Письмо 33

You write about the need to rebuild your cooking; May the Lord bless you to correct this matter in peace, to calm your neighbors in your cells, who bring you peace with their labors; I very much approve of this and advise you to do it. But I really don’t like the petty calculations in money in you; you keep count so carefully that even someone’s ten-kopeck piece doesn’t go over one more than another; When should you engage in spiritual salvation and strive to eradicate passions, when the main passion and root of all evil - the love of money - dominates you? Considering that what is mine has not passed on to your sister, you will miss time for the most necessary things: self-reproach, humility and heart disease about your sins. Everything except this, which is not inherent in our soul, will remain here, and they will go there with us, either virtues or passions, the destruction of which was not taken care of here, and was not purified by due repentance. So, I cannot tell you how much money to put towards construction; and if you are true disciples of the Savior Christ, our Lord, then acquire and be enriched by love, and the first enemy is the love of money. If you want to listen to me, then know that it will be more pleasant for me when each of you tries to spend a larger portion before the other; and in everything it is necessary to act in this way in order to overthrow the evil love of money, which is the cause of many evils: excessive care about calculations, deep thoughts in it, anger, resentment, impoverishment of love and trust in God. May He Himself enlighten you and strengthen you in the matter of your salvation, and I am only the desirer of it, the great sinner I.M. February 25, 1855. You might be interested in: