionate flesh. And so the Holy Church, the spiritual mother, constantly caring for our salvation, gives us this spiritual weapon, preparing us for battle - war. A warrior should not leave his weapon and the battlefield, otherwise he will easily be defeated and die. Only those who have no idea about our spiritual warfare reject the need for fasting (many Orthodox, Lutherans and Anglicans). The abyss of all spiritual and material gifts has come to us; the Source of reason and wisdom, the Source of life, has come in our flesh, in our image. He came who taught the human race all kinds of arts and crafts, who revealed to people so many sciences in all parts of knowledge; the Source of mercy, love, purification, the Source of holiness, peace, strength, holy freedom, heart space, joy and bliss has come; the Nourisher of all creatures has come, growing from the earth countless fruits of all kinds; came sending rain, snow, hail from the sky, creating thunder and lightning in the circle of heaven; the Creator of the luminaries came: the sun, the moon, the stars, the Creator of the entire universe, of all worlds, Angelic and others, scattered in the immeasurable spaces of the sky; He came who in the beginning created us from the earth and breathed His divine breath into us; He who gives life and breath and everything has come [Acts. 17, 25 ]; He came who with a single word called everything visible and invisible from non-existence into being, who commanded with a word the birds, fish, four-legged animals, insects, every creature [which] exists under His almighty providence and preservation; He has come, Whom countless armies of Angels continually serve with fear and joy. And in what humiliation! Born from a poor Virgin in a den, swaddled in wretched swaddling clothes, placed in a manger! - Wealth, nobility, the glory of this world! Go, fall with humility, tearful tenderness and deep gratitude to the Savior of men and share your wealth with the poor and needy. Do not be proud of your illusory, soon disappearing nobility: true nobility lies only in virtue. Glory to this world! Get to know your vanity here, at the manger. So, all of you humble yourself, all of you fall into the dust before the immeasurable humility and exhaustion of the Lord of all, God, who came to heal our infirmities, to save us from pride, vanity, from corruption, from all filthiness of sin. Here is a short word on the day of the incarnation of God the Word! December 25, 1871 What do you say [about those] who, living in the same city with you, do not come to your house, do not show themselves to you, or, living in another city, do not write to you at all or very, very rarely? Would you say that they have apparently forgotten you or have lost interest in you, have stopped loving you, or are behaving dishonestly, so that they are ashamed to show themselves to you. Indeed. Experience shows that if we do not go to the house of one of our relatives and acquaintances or bosses or comrades for a long time, or do not write to them, or do not pray for them, little by little we grow cold towards them and finally become completely cold - so contemplation, conversation, writing, service or prayer warms up and supports mutual love. Church services produce a sobering, cleansing, enlightening, pacifying, strengthening effect on an attentive and believing person, while the world and its places of entertainment produce an intoxicating, befuddling, relaxing, dispersing and darkening effect on the soul. We are constantly fogged by earthly vanity - food, drink, clothes, money and all the surroundings of everyday life, even sometimes official duties, newspapers, magazines, public entertainment, games. What a blessing the church and worship! This is heaven on earth and heavenly residence on earth! Resurrection. What a storm, what fiery arrows, what inflammatory poison, what dog and lion sting, what confusion, what oppression and sorrow I suffered today during Matins and early mass from invisible enemies - it is impossible to describe! Like a hungry, fierce and strong lion, or several hungry, fierce lions, demons attacked me and, it seemed, almost swallowed me up, clinging to me with hellish claws! Oh, how hard it was for me! It was then that I learned again and again that a Christian without fasting and abstinence is a reed shaken by the wind, a puddle exposed to the action of the winds, flax inflammable, a hut inflammable from hell fire! How the spirit is suppressed from excess of food and drink, how weakened, how cold, how dead! Fasting is necessary to save the soul - I learned this from experience. After a quick meal, I feel especially faint-hearted, especially swayed by the nasty winds, especially poor. Fasting is spiritual armor, [of course], together with prayer and repentance. Fortresses and military ships are covered with thick iron armor; Christians are spiritual warriors, waging war not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and powers and rulers of the darkness of this world [Eph. 6, 12], must also protect themselves from their fiery arrows with strong spiritual armor. This armor is fasting and prayer. So, fasting is necessary. People who do not fast are captives of the flesh and the devil, slaves of corruption. And we must daily strive for incorruptible life - the path and communion with it is fasting and prayer. Do not regret giving freely to the poor what you yourself have received from the Lord from the hands of His people, from the sheep of His pasture, so that you will not be condemned in the love of money and covetousness, for not to give to the poor what God has given us and for them is covetousness or theft; Moreover, do not be irritated when you see those who often ask and many who ask: they constantly have a need for needs, but there is no one to satisfy it - not in the same way as our needs are constantly satisfied and the scarcity of necessary things is constantly replenished. Man is a wonderful, majestic, wise, artistic work of the most perfect artist - God; it was at first undefiled, unblasphemous 114, incorruptible and pure; but sin, this ugly creation of the spirit of darkness, this nasty, absurd, evil force, made him nasty, blasphemous, unclean and corruptible by his dual nature, in soul and body. However, the all-wise and all-powerful, all-good Artist did not allow His enemy and ours to completely destroy His art, His beautiful and majestic creation, and He Himself creates for Himself a body servile to us and borrows a soul in the womb of the Most Pure Virgin Mother and through His incarnation, His teaching, miracles, suffering, death and resurrection, His wonderful and through wise dispensation he again restores the work of His hands to its former, and even greater splendor and glory, bestows upon it again incorruptibility, holiness, wonderful Divine beauty and elevates it to the first bliss, deifying human nature and seating it with Him on the throne of the Divine. Glory to Thee, all-good, wise and all-powerful Artist. The apostles are the servants of Christ and the builders of the mysteries of God (1 Cor. 4:1), as well as the hierarchs, the venerables, all the bishops and priests - the servants of the sacrament of renewal, deification, incorruption, ever-life, rebirth. O greatness of service! Oh, the venerability of the ministry of the highest, most heavenly, angelic! Lay people! Kiss not only the right hand, but the hems of the garments of your shepherds who continue the apostolic work, the work of teaching, worship, performing the Sacraments, shepherding and spiritual government! There is no higher and more venerable service on earth, after the royal service, than the priestly service! In many ways it even surpasses the royal service itself! How can we stay away from sin (for example, from delicacy, lust) when it has turned into our daily life, into our habit! But whoever wants to live with Christ and overcome sin must deny himself, no matter how difficult it may be, even if it amounts to death. Do not be afraid of their fear (demons and evil people), but be embarrassed. Tell them: if again you are able 115, then you will be defeated [Isa. 8, 9]. Do not be persistent in your bodily demands (for example, demanding a certain thing from your wife, certain food or clothing). Moderate your desires and be content with what is necessary. December 29. O my invisible Benefactor, by whom I live unceasingly! You, who constantly listens to me, fulfills the good desires of my heart, saving me from my sins, from the villainy of invisible enemies; You, who improve my destiny, my enlightenment, my help, my glory, my strength, my confirmation - when will I see You? When will I see my Benefactor and Creator face to face? But you, my enemy, the devil, constantly flooding my soul with sin, insidious, flattering, evil, constantly killing me, darkening me, weakening me, covering my face with shame and dishonor - when will I be completely delivered from you by the grace and generosity and love of my Lord Jesus Christ? When will every opportunity to pour the poison of your malice into my heart be taken away from you?.. What do I need?.. I don’t need anything on earth except the bare necessities. What do I need?.. I need the Lord, I need His grace, His kingdom is in me. On earth, in the place of my wandering, my temporary training, there is nothing that is actually mine - everything is God’s, and everything is temporary, assigned to my temporary services; My excesses are the property of my poor neighbors. What do I need?.. I need true, Christian, living, active love, I need a loving, pitying heart for my neighbors, I need joy for their contentment and well-being, sorrow for their sorrows and illnesses, for their sins, weaknesses, disorders, shortcomings, misfortunes, poverty, I need warm, sincere sympathy in all the circumstances of their life, joy with those who rejoice and weeping with those who cry [Rom. 12, 15]. Give full room to pride, selfishness, try to live only for yourself and attract everything only to yourself: wealth, sweets, and the glory of this world - and not live, but die, not rejoice, but suffer, carrying the poison of self-love within yourself, for self-love is the poison constantly poured into our hearts by Belial. Oh, let me exclaim with the Psalmist: What have I in heaven, and what have I desired from You on earth? My heart and my flesh are gone, O God of my heart, and my portion, O God, forever [Ps. 72, 25 – 26]. God! Testimony of my heart, all its movements and these lines! Give me this I ask of You! From me this is impossible, but from You this is possible: all things are possible with You [Mk. 10, 27]. Give me true life. Dispel the darkness of passions, infuse their power with Your power! Each of us is in our own way Napoleon I, or Alexander the Great, or Batu, ready to take possession of everything in the world. These great conquerors were the personification of pride and lust for power, only on a huge scale, but in us these passions do not have the same scope as in these powerful people. There is another true Batu in his house. Oh, busy, absurd earthly life, in which, because of corruptible, insignificant things, we daily violate the holy and blessed commandments of our all-good God and often die in body and soul because of a sweet piece, or because of a tempting ruble, or because of an equally tempting honor! When we reject you and live the heavenly life! The enemy constantly, day and night, intensifies to kill life in us according to God, to completely extinguish faith, hope and love and, so to speak, to revive and strengthen in us all passions, bad inclinations and habits. Therefore, you need to constantly force yourself to spiritual life, to life according to God. Thus, he strives to kill our prayer; I notice that some places, words, names in prayers seem to be dead for me and I am dead to them, so that I cannot pronounce them without great coercion. I thank with all my heart the Lord Jesus Christ and the Most Pure Mother of God for girding with strength and peace from above during the liturgy in the cemetery church (for the repose of Timofey Ivanovich Lilov), and for the uncondemned communion of the Holy, immortal and life-giving Mysteries, and for the unfailing performance of the funeral service, the reading of the Gospel and the prayer of permission. I didn’t have lunch at Eldorado. At home I dined with my family, drank black beer, but to my detriment: headache after sleep. The weather is quite snowy. Morning. I thank the Lord for the salvation sent down to me during a morning walk through the yard (with snowdrifts that formed overnight), when, due to failure to fulfill my inner morning prayer, I was captivated by thoughts of covetousness, stinginess and hostility towards the priest and sister-in-law for their frequent visits to our house and then, as a result of internal torment, sincerely repented before God in the depths of my soul, realizing the action in myself the old man and the action of demons, who suggest that man will live on bread alone, and not on every word that comes from the mouth of God [Matt. 4, 4], and supposedly the hand of the Lord, which always sends down to us everything in abundance, will become scarce for us. I realized that I received and receive everything from the Lord and therefore should not be stingy with regard to my own or others; I remembered that yesterday I received for my small labors (for serving five requiems and a liturgy with a funeral service) a generous reward of 10 rubles, and 50 rubles glorified from the cross. After such repentance and awareness of the absurdity of my pity on God’s gifts to my neighbors, I completely calmed down, reconciling with God. Give me, Lord, the grace and strength not to be indignant at anything that is contrary to me, for example, when they do not obey me or when they are angry with me, when they are at enmity, when they slander me, when they persecute me (although by Your grace none of my neighbors have ever persecuted me), and to thank You for everything, to endure everything willingly, to love my enemies, to bless (speak and do kindly) those who curse or scold me, and to pray for those who do me good. adversity [Matt. 5:44], for I myself, ungrateful, often and very often offend You with various sins and am worthy of insult from people for this. God! Please accept my gratitude again for delivering me from the hellish bonds with which I was bound by the sin of raising my hand in anger against a dumb beggar and for lightly tearing his hair because he smelled strongly of tobacco and, it seems, wine. He asked me for bast shoes, and I gave him 20 kopecks. Will he buy it? I'll see. For a long time the teeth of the Lions of sin crushed me and scorched me, but the Lord bowed to the prayer of my humility and repentance and had mercy on me: in my insides I felt a life-giving fire, which brought me peace, space, life, strength. Glory to Thee, Lord! December 29. Eight and a half o'clock in the morning. By all means, avoid cases, reasons, words that feed enmity, and take advantage of every occasion and reason to show sincere and holy love: in the first case, the hostile mood of the soul is gradually eradicated, in the second case, love is nourished and strengthened. Do not have an evil heart for a minute, always be kind to everyone, conquering your evil disposition with love, which endures everything and conquers everything; avoid stubbornness, self-will and opposition to others; Do not bet on yours to fulfill your evil whim, to deliberately harm anyone, especially innocent children. Do not those sitting in the theater carry away the corruption of their hearts, especially children and youth? Aren't sparks of passions ingrained in these, which then grow into flames? When young men see lovers, don’t they themselves fall in romantic love?! When they see someone drunk at the theater, don’t they themselves start drinking [at the start]? I sinned before God - I ate corned beef in significant quantities. And then in the evening he drank a lot of tea with cream and this burdened himself, he became fed up, which is why in the archpriest’s apartment he was captivated by the enemy with an absurd, nasty thought of placelessness 116 . A satiated man is a plaything of passions, he is like the rags of an unclean woman. But the abstinent and fasting person is a temple of the Holy Spirit and is filled with Divine thoughts and deeds. On December 29 at 8 o’clock in the evening I was at the home gymnasium theater, and these are the thoughts that arose in me about this spectacle. Man is a playground of passions: every day sin plays its destructive game in him, and with sin, of course, the devil, since sin is unthinkable without him; every theatrical drama consists of several actions - and our inner drama, daily played out to our destruction by sin, also consists of several actions, or acts of passions: now we are played by malice, envy, hatred, pride, ambition, now by greed and voluptuousness in all their forms, now by gluttony and drunkenness, now by foul language, now by despondency and despair, now by panache and vanity, now by extravagance and luxury throughout the home. So man is a true playground of passions, and yet - alas! he sometimes does not notice that the devil is constantly laughing at him, playing out in him his hellish drama or his tragicomedy. The theater is the playground of the devil, who sometimes disguises himself as an angel of light (2 Cor. 11, 14) for the most convenient ensnaring of people into sins and destruction; The devil, the teacher of all sin and all vanity, laughs here at man, God’s rational, God-like creation, laughs at his fall, vanity, at his passions, which he taught, and, as if leading us by the nose, he teaches us to amuse ourselves with our sins, to laugh at them when we should grieve and even cry about them. Poor humanity! How far have you fallen that you not only commit every sin freely, without blushing, but also publicly amuse yourself with your falls; and people have the audacity to gather people like themselves, and sometimes innocent children, to these vain spectacles, to these schools of love affairs, bribery, drunkenness (for you see before you how others indulge themselves to the point of complete intoxication or reach the most intimate manifestations of carnal love, which cannot but excite a young girl or boy with previously unknown feelings). Without hesitation, we can [say] that the theater not only does not teach any virtue, but teaches us to sin, to sin (systematically) skillfully, deftly. He says: dear sir or dear lady, you do not know how to take up the matter, that is, sin - I am a master in it, let me here, publicly, teach you how to sin and hide your ends; Until now, perhaps, you were afraid of such and such a sin, fearfully imagined such and such an action, or timidly indulged in such and such a feeling, secretly sighing about someone or something - don’t be afraid, be bolder, these are ordinary everyday things, look how we do them; Therefore, the theater is the enemy of Christianity, which has at its core repentance for sins, for the theater teaches to play with sins unceremoniously, devilishly amuses itself with the human personality, the personality of a sinner, so deeply fallen that he does not notice his fall and corruption, but thinks that he stands and has not broken, and laughs at his death when he should have deeply grieved. Theater humiliates, extremely humiliates a person. It is extremely necessary to be able to get along with people while living with them; Sometimes you have to walk on tiptoe and not knock on the door, so as not to cause a storm on the part of some overly tender or scrupulous mother, who even in her own home demands that everyone walk on tiptoe, so as not to disturb her pampered child. It is not our place to speculate on what will come of this pampered child, but we must fulfill the mother’s wishes if we want to live in peace and harmony. Our job is to love and pray for the wayward and evil, as we ourselves often are, so that the Lord will forgive them their sins, for they do not know what they are doing. But it doesn’t hurt us to live more carefully, not to allow evil to dominate in us in whatever form, but, on the contrary, to be filled with kindness, kindness, caution, patience, and condescension by all means. But gluttony and satiety and wine drinking are the source of family evils, for the devil nests in the heart of a glutton, who comes only through prayer and fasting [Matt. 17, 21]. Oh, what a great gain for our soul is virtue: meekness, humility, kindness, patience, obedience, goodness, simplicity, purity, abstinence, forbearance, and what a great loss - malice, envy, pride, intemperance, impurity and other sins! It is impossible to calculate how great the gain is the first and how great the loss is the last. After all, I am to blame for everything: why am I sulking at others, considering them all to blame, although they are innocent? Thank God that they forgave me and made peace with me! The days of December 28, 29, 30 and 31 were for me days of sorrow, crampedness and darkness; I did not like the frequent visits and guests of Father Gregory and Anna K., especially due to the frequent shushing of my wife so that he would not knock, and due to her moving into her sister-in-law’s bedroom, and Father Gregory’s to me, and due to the litter and disorder in all the rooms. But, I confess, I am a sinner in this sorrow, despondency and crampedness and torment myself, or my pride. I must deny myself, my property, my peace of mind, my comforts in favor of my neighbors, especially since a little self-sacrifice is required of me. I got used to space, to cleanliness, to loneliness, and now some constraint became unbearable for me. Oh, where is my sociable, contented, meek, loving, patient soul, willingly giving up my home, my bread and drink, my sweets, my money to my neighbor, if only it would benefit him? Where is it all? Alas! These virtues have dried up due to addiction to earthly things: to earthly space, to earthly wealth, food and drink, due to satiety with earthly goods; It is not our neighbors who have become dear and dear to us, but our own comforts and pleasures, our own benefits; we are ready to break all ties with people if they are not useful to us or if we have to give them part of our property, even if these people were close to us in kinship and property. Thus, a person who is sufficient and satisfied with everything becomes an idol for himself, just as earthly blessings serve as idols for him, which extinguish in his heart the [flame] of love for God and His image - man. Meanwhile, all life, all the bliss of a person, all his wealth lies in love for God and neighbor, because it is never taken away from him and is our true, eternal life, and earthly wealth will not be taken away from us today or tomorrow by death or some disastrous events. December 31, 1871 Forward, Father Gregory can be put in another room, and I can walk through the front main passage to avoid trouble. I thank the Lord, who with His mania stopped the flow of evil in my heart and gave me peace and space in my heart. What terrible agonies of passion! What humiliation, what shame! What darkness! What a fierce fire! This is pure hell! How the enemy opposes our mutual communication! What kind of enmity is created towards each other because of insignificant reasons! But most of all it acts in us through satiety! When I began to eat lean food, fatty and fatty, nutritious, then I began to especially feel the pressure of opposing forces within me! You can't get away from them! They totally grabbed me! The light of God was not visible. You don’t know why there is such a storm, such anger, such impatience in your home and your neighbors. This is the house of the Lord; here is the Lord, here is His Mother, and here are His household - the holy Angels, apostles, prophets, hierarchs, martyrs, saints and righteous people and all the saints! I thank God that I did not offend Father Grigory Ivanovich and Anna Konstantinovna with a word of impatience and did not tell them to come to us less often and stay more at home. I understood the machinations of the enemy in the malice operating within me... And at prayer services and all-night vigils in houses, the enemy washed away the heart with either lustful lust or fear. Finally, with a tearful prayer, I asked the Lord for peace and freedom: it was as if scales fell away from my insides. Amazing! (Like the Apostle Paul [Acts 9:18].) This is the scales with which sin dresses us! It’s not for nothing that people hurt in body and soul. Nalezhati (Church Glav.) – to oppress, to crush with one’s weight. Gobzuyuschiy (church-glorified) – rich, successful in business. Penitential canon of St. Andrew of Crete, kontakion according to the 6th song. Tantalus is a character from Greek mythology. The gods doomed him to a special type of torment: he experienced eternal hunger and thirst in the underworld. Tantalus stood up to his neck in water, and ripe fruits hung above his head, but as soon as he wanted to reach them with his hand or bend down to drink, the water disappeared from under his lips, and the fruits rose to an unattainable height; hence the expression “tantalum torment.” Industrial (adventures) – from “to trade” – to acquire, to assimilate. In the hedgehog (church glory) - so that. Dondezhe (Church Glav.) - until. Lik (Church Slavic) – a meeting of singers, choir. Kirill (Naumov; † 1866) - Bishop of Melitopol, head of the Russian Spiritual Mission in Jerusalem (since 1857), who was able to successfully fulfill the high mission entrusted to him of the rise of Russia in the Orthodox East and the restoration of spiritual relations between the Russian Church and the East. His activities in the Jerusalem mission continued until 1863, after which he retired to a monastery and devoted himself to ascetic life and literary work; he wrote the textbook “Pastoral Theology,” for which he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Theology, “The Life of the Holy Blessed Grand Duke Alexander Nevsky” and an akathist to the saint, and many articles for edifying reading. Purely - doubly; tregubo - threefold. Irmos of the 4th song of the Sunday canon at Matins, tone 6. Neblazny (church-slav.) – pure, alien to temptation. If you can (church glory) - strengthen yourself, you will be strong. Placelessness (church glory) – absurdity, obscenity. You might be interested in: