Слово увещательное

Be attentive to yourself, youth, who has loved asceticism, so that your days do not pass in distraction. Do not allow evil thoughts into yourself, so that your strength does not become exhausted in the fight against your enemy. Always have the sweetest Lord in your mind, so that the course of your feat may be crowned. Hasten the struggles of your achievement, O youth, for the day has come, and the time is near, when those who work will be crowned, and those who are lazy will repent. Acquire virtue while there is time for it; acquire reverence for your eye, truth for your hearing, visiting the weak for your feet, the image of your Lord for your heart, excellence in chastity for your limbs, so that you may be worthy of greater honor before Angels and men. A soulless tree is honored if it bears the image of a mortal king; How much more, in this and in the next century, will the soul that has God in itself be preferred. Be attentive to yourself, beloved; lust is dead, but your body is alive; Therefore, pay careful attention so that your body does not impart life to the dead. If you give him life, he will kill you. Oh, it is worthy of bitter tears that a revived dead man should kill the one who gave him life! Learn exactly what lust is. Without the body it is dead, but when the desire of lust approaches the body, then lust is quickened, the mind is occupied with the sweetness of lust, and the body, which is alive, turns out to be dead with the deadness of lust. Therefore, carefully guard yourself from this dead thing. When lust is ignited in the body, bring to your mind an unquenchable fire and an endless worm, and the kindling of the members will immediately fade away; otherwise, having relaxed, you will be defeated and begin to repent, and the fire will embrace you with the sorrow of repentance, and you will get used to sinning, although you will repent. At first, try to be strict with every desire, so as not to be overcome by it, and you will not get used to giving up victory over yourself in battle. For habit is second nature. The habit of relaxation never acquires severity. She always creates and destroys, sins and repents. If you get used, beloved, to relax when they attack you, then the inscription in your handwriting will forever and ever be: repentance. He who is accustomed to yielding victory over himself to some desire is always convicted by his conscience; he is sad at all times, and although in front of others he shows a reverent and cheerful face, he is inwardly saddened due to the convictions of his conscience. For the usual property of lust is to impart painful sorrow to those who fulfill it. Therefore, listen with all your soul, always having God within you, for Christ is the Immortal Bridegroom of the soul. So, do not forsake your true Bridegroom, lest He also forsake you, and lest you, the forsaken one, fall in love with a stranger, that is, with an insidious enemy. He insidiously loves for a short time, and soon leaves. This is an unclean harlot; when he depletes someone of his wealth and strength, then he becomes hateful to her. Who will not cry because the enemy, having exhausted our strength and time for his uncleanness and foul lusts, then retreats from us because of the hatred that he has for us? Because this unclean and nasty one never loved us. You might be interested in: