1874 г. Январь

The disembodied enemy, the prodigal, made his vile infusion in me at night, presenting me with a blissful vision and producing in me a prodigal, adulterous outpouring. I am to blame, very much to blame for this myself, for I myself prepared this prodigal outpouring of sweetness with my gluttony, incessant sweet tea, cream, drinking wine, unleavened pies; For a long time I had a strong disposition towards the outpouring of fornication, only in reality I restrained myself by meditation and prayer, and at night the vision of my eyes with fornication enraged me, and suddenly my evil, prodigal custom plunged me into sin - my sweet vision in reality of the charms of women. This is what this hypocrisy leads to - to fornication! I spit on every evil, prodigal sweetness of the flesh and trample on it as indecent for me and offensive to the Lord, and I immediately turn my eyes away from all hills and eminences that have their own blissful, sacred and holy purpose, and not a prodigal and sweet one. Forgive me, Lord! I have sinned before You. Thank You, Lord, for granting a new summer of Your goodness! Grant me to please You in renewal of life, in mortification of the body, in mortification of all passions, in purity of soul and body, in humility, patience, abstinence, kindness, goodwill, simplicity, in zeal for the salvation of human souls, in mercy and almsgiving, in the word of teaching, in every good deed, in repentance, unfeigned and everlasting. Holy Hierarch Father Basil the Great! You are perfect mortification of the flesh, soul, all grief is taken away; you are a vessel of purity, a perfect rule of life, a heavenly mind, a heart - a pillar of faith, hope and love of Christ; all - the dwelling of the Holy Spirit, a heavenly man, an earthly angel in the full meaning of these words - in spirit and strength, a most zealous, ardent shepherd, ready and willingly laid down his soul for the Chief Shepherd Christ and for His verbal flock - Basil the unmanifested, a soul embracing the whole world with fiery love and thirsting for salvation and bliss in God of all people! Glory to the Lord who glorified You! Always grant us family peace, Lord! Causing strife in the family over empty things and over children, I myself did not know what I wanted: I wanted to remove them and suspected my wife of neglecting me; I was looking for my flesh, and not for the spirit, I was looking for my own lust and profit, and not for what is saving for the soul. May the Lord forgive me for this. My wife is a kind woman and my sister-in-law Anna Konstantinovna too, she made and bought me so many things, but I don’t feel it, I don’t appreciate it. Our prayers are a gift of infinite goodness, God's mercy to us and to the people for whom we pray. My God! For myself, because of my sins, I am not worthy to open my mouth to prayer, praise and thanksgiving - but here, in church, I pray and must pray, give thanks, praise for the whole world, for all people! And the Lord listens to the prayers of faith and prayers of repentance, glorification, thanksgiving, and to those who pray, and to those who pray, and to all people, He bestows His great mercies. I pray, for example, at the liturgy with the heavenly prayers of the spirit-bearing apostles, the unrevealed Basil the Great, John Chrysostom, Fr. Oh my God! What a height of holiness and spiritual contemplation must I reach during these hours in which I celebrate the liturgy! What a broadly loving heart I must have in order to pray for the whole world, for everyone! What a pure heart I must have in order to stand and officiate in the place of the holy apostles, in the place of the holy leaders of the Church of Christ! And Matins, and Litia, and other services! Oh, what a spirit of holiness, truth, love moves in them. And when I stand before the throne of God as an intercessor for the dead - oh, how filled I should be with love for humanity, and for the dead in particular, who, not being able to appease God themselves, expect only from us help and warm sympathy for their weakness. (Today I accidentally ended up at Pestich’s and at the funeral liturgy. The archpriest thought that I had gone to St. Petersburg, but I was at home.) On the day of Epiphany (January 6), prodigal defilement occurred in a dream from eating navaga and smelt, and raisins, and even from excessive heat from the blanket. I sinned before God through voluptuousness and satiety and lustful views and disposition of the heart! I, the prodigal, must weep and weep. Be gone, nasty sweetness! You are useless to me! My sweetness is the Lord - and His grace! (It is absolutely necessary to fast strictly on the eve of Epiphany so that, due to voluptuousness and intemperance, the enemy does not defile us at night and thereby laugh at us.) Is it because of coffee that my right side hurts? For several days I drank strong coffee, and yesterday I drank black coffee without cream. Raisins, due to their strong sweetness, are harmful to eat: they produce prodigal irritation and outpouring - and fish too. I thank the Lord, who has given me the indescribable grace to perform Matins and early mass cheerfully, unfalteringly, in a loud and clear voice - in the face of temptations from the altar guard Nicholas, who mismanaged his work; I thank the Lord, who has made me worthy to partake of the life-giving Mysteries for the purification and salvation of the soul and the peace of spiritual strength. I am a sinner before God, I do not do what I teach others in church; I am furious with the poor for asking for alms several times a day, I have no brotherly love for them; I often treat them not as members of Christ and my own, but as enemies and adversaries, as harmful animals sucking out my life (and not giving life, just as true almsgiving truly gives eternal life). Like a beast, I attack the poor for their frequent begging, although I myself often resort to God with various petitions, for example, for the forgiveness of anger and fornication. We must listen to everyone with meekness - and give alms or refuse for a blessed reason, also with meekness and humility, with respect for the person asking. I thank the Lord, who, through the prayer of faith and repentance, redeemed me from sin and spiritual misfortune, sorrow and oppression, and brought me to freedom (after the end of the liturgy, at the beginning of the memorial service for Mr. Pestich for his mother); I thank the Lord. My Savior, my Resurreator. I wonderfully felt in my soul the power of God’s deliverance! And tears of tenderness and gratitude flowed from my eyes! Our God is the God of salvation [Ps. 67, 21]. Wednesday. I thank with all my heart my Lord, who has now performed a miracle of mercy and omnipotence on me through faith in His most pure Body and Blood, which I have received, who has delivered me from spiritual death, which struck me during mass through hostility towards the sexton Alexei Pavlovich Preobrazhensky for singing quickly. The devil fights against me with his gums and neck, and he also fights with plausible pretexts (the sexton’s malfunction during worship). Who among us doesn't make mistakes? And so the Lord miraculously redeemed me now again with His most pure Blood - and immediately, in visiting Him, I calmed down, my heart expanded, I came to life, and came into strong tenderness, sweet tenderness. How the enemy cruelly laughs at my cowardice both at home and in church during divine services! Because of the cat’s dirty trick on my writing table, I lost my temper, let go of the boy who came to study with me (Slukhovsky), tormented the cat, threw it against the door, kicked it (oh, atrocity!), then went out into the street for a walk and, meeting beggars, scolded them and tore out two of them by the hair (and gave alms to everyone). But he wounded himself in his heart more than them. In cramped conditions and sorrow, I began to cry and repent, and after a long time of repentance (about an hour), the Lord forgave me. Why am I angry and crying? Is it because of empty things? Is it not out of greed and greed, or out of love of money? Am I poor? Am I deprived through the poor? Doesn't the Lord continually give me them? And tune? Why do I regret giving for free? The work of the poor consists of caring for daily food, which I do not have. They are more worthy than me of the gifts of God. I am the first parasite. I ate milk today (Wednesday) in vain. It's hard for him. How dare I not honor through abstinence and fasting the Passion of Christ, which the Lord endured because of my intemperance, delicacy, satiety, addiction to the world and the flesh? Every day I increase my passion for the earth. This is the work of beggars, hard work: walking for alms, waiting in the cold, the unknown of food, waiting for a reprimand, scolding, reproach, and maybe even fights, enduring cold and hunger! Oh, what hard work! But we don’t see it, we don’t feel it, we don’t know it!! But the Lord sends it to us, especially to me, for the poor: yesterday the Lord sent me four or five rubles. Where is our patience, generosity, meekness, humility towards them? Where is the willing supply? Where is the zeal for giving as if to Christ God Himself? Where is the respect for them as brothers, as members of Christ, as bearers of the image of God, as heirs of the Kingdom of Christ in heaven? After all, a little, a little, and we will not be here, and we will go to God for judgment, each with his own deeds. Give alms to the poor without shouting and rage, without reproach. God will not leave you - and you will be content, and healthy, and you will be at peace, and you will live long. So what are you doing? You are angry, you shout that there are many beggars, you grumble at the sovereign, at the government, at society that they allowed such a large number of beggars. Here all the beggars, like sheep, stand quietly, meekly, serenely, submissively, and you are angry - because of what? Is it not out of love for the world, is it not out of covetousness, is it not out of self-indulgence and lust? For how much, in truth, does your body need? Extremely little means that you can joyfully give the excess to the Lord in the person of the poor, in order to receive a hundredfold reward from the Lord, for the Lord is generous and will reward a hundredfold: and for a cup of water given in the name of a disciple, or a Christian, He promised to reward both here and in the next century [Matt. 10, 42]. So, I sinned and today I spoke cruel and reproachful words against the sovereign to myself at home. Forgive me, Lord! If only the king knew about the many poor and poor people and helped us! And grant me, Lord, to joyfully exhaust my wealth and myself for my poor brethren, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, but without indulging their laziness and idleness. Why do I torment myself when I could not suffer, but rejoice? What work is it to give alms to a multitude of beggars when God sends the substance to be given? This exposes my covetousness and lack of faith and trust in God, love for God and neighbor. How recklessly I am acting, upsetting my mental and physical health! How I spoil the liver and blood! And what if there were no faith, no repentance before God! What if it were not for the Divine Mysteries! I would have perished long ago, decayed from my passions, like a substance from the fire hidden in it. (Is it because my flesh is furious when giving alms to many beggars, because it wants to live in luxury itself, in smart clothes, in smart apartment furnishings, and is afraid of poverty and dissatisfaction with its lusts, in which it has become stronger from a long habit of them? Yes, obviously. But aren’t all earthly blessings dust in comparison with the eternal and incomparably great?) Oh, what an abyss of God’s mercy to me is that I was created in the image of God, that I am gifted with reason, a sense of bliss, truth, goodness, beauty, the gift of freedom, or self-determination for activity, that I am redeemed from sins, curses and death - by the suffering and death of the Son of God; that I have received an education, an enlightened mind, an enlightened heart and will; that I have been elevated to the degree of priesthood and honored with the frequent celebration of the liturgy, the Divine, heavenly, universal and premium service - and the communion of the divine, holy, heavenly, life-giving and terrible Mysteries, as well as the celebration of the great and heavenly Mystery of Baptism and other Sacraments, that I have been awarded the praise of the Most Holy Trinity and Her faithful servants! But in reality I don’t appreciate it much! Ungrateful and malicious. But have mercy and correct me, Lord! I confess that yesterday (January 9) after mass I drank sherry at the mother of Matthew Varfolomeevich Kudrevaty; I drank too much, and my tongue betrayed me in class, especially in front of the director in the third grade. Grant me a sound heart, Lord! Has there ever been a time when I didn’t have anything to eat or drink or clothes to wear? No. So all my rage, all the reproaches directed at the poor are my madness and ingratitude before God. Oh, above all earthly blessings, grant me, Lord, a sound heart and an everlasting clear sense. Millions of people live poorer than me, and I am not poor, but I support the life of the poor brethren without embarrassment and stinginess, without grumbling and envy, with love I do this work, the heavenly work of alms, so that I myself will have mercy from above. I thank the Lord for the stumbling-free service of Matins. My rage occurs, like all passions, as a result of my gluttony and breaking the fast on Wednesday. Oh, what a good and noble deed it is to feed the hungry and clothe the naked every day! For for this we will be worthy to reap the benefits of ever-living food 44. Away with cowardice! Away with the demonic plague! It is a shame to give alms with bitterness in your heart, with grumbling and vexation. There is no consolation from alms in the heart - but bitterness, a scorching ulcer, confusion, oppression, sorrow! It’s better not to serve than to serve like that! I thank the Lord, who has surprised me without number with His mercy, judgment and power. I was terribly upset and killed before mass by my grief at the poor, my anger at them; my insides burned with hellish fire, which burned and oppressed me; I repented, cried, fell at home to God and in church to the throne (at the Intercession) - and the Lord had mercy on me, unworthy: I calmed down and served mass cheerfully, calmly, loudly (clear voice); but the sexton Alexei Preobrazhensky sang the honorable note in an extremely bad manner, then absurdly sang two dogmatists instead of the sacrament, and my whole soul was indignant, upset - again the fire began to burn me and the tightness crushed me: the sexton began to disgust me, especially when he began to make excuses and say that he sang correctly. Woe was me! But before using the Holy Gifts, I prayed strongly and repented to the Lord, placed my trust in the all-purifying, all-reconciling Mysteries of the Body and Blood of the Lord, and when consumed, the goodness and power of God overcame my malice and the power of evil - my sins were cleansed and peace was restored. I am risen, truly risen from the dead! How terribly cramped I was and how spacious my soul now became, how bad it was and how good it became! Glory to Your mercy, glory to Your long-suffering, glory to Your strength, O Lord. I thank the Lord, who has now performed a miracle of His mercy on me - in the communion of the Divine Mysteries of His Body and Blood, which revived me, as well as in the unfaltering, heartfelt, euphonious service of the liturgy. I spit on carnal pleasures, which separate me from love for the Lord and true love (spiritual) for my neighbor. On Monday I beg for intercession for me and for the believing children of the Orthodox Church of the Heavenly Powers, on Tuesday - the Forerunner, on Wednesday - the Most Holy Theotokos, on Thursday the holy apostles and Nicholas the Wonderworker, on Friday I glorify both the Cross and its fruits, on Saturday - I beg all the holy Angels and holy men who have achieved eternal peace and eternal glory. How many intercessors do I have? Do Lutherans and Anglicans have them? God's building (Church) Luther and his comrades broke down and built their fragile human building, and they even boast about it. Audacity to audacity! Such are the members of the self-built (self-created) church. (Buy "Kamenvery".) I thank the Lord, who surprised me with the miracle of His mercy in my good service of the liturgy and in the life-giving, cleansing, transcendent communion of His Divine Mysteries of His most pure Body and Blood. I glorify the most venerable and beloved, most glorified of all creation, Lord! Little by little He forgives my sins and iniquities and all those who sincerely repent before Him. Glory to the holy faith! Saturday. I thank the Lord for His great and ineffable help and mercy throughout the past week - during the priestly service in the church and during other sacred rites and in all matters. I thank you for the cleansing of sins, for salvation, for peace and space of spirit after the sorrow and oppression of sin; for the dew of grace that cooled the cave of my heart after repentance of my malice and prodigal thoughts and movements. I thank my parishioners for their zeal for me, who cordially offered me food and drink after prayers to the Lord and the Most Pure Mother of God and the saints of God - for all the good things I thank, and for my sins I bring zealous repentance and ask for mercy from my Lord, Who is the unsearchable abyss of love for mankind, mercy and generosity. The largest part of our sins comes from our lust or carnality and from addiction to the corruptible things of this world, such as anger (they were deprived of something, argued, broken, otherwise somehow lost, taken away), fornication, envy, pride, despondency, despair. If we did not love beyond the measure of our passionate flesh and the physical goods of this world, then thousands of reasons for sin would be eliminated, then love for God and neighbor would burn in the heart like a flame of fire. All the benefits that we read about in the canons, stichera, akathists, in church prayers and which we ask from God have already been given to us, have already been received by us, or we constantly use them through our prayer. Glory to this much-merciful and generous Lord, who surrounds us with the joys of His salvation and His gifts, which are countless, like the sand on the seashore. Resurrection. I thank the Lord, who has had mercy on me to perform the Divine Liturgy now without stumbling, loudly and solemnly, and who has made me glad in His house of prayer, after communion of the Divine saints, most pure, life-giving and terrible Mysteries, especially when I spoke the word of our great preacher Gregory, Archbishop of Kazan. But here is my unfaithfulness before the Lord: at the sight of a woman’s kindness, or beauty, I felt voluptuous movements in my heart; however, he soon stopped and cleansed them with the prayer of repentance, recognizing their obscenity, uncleanness, lawlessness, absurdity, abomination, and repulsiveness to God; after the evening sleep, having come to the funeral service at the Peterhof Hotel and not seeing the sexton and serving without him with the deacon, I was angry with him, even though the sexton came at the appointed time, and I hastened to begin the service earlier; was angry with him when he gave a note from his father to the archpriest on the road. For a long time I felt within myself a fierce ulcer and a burning wound, sorrow and cramped conditions. This sin added to others - anger towards an old beggar, a former lackey, who importunately approached me for alms; I told him: you are wasting your money on wine, and when he was chasing me, I furiously attacked him and pulled him by the beard and hair. But, oh, the long-suffering and mercy of God! And after that the Lord accepted my repentance until the christening at Mr. Belousov in Kudryavtsev’s house and granted me to perform the holy Sacrament of Baptism without stumbling, loudly, solemnly. Glory and thanksgiving to the Lord for all mercies. The source of life, beauty, wisdom, sweetness, strength - the Lord - I love Him, and not decay, dust and stench, such as beautiful human bodies or food and drink, clothes, money and so on. I cleave to Him with all my heart, through prayer, contemplation of God, fasting, vigil, and suppression of the passionate flesh. There is no need to eat or drink tea in the morning. My nature does not need this. I feel it. Woe to you, my soul, who loved carnal pleasures - you died alive. I don’t feel good without the liturgy: I experienced this on Monday, not in another week, although only one day passed without communion of the Holy Mysteries; There was no longer that garment of incorruption in my soul, that armor of truth with which the holy, life-giving Mysteries clothe me, but even more so the glory of the Holy Mysteries. The human body - man and woman - is a living, organic, majestic, artistic, wise and purposeful building of God and the majestic church of God, in which God Himself lives, having created man in His image with His own hand. He himself put on it in the last days and destined it for unspeakable glory, which no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor has breathed into the heart of man [1 Cor. 2, 9]. Therefore, we must look at this majestic work of God’s hands with respect, love and wonder, casting aside all low, nasty, senseless, human-degrading thoughts and lusts, and each one must acquire his vessel in holiness and honor, and not in the passion of lust, according to the Apostle, like the pagans who do not know God [1 Thess. 4, 4 – 5]. Oh, how hard it was for my heart to eat sweets (tea with sugar and cream) during the Matins service on Tuesday! The heart became completely coarse, weakened for sincere, peaceful, firm, pure prayer; became fearful, cowardly, visionary, prodigal, drowned by the flood of sin. The same hardening and drowning of the heart was also facilitated by the enormous fall of snow, for the atmosphere strongly interacts with the heart. Oh, how good it is to fast and avoid sweets! (Today I could not pronounce many words in the litanies and verses of the canons and in the choruses.) Yesterday I slept for a long time. And this had a bad effect on my heart. Glory to Thee, the omnipotent, all-wise, all-good Artist, who so beautifully created man - Your image and likeness. Grant me always to look at him unblemished, as exactly at Your image and likeness! To love him with pure love, to have mercy on him, to be condescending to him, to teach him, to correct him; console him. How often do I deviate from the true concept of man and despise him, look at him with temptation, annoy him. The work of the poor Kronstadt bourgeoisie every day consists in the fact that they spend the whole day, hungry and cold, looking for work and not finding it, and are forced to stand at fences or at church porches in order to wait for whole hours for an insignificant handout. And we, and even I, the priest, condemn and scold and despise them, calling them various offensive names; It’s better to serve in simplicity, and don’t judge, don’t scold, don’t get angry. Amen. How can we fail to think that it is absurd and blasphemous to the highest degree to make the object of one’s lust, the bestial passion of a person, a being so majestic, intelligent, verbal, beautiful, and purposeful. Love him, but with pure, divine, spiritual, rational, Christian love, and curb and eradicate your lust. Yesterday I ate a lot of cabbage soup with sour cream, and at the innkeeper’s I drank sweet tea and drank two glasses of wine - and yesterday and today I have no peace from my child-bearing parts: yesterday I baptized and received unction with temptation (at the sight of open parts of the chest), and today I look with temptation at the front soft parts, at the instruments of nutrition. The devil contrasted every good with similar evil, so that it would be all the more convenient for the like to deceive us: holy love - vicious, carnal love; fear of God - demonic, or human, false, vain fear; righteous, spiritual wisdom - sinful, carnal wisdom (carnal wisdom); spiritual sweetness - sweetness or carnal sweetness; spiritual joy - carnal, worldly joy; spiritual (church) gatherings, saints - worldly, sinful gatherings (theater, clubs, revelry and gambling evenings); spiritual evenings - worldly, sinful evenings; to spiritual contemplation - playful carnal fantasy; righteous anger - sinful, evil anger; activities that are useful and proper are things that are useless and vain. Therefore, let every Christian constantly pay attention to himself and take note of where the wind blows, cherishing time, because the days are evil [Eph. 5, 16]. Oh, how the wicked wicked age - the wicked prince of this age - does not get tired and does not sleep, constantly trying to destroy us. Let us work for the Lord unceasingly, for otherwise the enemy will deceive us to work for him. Grant me, O Lord, now to love Thee, as sometimes I have loved that same sin; and again work for You without laziness, just as you worked before the flattering Satan. Above all, I will serve You, my Lord and God Jesus Christ, all the days of my life 45 . Lord, grant me to keep Your church - my heart and my body - undefiled by passions: from intemperance, from fornication, anger, malice, envy, despair, disobedience, etc. Wash away the filth of my heart and body, O Lord, by the grace of Your Holy Spirit. Grant me to do not the will of my flesh and my thoughts, but Your holy will. The enemy confused and perverted everything and contrasted the pure, holy, spiritual, intelligent copulation with sinful, unclean, passionate, carnal, dumb, animal copulation; spiritual, sublime, holy, eternal love - carnal, sinful, changeable, momentary, low love. Do you notice the deceit, selfishness, baseness, lewdness, and malice of carnal, visual love? She loves blooming, beautiful, young faces and does not really favor, but often despises and is disgusted by, the faces of fading or faded, ugly, old-looking faces, even if these people had good moral and mental qualities; he who loves such faces (good-looking) loves them like a beautiful, well-smelling flower, like a tasty fruit, like a picturesque picture, that is, he looks only at the external, without penetrating inside - into the spiritual beauty of a person, and thus becomes extremely inconsistent, unjust (wasn’t the same One who created the external also created the internal? [Luke 11:40]), short-sighted, as if blind or insane - and indeed, possessed by any passion is insane. And all this forces us not to value too much the carnal, external things and to pay all attention to the internal, for the flesh passes away, but the soul is immortal, for because of the addiction to the flesh and carnal things, we do not value the immortal soul, which is in the image of God, at all, and we destroy it forever. Moreover, both your soul and the souls of many other people. Because of our addiction to the flesh, we constantly offend the Lord. And therefore, extreme abstinence in food and rejection of sweets is necessary; in clothing - simplicity, not luxury and sophistication; in a dream – moderation; in permissible pleasures – also moderation; in vision - modesty and chastity; in hearing - too; in the word - prudence and restraint; in thoughts, in imagination, in the heart - faith and fear of God, sincere, unfeigned, unchanging love for God and neighbor, inseparable from one another as the beginning and consequence. I sinned before God and people by saying with malice and insolence: the temptation is beyond my strength, it was sent out of proportion: there are many beggars, and saying to some of them (who were standing near Nikitin’s house, where I went to look at the “Kronstadt Messenger”): get the hell out quickly, you scoundrels. Who did I tell this to? Members of Christ who have no place to lay their heads? With what spirit did he say it? With a spirit of pride, contempt, malice. Who did you send them to? - To hell: redeemed by the Blood of Christ, His priceless members, in His image and likeness, I, the priest, the shepherd who must shepherd them, sent them to the evil one. For what? Is it for mercy? Can he have mercy? So. Is it not for destruction? God forbid even to think about this: he who digs a hole for another would not fall into it himself. I recognize my madness, impatience, malice, bitterness, I condemn myself and repent before God. Have God’s mercies towards me stopped that I sometimes stop them? Is the Lord punishing me in righteous anger for treating the poor so wrathfully? - Oh, grant me, Lord, meekness, patience, simplicity, kindness, abstinence, chastity. Wednesday. I thank the Lord, who accepted my repentance for the sins that embarrassed and oppressed me, who gave life-giving peace and girded me, unworthy, with power from above - for the calm, sincere, warm, joyful, unstumbling celebration of the Sacrament of Marriage. May the Lord always grant me to perform this Sacrament and other Sacraments and services in this way and even better. May the Lord grant me constant boldness and may He remove from me the vain fear of demons. While serving the Liturgy, I stand in the cathedral of Angels and saints who serve me, and through their prayers and intercession God always accepts my unworthy prayers, if only I believe in God and in their intercession and in heartfelt repentance with love and zeal call on the Lord and His saints for help. Yesterday I behaved badly towards the poor brothers of my God, I was angry with them, scolded them, sent them to hell in my unrighteous anger, I was indignant and reviled the government, although perhaps justly, for the disproportionate addition of beggars to Kronstadt. And this is what I, the priest, do. Where is my meekness, my humility and kindness? Where is my impartiality towards life here and its benefits? Where is the spirit of non-covetousness, the hope in the all-good, wise, never-ending Providence? And this is what I do when I myself so often perform and partake of the Bloodless Sacrifice? When do I so often see the will of my Lord Jesus Christ in His holy eternal Gospel? When do I teach others all the Gospel virtues? O God of mercy and bounty! Long-suffering God! And You still tolerate my untruths, with much patience you endure my anger, pride, contempt, envy, self-interest, voluptuousness, fornication, vanity, laziness, idleness, negligence, omission, etc., and so on. affairs. God, protect me from myself, from my passions that seek to destroy me. Yesterday evening (Friday) I drank two glasses of milk with black bread, then walked in the air, but at night my reproductive organ bothered me extremely, weighing me down with its extreme voluptuous tension! There was a burden in my back from excess food and nutrition. Lesson: never drink milk with black bread at night, especially after sweet tea. I thank the Lord, who has now deigned me to perform the Divine Liturgy without stumbling and to partake of the life-giving Mysteries into the world, new creation and renewal. You, Lord, are my purification, sanctification, peace, freedom, new creation, renewal, help, strength, glory. Thy right hand has the power to save 47 [Ps. 19, 7]. I thank the Lord, who showed me His wonderful help through my prayer during the wedding of two marriages, before which spiritual temptations, confusion, sorrow and oppression befell me. I saw with my spiritual eye how the Lord took away my tightness, my fear, my confusion, my weakness and felt the grace of the Holy Spirit, peace, freedom, life, boldness, strength, joy. I repented of my untruths regarding my wife (my pride, self-will, stubbornness, anger, pride, envy, lust) - and justified my wife, with whom I was offended. And again in the evening I was offended and angry with my wife for being excessively, vainly, as I thought, jealous of the children so that they would not catch a cold, and for slamming the entrance door in front of me. I suffered for a long time, repented for a long time, prayed; they called me to give unction - I repented; I gave unction - I repented in cramped conditions, and only after the unction, when I approached the house, did the Lord have mercy on me. Thank you for your mercy towards me. My self-love is expressed in irritability, in anger, envy, voluptuousness, waywardness, in the demand for services and courtship, stubbornness, impatience, zeal, quarrelsomeness, suspicion, malevolence, gloating, internal adultery, reproach, disobedience, insolence, gluttony, satiety, drunkenness, murmuring, despondency, exactingness, pickiness, vanity, luxury, laziness, negligence, neglect. The cure for self-love is self-denial: deny yourself, do not feel sorry for yourself and yours. Sacrifice everything to God and your neighbor. If anyone wants to come after Me, turn away from yourself, and take up your cross, and follow Me [Matt. 16, 24]. Today (January 20) I was tempted through [Ginfeldt] and Father Vasily Saltykov. [Ginfeldt] - the nephew of a merchant of the same name - invited me with the image and then turned to another - the regimental priest, Father Vasily Saltykov. We met - both with icons and in vestments (envy). Because of this temptation, I served a prayer service in Gavrilov’s house in a bad way, unheartedly, vaguely, and in cramped conditions. But it serves me rightly as a temptation for my satiation since yesterday evening. And Father Vasily needs to be wished well. I have become completely earthly, addicted to the local transitory blessings; I am carnal, sold under sin, because because of corruption I am embarrassed and lose love for my neighbor, having enmity against him. I sinned: I persecuted the Lord in His members - in the poor, in the household (wife, children, sister-in-law, Anyuta the servant and other servants). When will I sincerely and unchangeably hate every sin and my soul, the culprit and perpetrator of so many sins? When I stop pleasing myself and [will] work for God and my neighbor for good and edification [Rom. 15, 2 ]? Extinguish in your heart the slightest displeasure and grief towards any of your family, or comrades, or neighbors, so that it, often repeated, does not turn into constant displeasure and hostility, into enmity and malice, and so that you do not perish because of this. Try with all your might to be satisfied with everyone and, if you see mistakes, faults, omissions and evil in others, be complacently patient, forgiving, forgive, excuse. With the kind of judgment you judge others, with the same judgment you yourself will be judged [Matt. 7, 2]. Through self-love, the devil intends to destroy a person through excessive self-satisfaction in everything and leave his soul empty, without virtues, without love for God and neighbor. Therefore, you must resolutely reject your passions. In the next century, kindred unions will be dissolved: worthless children will be forever separated from their good parents, worthless husbands from good, pious wives, or worthless wives from good husbands. There will be one kinship of virtue. I thank the Lord, who has made me worthy to celebrate the early liturgy today, January 21, and to partake of the Holy Mysteries into peace, freedom and spiritual joy. (About Agnia Shlyakova.) Remember that children who bear in their souls the seal of rebirth by water and the Spirit, and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and the sprinkling of the Blood of Jesus Christ, and who have not been defiled by the passions of this life, are especially dear to God, more dear than us, adults and defiled by all sorts of worldly passions, and their Angels are always with them and see (now see) the face of the Heavenly Father [Matt. 18, 10]. Therefore, you must always especially love children and take care of them, because for them, if they are especially strangers to you, you will receive a great reward from God for their upbringing. I ate a lot of veal at lunch today, then drank coffee with cream and tea: and - alas! I lost the fear of God, relaxed my heart: during the wedding, noticing the cowardice of Father Deacon Sofronov, his fearful haste, I myself relaxed in spirit, began to laugh - and could barely restrain myself. Oh, how the enemy shakes me! Now with fear, now with inappropriate shame, now with the sting of lust, now with mad laughter, now with anger, now with envy, now with self-interest! But all trouble comes from the belly: gluttony weakens the soul, and overeating or gluttony leads to hardness of heart, lust, laziness. Woe to me from eating veal - fornication overcomes, coldness, hardness of heart, laziness, lethargy, drowsiness. I thank the Lord, who has honored me with His great and ineffable mercy: performing in tenderness with tears the Bloodless Sacrifice of the whole world and communing into the belly and world of the Divine Mysteries of His Body and Blood. But, after that, I sinned with extreme carelessness: I drank two glasses of grape wine at the grave of Timofey Petrovich Sidorov (I served a mass outside the city at the cemetery at the Holy Trinity); from two glasses, after drinking the Holy Gifts, I became tipsy; the wine rushed to my head, my tongue began to change, and I felt awkward in the gymnasium, in the seventh and fourth grades. I thank the Lord, who surprised me with His mercy and His good obedience in a shack in the courtyard of Captain Andreev’s house in Pavlovskaya Street, when, with great oppression in my heart from irritation at the beggars, reading prayers to the mother in labor, at the same time I prayed for myself, in repentance, and soon received pardon from the leading heart and womb of my Lord Jesus Christ. I entered the room feeling cramped and confused, but came out with a spacious and peaceful heart and served a prayer service in Karolyi’s house on the tower complacently, and then treated myself. With all my heart I thank the Lord, who called me humanely to serve the Bloodless Sacrifice and receive communion on the 23rd and 24th of this month, yesterday and the third day in the Assumption Church in the Duma and in the Cathedral; I thank you for overcoming the great temptation from my old man and from the devil, and partly from Father Deacon Peter: great was the confusion and exhaustion of spirit from the born hostility towards Father Deacon for not kissing the proper hand. I asked him for forgiveness, although I did not realize how I had offended him, and yet I was embarrassed. Then he repented and confessed that Christian love is not irritated by anything, covers everything, never falls away; that there is no love in that Christian who is offended by a person for something, for any offense, sin, misdemeanor, malfunction or omission; that the devil teaches a person every sin, as well as hostility towards one’s neighbor for his sins, that, according to the words of the Lord’s prayer, we must forgive the sins of our debtors, cover them up, as if not noticing them; however, only with the grace of God, only with supernatural help, did I calm down and - in peace, partake of the Divine Mysteries. In the evening I also received extraordinary help from the Lord during the wedding of two marriages: in the Cathedral and in the Duma Church, and I thank the Lord for His help during the day: I joyfully, grinning 48, crowned both weddings, contemplating the wisdom, goodness, omnipotence, holiness and purity of God, and the beauty of God in marriage and in the crown of God’s creations - in a woman. All the works of God are above words and reason. On Thursday yesterday, during the service of the liturgy, there was a temptation on the part of the altar watchman Nikolai, and also because of trifles - that the censer was cold, he served no incense, that he did not close the door, that he left the church early. I barely overcame grief and embarrassment. You become so exacting, although you yourself expect forgiveness from God and forgiveness of your great sins, voluntary and involuntary: where would you excuse a guilty person, or maybe an innocent one, but I want to exact punishment and punish. I took part in my revival by the Lord. Glory to His compassions, to His strength, for His right hand has the power of salvation 48 in me [Ps. 19, 7]. Wonderful life of God! I thank the Lord, who sent an unexpected gift of His mercy and generosity - fifteen rubles from the merchant Fyodor Stepanovich Gerasimov for my easy work - memorial services for brother Mikhail, and about two more rubles for two services. Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. We constitute the gracious Kingdom of God - the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, the Kingdom of Heaven, blessed, in which truth, mercy, holiness, peace, spiritual freedom, faith, hope and love should reign. What a sublime and woeful beginning that elevates the souls of believers! We often say: Lord, have mercy, because most of all we need God’s mercy, as sinners and deserving of punishment. He who feels in his soul the grace of the Kingdom of the Lord will not envy anyone in anything, not in any earthly goods, even spiritual ones, for he has in himself infinite good - the grace of God and the Author of grace Himself - the Lord. (Remember the Gospel about the Samaritan and the Lord, who talked with her about living water [John 4:5-42].) We envy other people because we either do not have the grace of faith, hope and love, or we do, but do not know how to appreciate it. He who has grace in his heart does not hunger for food and drink, riches, earthly honors, considering everything worse than rubbish, smoke, and dreams. Enjoy the blessings of the earth in moderation, but leave, certainly leave room in your heart for love of your neighbor and especially for love of God. Excessive enjoyment of earthly blessings, especially addiction to them, leaves no place in the heart for love for the Giver of all blessings and for our brothers. Therefore, it is extremely dangerous and disastrous to cling to earthly goods. For those who cleave may fall away from the Lord, like Judas, and lose eternal life. You ask: is it really a sin to go to the theater or play cards? And I ask you: did you really not know that this was a sin? Tell me: what do you need in the theater? What do you like about a card game? What does your soul gain there? Is it the Kingdom of God? Is it forgiveness of sins? Is it the healing of passions, ailments of soul and body, or sorrows and sorrows? Is it getting rid of misfortunes? Is it peace with God, freedom of spirit? Is it a reminder of Christian duties? Do you hear the Word of God there? Is it glorifying the name of God? Do you hear about salvation in Christ there? Is it about the Last Judgment, or about eternal life? Is it about the eternal torment of unrepentant sinners? Oh! There is nothing of this there - and if not, then there is obviously vanity that is harmful to the soul. An adulterous and sinful world reigns there, there is laughter, there is sinful charm, there is the triumph of evil passions. Tell me: you never read the Gospel, but do you go to the theater often? – What a terrible, reckless omission you allow in relation to your soul, what ingratitude before our Savior God, what disrespect for His Divine word, the object and purpose of which is your enlightenment, purification, sanctification, reconciliation, salvation! Do you often go to the theater, but don’t go to church? What negligence about the only thing needed! What disrespect for the house of God, for the house of prayer, thanksgiving to God, praise of God! So, do you belong only to the world and the prince of this world, and not to heaven and God? But the whole world lies in evil [1 John. 5, 19], and the world preaches evil. I thank the Lord for the conciliar, successful celebration of the liturgy for the repose of the servant of God Alexandra Ivanovna Sidorova and for the successful speaking of exclamations. At the prayer behind the pulpit You missed those, glorify them with Your Divine power. I sinned against the Lord - I shouted at a beggar for running after me for alms (near Britnev’s house). I shouted to the guard to take him. Sorrow and distress. Repentant prayer; mercy from the Lord. Glory to His long-suffering and mercy! I thank the Lord, who has shown me more and more immeasurable mercy in the stumbling-free service of Matins and Sunday Liturgy and in the life-giving communion of His most pure and life-giving Mysteries. At Smirnov's undertaker it was extremely difficult for me to serve a prayer service with an akathist to the Mother of God: the air is heavy, dusty, without any nutrition, it is extremely difficult to breathe, especially to speak; after the prayer service he drank balm and did something bad; then a cup of coffee, and that’s also not good; The postmen served a prayer service, also with difficulty; I ate a pie with salted fish with gusto, ate cheesecakes with cottage cheese at home - I felt sick for the whole day. (The balm is very harmful.) Yesterday was a remarkably painful day for me due to the suffering of my nerves; probably, I think, because, among other things, I put on a sweaty shirt in the morning, which I took off after the bath, because I experienced the same suffering that you have to experience when you leave the sweaty shirt you put on in the bath on. Such an unimportant circumstance - how much torment it caused me yesterday! I will never wear a sweaty shirt in the future. I thank, praise and exalt my Lord, who suddenly completely healed me from the severe suffering of my internal nerves and weakness into strength, who transformed sorrow into joy and perfect health, who gave me perfect peace and freedom through the communion of the divine saints, the most pure, life-giving and terrible Mysteries of His at the early liturgy. Glory to Thee, physician of souls and bodies, Lord! Glory to Your mercy and long-suffering upon me, the accursed! Glory to Your power! Glory to Your wisdom, Your righteousness and Your truth! Hearing singing and faces 49 [Lk. 15, 25]. This is the singing and faces in the Holy Church: angelic and human singing: angelic - about sinners who have repented and repented, human - as if a man was dead, and quickened by the goodness of the Son of God, he was bent and found [Lk. 15, 24]. As a result of eating lingonberry and pumpkin jam at dinner with veal, I had such a terrible breakdown of nerves today that I could not serve vespers, say the litanies, my strength left me, thousands of frames pierced my heart, and also because I drank two glasses of sherry in the apartment of the mother in labor and the bride and groom. Yes, I clinked glasses with the groom I married yesterday. Do not eat jam: I have experienced many times that it kills the nervous forces. Milk and cream are very healthy things. Avoid satiety as much as possible: it darkens, weakens, plunges into defilement and disfigures the soul and weakens the body. Today I am fed up, worthless, greedy. Have mercy, Lord! You worthily exposed me during Vespers. And I was angry and indignant with people and grumbled at God for not helping me in my ministry, although I asked Him to do so. I'm damned about everything! January 28. I sinned greatly before the Lord, before the Mother of God, the Angels and saints, and before myself, that on the day of communion of the Divine Mysteries I allowed myself to eat meat and a lot of cabbage without need, for the sake of satiation, through which I clogged my stomach, and especially suppressed my heart, killed it, made it completely powerless for prayer, as was the case at Vespers. There is especially no need to fraternize over glasses with every person. Yesterday I let into my mental house - in my heart, hostile, evil, unclean, blasphemous residents - all-evil demons - through my greed for meat and wine (sherry), and maybe even a beautiful face, for dust, pus; my heart was not mine, for I had no power or strength over it: mental enemies took possession of it, in revenge for yesterday’s (Sunday) omission of the litany at Vespers. He served Matins with weakness of heart; hot food and hot drink after a long walk in the very cold air (20 degrees below zero) had a paralyzing effect on my insides yesterday and today. In the future, you need to eat and drink something cold, such as milk, cream or beer. I thank the Lord and the Mother of God for the wonderful help given to me after a tearful prayer of repentance. In my insides I could feel the influence of hot tea, drunk in large quantities, and yesterday’s jam, killing my nerves ([...] strongly). Eat herrings, partly cod. I thank the Lord for the abyss of generosity and mercy poured out on me in the communion of the holy, most pure and life-giving Mysteries of yesterday in peace, spiritual and physical life, in the breadth of heart, in tenderness and joy. But in the evening I gravely sinned before God - I was unfaithful in the disposal of His earthly gifts and in my disposition; I grumbled, groaned and became jealous when the beggars pursued me, catching me on all paths and extorting money from me for various needs; Of course, they pursued me out of need, hunger and cold, and this seemed offensive and unfair to me: did I give birth to them, Lord, did I say that I must feed them all, water them, clothe them, give them rest? And he complained to the Lord about the society, about the mayor, about the head, about the archpriest, about the rich people in the city. I cried and sobbed cowardly that the beggars overpowered me every day. But I should rejoice that I serve the Lord. The Lord does not require beyond your strength. Give according to your strength willingly, not forcefully. I thank You, Lord, for Your wonderful, supernatural, super-worldly, super-heavenly Liturgy and for the life-giving communion of Your life-giving Mysteries, for their wonderful action in me. Lord, I thank You, for even today You have deigned to accept from me, rude, obstinate, stingy, prodigal, voluptuous, lazy, through the hands of the poor, material alms - but how insufficient I am in the mercy of the heart, the mercy of the spiritual! Lord, fix me! God! I thank You, for You girded me with spiritual power from above during the wedding of Justin and Fevronia, my servant. The two sour oranges I ate from Alexey Fedotovich Brovtsyn produced poison in my blood and produced a rough crimson blush in my face. So, after the Lenten meal, today my voice was healthy, free, clear, loud, and I served very well, until I developed a dislike for the sexton Alexei Preobrazhensky for his negligence and inattention to the service and for mechanical reading without any feeling: from those minutes I began to be embarrassed and hesitant and greatly distressed in my soul. I have sinned against the Lord: His entire law has ruined Him in one minute—what is reading and singing to me after that? – Nothing, if there is no love in the heart, condescension, patience, peace; Above all, let me flee from malice, pride and fornication. Saint Maximus the Confessor says that if we are angry with a brother for any offense, then we do not have love, for love is patient, merciful... covers everything [1 Cor. 13, 1 – 8 ). Yesterday I ate oatmeal at my fiancée Fevronia's, drank black coffee with crackers, a glass of vodka, cognac, Madeira (from Alexei Fedotovich Brovtsyn), two oranges, dry pretzels. At home I ate smelt with black bread. I drank a glass of sherry. Ever-living food (Church Slavic) – imperishable, eternal food. Prayer “Much merciful and all-merciful...” from the sequence of morning prayers. Smart (church glory) – spiritual, reasonable. Strong is Your saving right hand [Ps. 19, 7] (translation by P. Yungerov). Grin (church glory) - smile. Face (Church Slavic) – here: choir, choral singing. You might be interested in: