Письмо 114

Evening may be mourning, but joy will come in the morning (Ps. 29:6); This is what happens in our mental structure. You see this for yourself: embarrassment, sorrow and bewilderment are not uncommon; but they pass and you receive peace, and this is necessary in the matter of our salvation; Only you are not faint-hearted, but rather resort to God, and thank Him for standing on the path walked by our fathers and thereby approaching the city of humility. St. Isaac the Syrian writes in the 78th word: “when you find the world unchanged, then fear,” and further, read and benefit. I. K–a is young, ardent and unsettled; She needs to learn humility and stop herself in her impulses. I wrote to her what I found necessary for her benefit. - M. N-a is languishing in boredom and melancholy; this comes from her inaction - that she does not do anything that could shock her and show her her passions and weaknesses, from which she could humble herself; and, moreover, does not have the confirmed intention of remaining in your monastery; all this torments and torments her, but her father looks at monasteries as if they were a dungeon, and according to his reasoning, it doesn’t matter where it is, it’s all a dungeon. A pitiful concept of a place where salvation is acquired not by force, but voluntarily. We cannot force the world to think about monasteries the way they are. “Deviation from the world is an understanding unknown to the world,” writes St. John Climacus; – and it (evasion) disfigures it (the world). Not all worldly people have such an opinion about monasteries: there are those who have a correct understanding of them. May the Lord provide good things for her. - 1854. You might be interested in: