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Before Your glory, Christ the Savior, I want to depict all my bitterness, all my guile and foolishness, but I will also describe all Your pleasantness and sweetness with which You dealt with me for the sake of Your love for mankind (the Slavic translation assumes the reading: Ευχευ σου φιλανθρωπωζ). From my mother’s womb I began to grieve and turn Your grace into nothing, and did not care about good. You yourself, Master, Son of God, through the multitude of Your bounties, patiently looked at all my wickedness. My head is lifted up by Your goodness, O Lord, but it is daily humbled because of my sins. The same Thy grace again draws me to life, but I rather rush towards death with all zeal, because the same bad habit of weaknesses draws me to itself, and I submit to it. Passionate skill is terrible and very bad; it seems to bind thought with insoluble bonds, and these bonds always seem desirable to me, because I myself want to be so connected. My skills entangle me in a net, and I rejoice that I am connected. I plunge into the most unbearable depths - and this makes me happy. The enemy daily renews my bonds, because he sees how happy I am with the variety of my bonds. My enemy is very skillful: he does not bind me with those bonds that are displeasing to me, but on the contrary, he always imposes such bonds and networks that I accept with great pleasure; for he knows that my will is stronger than I; and in the twinkling of an eye he imposes whatever bonds he wants. It is worthy of weeping and weeping; This is shame and shame that I am bound by my desires. With one wave I can break the bonds and free myself from all nets, but I don’t want to do this, being overcome by my weaknesses and arbitrarily servile to passions as to customs. It’s even more terrible and brings tears of shame from me that I am not getting out from under the will of my enemy. I am bound by the bonds that he imposes on me; and I mortify myself with those passions that please him. I can break the bonds, but I don’t want to; I can avoid the networks, but I’m in no hurry. What is more sad than this crying and sobbing? What other shame is more painful than this? For I will say affirmatively that it is the most bitter shame when a person fulfills the will of the enemy. Knowing my bonds, every hour I hide them from all spectators under a reverent exterior. And my conscience denounces me in this matter, hourly telling me: “Why aren’t you sober, poor thing? Don’t you know that the Day of the Last Judgment has come and is near, in which everything will be revealed? Rise up strong! Break your bonds! You have the power to loosen and bind.” This always tells me, this is what my conscience convicts me of; but I don’t want to free myself from bonds and networks. Every day I complain and sigh about this, and it turns out that I am bound by the same passions. I am pitiful and negligent, I do not make progress for the good of my soul, because I am not afraid of being in the snares of death. My body is clothed with a beautiful appearance of reverence, but my soul is entangled in indecent thoughts. I am thoroughly in awe of the audience, but inside I am almost a wild animal. I delight my speech by conveying it to people, but I myself am always bitter and cunning in intention. So what should I do on the day of testing when God will reveal everything before the judgment seat? I myself know that I will be punished there if I do not appease the Judge here with tears. That is why He does not withhold generosity even in anger, since He awaits my conversion. For He does not want to see anyone burn in fire, but He is willing that all men should enter into life. Therefore, trusting in Your bounty, Lord, Son of God, I fall down to You, and I beg You: look at me, lead my soul out of the prison of iniquities, and let a ray of light shine in my mind, before I go to the Terrible Judgment awaiting me, at which there is no place for repentance in bad deeds! For this and that thought occupies me: to move from the body and to sin no more. Again fear grips me, poor and wicked: how can I go unprepared and completely naked - without the cover of virtues? Great fear constantly torments my heart at the thought of both being in the flesh and moving out of the flesh; and I don’t know which of both thoughts I should bow to, for I see that I am not zealous for good, and living in the flesh is scary and dangerous, because every day I walk among nets and become like a careless and lazy merchant who simultaneously loses both property and profit. So I lose heavenly blessings among the multitude of entertainments with objects that lure me into bad deeds. For I myself feel how every hour I am being stolen away, and, unwillingly, I do things that I hate. The creature surprises me, how beautiful it is always, while my thought among these beauties is indecent. My will surprises me, so evil in sorrows, in which it always sins in different ways. My daily repentance surprises me - why it does not have a solid foundation for the building. Every day I lay the foundation of a building, and again with my own hands I destroy the work. My good repentance did not get off to a good start; on the contrary, there is still no end to evil negligence. I am enslaved by the weaknesses and will of my enemy, diligently fulfilling everything he loves. “Who will give my head water” in inexhaustible abundance, “and let me comb the source of tears” that would continually pour out - “and I weep” (Jer. 9:1) always before the merciful God, so that, sending His grace, He would remove me, a sinner, from the sea, raging with waves of sins and hourly overwhelming the soul? For my desires are worse than wounds, which do not tolerate medical bandages at all. I wait in the hope of repentance and deceive myself with this vain promise until I die. In this expectation I always say that I will repent, but I never repent. In words I diligently repent, but in deeds I am very far from repenting. If I am calm, then I forget my nature. And if I am again in sorrows, then I turn out to be a murmurer. The holy fathers, being God-loving, became well-skilled in suffering and temptation, and received an unfading crown from the Heavenly God with glory and praise; in sorrows they acquired praise and a name for themselves, and became an excellent example for subsequent births. Together with the fathers and saints, I always imagine the venerable, magnificent, most chaste Joseph, filled with heavenly beauty and love for the Almighty. What wonderful patience he acquired in temptation! The terrible envy of his brothers was not able to damage the beauty of his soul; then even the terrible asp in his own hole could not dry up the blooming beauty of this young man, although every hour he fixed his gaze on the beauty of the chaste one, so that in his rage he could pour out his bitter poison on him; Then, in prison and in chains, the splendor of the soul and the beauty of the God-loving youth did not fade. And if I, unfortunate, sin without any temptation, irritate and upset the Master, then, having experienced through experience the many and inexpressible bounties of Yours, Lord, I beg the greatness of Your bounties: save me, and grant to Your servant the forgiveness of his soul - this is all that he asks from the treasures of Your mercy. Master, so that Your grace constantly flows like a stream into the heart and lips of me, Your servant, so that my heart and lips may be pure by grace and an undefiled church, receiving within itself the Heavenly King; so that they would not, through evil thoughts, become like a den of beasts and through crafty wishes, a den of evil thieves, but so that the finger of grace would always move my tongue, like a string on a harp, to Thy glory, O Lover of Mankind, and I would unceasingly, throughout the entire time of my life, glorify and bless You with love with my heart and lips! For whoever is lazy to sing songs and glorify You, Master, is a stranger to the future life. Christ the Savior! Grant me, according to the petitions of my heart, that my tongue may be likened to the flute of grace, so that out of the many entries in the Testament here I can pay at least a few penalties, and under the shelter of Your hands I will be saved again there, when every soul will tremble before Your terrible glory. Hey, Master, Only Begotten Son, hear me, and accept the request of Your servant as a gift. I am a sinner saved by grace; and glory befits the One who saves the sinner through his generosity! You might be interested in: