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You don’t thank God for your well-being; what’s more, you’re even dissatisfied with it! But bring yourself to the thought that in the same city as you there live people who are similar to you in everything, in an unhappy lot, to which, however, they are accustomed and are not burdened by it. Get into these low, cramped, stuffy shelters, where several poor people live, and thank God with all your heart that you have a spacious, clean and bright shelter, and be completely satisfied with your condition. And if you want Christian perfection and to enter the eternal abodes of heaven, try as much as possible to alleviate the lot of these poor people in any way you can and in any way you can: whether by intercession with others, by money, or by something else. Be merciful like the Heavenly Father, buy here, at the price of corruption, incorruptible life in heaven, the eternal Kingdom of Heaven (2). I was in the villages and saw peasant life. What poverty everywhere, what rags with countless patches! What emaciated faces from lack of nutrition! What mournful faces! What are these, stepsons, and not children of God? The rich don’t even want to look at them, they don’t want to clothe them, feed them, comfort them! What is the soul of the rich! How disgusting she is to God who loves mankind! Do not please the rich, do not flatter, do not envy him, but cry for him as for the most pitiful person (4). Do you know why we are all poor and ugly and what we need most of all? We were all conceived and born in iniquity and poor in purity, truth and holiness, for unrighteousness and uncleanness were conceived with us in the womb, in the loins of the father, and with our age they grew and took root and made themselves like weeds in a field among the wheat or like dry, barren fig trees. It is worthy of crying and tears. We were born into Christianity or joined the Orthodox Church, therefore we must live in purity and all virtue, but we live carelessly, meaninglessly, vainly, haphazardly and do not think of striving for Christ’s perfection, forgetting what the Lord told us: “Be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48) (4). Just as in worldly life there are poor and rich, so in the spiritual world, in the spiritual order there are poor and rich. The poor ask from the rich and sufficient and cannot live without them, so in the spiritual order the poor must resort to the assistance of the spiritually rich. We are spiritually poor, beggars, but the saints are spiritually rich or in this life still shining with faith and piety. It is to them that we, the poor, must resort. We must ask for their prayers so that they can help us become simple, like babies, so that they teach us spiritual wisdom, how to overcome sins, how to love God and our neighbor (6). And the need of the poor is persistent in its demands, sometimes impudent, and our passions are just as persistent and persistent, impudent and impudent, for example, stinginess, covetousness, fornication, malice, envy, pride, theft 2, heresy, schism, superstition, idolatry. But let us prudently yield to the persistent requests of the needy, poor and suffering, this will serve to our salvation and eternal bliss. Just as the poor and suffering force us to compassion, so let us mutually force ourselves to give alms, we will force ourselves to do good while there is time, just as sin constantly forces us to constantly sin and anger God and multiply for ourselves the food of the fire of Gehenna, which is already beginning here little by little to kindle in our hearts and showing us the eternal flame in it. eternal weeping and gnashing of teeth. “The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and those who use force take it by force” (Matthew 11:12). And the enemy wants to forcefully capture and drag into Gehenna all the careless, unbelieving and unrepentant and partial to the blessings here (7). Do not despise a single person, any poor person, but treat every well-intentioned person with complete respect and goodwill, especially the poor as members of ours, or even more so, members of Christ, worthy of pity, otherwise you will severely wound your soul. Oh, how easy it would seem to be to live in simplicity and love, and how difficult it is for our corrupt heart to live in love! At every step there is a pretext for enmity against one's neighbor (7). “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31). Everything should be common to us. Just as the sun, air, fire, water, earth are common to all of us, food, money, books, and in general all the gifts of the Lord, given in common to all and easily shared, should also be common - a part. For we have nothing of our own, but everything is God’s. And it is unfair that rich people keep their surpluses in their treasuries, while there are many poor people in need of necessary food and necessary clothing and housing. However, to industriousness the surplus justly belongs, and the idle justly suffer poverty and misery. Therefore, if we know about some that they are poor from idleness and laziness, we should not give away from our labor surpluses to such people. “If anyone does not want to work,” says the Apostle Paul, “let him not eat” (2 Thess. 3:10). But in the case of glaring poverty, which comes from old age and exhaustion, from illness, from fruitless or little-rewarded labor, from a truly difficult situation, from a large family, from a failed grain harvest, one must always rush to the aid, especially of rich people. We must be guided by the history of the apostolic times, by the example of the primacy of the Church (7). Humble yourself, arrogant mind, before the teaching of the Gospel and before the poverty of Christ, come down from your pedestal, stand lower, approach these poor, whom Christ Himself is not ashamed to call His brethren, and extend a helping hand to them. Don’t just collect for yourself, don’t just satisfy your own whims, but also be rich in God’s good deeds, which will follow you even after death. So, both nature, and reason, and the Word of God inspire us to be sociable with our neighbors in our property, pliable, without grumbling, without stinginess, willingly, with zeal, meekly and humbly, complacently helping the poor as brothers in Christ and as members of civil society (9). Tatba (obsolete) – theft. You might be interested in: