Слово 4. О покаянии, очень полезное для тех, кои с верою и нелицемерною любовью, со вниманием и должным рассуждением прочитывают оное.

Behold, my soul, this year, through the great long-suffering and great goodness of the philanthropic God and Master of all who created us, we have reached the quiet and saving refuge of the holy and soul-beneficial Pentecost, when everyone - both the righteous and the sinners - with great zeal takes upon themselves the intensified feat. The righteous do this for two reasons: firstly, in order to make the virtues of truth and humility, which they had previously corrected, more solid and unshakable; secondly, trying to add other spiritual corrections to the previous virtuous life, in order to be worthy of receiving great rewards and brightest crowns. And sinners and wicked people like us accept this feat in order to, through all kinds of abstinence, dejection of the body and spiritual weeping, appease the terrible Judge, Whom they angered with all sorts of lawless actions throughout their damned lives, and in order to be honored to spend the rest of the time in a godly, honest life and in fulfilling the saving commandments of the Lord. Let us arise from the sleep of great insolent laziness and work with all diligence so that the rest of our short life will be irrevocably our mother-in-law's honor of the high calling where our life is, and from there we wait for the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ (Phil. 3:14, 20). Let us watch with the wise virgins; Let us take with us enough oil, which signifies God-like love for mankind and mercy towards all those generally living in need and sorrow, with which the Creator of all and the Lord most propitiates us, and with which the other virgins neglected and were left outside the mysterious bridal chamber, having received no benefit from their virginity. Let us, O soul, always remember the Lord, Who commands us, saying: Be like a man who waits for his Lord when he returns from marriage, so that when he comes and pushes, it will be opened to him. Blessed are the servants, for whom the Lord will find those who are watching (Luke 12:36–37). With this parable He clearly commands us, saying: just as the servants of earthly rulers, fearing to be beaten, always try to please their masters and fulfill their every desire, so you, My disciples, work for salvation with fear and love, always trying to do what is kind and pleasing to me, and as I myself command you with My commandments. Let us acquire for ourselves a robe worthy of the mysterious bridal chamber, that is, a praiseworthy life, shining with all purity and holiness, so that, otherwise, we will not be bound hand and foot and thrown out of that mysterious feast - into utter darkness. Being called, or more correctly, having already been called by the Lord himself and His blessed disciples to the mysterious wedding feast, let us not madly refuse this blessed title, making the excuse of a village, or pairs of oxen, or entering into a perishable marriage with a wife - these insignificant and quickly disappearing objects, in which revolve those who philosophize on earth, and not heaven, for whom is God the womb and glory in their cold, in the words of the Apostle (Phil. 3:19). But we, O soul, will philosophize on the highest, let us seek the highest, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God (Col. 3:1); Let us submit to the Savior, Who says: If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me (John 12:26). And what this following consists of, we will hear about it from the Lord Himself, who says: If anyone wants to follow Me, let him deny himself, and let him take up his cross and come after Me (Matthew 16:24). Who fulfills all these three provisions? - One who immediately renounced all his possessions and after that no longer desires them, but with all his soul rejected them even to the point of death, as serving as an obstacle to him in his striving for heaven and depriving him of those blessings that are prepared there for the righteous. Whoever has so rejected the thorns of this flattering and vain life has completely renounced himself, that is, all the desires of his flesh and the base passions of his soul, and with all his soul he has hated and rejected them from himself; therefore, such a one walks on the right paths after his Savior, having taken up his cross, which means the unauthorized mortification of his passions and desires. And whoever, after his renunciation, again acquires villages and various acquisitions, and thereby again entangles himself in the cares and rumors of everyday life, his carnal and spiritual passions, which have calmed down somewhat, begin to appear again, embrace his damned soul, fight and wound it in every possible way. It is clear that what was said in the wise parable happened to such a person: A dog shall return to his vomit, and a pig, having washed, shall return to the pot (2 Pet. 2:22). Such a person is far removed from the expected blessed life of the righteous, as our Lord showed in a parable, saying: No one, who lays his hand on his forehead and in vain turns back, is led into the kingdom of heaven (Luke 9:62). Here the Lord calls “hand” the autocratic will and arbitrariness of each of us; “Ralom” means His holy and saving commandments, with which we conveniently walk through the Gospel life equal to the angels; By returning “backwards,” what else does He want to designate if not a return to former customs and to the corruption of worldly life? Isn’t it going back - the constant concern about how to acquire more villages and acquisitions and various livestock herds, how to increase several times his silver and gold, which the monk voluntarily renounced during his tonsure, promising the Lord living in the highest to henceforth be free from all this, in the apostolic way, and to fulfill the commandments of the Lord in all non-covetousness, in poverty and silence, with all humility in purity and holiness of flesh and spirit? Behold, now, O soul, is the time favorable, behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Cor. 6:2). Let us therefore put aside dark deeds (Rom. 13:12), which are: fornication and all uncleanness of the flesh and spirit, drunkenness, gluttony, disorderly and insane laughter, foul language, crazy speech, slander, lies, envy, jealousy, flattering disposition, arrogance, demonic pride, love of money, which is the root of all sinful evil and is called by the saint Apostle Paul's service of idols (1 Tim. 6:10). We will completely hate all this and quickly remove it from ourselves while the terrible Judge is kindly patient with us, giving us time to repent. Let us precede His face in confession (Ps. 94:2). Under His face understand, soul, His righteous anger and indignation towards us, as it is said in another place: But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. For what? – You will consume their memory from the earth (Ps. 33:17). Let us take up the commandments of God, that is, we will repent before God by fulfilling His holy commandments, lest the Lord become angry with us and perish from the righteous path (Ps. 2:12), which is fellowship and heavenly cohabitation with those who are being saved. The Day of the Lord, soul, is unknown, and just as a thief who attacks in the night puts to death whoever he finds sleeping, so death suddenly comes to us and drives us out of this temporary miserable life. Let us throw away from ourselves all weakness and laziness. Let us not invent excuses for sins, imagining bodily weakness, the coming of friends, various holidays and invitations from relatives and neighbors: all these are empty and useless excuses, and not one of them can deliver us from the hand of an impartial Judge. For we have renounced all this once and for all before God’s chosen Angels, promising the Master to spend the rest of our lives in the Gospel, in all humiliation, in poverty, in truth and holiness, according to the rules of the God-inspired teachers of monastic life. Now, violating these rules and leading a disorderly life, what else can we expect, damned soul, other than destruction, like one who lied before God in the vows given to Him? Or is it in vain, you think, that the divinely inspired Scripture says: Thou hast hated all who do iniquity; thou hast destroyed all who speak lies; also: The Lord abhors a man of blood and flattery (Ps. 5:6–7); also: Will it rain down on sinners a snare: fire and a bugbear, and a stormy spirit, part of their cup (Ps. 10:6)? Or do you consider your life pleasing to God and reverent, and therefore remain in laziness? Alas, alas, my damned soul! This is precisely our gravest and most important sinfulness and the reason for our condemnation, that we do not realize that we greatly upset the terrible Judge with all disobedience and crime of His saving commandments. This disposition of ours constitutes a sign of final insensibility and madness, if we do not immediately reject this insensibility from ourselves. Let us begin diligently and sincerely to repent, for this outer garment consisting of hair rags will not bring us any benefit in the matter of salvation; on the contrary, this will serve us to condemn us even more, because, dressing in such thin rags, we lead a life indecent and completely incongruous. And this is clear both from our criminal acts, and from many apostolic and paternal institutions and laws, and in particular, this is evidenced by the divine commands of the common Lord and Judge, expressed by Him in the form of beatitudes. Let's delve into them. “Blessed,” he says, “are the poor in spirit, for among them is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). He calls those poor in spirit who are always and in everything humble about themselves in their thoughts, and condemn themselves, likening the blessed Prophet, who says: I am a worm, and not a man, a reproach to men and the humiliation of people (Ps. 21:7). And in another place: Lord, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are lifted up lower, we walk lower in the great, lower in the wondrous than I, and the following after this (Ps. 130: 1-2). We, damned souls, how do we think about ourselves and think in our hearts? Don’t we constantly internally justify ourselves and consider ourselves workers of all righteousness and all righteousness, considering ourselves very intelligent, full of all wisdom and understanding, and therefore worthy of being elevated to some kind of powerful position in order to instruct others to salvation? For this purpose, we try in every possible way to achieve some kind of church rank, for which we not only hypocritically pretend to lead a reverent life and enter into fellowship with those in power, pleasing them in every possible way and being affectionate towards them, but often we also give gifts, and promise others if they bring to fruition what we want and seek. All this, soul, is clear evidence of the arrogance and deceit of a heart lifted up by pride. How will we be recognized by the common Judge as worthy of the bliss that is promised to those who have hated all this? If we are unworthy of this divine bliss, then we are damned and already condemned, if we do not rather love repentance with a warm soul, retreating before our departure from this glory-loving fury of ours. This is all the more necessary for us, since the prophetic word strongly prays to God against those who, for the sake of the desire for temporary glory, dare to unlawfully achieve any kind of power, for the word of God clearly says: Do evil to them, O Lord, do evil to the glorious ones of the earth (Isa. 26:15). But let us pay due attention to other beatitudes and see whether our life agrees with them. Blessed, he says, are those who mourn, for they will be comforted (Matthew 5:4). This is the God-given fruit of venerable humility—spiritual lament, which, out of great tenderness and divine love, is born in a heart imbued with humility. He who truly humbly thinks about himself in his heart always cries for himself, recognizes himself as condemned and unworthy of heaven and earth, always remembering his sins. We, the soul, being strongly obsessed with the love of fame due to our arrogance, if we achieve some kind of rank, then how will we ever be able to cry or condemn ourselves, when we constantly surround ourselves with glory from people and all sorts of praise and caresses, passing our lives in ridicule and various blasphemies with those living with us, and adorning ourselves with costly silk clothes, gold and silver? Surrounding ourselves in abundance with all this, we remove ourselves far from the spiritual consolation that those who cry for themselves have, and, according to the divine saying, we accept our goodness in our bellies. As for the bliss that follows, namely: Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5): have we not completely fallen away, damned souls, from this bliss, being irritated by those who sin against us in something more ferocious than wild animals, and rising up against them with great anger, trying in every possible way to take revenge on them for the insult they have caused us? A meek person is and is revered, the soul, as such - one who, with great humility and without embarrassment, firmly endures vexation, reproach, humiliation, and the plunder of estates, as well as beatings and wounds, imitating his Savior and Lord. But whoever is faint-hearted against this and raises his hand to also beat him who is beating him, and his tongue encourages him to be vexed and reproached, and is ready to enter into litigation with his opponent: he has not even entered the threshold of the Evangelical and Apostolic life, and in vain flaunts his outer monastic attire until he has put off the whole old man with all his passions and lusts. How can I properly depict our falling away from the following two beatitudes, one of which pleases those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, and the other the merciful? More correctly, what kind of crying and what kind of corresponding sobbing should I use? Isn’t it worthy of tears and lamentation that, contrary to all truth and all monastic rules, we dare to do regarding our brethren, the poor, I say, and the needy, widows and orphans? We not only despise them, seeing how they perish from hunger and cold and from extreme poverty in everyday needs, but we also do not defend them against the strong and lawless who offend them, and do not intercede when they take away their property. Meanwhile, we have a strict commandment, which speaks on behalf of the most righteous and terrible Judge: God is in the assembly of gods, but in the midst the gods will judge. As long as you judge unrighteousness and are ashamed of the faces of sinners. Judge the poor and the poor, justify the lowly and the poor. Take away the poor and the wretched, deliver him from the hand of the sinner (Ps. 81:1-4). And what am I saying about the fact that we do not protect and stand up for them when they are offended, although we are often able to save them from the offenses caused to them? “We ourselves, damned souls, often dare against them worse than those of the world.” Or don’t you consider it extreme inhumanity and untruth on our part when we, having renounced all superfluous food and bodily rest before God and before His holy Angels, then, forgetting our vows, again acquire for ourselves all sorts of acquisitions and herds of animals, feed abundantly on all sorts of tasty dishes and enjoy all peace at the expense of the sweaty labor of the villagers at hand? And these poor people, being in constant labor and being tormented in obtaining for us everyday needs, which they provide us in abundance, themselves always remain in poverty and poverty, not even having clean rye bread, and they often eat it without salt, due to extreme poverty. We not only remain insensitive and unsympathetic to their bitter fate and do not deign to give them any consolation, although we have a commandment to take merciful care of those who suffer poverty and the meagerness of everyday needs, but we also very inhumanly increase this poverty for them with annual demands for the most burdensome increases for the silver they borrowed from us, and we never forgive them this annual payment, even if They have already received what they borrowed ten times over. And not only do we oppress them in this way, but also, if someone, due to extreme poverty, could not pay interest for the coming year, then we demand from him - oh inhumanity! – other percentages; if they cannot contribute, we take away from them everything they have and drive them out of our villages empty-handed, when we should preferentially have mercy on such people and, in fulfillment of the divine commandment, provide them with all everyday needs, like our brethren. In addition, if any of them were exhausted under the weight of the affairs and labors we constantly impose on them, and wanted to move somewhere else, then we would not let him go unless he paid the established ransom for the fact that he had lived in our village for so many years, consigning in an extremely inhumane manner to oblivion the countless labors and sweat and suffering that he suffered while serving our needs while living in our villages. Being so unmerciful to our wretched brothers, damned soul, and not showing them any compassion and love for mankind, but on the contrary, devouring them and the sea in every way, - how do we not fear the terrible Judge and Lord, Who will say to us: Depart from Me, cursed, into eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angel. For what? “You are hungry,” he says, “and you do not give Me food.” You were thirsty, and did not give Me something to drink; He was naked, and did not clothe Me (Matthew 25:41–43), and so on. After this he adds: Because you have not made the least of these brothers of Mine, neither have you made Me (Matthew 25:45). This saying is terrible, my accursed soul, and a terrible sentence, especially for us, accursed monks, who seem to have renounced all untruth and lawlessness and worldly covetousness, and vowed to God to love in the future all truth and mercy, unfeigned love and philanthropy for every person in general, especially for those in trouble; then, forgetting our vows, we treat the villagers subordinate to us so inhumanely, whom the Lord calls his brethren, about whom even through the mouth of blessed David he clearly speaks like this: Passion for the sake of the poor and the sighing of the needy, now I will rise, says the Lord: I will rely on salvation, not complaining about it (Ps. 11:6). those who offend the poor and wretched, I seem to remain silent about this, but I will not always remain silent, for I will rise up in every possible way to defend them and take revenge on those who offend them. He expresses the same thing in another place through the same Prophet, saying: Sirah and widow will receive (intercede), and the way of sinners will destroy (Ps. 145:9); and in another place: I knew that the Lord would bring judgment to the poor and vengeance to the needy (Ps. 139:13). If all this is so, O soul, and it cannot be otherwise, then why are we so insensitive to all this? How can we not be frightened by the parable told by the Lord about that unmerciful and hater of the poor - the rich man and the wretched Lazarus, as well as the driving away of the virgins from the divine palace? And even more, how will that lover of wealth not convince us, whom God and the Master himself reviled, saying: You are foolish! This night they will take your soul from You, and what You have prepared, to whom will it be? (Luke 12:20). Or do you not know, soul, the true and wise saying of the prophet and king David: Together the foolish and the foolish will perish and leave their wealth to strangers, destroying their homes forever (Ps. 49:11-12). Truly foolish is and is recognized as such the one who does not understand the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, as the divine Apostle says, who bequeaths to us, saying: If you rise with Christ, be wise on things above, and not on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:1-3). He is called mad because he dishonestly and incorrectly understands the power of divine commands and therefore wanders along the crossroads of temporary pleasures and vanities of this world, enjoying and having fun with it, like a worm in the mud in which it is born and crawls, and in which it dies when it dries up. Let us finally rise up, soul, and erase from our mental eyes the pus that has accumulated on them due to our rebellion and madness. Let us understand that everything that concerns us must be done according to the divine commandments, and we will try to correct ourselves. Let us squander with good, according to the will of God, the evil we have collected, contrary to the divine commandment. Let us renounce again, let us love the second renunciation, when we have lied in the first, and let us obey that divine voice that cries: Give to the poor; their righteousness endures forever (Ps. 111:9). If the truth of the one who distributed his wealth to the poor remains with him forever, then the unrighteousness of the merciless also remains with him for endless centuries in the flame of an unquenchable fire, like that unmerciful one to whom it was rightly said: Child, remember that you have received your goodness in your belly (Luke 16:25). Let us imitate, O soul, that wise Savior’s host, who said: Behold, half of my substance, O Lord, will I give to the poor, and whoever I have offended anyone with, I will return in fourfold (Luke 19:9). Let us, my soul, imitate His good repentance and praiseworthy will, so that we too may be worthy of hearing that divine voice: Today salvation has come to this house. How long do we remain deaf to the Divine teaching, which commands us, saying: Do not trust in unrighteousness and do not desire admiration: if wealth flows, do not apply your heart (Ps. 61:11)? Let us fear, soul, let us fear the threat of the divine teacher, who says: Come now, rich, weep and weep for your fierce sorrows that are coming upon you. Throw away your wealth, and destroy your garments. Your gold and silver will corrode, and their rust will come upon you and destroy your flesh like fire, which you will receive in the last days (James 5:1-3). This just threat applies especially to us, damned soul, who collect a lot of all kinds of wealth, but do not want to give half a half to the poor, although they bow to us with tears and ask; but we, passing them, do not even want to look at them. Therefore, we will not be pardoned by the righteous Judge, since we ourselves do not have mercy on our neighbors who are perishing from hunger and cold: Judgment is without mercy, - he says, - to those who do not show mercy (James 2:13). And we cannot taste those blessings that are prepared for the righteous when we hunger and thirst for unrighteousness and not for righteousness. Let us not abide, soul, in such clouded thoughts and petrification, but let us fear the terrible rebuke of Him who says: Woe to you now that you are filled with hunger. Woe to you rich people, for you defend your consolation (Luke 6:24–25). Let us put aside all that unbelief regarding the commandments and commandments of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, with which our hearts are troubled. Let us accept the Lord's punishments, lest he be angry with us, and perish from the path of the righteous, when His wrath will soon kindle against the transgressors of His holy commandments, who, out of their great contempt and insensibility, madly think that by repentance at their last breath, which is essentially invalid, they will appease their incorruptible Judge in everything with which they have consciously and voluntarily angered Him throughout their entire lives. Well, soul, repentance offered at the last breath with tears and contrition of the heart, with painful groaning and the return of what was stolen; but such repentance is good for those who, due to ignorance of God’s future judgment and expected torment, lived lawlessly. And for those who, conscious of all this and with a full understanding of the Divine Scripture, voluntarily trample on the commandments of God and think of begging the terrible Judge with their last breath - I don’t know whether this benefit will be given to them. For most of these are suddenly snatched from this life, being struck before death by deprivation of language and consciousness, and presenting a pitiful sight to those who look at them, lying silent and motionless, and being invisibly tortured for many days. Others were suddenly caught up, without the slightest time given to them for repentance. And knowing this for certain, the divinely inspired hymnist commands us, saying: Know therefore that you who forget God, lest he snatch away and deliver (Ps. 49:22). Who are these, O soul, who forget God? Is it not those who, with insane contempt, deliberately trample His saving commandments, being well versed in the Divine Scripture? This word of ours is confirmed by the same divine hymnist, who clearly sings like this: The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him, and His righteousness is on the sons of sons, who keep His covenant and remember His commandments to do (Ps. 103:17-18). It is clear from this that those who remember His commandments to do, that is, to fulfill them with deeds, are those who remember God; those who trample His commandments are, rightly, called those who forget God. For the same reason, He also forgets them, as He Himself says through His prophet Hosea to the transgressors of His commandments - the ungrateful Jews: Because you have rejected knowledge (knowledge), I will also reject you, so that you should not be a priest to Me: and you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children. And just as they have sinned against Me, I will turn their glory into dishonor (Hosea 4:6–7). Terribly, soul, those who sin consciously and hope to receive salvation through invalid and unknown repentance at death are mistaken: for God, says the divine Apostle, cannot be mocked (Gal. 6:7). Therefore, let us abandon such soul-harming delusion and repent before God, while the highest divine love for mankind and goodness gives us time for this. For in a favorable time, it is said, I will listen to you and help you on the day of salvation. Behold, now, says the divine Apostle, the time is favorable, behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Cor. 6:2). Let us put aside the dark deeds and put on the weapons of light. For let us walk gracefully in the days (Rom. 13:12–13). But we have already said enough about this. Let us, if you please, look at the following beatitudes: are we living our lives in accordance with them? Blessed, it is said, are those who are pure in heart, so that they will see God (Matthew 5:8). Here, at this word, great bewilderment surrounds me, O soul. How can I properly praise the ineffable and abundant gift that the humane Master gives us? In the above beatitudes, according to the quality and according to the correction of each, they are promised to those worthy of honor. Here the Lord promises the very main thing of divine desires, which consists in seeing face to face, secretly and mentally, the dispassionate and blissful Divine nature. Embraced by this desire, the blessed hymnist says: In the same way that the trees on the springs of water desire, so does my soul desire for You, God. My soul thirsts for the mighty, living God: when will I come and appear to the face of God? (Ps. 41:2–3), I will be satisfied, and will always be revealed to Your glory (Ps. 16:15). By saturation here the Prophet denotes the most secret and ineffable insatiable pleasure of the divine beauty and love of God, which will be granted to those who have completely cleansed their hearts from everything: not only from “all filthiness of the flesh and spirit,” but also from every mental illness, I mean: rage, anger, envy and satanic exaltation, contempt and condemnation of one’s neighbor, and any crime in general, from deceit and sneakiness, from flattery and crafty opinions; for with all this, damned soul, our heart has become infected and is constantly wounded by these ailments in various ways, remaining insensible. To make sure that this is really so, let us examine carefully, soul, if you can, the evil thoughts creeping in the secret cage of our hearts, and in every possible way you will find hidden there all sorts of iniquity and godless pharisaical arrogance, because of which you justify yourself in everything and consider yourself, in some way, to be at the forefront and better than anyone who labors in virtue, and you consider every person worse than yourself, even if he has clearly passed reverend life. If your neighbor happens to sin in some way due to the weakness of the flesh, you condemn him like a Pharisee, scold him and do not cease to reproach him in various ways before all people. If you see him living virtuously and receiving praise from everyone, your heart is immediately stung by the arrow of envy and sorrow overwhelms you because of your brother’s virtuous life, since he turns out to be better than you before God and before people. Being possessed and defeated by the arrow of envy, you begin to hate him and try in every way to hinder him and distract him from striving for the better. What are the defilements of our secret carnal passions? They are truly terrible, disgusting and diverse. For not only does a sudden glance at a woman or a boy’s beautiful face revolt us, but even their very voice, being heard by us, or the clothes that fall into our hands, immediately defiles our heart. And what I say about the look, voice and clothing - often one subtle thought and lustful memory of them suddenly arouses lustful passion, inflames the heart with a sinful flame, and the flesh immediately begins to rage and rage. Being shamefully defiled in so many ways by our flesh and mind, how can we prove worthy of such grace promised by this beatitude? It is impossible, soul, it is by no means impossible to receive this until we put to death our souls that are on earth (Col. 3:5), according to the word of the divine Apostle, who says: Have peace and holiness with everyone, for whom no one else will see the Lord (Heb. 12:14). How can our souls die when we constantly feed in abundance on the most delicious meats, are always surrounded by gold and silver, also by glory and honor from people, when we are immersed in countless everyday worries and rumors, and are always clouded in our thoughts with rage and anger, jealousy and envy? We have lost our way, soul, we have lost our way from the right and unforgettable residence of the venerable monks, and we are heading madly towards the honor of the high calling (Phil. 3:14), - not as Paul and the stewards of those blessings that were observed in heaven walked after him: they immediately left the fatherland, parents, relatives, friends, acquisitions, possessions, glory, honor, abundant food and every bodily thing peace, and irrevocably fled to the farthest deserts, taking up their cross, that is, the voluntary mortification of carnal and spiritual passions and desires, holding firmly to the saving commandment of their Lord, Who says: If anyone wants to walk after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and come after Me (Matthew 16:24). And in another place: Therefore, anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be My disciple (Luke 14:33). So, when we, soul, renounce not only all our possessions, but also our very desires and carnal passions and lusts, and when with all our souls we hate all human glory and honor, and truly love future glory and life, also all squalor and dishonor and dishonor, abstinence and silence; when we live our lives in all humility, reverence and honesty of morals, and when, having corrected all this, we say in the feeling of our hearts with that blessed royal Prophet: I am a worm, and not a man, the reproach of men and the humiliation of people (Ps. 21:7), and when we are worthy to endure all kinds of sorrows and hardships, the plunder of our property, wounds and persecutions, imprisonment and death for our sins and for the sake of true faith in God: then the hope of salvation, the soul, will be firm for us, according to the divine definition, which says: Blessed are you, when they revile you and destroy you and say all kinds of evil against you, a liar, for my sake: rejoice and be glad, for your reward is many in heaven (Matthew 5:11-12). In the meantime, my soul, let us hold on to our former worldly customs and morals, and let us not put off our old man with his passions and lusts. Until then, I say with David, we should become wise in vain and rise up when we are gray, like those who eat the bread of sickness (Ps. 126:2). Truly, the bread of sickness, and not the bread of animals, is eaten by those who, contrary to the Gospel commandment, throughout their entire lives, with all unrighteousness and covetousness, eat the sweat of the poor of others, and do not want to give up this iniquity and do not try to understand directly and in a godly manner the commandment of God, which says: I want mercy, and not sacrifice, and the deception of God rather than burnt offerings ( Hos.6:6). Blessed is he, he says, considering the poor and wretched. Why? - Therefore, he says, that on the day of cruelty the Lord will deliver him (Ps. 40:2). And whoever eats him up and oppresses him with annual demands for interest is alien and does not participate in such bliss and deliverance on the day of cruelty; for the unrighteous and the covetous will not inherit the kingdom of God. “No one,” he says, “let him flatter you with vain words; For these sakes the wrath of God is coming upon the disobedient sons (Eph. 5:6). If, for the sake of the above-mentioned violations of the commandments, the wrath of God is coming on the disobedient sons, then it is obvious that for the sake of the opposite of this, that is, for the sake of truth, chastity, love of poverty and compassion for all those living in sorrow, all grace and blessing will come from God on the disobedient sons, according to what has been said: The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are on their prayer. The face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to consume their remembrance from the earth (Ps. 33:16-17). Behold, my soul, from the many and varied divinely inspired sayings of the All-Holy Spirit, we have come to know our good Master’s love for mankind and kindness towards those who fear Him in word and deed, as well as His unbearable wrath revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men (Rom. 1:18), who trample His saving commandments and live unworthy of the gospel and apostolic life, and especially against ourselves, who we deliberately transgress the will of our Lord. Let us not remain in our carelessness and insensibility, in which we spent the past time of our damned life, but let us immediately arise from the deep sleep of insensibility and let us fear with all our souls the truly terrible day of judgment and even before that the suddenly approaching hour of death; for we do not know the day or hour when our Lord will come. Let us always be ready and carefully watch over the fulfillment of His holy commandments, adorning ourselves with all sorts of good and godly deeds of holiness and truth and God-like mercy to all, in general, who are in sorrows and needs, so that we too may be worthy of standing at the right hand of the incorruptible Judge and hear with all the righteous that much-desired and most blessed sentence: Come, blessed by My Father, inherit what has been prepared for you to you is the kingdom from the foundation of the world (Matthew 25:34). If we truly and with all our souls believe in Christ the Savior and wish to achieve His endless kingdom, then we will show by deed, and not just by words and these external rubbish, our faith in His holy commandments; for faith without works is dead and completely useless. To the readers of this word. You, who are comforted by the Gospel and Apostolic teaching and law, accept with spiritual joy the power of this word and deign to put it into practice; try to treat him with love and listen to him without doubt. For this word about repentance contains considerable benefit. Reward the one who wrote this word, I ask, with your God-pleasing prayers, so that I too may be worthy, together with you, to fulfill the teaching contained in it. None of you, I beg you, should consider me to have completely fulfilled what was said in it; for I, truly, am that barren tree, at the root of which lies the mental axe, with which it is cut and thrown into the fire (Matthew 3:10). I am that path and that stone and thorn where the seed thrown by the heavenly Sower falls and dies without bearing fruit to Him. I am stubble burned by an unquenchable fire. Therefore, I ask you: pray for me, a sinner, so that I too, together with your shrine, may be considered pure wheat, gathered into the eternal granaries of the Creator and Master of all, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory forever. Amen. You might be interested in: