Письмо 296

From your two letters I see your consciousness in the incorrect passage and actions of your imaginary mental prayer and the desire to begin to correct yourself, that is, abandoning desire and seeking for high measures, as your shrine desired and sought, full of the essence of passions: pride, vanity, self-will, envy, anger, rage, condemnation and others; and where there is consciousness of oneself as guilty, and obedience to the withdrawal of one’s will and rejection of one’s passionate mind, there is also hope for the healing of spiritual passions. But you wanted to inflict passion on the marriage in nasty clothes and therefore suffered an eruption. “You confess your passion for instructing your sisters, and you would crawl out of your hole to squabble with them; Why squabble, isn’t it better to have a spirit of meekness and love? It’s good that they obey you in simplicity of heart, but everyone is timid from the cruelty of the words and cannot say everything, which I know enough from previous cases; and with meekness and love they can win more into trust, and they will benefit. You say that Satan played with you for frequently mentioning his name, but you must leave it and deal peacefully. You also find that you have suffered for listening to many people about... passions, without the fear of God. Under the guise of benefiting them, she spoke to them in detail, which could make them feel irritated. The Holy Fathers do not order to explain this in detail, either during confession or revelation; but you accepted this from your passionate mind, and in this future be careful - sometimes you can teach them something that they have no idea about, and they don’t need it: and having learned it, fighting is aroused; and this is harmful. - Having burned yourself on milk, you need to blow on the water; You, having sought the high ones, have sinned by them; we must look for how to overcome our passions, which is what the saints teach us a lot about. fathers: Climacus, Abba Dorotheus, Cassian, Nil Sorsky, Simeon the New Theologian and others; and, struggling in passion, recognize your weakness and humble yourself, and humility attracts God’s grace; Do not seek more solitude, but have fellowship with the sisters; they love you and will have compassion for you, of that I am sure. I don’t approve of your frequent unction, what is it for? Of course, this sacrament is necessary for a Christian to accept; and it always pleases the heart when someone leaves with this direction; but it is not always used, over many years, one after the other; and you repeat this very often without reason; and to this I also added S... S..., a healthy one; this seems to be a temptation for many; but you did it in madness; there is no need to do this in the mind; Another thing is the sacrament of confession and communion, this needs to be repeated often, but that is often not necessary. - And... I... you can give unction to one, instilling in her the necessity and need of this sacrament, for it forgives forgotten sins and gives healing, if God’s will be done. Try to act as I wrote to you in my first letters before this about prayer and everything, obeying the teachings of the holy fathers, and most of all, care about acquiring humility and love, even towards those who insult you and hate you; Without love and humility, none of our deeds and deeds are favorable to God. I remain unworthy of I.M. March 3, 1853. You might be interested in: