Knowledge of God and self-knowledge acquired from experience

This book contains extracts from the diary of Kronstadt Archpriest Fr. John Ilyich Sergiev, written by him back in 1861. He sent this manuscript for publication in the St. Petersburg Spiritual Messenger magazine, soon after its inception, in 1895, out of heartfelt sympathy for the cause of publishing a new spiritual magazine, the organ of the Society for Religious and Moral Education. These articles were not published anywhere except in the “Spiritual Messenger” and contain precious instructions for spiritual experience - how one should know God and oneself. At the request of the editors - to publish these articles as a separate book, under the title: “Knowledge of God and self-knowledge acquired from experience,” Fr. John replied: “I agree to print on behalf of the editors and in its favor. Archpriest John Sergiev. February 15, 1900" Knowledge of God and self-knowledge acquired from experience I will not hide any word from you, I say: keep the secret of the Tsar for good, but reveal the works of God gloriously Whoever you are, man, remember that you are not far from insignificance and are insignificant in your being. “All the nations are as if they were nothing,” says the prophet (Is. 40:17). In order to be something, cling by faith and love to Him from Whom is all being: and then you will be something. “From His fulfillment we have all received and received grace” (John 1.16) “What do you mean, did you receive Him?” (1 Cor. 4:7)? In fact, what does your individual life mean as part of this general, endless life? Almost nothing. It appears like steam and soon disappears. “What kind of life is ours? for there is steam, even though it appears for a little while, and yet again disappears” (James 4:14) There is only one God. Reverence the Source of all life and cleave to Him if you want to enjoy real, abiding life - in heaven. Live, paying attention to yourself, and prepare for the outcome of your affairs. “It is good for me to cleave to God, to place my trust in the Lord” (Ps. 72:28) Human! you are ungrateful and malicious in your attitude towards God; you do not know how to use God’s mercies, and you do not want to earn them by devotion to His all-good will, you do not want to endure the slightest test from His providential goodness. You are all around in God's mercy. The devil looks at you enviously and says to God: this man will only bless you to your face. But touch only his property, especially his bones, his health: and then it will be obvious that he blesses (praises, glorifies) You only for Your gifts, and in misfortune he will murmur against You, blaspheme You. So what? O misfortune! This often happens. How things affect your self-sacrifice, how several hours or days of patience are required from you, how you happen to lose something: then it really turns out that you are only capable of thanking God in happiness, and in misfortune you grumble. Our ancient enemy, to our shame, remains in fact right here. The Lord says to you from the cross: look how much injustice I have suffered from people, but you do not want to endure even a small insult, sometimes just. Don't you really want to hurt me? “Do not take revenge on yourself, beloved, but give place to the wrath (of God): for it is written: “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord (Rom. 12:19). People would not grumble at God in their misfortune, but would begin to thank Him if they saw from their hearts that it was very useful for their eternity. “For I am unable to understand, because I am not worthy of the passion of this present time for the glory that wants to be revealed in us” (Rom. 8:18). Look at the wandering of the Jews through the desert to the promised land and learn from it what God wants to teach you by their example. Despite the greatest, continuous blessings of God, they grumbled at God at the slightest failure, at the slightest test, as if everything should have been according to their will, and God had to subordinate his will to their will. Such is the blindness of passions! Such self-love of a man! But what happened to them ungrateful people? Without entering the promised land, they died almost all in a pitiful manner in the desert. – This world, or earth, is a desert; heaven is the land of promise. We, as proud Jews, sometimes, with almost every failure in our journey to the heavenly fatherland, murmur against God, despite the fact that at every step we take advantage of His greatest blessings. Lest we too perish miserably outside the promised land! And the Lord will certainly give His faithful servants the land of promise, the land of the living, when the measure of His long-suffering over the wicked is fulfilled and the number of the chosen increases to a certain number. The Lord promised Abraham the land of Canaan 400 years before the fulfillment of his promise, and he fulfilled his promise when the sins of the Amorites were fulfilled: he will also fulfill the promise regarding the land of the living, the land of immortality, i.e. the kingdom of heaven and the elect will certainly enter it. The promises of God: by her and amen (2 Cor. 1:20). Try most of all in life to maintain and kindle in your heart faith in God and patience in adversity: faith strengthens us in the fight against the disasters and sorrows of life and saves us from sins and eternal death, which undoubtedly awaits unfaithful and impatient slaves. “Salvation comes by grace through faith” (Eph. 2:8), faith is the basis of Christian life; a person without faith does not live like a Christian, and he will not be saved. Especially often stir up a living faith in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead: this is what saves you, under other conditions, to salvation on your part, as the Apostle says: “If you believe in your heart that God raised him (Christ) from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9) You believe that Adam fell and carried the whole human race with him to fall: believe also that the other Adam is the God-man Jesus Christ restored us from the fall and seated our nature with Him in heaven. Just as he subjected everyone to death by his death, so this one also raised everyone with himself by his resurrection. When darkness covers the earth and the rays of the sun cannot reach it, then it is timely to imagine that when passions surround our soul, then the beneficial influence of God’s grace cannot reach us. Remember every day that the sun of your life is leaning more and more towards the west every day. Do not be arrogant to anyone in the world and be humble. The life of each person is like a fire that the Lord kindled from his breath of life for a certain period, after which it must go out in this world and flare up with a better, brighter flame in another world, under certain conditions on the part of man. You now feel yourself in the body, or you limit your feelings of being to the body. But imagine the time when your soul will leave your body, and at the same time the feeling of your being will leave the body and, leaving it as soulless dust, will be limited to one soul and will see a completely different world. Terrible moments! What will we show up with in another world? People are mostly proud. Alas, they do not know themselves, they do not know how limited and insignificant they are. Man is so small, so limited in this world that almost everything here, to a certain extent, limits him: fire, air, water, solid earth, many despicable insects share with him and even feed on his flesh, eat away his clothes. Not many animals are under his control: most are beyond his power, even terrible for him; birds soar in the air; fish swim in water - in environments almost inaccessible to direct human activity and do not want to know him: they have one Supreme Ruler - God, and not man. We ourselves, from breathing to sleep, in all functions of animal nature, are subject to an extraneous force, an extraneous (God's) order. As for our soul, although we can do both good and evil: but the evil done always constrains our being, our life, and good always expands and spreads it. Above our soul there is the Supreme Ruler and Lawgiver, who punishes us for violating his laws and rewards us for their fulfillment. For the sake of your humility, say to yourself more often: “I am earth and ashes,” I, Lord, am a barely noticeable stream of life that very recently began to flow; and You are the ocean and incomparably greater: because from You all life has flowed and flows. I am the instantaneous flash of lightning because of my transience; and You are the unsetting, eternal Sun. My life in my face recently flared up and will soon go out here, but Your life has neither beginning nor end, forever shines and will never go out. People and all creatures of all ages and all places lived and live by You, because you are the Source of life: without you there is no life. It often happens that a son, removed for some reason from his parents and long after separation receiving a letter from them, is so overwhelmed by the delight of his heart when reading it, his heart is so inflamed with love for them that in the letter, seeing as if the parents themselves were here, he kisses their precious lines. Pious people do the same when reading the word of God: “while we live in the body,” says the Apostle, “we depart from the Lord: for we walk by faith, and not by sight; We dare and are pleased rather to be taken away from the body and brought into the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:6-8). And these people, living on earth as if far from God - their loving Father - rejoice with the highest rapturous joy when they read His holy word, left to us in the scriptures, and seeing in it, as it were, God Himself, they kiss His animalistic, sweetest words. It also happens that people, amazed by the art of an artist - a man, are so captivated by his art that they would like to kiss him brotherly from the fullness of a grateful heart (because the beautiful is somehow common to all people and binds the creator of the beautiful with love - with people contemplating the beautiful) and, without seeing him, kiss his work, seeing in it as if he himself; - so we too, looking at a flower or grass, beautifully, beautifully created by the Artist of the world - God, can kiss them, seeing in them a manifestation of creative wisdom. Looking at the artistically beautiful flowers, decorated by the Creator in a way that Solomon in all his glory was not dressed in, and meanwhile swept into the oven that morning, I think: what would it cost the Creator to clothe His loving intelligent creation with light and glory in the next century, if He dresses insignificant flowers like this? “Then the righteous women will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matthew 13:43). “If the hay of the village exists today and is swept into the cave in the morning, God clothes it like this: is it not much more than you, you of little faith?” (Matthew 6:30) Dwell your thoughts more often on the two boundaries of your existence: birth and death - so that you can deeply humble yourself and revere the Immortal and Beginningless Creator of your existence. The greater the sorrows of pious people in this life, the greater their reward in heaven. This is, in a way, natural. This happens in our ordinary life: the greater the previous sorrow, the stronger the subsequent joy. Sorrows make us better, strengthen our virtue and faith in God. And since God, on our part, requires a condition for receiving great gifts from Him: our correction, our cleansing in sorrow, the strengthening, and elevation of our faith are made by this condition. “By their fruit you will know them” (Matthew 7:16). This is how I recognize the Lord (by internal phenomena) and His holy word and - my enemy and the Lord - the devil and his insidious, false word. When I partake of the body and blood of the Lord or pray heartily, truly: (John 4:24 is worthy of worship in spirit and truth), I am calm and cheerful; and when I allow myself even for a moment to accept evil and blasphemous thoughts inspired by the enemy, or even if I succumb to a momentary heartfelt disbelief in anything true: I feel unwell, it’s hard, I suddenly lose my heart’s peace and joy. “The thief doesn’t come unless he steals and kills and destroys. I died, and they had belly fat and had more to spare” (John 10:10). Achieving spiritual peace and joy is the main goal of a person’s life on earth and, upon achieving them, his true happiness, which everyone seeks, but for the most part not by the means that they should. “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you” (John 14:27). But prayer, performed with faith and heartfelt contrition, gives a person this peace and this joy (this is experience); This means that prayer leads a person to true happiness, and, therefore, when you have achieved this, you have reached the goal of your life, that Divine silence, undisturbed by anything, you cannot achieve on earth. There are cunning and evil enemies of every world who will try in every possible way to deprive you of peace. Do not despair, but fight in hope of the Lord, Who Himself is our Peace. Love prayer with all your heart: and peace in your heart will not be just a rare guest, but your permanent inhabitant. We do not see God, but we feel Him in His actions on our soul, for example, during prayer - so the evidence of external feelings in its area is lower, in its reliability, than this spiritual sensation. For example, the pupil of the eye or the auditory organs, as a weak substance and in itself dead, are, of course, very limited in their actions and usually serve only for the vision of the substance, and then - not all, and others only for the sensation of a shaking of the body, also not all: - there are things that, due to their insignificant volume or distance, are not visible, and there are tremors that, due to their weakness or insignificance, are not felt by hearing; sometimes they even deceive me. And the sensations of the soul are as reliable as what I live and feel is reliable; Moreover, the soul has all external senses in its service, and can, at will, either sharpen or dull them. “The Spirit breathes where it wills, and you hear His voice, but do not consider where it comes from or where it goes” (John 3:8). So, here is a strong basis for my faith in God, after Holy Scripture: I feel God within me. “We will come to him and make our abode with him” (John 14:23). “Do you not know that you are the church of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you”? (1 Cor. 3:16). What does it mean to feel joy when we express out loud to someone or even just think and feel some high truth within ourselves? What does it mean to feel joy after doing good, at the sight of beauty? This means that man is destined to live by truth, goodness and beauty - through contemplating them in God and His works and translating them into his soul, into his life. “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). From the nature of sin, from its cruel, tyrant dominion, find out what it is like; equally, from the property of virtue (every good thought, good feeling, good deed), from its gentle, joyful dominion over the soul, find out what it is like; and having found out, choose what, from experience itself, obviously has complete superiority, or, better, does not even compare due to its complete opposite. If people do not sing praises to the Lord, then all His works sing praises to Him - in heaven and on earth. “If these remain silent, the stone will cry out” (Luke 19.40). Therefore, the Church often, as if for lack of intelligent, worthy singers of the glory of God on earth, appeals to the works of God: “all the works of the Lord, sing to the Lord and exalt Him to all ages” (Resurrection Canon 7 ch., 8 song). In order for our heart to sincerely and ardently turn to God, for this we sometimes need to tear it to pieces with some kind of grief; and without that it is more cunning and cold. Just as a field only grows seeds well when it is fertilized and well dug up and furrowed, so our heart only bears the fruit of true prayer and good deeds when it is fertilized by reading the word of God or the writings of the holy fathers, or by our own soul-saving reflections, also by bodily labor, or torn to pieces by some kind of grief (taken from experience). In all your behavior and, especially, in prayer to God, try to become a completely sincere, simple-hearted and trusting son in relation to God. Have Him in your thoughts and in your heart and look at Him as if He were at your right hand. Drive away the slightest deceit or pretense of the heart, doubt about the God-given truths, as well as relaxation and laziness. “Do not be lazy with diligence, fervent in spirit, working for the Lord” (Rom. 12:11). Let not a single word in prayer or in your entire life fly out of your mouth without the knowledge of your heart and without a clear consciousness. Filial love, trustfulness, sincerity in prayer and in all life is the greatest, favorable sacrifice of a person to God. “Give me, son, your heart” (Proverbs 23:26). This is what the faith of Christ wants from us; This is what the Gospel requires of us. “Unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3). Why was the Savior surprised at the simple-hearted, sincere faith, for example, in the centurion and the Canaanite woman? Because she was rare among people, while it was she who He was looking for. Let us remember how often He demanded faith from the sick as a condition for the healing of mental and physical ailments. Man fell from crafty distrust of God, that is, he imprinted in his soul the properties of the devil himself; His approach to God, therefore, must certainly be only through faith, through sincere trust in everything Divine, in the entire economy of our salvation. Be simple and gentle, like a child; Believe what the Church commands you to believe, and you will be saved. “For by grace you have been saved by nature through faith” (Eph. 2:8). If your prayer is not nourishing for your soul, it means that it is unworthy, not well-organized prayer: prayer, like food for the body, should nourish the soul, remove the hunger of the soul, calm it, and delight it. “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11.28). And for it to be nutritious, very little is needed; namely, as indicated above, sincere, simple-hearted faith in God, that He is certainly with you and, with the goodness characteristic of Him, always listens to your sincere prayer; We also need a living sense of our complete dependence on God in all the needs of life, spiritual and physical, and a heartfelt desire to have what we pray for. Man is a child of God; he has nothing of his own by nature. “What, imashi, did you accept him?” (1 Cor. 4:7). Everything is from God and God is always ready to give us the necessary benefits, if only the conditions of good prayer shown above are on our part, that is, the Lord God does not require anything more from us in prayer, except what a father would demand from his son, asking his father for some important valuable thing. But who does not notice that for the most part we do not fulfill these necessary conditions in prayer, and as a result we deprive ourselves, like crafty and lazy children, of God’s mercies? Can you tell me why I should ask God? For your benefit, so that you know who you always get everything from. And our deceitful, fickle heart is always ready to tell us that we have everything from ourselves, from our wealth, from our own strength. In front of people, when we ask them for mercy, we are mostly humble and sincere, trusting, sometimes with tears in our eyes we ask them for mercy. And when we stand before the face of God, we are often cold, insincere, and distrustful. What kind of strangeness is this? Why are we so unfaithful to God? O lack of faith! oh unbelief! O double-mindedness! That is why God often does not heed our cold, double-minded prayers. This is why faith is allowed to receive everything. And fair enough! “A man is double-minded, unsettled in all his ways, and does not think that he will receive anything from God” (James 1:8,7). “Everything you ask in prayer as a believer, you will receive” (Matthew 21:22). So that, as David says, your feet, the peace and well-being of sinners on this earth will not be shed (Ps. 73:2,3): remember that no earthly blessings can be compared with the blessings of heaven. Most desirable of all are the blessings of the heavenly world, which our heavenly Father promised to give us his time. If gold and silver, a spacious and richly decorated dwelling and soft clothes could constitute my bliss, then the All-Good One, who gave His Only Begotten Son for me to die, would not have deprived me of them. How spoiled my mind, heart and will are! In fact, if they are in good working order, they should freely penetrate into the spiritual world - to God, the purest spirits and our earthly righteous people, to talk with the invisible as with the visible, and in this conversation find a source of life-giving joy. But, instead, they barely rise to grief due to their depravity and for the most part leave me behind, having themselves become something earthly, earthly, rude, unclean. True, there are moments of light and inspiration in my life, but these minutes, in comparison with other, larger units of time, almost disappear and mean nothing. I catch these moments of God’s light in me and I try to capture this light on paper, so that it will be a torch for me in the dark hours of my life and a monument to God’s mercy towards me. Oh God! correct, strengthen, cleanse my spiritual strength! The truth of the teachings, life and deeds of Christ the Savior is attested to by four witnesses - the evangelists. If two witnesses, according to the law, are enough to establish the truth and “at the mouth of two or three witnesses every word will be made” (Matthew 18:16), then even more so – four! Therefore, woe to those who do not believe the Gospel! In particular, the truth of the resurrection of Christ (fundamental in our faith, since the truth of everything else is established on it) is attested by twelve witnesses. Therefore, extreme woe to those who do not believe in the resurrection of the Savior as God! With whom we love, we usually cannot talk enough. Hence the direct conclusion: whoever loves God loves to talk with Him in prayer; and on the contrary, whoever does not love Him is very lazy in prayer. This conclusion is absolutely correct. Apply this to yourself. When you have no desire to pray, and you read out well-known prayers only out of habit and, as if out of necessity, then your love for God is very doubtful, you represent yourself only as a mercenary, working for your Master from pay. And when you have a sincere desire to pour out your soul before God in prayer, then we can say that you have love for Him, like a son for the Father. Try to love the Lord God with all your soul, as a highly prized Being, and always pray to Him with spiritual fervor, “with a burning spirit, working for the Lord” (Rom. 12:11). When any illness weighs down and suppresses the energy of your spirit, then say with obedience to the Lord: because of my sins, I am worthy of the most serious illnesses. Blessed be Thy providence for me, O Lord, who visited me with illness. If someone harms your external well-being without in the least harming the well-being of your soul, and if you begin to worry at the same time, indulge in the movement of anger or other passion, then say to yourself: I am a strange person! Why do I get upset at such little things? People only touch, so to speak, my bark: the core (heart) is beyond their reach. Why do I touch my heart because of them and cause it pain with my foolishness? In your indignation at someone who seems fair to you, notice whether your passions are at work: self-love, pride, hatred, envy, etc. Passions are often covered, like a mask, by the appearance of truth. When a feeling of hatred towards someone arises in your soul, then you eradicate it with the following fair remark to yourself: you are worth all the hatred of others for your evil inclinations, and not the person whom you hate. He is worth all the love and indulgence. Or bring to mind the words of the Savior: “love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44) ... These words, like lightning, enlighten the soul in the darkness of passion. Just as after a painful purulent abscess breaks out on any part of the body, the whole body feels at ease: so after the painful accumulation of impurities in the heart has passed, the soul also feels very at ease. And the accumulation of spiritual impurities is even more painful than the accumulation of bodily impurities: it usually resolves in tears. If sin, with all its torment, is difficult for us to avoid: then what would happen if it were not a tormentor? Indeed, the torment of sin is great. Sometimes no physical illness is equal to the torment of sin, when conscience punishes it with all the power of heavenly truth. There have been people who killed themselves, unable to bear the torment of their conscience, while they had previously suffered severe illnesses. “As if from the face of the serpent, flee from sin: if you approach him, he will gnaw you: his teeth are lion teeth, killing the souls of men. For every iniquity is sharp as a two-edged sword; to its wound there is no healing” (Sir.21:2-4) God does not accept our prayer if we are angry or angry with someone. This is known from experience. “There was a time when I was angry and then made peace. Just as before I was reconciled, my prayer was unsuccessful, difficult and, obviously, disgusting to God: so after reconciliation it became light, sweet, and obviously pleasing to God. She brought me peace and joy about the Holy Spirit.” And so, before prayer, we will certainly make peace with those who have insulted us or with those who have been insulted by us. - “If you bring your gift to the altar, remember him as if your brother has something for you: leave your gift before the altar, and go first to humble yourself with your brother, and then come and bring your gift” (Matthew 5:23-24). Almost every good thought, every good feeling I have to defend with a fight; and without struggle there is a danger of losing all good. There is even something not entirely good in the most apparently kind thoughts, feelings and actions. Man is terribly permeated with evil! Lord Jesus! How I would like to sincerely love You and Your Most Pure Mother with all the saints. But sometimes this holy love is not given to me. My heart is not pure: without Your grace it is not capable of loving You, Your Most Pure Mother and Your saints with holy, sublime love. Create in me, Lord, a pure heart. “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41). This is visible at every step. The soul is ready for prayer, but the body is often not ready. Theory and practice often diverge a great distance: theory is the spirit, and practice is the flesh. The idea of ​​science and science carried out according to the idea very often disagree: the idea is high, bright, powerful in relation to its subject, and science is often far from corresponding to the idea: dark, unclear, heavy, weak. The Lord God is the first culprit for the fact that you are now placed in such and not other relationships with people - and with such and not other people, in such and not another place. Throughout your entire life, the Lord God Himself gave direction to it, placing you in one relationship and not another, and He Himself put you in this place. His fatherly Providence gives direction to the rolling ball of our life. From the Lord man’s feet are straightened: how can a mortal understand his own ways (Prov. 20:24)? The Lord God has the goal of your life - your eternal salvation - always in mind. He leads you to him by whatever destinies He knows. Therefore, if you have to endure troubles in life, endure them generously, knowing that they are truly needed in the matter of your salvation. The saints of God stand very high in their moral perfection in relation to you: they are adorned with every virtue. But you still need to cleanse your heart and mind and then decorate your soul with virtue: one is incapable of feelings of holy love, and the other is incapable of pure, high views. The heart is cluttered with the impurities of passions, it has become white and thick, and the mind and imagination are occupied with images of worldly vanity, are not captivated by the beauty of objects contemplated and willingly deal almost only with visible, sensory things. And so cry to the saints: O saints of God! help us purify our minds and hearts. Let us enjoy the beauty of your souls, so that later we will be able to enjoy the Supreme Beauty. He who is constant in love for earthly friends can be constant in love for God, and vice versa; whoever is grateful to the benefits of man will also be grateful to the benefits of God, and again vice versa; whoever loves his neighbors will be able to love God and also vice versa. “Thou shalt not love thy brother, even in his form, God; but without seeing Him, how can one love?” (1 John 4:20). He who diligently honors his parents also diligently honors or is able to honor God in an appropriate manner; he who reveres the person of the King reveres even more so before the Almighty God; He who reveres authorities also reveres God, and vice versa. Our earthly relationships are the touchstone and measure of our relationship to God. Based on the former, one can rightly conclude about the latter, provided, however, that the first relationship is true, unfeigned and based on faith. How, therefore, we must try to establish our earthly, everyday relationships with others with all correctness! Try most of all for simplicity and kindness: they will save you from countless displeasures in life and will be the cause of constant inner peace and joy. St. Gregory the Theologian says: I am practicing in acquiring simplicity of heart, on which salvation depends, and being saved is my only concern. So, you see that, in addition to other benefits, simplicity brings salvation! Just as we slip and fall on the road from our inattention or from darkness, so in moral terms we also slip and fall for the most part from our inattention or from darkness, darkness of mind. Attention is needed everywhere; Haste is often the cause of inattention. “Take heed how dangerously you walk” (Eph. 5:15). You don’t believe in the future life and say: no one has been in the next world (meaning the living) and no one has come from there to tell us about it. How was there no one? How did you not come from there? But didn’t the Son of God come from there; Didn’t He assure us with His true word and even His own example - in the reality of the afterlife? You believe, for example, that there is America, although you yourself have not been to it: because you see that, for example, ships come from there. Why don’t you believe in the same way that there is another world besides the earthly one - a heavenly one, since from there the Son of God came and assured us of its reality with His word, showing it in reality? Because, having risen from the dead, He ascended into heaven in the sight of His disciples, from where He will come again. And the Apostles say: “Be wise on things above (not on earth), where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.” ( Col. 3:1,2.) Eating for eternal life, they also say. What is more precious than you, Lord? Nothing! - that’s what my mind and heart tell me. You are my God, You are my joy. Why do such strange things happen to me that after the very communion of Your Holy Life-giving Mysteries, I am so occupied by other, perishable objects that my heart falls away from You, my Lord, Lord, and as if I cease to love You and instead of You I find myself a lover of some dust, as if it constitutes my happiness? Why do such strange contradictions occur in me? If nothing is dearer to me than You: why am I losing You, when, with increased attention to myself, I could save You? Oh, sinful damage! Oh, sinful body! “Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom.7:24.) The Holy Spirit is called the Comforter because He pours heavenly consolation, peace that surpasses all understanding, into the soul of a person who has recognized his delusions and sins. This consolation is welcome! According to the good and wise destinies of God, in the lives of pious people there are severe internal temptations that kill both soul and body; the soul (in those unaccustomed to the test) loses faith, becomes faint-hearted, grumbles, blasphemes, unable to withstand the internal, as if fiery, test, oppression and sorrow, maintain firmness and presence of mind, be humbly obedient and grateful to the will of Providence for the temptations sent. In this case, we must, if possible, strengthen ourselves and fix our gaze on the mountain - with a prayer for help and be sure that the temptation will not last long, and after the temptation God will again accept us into His mercy, especially if we happily pass the test. You have kindled me as silver is liquefied (Ps. 65:10). God often sends the gracious warmth of faith and love into the heart at the very end of prayer. Therefore, one must have patience, not to despair of the power of prayer at the beginning and in the middle, but to calmly continue it to the end, praying and not getting cold (Luke 18:1). “Press and the opening will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7). There is a wonderful grace of God in the holy churches of God: he who comes to them with a sincere desire to pray, leaves them as if he had caught a rich, glorious catch, with joy and peace in his heart, glorifying God. This is what has been tested many times! You blame nature for impermanence and changeability. But she copies you: take a good look at your life. God admonishes you with the book of nature: learn and do not be one thing today and another tomorrow. Learn also to think about the permanent and the abiding. At the slightest inattention to myself, the flame of one passion or another is ready to flare up in me and deprive me of peace of mind, and something heavy, like death, and dark, like hell, forces itself to invade my soul, causing it bitter languor. What hostile forces are rushing towards me? God of my heart! Fill my heart with You, cleansing it. During prayer, have a bright view of God and yourself, that is, try to vividly imagine Who is He and who are you? He is the Almighty Ruler of heaven and earth, spirits and all flesh, and you, from your breath to your mind and heart, are all of God, and from your bad thought to your bad deed, you are all your own, and in this case, ungodly, pitiful, dead. Prayer must necessarily be characterized by: faith, hope and love; believe in God as the Author of everything that is, trust in Him in everything, as the All-Good One, and love Him with all your heart in response to His endless love for us, “for He loved us first” (1 John 4:19). When reading Holy Scripture and the writings of the patrists, humble faith with love is also necessary. Why do you enslave yourself to the earthly and cut off the wings of the spirit, not allowing it to soar to heights? That is why he hurts and is distressed. That this is true, it is easy to be convinced of this: as soon as you yourself realize the folly of your excessive, worldly worries and vain pleasures and reject them internally, the illness of the soul passes, and it, so to speak, comes out into the wild. Does it matter if a stream flows in a small stream and waters, albeit a little, the thirsty earth, and if it doesn’t flow at all and leaves it completely dry? Of course it doesn't matter. Thus, it is better to give at least a little alms than not to give at all. The Lord God, although He is invisible, unknown, incomprehensible, perfectly holds us in His hands, not allowing us to forget: if I become a criminal of His will, an insulter to His greatness, justice and holiness, He returns me to my duty with mental torment, an irresistible consciousness of my guilt before Him, as before my Creator and Lawgiver. This torment of the soul enlightens and corrects better than any reprimands and fines from earthly bosses (this is not said about everyone). Glory to Your mercy, Lord! Passions fight you, and because of your inability to fight them, they defeat you and show you in a bad way. Manage to defeat them throughout your life and do not forget that others also struggle with passions and expose them to people in an unfavorable way. Therefore, have mercy for human weakness, knowing that we all walk among snares. “Judge not, lest ye be judged” (Matthew 7:1). Since my youth, many passions have fought me. But intercede and save me Yourself, my Savior... (Resurrection Antif. Chapter 4). Ascending from the present, living society of the church hierarchy along the ladder of centuries, we finally reach the first successors of the apostles, and thus the apostles and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. The consequence necessarily leads to the beginning. Imagine more often this living, majestic chain of church shepherds and teachers, and at the top of it is the Chief Shepherd, the Lord and God and our Savior Jesus Christ. Do you rejoice at the fall of your enemies or the change from favorable circumstances to less than favorable ones? This is sinful and unwise. Sinful: because it is contrary to love for one's neighbor; unwise: because this can happen to you, and then they will rejoice at your misfortune. While you rejoice at the change in another person’s circumstances, God sees both you and the other person; he sees your gloating, he also sees the spiritual qualities of another, perhaps much better than yours; that’s why he punishes him, correcting his mistakes. You are stingy and indignant when uninvited guests come to you and destroy a very small part of your property. If you had nothing in stock, or very little, then your displeasure would be somewhat justified. But if there is a decent margin, then it is completely unfounded. Decide what is more valuable: soulless money and the same things bought with it, or the friendship with intelligent beings acquired through it? preferable to a man of wealth! and his sincere friendship is gold and silver! What good does it benefit a person if he gains the whole world and loses his soul because of it, or loses everyone from himself? Or, what will a man give treason for his own soul or for the soul of another? (Matthew 16:26). Spare nothing for your good guests. If you do not believe the heavenly mysteries of faith, indicated in revelation and spiritually pursued: then know that you are a natural person, and not a spiritual one, without any doubt. Pay attention to your situation: it is very unfavorable. Listen to how the word of God thunders against you: “A spiritual man does not receive even the Spirit of God; For he has foolishness and cannot understand; he is spiritually motivated” (1 Cor. 2:14). Don’t ask: how can this and that be; don’t say: this is strange, this is incomprehensible, this is unnecessary; in fact, there is nothing strange and superfluous, although there is something incomprehensible (in secrets). But what is the work of the infinite mind of God, and not the limited human mind, then, of course, must also have something incomprehensible in it. When you pray, be sure to try to fix your mind on God, and do not pray without this. Otherwise, your prayer will be difficult for you and disgusting for God: you will only be in a hurry to finish it as soon as possible, you will do it unwillingly. And because of this, your heart will remain stony and faulty: because forced prayer does not soften or correct it. Be meek and kind when they offend you, and leave everything to God, who judges righteously, like Jesus Christ, who, “being reproached, did not rebuke, suffered, and did not forbear, but committed it to him who judges righteously” (1 Peter 2:23). “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord, I will repay” (Rom. 12:19). Unbelieving! our faith does not need any new arguments with which, like new pillars, we could reinforce its building. This building is an eternal, indestructible stronghold, which even the entire force of hell cannot overcome. Our faith speaks for itself. Her teaching is “living... and active,... passing to the division of the soul and spirit of the reader and the listener, judging the thoughts and thoughts of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). The word of our faith is the word of truth itself; The apostles, martyrs, saints, saints fought for this word - to the contempt of all earthly people. The face of the Divine Leader of our faith shines brighter than the sun with His Divine signs or wonders, which speak for Him irrefutably for any fanatic. These miracles were performed by Him during His earthly life, and are still performed by Him now - no longer invisible, but, nevertheless, truly, tangibly for those in whose hearts they are performed. The holiness of the sacraments of our faith, their necessity and saving power, are also obvious - from their actions on simple, meek and humble souls, especially the most holy sacrament of communion, which is clearer and louder than any evidence, and by its very consequences in the soul of a worthy communicant speaks for its truth and life-giving. Further, in our faith there are no idle names, no idle rituals - without the sacred essence of the matter; with us, every word, every ritual—spirit and belly—everything is alive and fruitful. With us, the deceased, holy members of the Church do not remain inactive in relation to us after their death, starting with the Most Holy Mother of God to Christ for the sake of fools, beneficially acting on the faithful children of the Church of Christ laboring on earth, saving and covering from troubles, comforting in sorrows, admonishing in incomprehensible cases, strengthening the faith, warming the heart to deeds of piety, etc. “Without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5), says the Savior. And certainly, without Him it is absolutely impossible to do anything truly good. If He leaves us only to ourselves, to our weakness: we become completely internally powerless for any good, we become full of evil. – Experience tells this to everyone. The prayer of a Christian person has a different, greater or lesser degree of dignity regarding the purity of the heart, faith and love of the person praying. Another brings it from a pure heart with faith and love, so that the entire prayer of such a person is a single, strong flame that embraces the entire being of the soul. Another prays with an unclean heart, attached to the objects of everyday life, with weak faith, approaching unbelief, without love in the heart, out of habit, indifferent, sluggish. The third, although he tries to have a pure heart during prayer, does not strain all his strength for this, and therefore unsuccessfully struggles with contrary thoughts and either ignites or dies out in soul, and “When you work for the Lord, you need to burn in spirit” (Rom. 12:11). People often deceive themselves in prayer, and think they can deceive God. But God sees our hearts. “He is the God of our heart and the whole message” (1 John 3:20). “For by those who judge, they will judge you; and if you measure accordingly, it will be measured back to you” (Matthew 7:2). One should never condemn others for any weaknesses or vices, because the one who condemns is often punished by God by allowing him to do the same thing that he condemned in others. All people have weaknesses; and you are the same person and can very easily be subject to the same weaknesses, and when you are, you will also be condemned, just as you condemned others. Measure according to measure, it will be measured to you,” said the Savior. Virtue then especially has its price when it is performed under the fire of temptations, for example, the temptation of illness or some other misfortune, just as a soldier is not brave when peace and tranquility reign within the borders of his fatherland, but when enemies attack the kingdom, when he fights under fire and sword. Then his generosity and courage, his love for the Tsar and the Fatherland will be recognized. Without war, even if someone was brave, they would not easily believe him. Likewise, there are reasons not to trust very much a person who does good under favorable circumstances and has not yet experienced grief: he may lose his presence of mind in misfortune and change his rule of doing good, even discovering his bad sides: cowardice, impatience, murmuring and blasphemy against God. Only a Christian who has been purified in the crucible of adversity is strong and reliable, and one who has not been in trouble is doubtful. In order not to have an inclination towards sin, and to have a weapon against it, you need, like David, to hide the words of God in your heart (Ps. 119:11) (commandments, promises, threats). It is good to love God and serve Him sincerely, with faith and love: - whoever loves God and serves Him to the best of his ability is loved by God, and is revered and loved by those who love God. What a pleasant cycle of love! Love for God does not come to us freely, and without any work on our part to purify our hearts it will not settle in us. It often happens to see people in church who do not pray in church, but talk and laugh, or boredly wander their eyes around. These are people without faith and love for God, who have not worked to acquire faith and love for Him, which means they are carnal people, in whom, that is, the immortal spirit works for the flesh and the world, and not for God. – Who are the God-loving souls, how can you recognize them here in the church? Look, here they are: these are those who stand before the Invisible with faith, reverence and fear and do not dare to talk to others, much less laugh, or wander around, because their gaze is turned inside themselves and contemplates the defilements of sin, the angry Creator and Lord, and they send up inwardly, from the depths of their hearts, a prayer to the merciful Savior. Our Lord Jesus Christ, with all his divine miracles, seems to live in the flesh in our time; we see him being born, being circumcised, being baptized, being greeted by Simeon in church, etc. How beneficial and significant are the feasts of the Lord and, in general, all holidays for Christians! The Lord is the common Savior for all peoples of all times and places; Then, since people are fleeting creatures, replaced by new people, then, in order to give everyone, so to speak, the pleasure of seeing the Savior inwardly and enjoying His sovereign wanderings on our earth, the Church, as it were, annually repeats His birth, circumcision, etc. How good this is for faith, for strengthening it! Honor the great ones on earth: and then you will properly honor the great ones in heaven, and the Greatest God Himself! Our entire inner life and our outer behavior depend on the quality, on the life of the heart. If passions live in the heart, then both the inner and outer life of a person are ugly: at every step he shows himself from an unfavorable side, and he himself suffers from a pinched heart; if the heart is pure from passions, then the person everywhere shows himself in a favorable form, everyone is pleased to be with him; sympathy for everyone, peace and joy reign in his heart and this inner fragrance of the soul, passing onto his face and tongue, pleasantly comes into contact with the souls of those who talk to him or deal with him. The face of a person in whose heart the Spirit of God dwells with its gifts: truth, peace and joy, is like the face of an Angel of God, shining with light and joy. How much you need to care about the purity of your heart! “Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be burdened with gluttony and drunkenness and the sorrows of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly” (Luke 21:34). We should grieve our hearts more often; but overeating and drunkenness and the sorrows of everyday life prevent a person from ascending with his heart and thoughts to God and chain them to the ground. But woe is it if the mind and heart drag along only on earth, sudden death is almost the common lot of people with such a mind and heart. That day will suddenly come to you. A person's happiness lies in contentment with little things. Passion from discontent. Be content, or learn to be content with what you have and you will be happy. Control your heart and you will have within yourself the source of happiness. As God's benefits to you increase, let your love for the Lord the Benefactor increase. Just as He gives generously to you (and to everyone), so be generous to others. When thoughts of unbelief or others disturb you, ask yourself: what year are you? And with the thought of your proximity to insignificance, to non-existence, revive yourself to the duty of faith. You, slave, do not forget the Master: unbelief comes from a lack of humility, from pride hidden in the depths of the soul, and when thoughts come during prayer, then from insufficient concentration of the soul in prayer. “All flesh is like grass, and all the glory of man is like the flower of grass. The grass has dried up and its flower has fallen away, but the word of the Lord abides forever. This is the word preached in you (the Gospel)” (1 Pet. 1:24–25). In fact, I am like grass: I grow, bloom, grow old, die and all my flower falls off, but the Word of the Lord, as if abides forever, survives centuries and millennia, leaving people alternately in a sequential flow to be born, live and die. Everything convinces me that I am just like grass, and the Word of the Lord and the Gospel, and the truth of the Gospel endure forever. When you have thoughts of unbelief, first of all believe that you are a great sinner (and this last one cannot help but believe, because daily experience repeats this to everyone, and the voice of conscience cries about it incessantly); then you will believe what you do not believe. By admitting yourself to be a sinner, you will be humbled to the ground; and with humility there can be no disbelief, only pride dares not to believe. Your life is a series of sacred service to God: go through this series without laziness, knowing for sure that it will soon end, and another will take your place in the same series. Millions of people, having completed their turn, have left their field for eternity, and you will too: remember this. We stand before the earthly queen with reverence, asking her with all sincerity for the fulfillment of our desires. With greater reverence we must stand before the Queen of heaven and earth, before the Lady of Angels and men, before the Mother of the Most High God, and with greater sincerity, leaving far behind us any shadow of pretense, we must ask for our spiritual and bodily needs. She is unspeakably great in her inner perfections (all the glory of the Tsar’s Daughter is within) and in her closeness to God, but at the same time, despite her immense greatness, she is deeply humble. And therefore, with the greatest humility, like an ant, like a worm, approach Her, not everyone, and throw away from yourself all arrogance with your talents, your education, merits and differences, perishable wealth. By not praying with appropriate humility, reverence and simple-heartedness to Her, we greatly offend the Lord Himself, whose glory is inseparable from the glory of His Mother and Who looks only upon the humble. The devil either strikes our soul with confusion and fear at a time when we need to be kind and sober, or relaxes it with impulses to laugh. In both cases, there is grief for the soul: it dies from sin and inner melancholy. Never be stingy in feeding the poor: God will always repay you tenfold for them. This is confirmed by countless experiments. “If you endure punishment,” says the Apostle, “as God is found to you as a son: for who is a son, his father does not punish him; And if you are without punishment, all were partakers of him; for you are by nature adulterers, and not of sons” (Heb. 12:7-8). So, rejoice that for your sins God punishes you with spiritual sorrows. “We are punished by judgment from the Lord, lest we be condemned with the world” (1 Cor. 11:32). The fearless, firm conviction of the people of their sins is a sign of the great holiness of the accuser, or even of the very Divinity of the Person Who denounces: John the Baptist, all the prophets and apostles, martyrs, saints, the Lord the Savior himself. We usually flatter people more, we are ashamed or afraid to express the whole truth. Introduce Christ into your heart by faith and nothing will ever trouble you. But having brought Him into your heart, keep Him there: He is so good that He allows Him to be held. Let Him live in you and say to you: “I am, do not be afraid” (John 6:20). The Savior suffered unjustly from people all his life, then became glorified in His resurrection and ascension into heaven. And you, like Him, do not run away from unjust and just suffering: and you will also be glorified in your resurrection and ascension to heaven. “Christ suffered for us; leave us an image, that we may follow His steps” (1 Peter 2:21). “If... we suffer with Him, we will also be glorified with Him” (Rom. 8:17). For some, the stumbling block is human death. A person, they say, lives like grass and dies like grass, that there is no other life for him. Let us answer the madman according to his madness. Here's what I'll tell you, a person who reasons in this way: what dies in the grass: is it beautiful artistic grass (of course, you can't call grass grass without that inner, invisible force that gives it both appearance and the ability to grow and live: without this force that fertilizes and revives the grass, not a single grass can be imagined), or just the substance of the grass, subject, like everything material in general, to decay and destruction? No: what you call beautiful grass, full of life, does not die: because the same beautiful grass in the same form appears the next year, and then again the next, and so on, and only the clothing, the shell of the grass, dies; the power, soul, or, if you like, the form of grass that makes up her soul does not die. Think the same way about a person: what constitutes the main, essential thing in a person, his soul, does not die, but only his clothes, his shell, die: it is the same plant. You are in error because you consider rough, earthly feelings to be the touchstone of existence. But for this there is faith and common sense. A grain or a tree arises from nothingness, grows, blooms, grows old and dies. This, man, is an example of you, of your earthly life: the same thing happens to you: you arise from insignificance, grow, reach the prime of your life, become a man, then grow old and also die in body (relative to your physical nature), while remaining immortal in soul. It is not without reason that it is said that “like grass are the days of a man, like a field of flowers, so will they blossom” (Psalm 103:15). Remember this and learn, and be diligent about the immortal soul, doing good deeds. When I am God’s, then I feel good, and when I am mine, then I feel bad; that is, when by faith and good thoughts, words and deeds I am close to God, then I have peace and joy in my soul, and when through unbelief or doubt, unkind thoughts, desires and deeds I move away from Him, then there is sorrow and oppression in my poor soul. How can I still not learn that very living faith in God and life according to His holy will, so clearly revealed to me, and every minute not be convinced from the bottom of my heart that faith and virtue are miraculous for me, and unbelief and sin are destructive. In me, someone in the most careful way constantly strives to destroy every good thing, as soon as I create it, and weighs me down with a hellish weight every time my thought wavers in faith or virtue. The Lord, apparently, is delaying His second - glorious coming - so that, among other things, more sons of the kingdom of heaven will be born. What a blessing of the Lord for me that He gave me, unworthy, time to be born before His glorious coming, after which there will be no more people born. And as I reason, so will everyone: everyone wants to enjoy the priceless gift of life. He also hesitates because He does not want the death of the sinner, but so that everyone would come to repentance and be saved. When others take something from you, do not resist, but be wise according to the Savior’s commandment: “Whoever wants to sue you and take your robe, let him also have the swearing” (Matthew 5:40). Believe that the one who takes away will be ashamed of your generosity and will stop taking from you, or he himself will lose much more and will give you the opportunity to gain three times what he took from you. In general, do not lose peace of mind because of what is perishable. Think also like this: “The Lord has given me countless blessings; but He now demands a sacrifice from me - a sacrifice of an insignificant part of these blessings and a sacrifice of patience for the truth.” Sacrifice, be patient - God will not leave you, don’t doubt it. You will have everything you need. “He said: I will not leave the imam to you, but the imam will depart from you” (Heb. 13:5). The Savior commands us love everywhere, He says, for example: “I command you this, that you love one another” (John 15:17); or: “All of them understand this, just as you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35); the apostles also talk about love everywhere, for example, the Apostle John: “beloved, let us love one another; we must love one another” (1 John 4:7,11), or: “we have received this commandment from Him (from God), that if you love God, you also love your brother” (1 John 4:21). Apostle Paul: “hold on to love” (1 Cor. 14:1, 16:14), or: “let all of you be filled with love” (1 Cor. 16:14). All the apostles tell us to hold on to love. How necessary, then, is love for people! And it’s not surprising. Our God is Lyuba. Let us keep pace with each other in love. How is love expressed? “He is patient with love, he is merciful, he does not envy love; love is not arrogant, is not proud, does not act outrageously, does not seek its own, is not irritated, does not think evil, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth: it loves everything, it has faith in everything, it trusts everything, it endures everything, but love fails at all” (1 Cor. 13:4-8). Measure the degree of your love with these words of the Apostle: are you doing everything that, according to the Apostle, love should do, or only partly? Let us suppose that you, for example, are merciful. Okay that's it. But aren't you proud? Aren't you jealous? Aren't you just looking for your si? The Apostle complained bitterly about those who were looking for their own. Aren't you annoyed? are you putting up with everything? Do you believe everything that is said in the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Fathers? Don't you fall away during adversity? Look, love never falls away, take good care of yourself and achieve more and more in love. What trifles are sometimes missing for a person’s happiness—for his peace with himself and with God. There are many people who are unhappy in appearance and internally; but if you analyze their misfortune, it turns out that it is due to their stupidity, from their addiction to one or another thing! God! enlighten our minds. People are at the beginning helpless babies, completely weak, so that, having grown up and become independent, they pay attention to the state of infancy - and do not forget, do not dream too much about themselves, especially so that they do not philosophize more than it is appropriate to philosophize; so that in all its greatness and light they see the omnipotence and goodness of God above them. Our whole life is a miracle of God's omnipotence and God's goodness. What a marvelous dispensation of the Lord in relation to people faithful and unbelieving, good and vicious! If we approach Him with faith, then He enters our soul and brings with Him wonderful peace, silence and tenderness, combined with life-giving joy; if we move away from Him through unbelief, then He also moves away from us with His peace and joy, and then in our heart there is the heaviest languor, melancholy, sadness and deadening emptiness. Then the soul loudly cries out to us that we have left the Source of living water and that is why there is no life in us. One thought of unbelief or desire for evil removes the Lord from us, just as one sincere and heartfelt thought of faith and striving for good attracts the Lord, His peace and life-giving joy to us. “Behold, I stand at the door and talk: if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him” (Rev. 3:20) In the Gospel, from the words and actions of the Savior, we see that He was the Creator - the Lord of the invisible world, the angelic world, the visible world, the material world and the human race. He commands the unclean spirits - and they obey unquestioningly, although it was difficult for them to obey; commands material nature - and it, like a most obedient slave, obeys His one word, one wave; teaches people - and they, like the sheep of His pasture (Ps. 99:3), flock to His sweetest voice, recognizing in Him their Creator and Lord. His word had irresistible power over simple, unspoiled minds and hearts. “My sheep listen to My voice, and I know them” (John 10:27) (it doesn’t matter that I am in them and they are in Me; the knowledge of God is not what is ours, just as the memory of God is not what is ours, but is the work itself, life itself). When the evil spirit rushes at you with thoughts of unbelief, then remember that you were a child, i.e. was insignificant both in soul and in body, and that the Lord alone, in His mercy, opened for you the doors of existence and the door of this magnificent, luminous world, numbering you among the countless hosts of His creatures; this will humble the soul and introduce into it the life-giving warmth of faith. Oh! faith is the life of my heart, the sweetness of my soul; and unbelief is a murderous burden, death, and this is because the first is a child of God, and the other is a fiend of the devil. But the devil, like a thief, does not come to a person unless he kills and destroys his soul with various thoughts (John 10:10). Don’t you see, man, that your thought often takes you away from this troubled life beyond the boundaries of this world and that it is so easy, easy for it there! Learn from this that your purpose is not limited to life on the globe, but goes far beyond its borders. It is impossible for men to see God because they cannot endure His impregnable light, lest man see the face of God and live (Ex. 33:20); The ranks of angels, even those closest to the throne of the Eternal, the cherubim and seraphim, do not dare to look at Him. But whom it was impossible to see in His pure, impregnable Divinity, we saw him in clothing made of human flesh: through the Most Pure Mother of God the Word of God, all-creating, all-powerful, appeared to men in the flesh. By magnifying Him with the heavenly armies, we also please You, Lady. When you pray, try to let the prayer pass through your heart, i.e. so that your heart will certainly feel what you are talking about in prayer, so that it will desire the good that you ask for. Our Father! When you begin the Lord’s Prayer in this way, you must have in your hearts ardent love for each other, like brothers, so that you can worthily, boldly, and without condemnation dare to call on Heavenly God the Father. Remember that the Heavenly Father is righteous and, if you call on such a Father, unfeignedly judging each person according to his case, live your life with fear for the time being (1 Peter 1:17). The Lord's Prayer is significant and comprehensive: Our Father. In a few words she embraces everything that is essential for us; In addition to petitions on our behalf, she even teaches important knowledge. For example, from the third petition you can see and know that there are holy beings in heaven who unquestioningly fulfill the will of the Heavenly Father. The first petition reminds everyone of the obligation to glorify the Heavenly Father with their life, and not to live on earth only for an earthly purpose - in earthly worries and for earthly pleasures; the second petition inspires us that we, living in the kingdom of the all-good God, obey someone else who stands in direct opposition to God, that is, to the devil, and therefore we must pray to God so that His kingdom will come in us, and the kingdom of His opponent will disappear; in the third petition we express the desire that the will of God be in everything on earth, just as it is in heaven; in the fourth, we ask for the most necessary things for life, that is, earthly food, and then only for this day. Hence, on the one hand, you learn not to highly value the blessings of this temporary life, but to value heavenly, spiritual blessings most of all, to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; on the other hand, to be content with the little wealth that the Lord has given us, not to hunger for more, not to envy others, not to stretch out one’s hands to other people’s property, not to deceive, not to be cunning, not to lay hands on a person out of a desire for profit; and if anyone has surpluses, thank the Giver of all blessings for them with all your heart and give from your surpluses to the poor. It is remarkable that earthly blessings are placed so low by the Lord in relation to us that they are only mentioned in one petition, and then in the most moderate way, while spiritual, heavenly blessings are mentioned in six petitions. In the fifth petition, we ask the Lord for forgiveness of our sins, with which we so often offend the All-Good Father God, and we ourselves undertake to forgive the sins of others. In the sixth, we pray that God will deliver us from the greatest evil - sin, as the offspring of the evil spirit. What is missing from the Lord's Prayer? What need is being overlooked? Everything in it is taken into account: all needs are taken into account. Home prayers are like an introduction, a preparation for public, church prayer. Therefore, those who are not accustomed to praying at home can rarely pray fervently in church. Experience bears witness to this. Everyone can check this for themselves. I want to give glory to the Life-giving Cross of the Lord! Passions repeatedly took possession of my heart - and each time the demon received through them, as it were, the power to tyrannize my soul, pressing heavily on it: and I, with faith, depicting the sign of the cross, deliberately pressed the lower end of the sign of the cross on my womb: and all the hellish heaviness instantly disappeared along with passion, calm and joy settled in my soul. Moral teaching: during every passion, with heartfelt faith, depict the sign of the cross, where you feel the heaviness, place a saving sign there especially. At the same time, remember that it is not in vain that the Church speaks about the power of the cross and in her prayers asks the Lord to grant us, by the way, by the power of His cross, various spiritual benefits. The Church says this from experience. When you want to pray to the Lady, first glance with your intelligent eye at Her greatest holiness, Her immeasurable greatness, or the immeasurable distance that lies between Her, the most honest cherub, - between you, the most sinful of all: and then pray to Her with the deepest humility. At the same time, imagine Her deepest humility in which She now appears with Her Son and God, Her greatest goodness, incomprehensible to our evil, little-faithful hearts, and with goodness - Her most possible closeness to our souls, sincerely turning to Her: and then pray to Her with complete confidence that She will hear you and will certainly give you what you need: - not in vain St. fathers and ordinary people grateful for Her benefits call Her a very swift intercessor. This name is taken from the case itself. People are born from a corrupted root, they appear in the moral world, or in the world of people - also corrupted. For this reason alone, no one, no matter who he is, can boast of himself, raise his head high and reason in his own way about the institutions and actions of the Church, tending towards the correction and purification of corrupt humanity. In this regard, people themselves are blind - and do not know at all what should be done with them in order to weaken internal corruption, in order to introduce Divine life into them and unite them with God. “That’s why everyone must unquestioningly submit to the leadership of the Church, knowing, probably, that whatever she does to us, she truly does it for our good and salvation. Every Orthodox Christian who tries to live piously, according to faith, must expect, among other things, that heavy, bitter attack of the devil, the object of which will be the stealing of faith from the heart, so that he, having believed, will not be saved (let him who does not believe be saved (Luke 8:12)). If, with God's help, a person has managed to cut off many passions and addictions with which the devil tempts us as the most available, most convenient means, then he rushes into the very depths of our being, tries to establish his dominion in the heart and there, like a skilled master of destruction, undermines the very foundation of our life - faith. It is difficult to fight when faith, so to speak, is torn out of the heart: then the very support of the struggle is lost, all moral strength is taken away, because faith is our strength and our victory, as the apostle says: “This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:4). So what is victory without faith? How do you need to stand in faith, take courage, and strengthen yourself? Marvelous is the power of the name of the Lord, the Life-Giving Cross! Whether there is any passion in your heart, whether it is heavy, an incomprehensible longing - make the saving name of the Lord Jesus from the fingers of your right hand, striking them on the belly, and the passion or longing will now pass. Both Christ the Lord and the devil make us feel their presence in us in the most tangible way: One - with peace, ease, and heartfelt delight; the other - with heaviness and mortal tightness. With your eyes closed, you do not ask anyone or anything for anything. How do you often pray to God with the eyes of your soul closed? First you need to open the apple of your soul’s eye, clearly imagine: to whom you want to pray - and then pray. When praying, say the words of the prayer with full zeal, so that your heart burns within you. If you pronounce them carelessly, then it means that you have little and no faith at this time: faith dearly values ​​every word of such beautiful prayers that the church puts into your mouth; it means, further, that you have no love: love greatly values ​​words addressed to the God of Love and emanating from a loving heart; it means you don’t have humility, and therefore you have pride; humility quietly, with deep feeling, almost in a chant, pronounces the words of prayer, giving time to respond to it in the depths of the heart, in the whole being of a person. Do not neglect the words of the prayer, do not rush to pronounce them. Try, the main thing, to pray with a believer and a loving heart. If you had to fight against sin or any passion until you bled, then you shouldn’t give up the fight. Sin is the greatest enmity against God and the greatest evil for ourselves; he can separate us forever from God, the source of life and bliss, and here on earth, he separates us from him. “It is not for the sake of blood that we fight against sin” (Heb. 12:4). “Let sin not possess you” (Rom. 6:14). “Cling to love” (1 Cor. 14:1), says the apostle; To this we need to add an explanation: hold on to love for God and for people, even when because of it poverty, sorrow, illness, persecution befall you. Remember that “God is Love” (1 John 4:16), and whoever strives for love, to preserve it in his heart, strives for God himself. “Two, just two minds in me,” says St. Gregory the Theologian: one mind goes towards the light and is ready to submit to Christ, the other mind - flesh and blood, is drawn into darkness and is ready to submit to the devil. By the latter we mean original sin.” This sin, let us add, arises with every good deed, with good thoughts, feelings and words, if a person has not gone deep enough into the contemplation of good, if the fire of the Holy Spirit has not warmed his entire being. Every moment or thought of living faith is peace, joy, life for the soul, just as every moment of unbelief is anxiety, torment, death for it. Constant experience has taught me to think this way. Peace of soul and health are God’s most precious gifts to you; and, moreover, they are needed for the glory of God and your salvation, that is, so that you, with your peace of mind and health, correct, as you should, the responsibilities of your title, assigned to you by God for the good of society. But passions take away peace and health from the heart. Do not get carried away by them and courageously repel their first onslaughts. Do not allow their destructive fire to ignite within you: it will dry up and burn you. The devil is strong, stirring up substance for them and fanning their fire: but the Lord is stronger. “There is greater pain in you than in the world” (1 John 4:4). Confess to Him, say: many passions fight me. But intercede and save me Yourself, my Savior. Most often call upon the Lord himself for help. Do not become stagnant in them: do not look at the fact that your heart is hardened by the flattery of sin and deigns, to your torment, to remain in it and go deeper and deeper: this is the deception of Satan. But because you are becoming hardened and tormented in your heart by this hardness, rather soften your heart with humility and prayer: come to the Lord; enlighten the dark face of your soul from His bright face and you will be saved from the devil’s delusion. Try to have obedience of faith, or submission to faith of mind and heart: to Him (Jesus Christ) received grace and apostleship for the obedience of faith to all nations (Rom. 1:5). Without obedience there can be no faith, because in faith one must believe the word; and obedience cannot exist without humility. Therefore, humility is necessary for faith as its foundation. But you have very little obedience to faith: that is why you have little faith. Obedience of faith is needed at every step, every time we encounter objects that require faith, especially because the devil tries in every possible way to turn obedience into perseverance. We believe the Word of God, because it is God’s and that it is proven truth, saving for every believer. We often, when we see a brother sinning, if not openly, then in our hearts, say: how is it that God will not punish him, we are amazed that he is grievously sinning and would be ready to strike him ourselves. What pride! What blindness! We don’t notice our sins and don’t want to know that it is only by God’s mercy that we are unworthy of us – perhaps only for some good deeds – that we do not do the same, because God helps us to live impeccably. But God forbid us, and we ourselves will commit all sorts of sins, often the same ones that our brother did. There is no need to rush to judge your brother. When you see the Most Pure Mysteries, instantly, without any intermediary judgments, imagine that this is the Most Pure Body and the Most Pure Blood of the Lord, as if they had the ordinary appearance and taste of body and blood. Remember that faith directly believes, but does not reason, does not conclude; sees directly, but does not seek, so to speak, optical glasses for his vision. These optical glasses are the action of rational thinking. Reason with its complex, formal thinking has its own area; faith is not his area, not his business. Try with all your might to eradicate the disobedience of unbelief in yourself. And this disobedience manifests itself almost every time you read or listen to something that requires faith and is wonderful in itself. Disobedience and unbelief usually try to explain even miracles in a natural way and are afraid of them. Be attentive to your thoughts. Always honor miracles as miracles, just like prophecies as prophecies. Do not explain them in a natural way: this is the devil’s disobedience. And how much soothing and sweetness there is for the heart from obedience to simple and sincere faith, and how much soothing it is for the soul, how cramped it is for it - the proud, crafty disobedience of unbelief! Learn to completely surrender to the will of God - in happiness and misfortune, as well as after sin, when sorrow and tightness of the heart, according to the law of God's truth, make your life sad and difficult, so that you hate sin and love goodness with all your heart, and when you flow rightly and do not give in to sin - and the blessing of the Lord appears on your head and in your heart. Be like a child who sincerely loves his parents, who, rightly or wrongly, always surrenders to their will, knowing, probably, that he will always be dealt with in a fatherly manner, with love. Pride is hidden in secret unbelief: the unbeliever does not want to recognize with all his heart, with all his soul, the most superior in all respects, infinitely more powerful than himself, a Being for whom nothing is impossible and who creates as much as he wants. Very many people have a deceitful eye. What kind of grief is it that we, even looking at a good object, often rather imagine something bad, something good - unclean than pure - so that holy, pure and sublime ideas, without nurturing them in our heart and mind, cannot dwell in us. Why is the eye evil? From an unclean heart. “From the heart come,” says the Savior, “an evil thought, an evil eye, blasphemy, and pride” (Mark 7:21–22). You need to guard your heart with all care, says the Wise One, so that life issues from this: “Guard your heart with all care: from these things come life” (Proverbs 4:23). “Unless you humble yourself and become like children,” says the Savior, “you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 18.3). It is absolutely necessary for us to be humble, like children. Without humility there cannot be sincere, simple faith, and without such faith it is impossible to please God. My God, Lord Jesus Christ! Grant me to be a child of faith - simple, trusting. Children are so simple that whatever they are told, they believe. This is how people should be in relation to the Word of God. Behave yourself meekly, simply and with love everywhere: the Lord God sees you everywhere: at home, on the street, in church, and in the houses of other people. Have you learned patience in the face of mental sorrow? Don't you have a habit of becoming bitter? Be reasonable; don't be meaningless; without applying wounds to wounds. If you become hardened by heartbreaks or temptations, then you are adding wounds to wounds. Learn patience and complete devotion to the will of God. Always remember the need for humility. Say to yourself in any spiritual distress, whenever it happens: because of my sins, I am not worth this, but much more. If, for example, you prayed in grief and for deliverance from grief and, apparently, was not heard: do not despair, but humbly surrender to the will of God. Patience and humility are necessary at every step: patience - because unexpected and incomprehensible troubles often happen to us, which we tried to remove; – humility – in order to endure the troubles that happen with submission to the higher will. If it seems to you that the Lord is rejecting you, say: be His holy will; Apparently, He rejects me for a reason. What will help me in this case, except humility? I will humble myself: and He will accept me again into His mercy, according to what is written: “Humble yourself and save me” (Ps. 114:5). Keep yourself in the freedom of dispassion: and you will always feel good. Passions drive Christ and the Holy Spirit out of the heart. Therefore, you should try with all your might not to allow them into your heart. Glory to the grace-filled liturgy! How it soothes the soul! Burdened in my heart by what is happening in the world, with heartfelt longing, I came to pray in the church of God during the liturgy, and He who said: “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28), placed His good yoke on me, His light burden for the heart, and I rested with Him, like a child in the bosom of its mother. I cannot help but exclaim with heartfelt joy: Lord! How good is Your yoke, how light is Your burden! Oh, if only I could always wear it and with it – You! How good it would be for me then! But since the yoke of the world and everything else in the world is heavy: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life; How heavy is the yoke of sinful flesh, the yoke of the devil! How it oppresses, crushes and kills the poor soul! Always remember the words of the Lord’s Prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11) and – if you have your daily piece of bread, be satisfied with it. The Lord God Himself acts through everything natural, because everything natural is from the Lord God. Therefore, impudent unbelief is devoid of any basis - to take away anything that happens naturally - from the Lord God. It is necessary to ascribe to the Lord God Himself everything that naturally occurs, for example, a good thought, a good desire, a good deed and other natural phenomena in nature. How close the Lord God is to the one and only one of us! - the thought of living heartfelt faith: He is with us, makes us happy, makes us happy; - a ray of undoubted hope: and He is with us, delighting us with things we hope for, as if they were real; - a work of love: and He, like love, which embraces everything and contains everything in His love, is again with us in our heart, in our conscience - in the world He testifies to us His good will, life-giving for the soul! Like a simple-minded person, seeing written on an icon - the Lord in the flesh or His Most Pure Mother, or an angel, or any saint, he does not understand with what colors and how the icon is painted: artistically or not, whether the saint depicted was like that in nature or not, but without any reasoning, he directly relates to him in prayer with faith and appropriate reverence, as if seeing before himself the Lord Himself or that same the saint to whom he prays: this is how every Christian should behave in faith: what kind of faith in what is required, what respect is due for what, such faith and such respect he should have, without any reasoning - whether he should believe so; Is this really what I am commanded to believe, and whether I should give such respect to the subject in which the Lord Himself or people who had the Spirit of God within them command me to believe. That's what faith is, that's what obedience is for! For humble faith, for childlike trust in the truth and salvation to you! Holy simplicity! Come to us and live with us - in our minds and hearts! When the knife becomes dull or curved on its side, then it is corrected on a beam or on a whetstone. And when our soul is dulled for good thoughts, feelings and for virtue, or when our heart deviates into words or thoughts of evil: then the most beautiful touchstone for sharpening or correcting it is Holy Scripture, church services, the life-giving Body and Blood of Christ, also prayer and reading the writings of the holy fathers. When you think about God the Father: then - to confirm your nature, which loves the sensual, about Him - imagine how He appeared in the Old Testament to the prophet Daniel in the form of the Ancient of Days, how in the New Testament the heavens opened at the time when the Son of God, clothed in our flesh, walked on the earth and God the Father thundered from there with His voice, testifying about His Son beloved; when you think about the Son of God, then imagine how He performed miracles during the Old Testament, for example, He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, how He executed Egypt with ten plagues, how He turned fire into dew for three Jewish youths; – just as He appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; imagine also His appearance and presence on earth in the New Testament: His Divine speeches, His miracles and prophecies, His resurrection and ascension. When you think about the Spirit of God; remember how He spoke in the prophets; imagine how on the feast of the Jewish Pentecost, with numerous witnesses flocking to Jerusalem for the Jewish holiday from different countries, “suddenly there was a sound from heaven, like a storm of breath, and the whole house was filled, where the apostles and other believers were sitting: and when they appeared, the nations were divided, like fire, sitting on one among them, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, even as the Spirit had given them utterance” (Acts 2:2-4). Learn to honor, as you should, the three Persons of the Divine Trinity and never confuse Them into one Person in your thoughts. Know God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit - One God in Three Persons. “I will foresee the Lord before me,” says the Godfather David, “for He is at My right hand, let me not move” (Psalm 15:8). Christian! The Lord is always with you, unless you move away from Him; let Him always be before your eyes: and contemplation of Him with the eyes of your heart will protect you from inclinations to sin. But especially contemplate Him with the eyes of your heart in the church. There is His ever-present gracious presence, like a King in His palace. My eyes and my heart are the same all day. When you feel that the life-giving warmth of the Holy Spirit has left your heart: then hurry quickly with warm prayer and deep sighs to God or the Most Holy Theotokos to lead it back into yourself. Do not postpone from day to day your intention to return her; strengthen yourself to immediately kindle again with fire. “Don’t quench the spirit!” (1 Thess. 5:19). With your prayers, do not lag behind God, the Most Pure Mother of God or other saints when you ask them for something necessary for you: they will certainly fulfill your desire relating to the glory of God and your salvation or relating to the necessary needs of life. Remember the Canaanite woman and the Lord’s conversation with her. Remember also the unjust judge, who avenged the woman who had been visiting him for a long time. Holy Scripture is the greatest miracle in the judgment of those who miraculously wrote it. Isn’t it a miracle that an illiterate, non-bookish person, like, for example, the Evangelist John, who previously knew only fishing, could write such beautiful, sweet writings that you can never get enough of; write down such truths that a simple person, not illuminated by the grace of the Holy Spirit, cannot even think of - write so simply and wisely? “Glory to You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for You hid this from the wise and prudent, and You revealed it as a child. Hey, Father! How quickly there is favor in Your sight!” (Luke 10:20–21). Sin is an evil seed; at first, during human infancy, it manifests itself weakly; grows with age; as the physical and moral powers of a person develop, it develops more and more, so that finally it appears as a huge tree, the roots of which are widely and densely spread in all directions; or at first it is an imperceptible source, which increases over time and, finally, appears as a fast, muddy river, which, flowing out of us, becomes muddy and noisy within us, and only after receiving the fire of the Divinity of Christ within us in the communion of the Holy Mysteries and through prayer does it cease from its indignation. This is what happens with the kingdom of God. At first it is “like a mustard seed, which is the least of all seeds; and then, over time, it grows so much that there is a tree, like the birds of the air hovering on its branches” (Matthew 13:31–32); or at first it becomes an inconspicuous source of water flowing into the eternal belly, and then it becomes a river, so that from the belly, that is, from the heart of a person, rivers of living water flow (John 7:38). The devil is evil and cunning to the highest degree: what you try to achieve from spiritual goods, he tries in every possible way to take away from you; and the Lord, according to His wise and good plans, allows him to play tricks on a person, to defeat, torment, torment him, and this, I think, in order to teach a person spiritual patience, art, hope and victory over the enemy. “Let us not understand the devices of the devil” (2 Cor. 2:11). “Be wise as a serpent” (Matthew 10:16), said the Savior. When a snake sees its enemy, then it hides its head so that the enemy does not bite it, and curls up into a ring. In a similar way, a person must take care from his spiritual enemy - the devil: he must hide his head, that is, his mind in his heart and, thus concentrating his entire life in one point, the more strongly resist the spirit of malice, which very quickly overthrows the distracted forces of the soul. It costs him nothing to knock over and break those distracted people. Do not forget to sigh more often about your lack of faith and love for God and pray, as often as possible, for the gift of faith and love to be sent down to you from above. Human! Always remember that you are a weak creature. See how you melt, disappear in spiritual sorrows, when God, in justice and at the same time in His wisdom and goodness, takes away His Spirit from us and allows the spirit of malice to work over you. See: in these difficult moments for you, refrain from blasphemy and murmuring and do not add wounds to wounds, but pray patiently with your heart to God. Your prayer, due to the action of the evil spirit, will be difficult at first and not valid, but then it will become easy and will take its effect according to the action of the angel of peace, the guardian of our souls and bodies, and by the mercy of God (Advice from fresh experience). Everything is connected by consequences: one sin, one error, there is almost always an embryo, a seed of another sin, another error. The tares are incredibly fruitful: they choke even the wheat, although they were not sown. To the extent that the thoughts of wickedness, pride, hatred, unbelief, etc. intensify in you, you should arouse in yourself thoughts and feelings that are opposite to them, simple, sincere, humble, feelings of faith, hope and love, so as not to allow evil to triumph in us, the flesh - over the spirit and the devil, acting through our sinful flesh, to the harm of our soul - to blaspheme against God and His holiness. A person, they say, is like a candle that burns, burns and goes out (that is, for feelings he will be nothing, although his soul, as an immortal being, will exist forever). Okay, that's a comparison. And with this comparison, this is what comes to my mind: looking at the countless number of lit candles in the church in front of the icons or in the hands of those standing and praying, I imagine a fiery, constantly existing element, distributed everywhere on the globe - both in the air, and on the earth, and in places, due to the action of known causes, visible, but mostly invisible: this element is the source of those visible lights that are lit in the church or anywhere else. I compare people. What are people but individual lights (let’s just call these lights spiritual). All these lights are burning, some stronger and brighter, others weaker and dimmer. Just as fires located anywhere have a constant, inexhaustible source of fire, diffused in nature, so people, as individual lights or spiritual lights - lamps, have a single, eternal, boundless spiritual Fire (Divinity) or Light - the beginning of all indivisible, visible or extinguished lights for this life. The Lord Savior Himself compared His Forerunner and Apostles with lamps, burning and shining. Just as ordinary fire strives upward, so spiritual fire—the soul also strives toward God—mountain. A tree seed was planted in a large garden; the seed began to swell, swell and grow, grow; then it came out of the ground, having already formed into a small tree, into the light of God and began to rise upward more and more. The gardener loved and took care of this tree, watered it and carefully looked after it, making sure that it did not get a crooked direction. Meanwhile, it kept growing or growing and, probably due to the natural depravity of the seed, showed a tendency towards crookedness. The heli-grader made efforts to give him as much direct direction as possible. These efforts often came with pain for the tree, because it had to be pruned and supported with hard supports that tore off its skin, and sometimes left to the mercy of the winds (temptation), so that it could test its strength in the fight against them, and excess moisture should be taken away from it so that it would not produce harmful fullness in it, accompanied by diseases and so on. The tree rose higher and higher and, thanks to the gentle and wise care of the heligraduator, it grew into a great tree, which bore fruits that were good in appearance and sweet in taste. However, despite all the care of the heli-grader, there is still a lot of leanness in the tree; it especially intensified later, when the tree had fully grown and produced fruit, and when the gardener increased its nutrition and watering so that it would produce more fruit. Instead of producing more and more fruits, in proportion to the nutrition produced by the gardener, the tree soon became thicker and wider from the abundance of juicy and nutritious food (Deut. 32:15), and did not begin to turn its juices into producing fruits, but began to retain them in itself and therefore rot. The heli-grader still did not lag behind the tree, which he had so carefully restored, and tried to fix it, either by cutting off its wide branches, or by tying up its sore spots, or by extracting excess bad juices from its soil, but the tree did not fix itself; it began to rot, smolder and dry out more and more. Finally, the gardener said to the gardener: sow this dry tree, on which I have spent so much labor in vain. This happens to many impatient and fickle souls. When you see the ancient sacred writings, institutions and rituals, imagine how many centuries they have passed, how many people have survived successively in different centuries, how much reverence they have had in all centuries - and tell yourself at the same time: they reached me, like the flower of a fading person, before my insignificance so that I, for the sake of my own good, for the sake of eternal salvation, would use them with reverence. Be afraid to look at them through the eyes of people of the present time, who, in their unreasonable progress, boldly reject much of the ancient shrine of sacred scripture and tradition. The power of our God over human hearts is revealed by heavenly peace in the heart when we do what is pleasing to Him, and by heavy languor, melancholy, when we do something contrary to Him. And that God knows hearts is clear from the fact that every thought - good and bad - is accompanied by its corresponding consequences in the soul: either peace, or an unpleasant sensation. It’s as if two completely different spirits sometimes live in me at different times: now the spirit of anger, blasphemy, impatience, an overwhelming spirit, terrible melancholy and despondency that deadens the soul, now the spirit of meekness, humility, tenderness, peace, quiet joy; the first is an evil spirit, and the last is a life-giving spirit (or a good angel). Repeatedly through experience I have learned in myself the dominion of the devil and the dominion of God: just as the former is unbearable due to merciless heaviness, so the latter is easy, pleasant and life-giving. One day Satan came to the Savior and said to Him: Give me Your disciples, so that I can sow them like wheat. Soon after this, the Savior said to Peter: “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asks you to sow you like wheat: I have prayed for you, so that your faith will not fail; and once you have been converted, strengthen your brethren” (Luke 22:31–32). These are the temptations our envious person sometimes indulges in; he tries, as if through the air, to scatter our good and holy thoughts, sometimes collected with great difficulty, to tear faith out of our hearts and scatter it in all four directions, so that having believed, we would not be saved. And how noticeable in us is often the trace of a dark force that is intensifying to destroy all good in us! In the most important, decisive moments, requiring unshakable faith, this holy child of heaven sometimes breaks out of our heart, we look for it and, to our shame, we do not find it, and with it we lose the support for a good life. Who will pray for us, so that our faith does not become weak under such temptations? Divine Savior! Just as You prayed for Peter, so that his faith would not become weak: so in us, Lord, kindle Your faith according to Your unconditional goodness and strengthen it in us, so that we do not come away disgraced from Your presence, so that we do not somehow cause temptation to Your people, and let us not destroy some from them with our unsteadiness in faith. When reading prayers, you must certainly have a fulcrum for thought and language - living faith in the Lord - so that the devil, having crept into your thoughts, does not dispel them and, against your will, does not leave you in shame without any thought or word. The Lord, a lover of mankind, graciously touches our sinful heart, stricken by the devil, during prayer, and calms it with His life-giving, delighting power, or, more precisely, with His Spirit. But we must not forget to protect it from a new devilish wound: the slightest mistake - and we will be wounded again and again our insides will be tormented by the tempter. The Lord sometimes leaves us with His grace in order to see our own struggle with the evil one, so that there is something to crown us for. But do not leave us, do not abandon us completely, for our frequent falls into sin, Lord! but with their destinies, save and save us (“I am yours, save me” Ps. 11:94). God the Most Blessed! save us sinners, for the sake of Your Name. Do not look at our untruths, which we commit daily, but not intentionally, but not maliciously, but not with stubbornness; and look at those moments in our lives when we all belong undividedly to You, when tears of tenderness and love for You flow from our eyes; when I wish with all my soul, like a bird to the mountains, to fly to You from the sinful world - from myself, from my sins, so as not to sin again, not to anger You, the All-Good God and my Righteous Judge. The grace of God is invisible, but unspeakably sweet for my soul: I am blessed by it. The wonderful power of heartfelt prayer! She transforms, transforms me from a sinner, groaning under the burden of his own iniquities, into a justified person, into a child of God, peacefully, joyfully resting in the arms of his Father. The intercession of the saints of God for us is strong, especially the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. the great John, the Forerunner of Christ. Through our fervent prayer, they bow to God's mercy and delight our hearts with invisible, but nevertheless real contact with our souls. What exalted the Mother of God above all creatures? Humility. God “looks upon the humility of His servant” (Luke 1.48); rewarded humility pleases all generations. Try your best to be humble. God gives grace to the humble, but opposes the proud. (James 4:6). If you begin to be overcome by a feeling of embarrassment and fear caused by the devil, read with intense attention a particularly comforting chapter from the Gospel or an apostolic epistle, for example, by the Apostle Paul, it will inspire you and the confusion will run away from you; the joy of faith will penetrate your heart. The devil strives to humiliate us in the eyes of ourselves and often achieves with his dark influences on our soul to the point that a person is embarrassed and trembles before everyone, even his inferior in everything - another person. Meanwhile, reading the Gospel and the Apostolic Epistles, on the contrary, elevates us in our own eyes, imparts majestic importance and tranquility to our spirit, drives away passions and improves our spiritual life. “When you have sown, it is not the body of the future sesh, but a naked grain, and God gives it a body” (1 Cor. 15:37,38). You wonder how a body that has crumbled in the ground will be resurrected. How does a seed, for example, poppy, wheat, or something else, rise from the ground? This seed also dies in the ground. How does it come to life, resurrect, and with such abundance? God gives him, you say, a body. Give glory to Almighty God, who from the earth created and creates all organic and inorganic bodies on earth, and therefore restores those scattered in the earth in the same way. To give you a body blooming with imperishable beauty is as common for Him as in the spring to give a new flower from a root that has rotted in autumn and winter, for example, a poppy flower. Look at your immortality in the future life as the most ordinary thing for the Creator, which is predetermined from the creation of the world and - just as - in the order of nature - spring cannot help but follow winter. The hour is coming when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live (John 5:25). The Most High, the Invisible, the Incomprehensible rules over me, watches over me every minute; I feel it, I feel it in my heart; If I sin, even just mentally (and when do we not sin in our thoughts?) - then I now feel an invisible, punishing hand on me, which will weigh down on me with the full weight of an inexorable judgment. If I please God, then I, God’s servant, feel good; peace and joy in my soul. So every minute I feel on myself the traces of the dominion of my invisible God, while in the darkness of my mind the evil one whispers to me that the Most High has turned His face away from me and does not see it to the end. Beloved brothers! You live forgetting the Supreme Lord, insulting His holiness with various lawless deeds; you don’t want to look at your deeds as you should, you don’t look into the mirror of your conscience and God’s commandments, you don’t care about the answer in court. But He tolerates you only for a while, waiting for you to come to your senses and correct yourself; He doesn’t just want your death, otherwise he would have snuffed you off the face of the earth long ago. Woe to you when His justice is revealed. When His justice is revealed here - on earth, in the voice of conscience: even then His judgment is terrible and heavy, but it will be a hundred times heavier after death - at the trial. During the sacred When reading, focus all your attention on what you are reading; Focus your mind and heart on what you read, and do not listen to the whisperings of an evil spirit that instills in you doubts, disbelief, contradiction, or proud competition with what you read. From the fruit of it (the evil spirit) you will know it. Don't put your heart on money; let them wait. Let dust and decay remain what it is. Let the eternal soul occupy itself with the eternal. Don’t be proud in any way, not even in your thoughts. The word of the Lord is true: “Whoever exalts himself will humble himself, but he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 14:11). We often see the proud flying headlong. I passed by: and behold - not be; sought: and his place was not found (Ps. 36:36). The devil will turn you away from God with unbelief, hopelessness or despair, dryness or coldness of heart, darkness of mind; will incline your heart to the passions that still nest within you: and you stand firm, calling on the Lord Jesus for help. Give thanks to the Lord your God, who cleanses all your iniquities, as often as possible. Imagine what would happen to you if He did not cleanse your iniquities so often? They would soon rot away your body, or like the dogs of hell they would eat you up. The teeth of lions, it is said, are the teeth of sin, killing the souls of men (Sir.21:3). In order to worthily partake of the Life-giving Mysteries, you must, through prayer and contrition of your heart, cleanse it from even the slightest defilement of sin and by living faith bring it as deeply as possible into the heart of Christ (indwell Christ by faith in your hearts Eph. 3:17). But if the impurity of voluntary sin remains in the heart, then Christ cannot dwell in the heart. “What is the fellowship between light and darkness and Christ with beliar?” (2 Cor. 6:14,15). When tears come from heartfelt contrition for sins, a sensory-spiritual phenomenon similar to vomiting occurs. Just as during vomiting, gastric impurities are ejected out through a worm-like movement of the stomach and intestines, so during tears, the impurities of the heart (in the spiritual sense understood) are ejected out through a similar action—in tears. That’s why my heart is always light after tears. Sometimes a person does not cry for a long time: but his heart is often filled with impurities of all kinds. But when such a person is visited by the punishing wrath of the Lord of all, he weeps bitterly and for a long time for Bose. This is the mercy of God. Through tears, the sinful impurities that have accumulated in it then come out of the heart. God! Grant us bitter tears, like the Apostle Peter, cleansing the filthiness of our hearts (Sequence to the parables, can. 2, art. 1). Resist every bad thought, every passion and attachment to perishable things, every feeling of enmity or hostility towards others: and God will help you; good thoughts, sublime, spiritual feelings, feelings of love will prevail in you. Otherwise, that is, if you do not resist evil, opposing thoughts and feelings will overcome you, your heart will be overcome by evil passions. Everything comes from victory. Every step in moral life, as in political life, is acquired with sweat and blood. Do you not notice how in the political world it is difficult for a well-known state, which has reached the highest degree of power and glory, to expand its possessions again? The neighboring powers are vigilantly watching his every step, and as soon as they see his attempt to step forward, they immediately try by all means to stop it and, if that state has a decisive intention to expand its borders, they declare war on him. So the ruler of the darkness of this age vigilantly watches over the people living in the neighborhood of his dark, airy power, and since all his intentions and efforts are aimed at increasing his power - by attracting into his networks people who, through sin, have long submitted to him, but then redeemed by the Master and gradually freed from the dominion of the devil by faith in the Redeemer and freely performed good deeds: then he (the devil) He tries by all means to stop those who are going to the heavenly kingdom and on their way he wages the most cruel war with them, preventing them not only from doing good deeds, but also from thinking freely about good and being imbued with holy feelings, making ambushes and treacherous over them at every step of their spiritual life. What is said here is what has actually been experienced. Prayer performed according to ready-made church prayers then has all its dignity for us when it becomes completely the disposition of our soul. Whoever cleaves to the devil through passions is one spirit with the devil, whereas “cleave to the Lord, there is one spirit with the Lord”; (1 Cor. 6:17) or: how saints are made partakers of the Divine nature; This is how vicious and passionate people become partakers of the devil’s nature. “You are of your father the devil” (John 8:44). “For You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, so that you (those who believe in the Lord) may be one in Us” (John 17:21). Our forefather Adam betrayed us through sin to the devil, and precisely by the law of sin we belong partly to him, as his novices. That is why the devil disputes us with God as some kind of property and in every possible way wants to establish his dominion in us through sin. But we must resist it by all means. Just as it seems to a drunken person that the earth on which he stands is spinning under him, so to a person in spiritual sorrow it sometimes seems that it is not he who has changed, but God who has changed towards him. What do the law and the prophets and our Lord Jesus Christ Himself want from us? A little: whatever men do for us, whatever we want, let us do the same (Matthew 7:12). The invisible hand gives us food, drink, delicacies, and toys, like a father does to children; and we, like unkind children, are ungrateful to her, even as if we don’t want to know her. And this invisible hand is God. I look at the grass, flowers, trees, birds, fish, animals and all sorts of reptiles, and I see that everywhere there is an exact fulfillment of creative laws: and therefore everything in this world is beautiful. I look at people and - alas! there is little, infinitesimal fulfillment of the laws of the Almighty: - and from that - how much unrest, how much ugliness, how much suffering in their lives! - How much weight lifts for the sake of people even the most inanimate nature: the sky above our heads is copper, and the earth is iron: everything has dried up, decayed. Do not give in to despondency when they hate, blaspheme, and slander you. Remember often how they hated the Lord, how they slandered Him, who had no filth or vice. Be patient, looking with intelligent eyes at His patience and be at peace. What a corruption in my nature! Sin and passion always deceive me, they are always bitter in their fruits: and yet I am easily drawn into them; goodness, virtue are always right, always true, soothing, beneficial in their consequences for the soul: and I achieve them with difficulty! “I am a damned man: who will deliver me from the body of this death!” (Rom.7:24). When some passion begins to take possession of you, then start singing “To You in the Morning” or “Pillar of Malice.” The soul is involuntarily touched by these songs sung during the Passion of the Lord. “The Jews ask for a sign and the Greeks seek wisdom” (1 Cor. 1:22) from those who preach the faith of Christ, and the faith of Christ is “her and amen” (2 Cor. 1:20), that is, completely true, requiring our infantile trust. “Your faith will save you” (Matthew 9:22). So, asking for a sign and seeking external wisdom in faith is a sign of a proud soul, unworthy to accept such faith as the faith of Christ. God! grant us to surrender to faith like a baby! If you gravely sin in something, do not despair and do not grieve inconsolably; God, in His mercy, will give you the opportunity to earn His mercy again, as has happened to you often and has happened today. If you grumble at God in failures, which are often the result of your own weaknesses hidden inside—deep in your heart—then you are proud and self-loving. Humble yourself before God in every failure. By the grace of the most pure Mysteries I stand and walk upright and do not turn to evil if I remain vigilant over myself: it is so good to receive communion! the life-giving Mysteries are so powerful! But without accepting them for a significant time, I become receptive to evil, and the devil easily takes possession of me. When, during prayer or at any other time besides prayer, you arouse your faith, but it is not aroused; you call her, but she does not come to your voice, then know that the devil is in your heart and he has driven out your faith. Cry and pray for him to come out; when it comes out, then faith will come. The devil will take away words from their hearts, so that those who do not believe will be saved (Luke 8:12). We often offend the Lord with our lack of faith and unbelief, but according to our countless experiences, He is our peace, our joy. Without him, we are captives of the devil, slaves of passions: there is neither peace nor joy in our hearts, but the confusion and oppression are the most painful. “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). A person who allows passions, the offspring of the devil, to live in his heart, little by little becomes infected with satanic pride, which makes it difficult for a person to turn to virtue. Such is sin that no matter what it touches, it certainly has pride as its companion. It has been generally noticed that a sinner, during the action of his passions, does not easily realize that he is a great sinner, but that he does not seem to be doing anything particularly reprehensible, that he is supposedly right in his so-called passions. The presence of the spirit of darkness in a person is revealed by darkness, darkness in the head, confusion, fear, despondency, and heavy languor in the heart. But its presence is more noticeable in the heart: it spirals, tightens it with hellish rivets. Those who have experienced it know this. He begins his actions from the heart and from there extends them to the mind, imagination and memory, extremely constricting the circle of their actions through obscuring them. A person exposed to its action is usually blind in broad daylight, like a bat: with open eyes he sees almost nothing except the object of his passion. If an evil spirit has entered him through some kind of passion, then for him it is as if nothing exists except the object of passion (Judas’s pieces of silver). The darkness of thoughts, the rebellion of thoughts brought upon a person by the devil, is mentioned in the prayer of water blessing at the sacrament of baptism, and many know from experience before receiving St. Mysteries, when the devil especially attacks us in order to deprive us of the fruits of communion. The confusion and fear that comes to us from the devil is mentioned in the prayer of Basil the Great at Great Vespers on Pentecost. It is driven out of the soul by fervent prayer and the sign of the cross, placed with faith on the chest and belly. In this case, it is easy to notice the moment of his exit. Avoid vanity with home decoration, and try to acquire inner cleanliness and decoration in order to attract the gaze of the heavenly House-Lord to your soul. Rise with an immortal spirit above corruption. Remember the Savior’s commandment: “Love yourselves as you love yourself” (Matthew 22:39), and try to observe it with all your might. Love each neighbor as you love yourself: what you wish for yourself, wish for him; What you do to yourself, do to him; and what you don’t wish for yourself and don’t do, don’t wish for him and don’t do it. “Whoever desires to be a friend of the world, he becomes an enemy of God” (James 4:4). And you want to be a friend to the world, that is, to people who live according to the rules of the world. This is evident from your actions. But do not think about human glory, and do not seek it: “all the glory of man is like the flower of grass; the grass is gone, and its flower is gone” (1 Peter 1:24); but think only about the glory of God, and seek it alone, that is, seek from God alone to be glorified. Miser! The evil one deceives you: he closely connects your property with yourself, as if it were your life. But you notice his machinations, and when he begins to confuse and torment your heart with the fiery movements of stinginess, as if tying its objects to your thoughts and your heart, tell him: “It’s not me, but I will be at peace.” Remember that your life, your wealth is the Lord Jesus Christ. He who does not have patience does not have love: because love endures everything. But just as the soul can be saved only by patience, the impatient person destroys and will destroy his soul. “I will require patience” (Heb. 10:36). Whoever harbors envy, hatred, stinginess or other passions in his soul, his heart is filled by Satan: do not look for Christ and the Spirit of God in that heart; in this state man is the son of perdition. Remember who acted in the envious and misanthropic Saul? An evil spirit, it is said, attacked Saul (1 Samuel 18:10). Persecuted by the world! in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, endure the crafty, ambiguous glances (the evil eye), which the evil light is so good at rewarding the champions of truth and goodness, and verbal insults - barbs and ridicule, and even strangling and spitting and the plunder of your property, knowing for yourself that the property that remains and the best is in heaven (Heb. 10:34). Jesus Christ endured all this for your sake and commanded you to endure. If you endure for Christ’s sake, it will be easy for you to endure: Christ will strengthen you, and your heart will not be heavy: you will not suffer internally. And if you do not endure for the sake of Christ, but are irritated by everyone: then another, hellish, painful patience will be required from you: internally you will be torn with anger and vexation; the devil will increase your anger tenfold. Goodbye then peace of mind; goodbye love for others and other people - peaceful, friendly conversation with them; goodbye to the light of the head or thought: hellish darkness will cover the soul and then, as it were, the luminous world of God will disappear for man, and it will be as if he is alone with his inner torment, with his home hell. When the darkness of passions comes over you, then look at the beautiful world of God - at this bright triumph of life, visible everywhere in nature; look at the sky dotted with luminaries; Imagine what treasures God has prepared there for those who love Him and - do not be blinded by life’s passions, do not fetter your immortal spirit with them. Know firmly and always remember that you 1) have not made any good start in your life and that you 2) without any exaggeration, are the worst of all people. And therefore, always pray to God that He will help you start a virtuous life (Lord, grant me to start a good life) and try, with God’s help, to bring repentance for sins. Brother, tormented by an evil spirit! - How do you pray to the Savior to drive him away? As for me, I sometimes pray like this: Lord! You have come to destroy the works of the devil: destroy these works of the devil in me too. I believe that you will destroy: the devil is not only my worst enemy, but also yours. You have already promised to take revenge on him in due time, not only for me and the entire human race, but also for Yourself. But even now, Lord, take revenge on him for me, who is fleeting; Don't let him swear at me. You pray, but you don’t know whether your prayer reaches God. It comes, brethren, of course, if you pray not only with your body and lips, but with all your soul and all your heart, and the more sincere and zealous your prayer is, the sooner God will hear you. Jesus Christ prayed (and He prayed as an example to us), and “He was heard,” says the apostle, “out of reverence” (Heb. 5:7). Yes, He soon received answers to His prayer from the Heavenly Father. Likewise, God certainly hears our prayers, although we do not know when and how this happens; We only know that sometimes as soon as we begin to call on Him, He already descends into our heart and says to us: “Behold, I have come” (Is. 58:9). “He is not far from one of us” (Acts 17:27). He is at our right hand. Only let us pray in spirit, only let us pray with all our hearts: and He will hear us. Something good and light in the heart will notify us that the King of Heaven has descended into our home. Contentment with everything and everyone and the peace of mind that comes from this, this is what should be the constant subject of your concerns and efforts; this is what makes a person happy in life; - this is the state in which he should be constantly. A person needs little, as long as he is not greedy. Greed is our problem! Stinginess is our blindness! When passions are found, what usually happens first, or at least what happens for the most part (for people who, at the first onslaught of the enemy, yield victory) is a struggle between passionate, outrageous, supposedly just thoughts - with good, opposite, Christian thoughts. We must stand firm and courageous in this struggle and not yield victory to the enemy. Good thoughts must triumph over those that are contrary to them, even if it costs the person donations, apparently those that, according to his carnal calculations, should not have been made. These donations are usually more carnal, sensual: in anger - a concession of some rights; in debauchery - denial of sensuality; in stinginess - denying oneself money - a refusal that should not be done, according to carnal calculations; in drunkenness - refusing the burning thirst for wine, etc. But the trouble is that usually little or no resistance is given to attacks of passions: and that is why they, having taken power over people, tyrannize them. Isaac and Jacob (the stutterer) represent in their faces the struggle that happens within us, between good and evil. There is an almost constant, domestic struggle going on in us: evil always tries to block the way for good - to take precedence, and good - to evil and also wants to take precedence - unbelief wants to overpower faith, pride - humility, pride, hatred - love for God and neighbors; cowardly, daring dissatisfaction with the affairs of Providence wants to overcome devotion to the will of God, submission to His Providence, anxiety, fear - the peace of the soul. What should be the consequence of this struggle? Good must know the art of stopping evil; overthrow his rebellion at the very beginning. For example, let’s assume that thoughts of pride arise in you. Don't let them get stronger; but now let him stop and put them in place - humility; if there are thoughts of unbelief, let faith overcome them at that very moment; if there is murmur against God, let them immediately be overcome by heartfelt gratitude to God for the wise deeds of His good Providence. According to our depravity, evil (Esau) has primacy; but by grace - good (Jacob) in justice should stifle him; the sons of light must be wiser than the sons of this age; virtue is wiser than evil. Brethren! I was at a grave that had just been dug for the deceased and I saw on the surface of the dug grave sand many human heads, completely naked of flesh - with only bones and holes of former feelings (the mouth - which, perhaps, at one time had not yet smoked a stupefying potion and did not know those gastronomic dishes and delightful drinks with which today's progressive people delight their perishable taste - nose, ears, eye). There were jaws with teeth sticking out here; the dark depths of the eye sockets were visible; holes from the nostrils and ears. These skulls, along with the ground, were trampled underfoot by people. I turned one skull with my foot and thought: these are our human skulls; after all, my skull will, perhaps soon, be the same; and my body will soon be like sand. Ah, vain people! Come, look at these skulls and think about what will happen to you, to your souls and to your body, about which you worry so much, and throw away from your life that which is the food of passions and corruption. Look more often into your heart, descend into the depths of it (deep is the heart of a person); bring into clarity your consciousness everything that is bad in it, and note in sighs of regret or in bitter tears of repentance every evil hiding in the depths of your heart. - Ah! How many remain careless in relation to their heart: they do not want to look into it and carefully examine what bad things have accumulated in it. Such people lose a lot both for their temporary well-being, but especially for their salvation. The main occupation of a Christian in this life should be the purification of his heart, so that the purified heart will be able to see God in the future life, just as the pure in heart will see God (Matthew 5:8) - and unite with Him; Without a purified heart, it is impossible to see God and unite with Him. Everything that is vile and unclean cannot enter into the kingdom of God. “The wicked will not dwell with You; the wicked will remain lower in Your sight” (Ps. 5:5-6). Almost all the sacraments, or all the grace of the Spirit inherent in the sacraments, are aimed at cleansing the heart: baptism is the bath of the heart or the restoration of a person’s being; the sacrament of confirmation - affirms the purity of heart, bestowed by the grace of God in baptism; repentance is the second bath of the heart after baptism; Communion unites a Christian through a purified heart with the most pure Christ; marriage sanctifies and purifies the natural impulses for marriage, that is, it also means purity of heart in marital cohabitation, so that marriage is about the Lord, and not out of passion; Blessing of oil again heals the body through the cleansing of the heart and soul from sins, the remission of which is given in the sacrament. Thus, it is necessary for every Christian to take care of cleansing his sinful heart. – What is important and significant in the moral order, and in ordinary life, is the state of our heart - its purity or impurity, - its passionate or calm dispassionate state. When it is unclean, subject to passion, then - alas! - do not expect any good deeds from a person who has such a heart: he is not free, he is a slave, he is controlled by the passion living in his heart; and if dispassionately, calmly, then everything goes smoothly for him and all his noble, conscientious activities. – Give the church and society people – with, if possible, pure hearts, and these people will be whole and honest, rightly ruling the word of God’s truth and wonderful servants of the Fatherland, who will soon increase the well-being of the church and state. In nature, water feeds the earth, and the warmth of the sun absorbs its moisture and the finest earth particles into plants. Thus, the Lord Jesus Christ, by the good pleasure of God the Father, pours His grace into the hearts of Christians like water (“rivers from his belly will flow out of living waters” (John 7:38)), and the Holy Spirit, as spiritual, life-giving warmth, assimilates it to their hearts. From the infinite multitude of existing things, dwell most often on the Three in the One Pre-Eternal Being, from whom all essence is, and reverence them with all your heart. In the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is the focus of all existence. Prayer is spiritual food. Just as bodily food turns out to be almost tasteless when we consume it very hastily, so spiritual food loses its taste for our soul when we pronounce the words of prayer very hastily, with the intention of finishing as quickly as possible, and even tastes bitter in our heart. In ordinary taste, the tongue decomposes food into its constituent principles and in this decomposition finds taste for itself; So in spiritual taste, the soul breaks down a prayer (or some kind of reading) into its beginnings, that is, into words or concepts, and finds a taste for itself in this: this taste consists in a living sense of the truth of what you say or read. Thus, without decomposing prayer, without assimilating it into the heart, it is impossible to find sweetness in prayer, so that the most touching prayer, not felt by the heart, has almost no value for us. When the soul leaves the body: it becomes lifeless, cold, ugly; the circulation and creation of various liquids and the plant process cease; what remains is like a dead, lifeless block of earth. It would be exactly the same with the earth if the life-giving Spirit of God left it: all life in it (in the world) and on it would disappear, it would be gloomy, cold, lifeless; there will be no different forces of nature and the plant process in it: everything will freeze and collapse. - “I will turn away Your face, they will rebel” (Ps. 103:30). Having sinned, do not despair, and always hope in God’s mercy. Say: I have sinned; but “my hope is the Father, my refuge is the Son, my protection is the Holy Spirit” (Prayer for Great Compline). Some people think that sin is nothing; but it is truly existing, the greatest spiritual evil, from which God deliver every person. Sin inevitably entails more or less torment even in this life, and in order to get rid of the torment caused by sin, you need to bring sincere, whole-hearted repentance in the depths of your soul or wash it with tears of sincere repentance. God is great and invariably righteous. His hand is always over us - insignificant, but sinful. God! Do not want lawlessness You are! (Ps.5:5) Strive to pray for the purification of your heart. God looks upon your labors and will crown them according to their worth in due time. To you, small, insignificant, it seems that you are not worth God’s providence for you. But weren’t almost all the saints so small and insignificant at first, and yet later God glorified them for their zeal for God, for their exploits in purifying themselves? Remember that they also considered themselves not great, but insignificant. Oh! How certain it is that for God we are all equal, He looks after everyone equally and evaluates everyone with His single impartial gaze! “The (unclean) heart is contrite,” says Psalm 50, “God will not despise.” Why? Because it is crushed, broken, and - that means - uncleanness flowed out of it, like from a broken vessel filled with uncleanness. That’s the trouble if our heart is unclean, bad by nature and from its negligence and depravity, remains intact; in this case, impurities usually add to impurities, and woe to that person who does not crush his sinful heart through self-entry, self-contemplation, self-reflection and self-reproach. What is the sign of a broken heart? And what is the sign that a vessel filled with liquid is broken: - when liquid flows from it or leaks. Likewise, the sign of a broken heart is when tears flow from the eyes. “The heart is a vessel of abomination - and from it come, like stinking streams, evil thoughts, adultery, fornication, false witness, blasphemy, the evil eye, pride” (Mark 7:21-22). Therefore, the impurity of the heart comes out with tears. That is why tears in the matter of our salvation are valued very dearly, as a sign of the recovery of the soul. That is why, in its prayers to God, the church asks its children for tears that cleanse the filthiness of the heart. How gratifying it is to be sure that there is a Being who loves me most sincerely, most ardently, more than anyone and everyone else in the world - to the point that he gives me daily to eat His flesh and drink His blood. What will I bring or what will I give back to You, the most gifted, loving, immortal King, as You have loved me so much - me, a sinner, ungrateful and malicious? I will accept the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord. I will render my prayers—that is, petitions, thanksgivings, and praises to the Lord—before all his people (Ps. 116:4–5). Do not spare your heart for prayer; take your heart out from under the attachments and passions that cover it like bark, and lift it to God, and illuminate it with a bright mind; otherwise there is darkness in it and in this darkness there are reptiles, they are countless. In prayer, strike directly at the sinful heart, at its particular glaring, annoying shortcomings, squeeze them out of it; do not spare yourself, shed tears for them: they will come out with tears. And if you spare your heart, you will not touch it: all the rubbish will remain so: and there is no benefit to you from prayer. Prayer offered from the heart can always only be beneficial for the soul and body and can never be harmful to the body, even if the person praying is in poor health, this is an experience. Prayer miraculously calms the soul: and from peace of mind, the body becomes calmer. What do you say to this, who refuse prayer due to poor health? Are you the only one who is weak for good deeds? Oh, sinful flesh! How you deceive the unreasonable! Great virtue is patience and trust in God's mercy, and despair is a grave sin. The devil tries with all his might to plunge the sinner into despair; but the sinner must be strengthened by hope. Fall and rise. A bad heart, an unclean heart! Now I clearly see that the all-good, righteous and wise Lord deservedly allowed you to suffer for a considerable time. If even now you are still cunning, impure, stinking, then what would become of you if you had not experienced cruel suffering for your cunning, for your unfaithfulness to God. ABOUT! I see that you should be tortured in order to squeeze out of you the evil with which you are filled! Now you, Pharisees, “cleanse the outer of the glassware and the dish; but your inner (soul) is full of robbery and wickedness” (Luke 11:39) and all kinds of unrighteousness. Many are jealous of the external fulfillment of prayer and rites of faith, without thinking about their internal fulfillment, which sanctifies and purifies the soul. There are also people who make every possible effort to clean and tidy the external, for example, the appearance of their body, or their home, without caring at all about the cleansing of the inner person, which is full of all kinds of abomination. Is this not the greatest spiritual blindness? Blind Pharisee! “First cleanse the inside of the glass and the dish, so that the outside also will be clean” (Matthew 23:26). The corruption and depravity of man are so great that frequent communion of the life-giving mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ is absolutely necessary for the gradual liberation of man from internal evil. This evil breaks through, so to speak, even when the life-giving mysteries have already been accepted inside, and in order not to think or do evil, by the grace and power of the sacrament, after its acceptance, one must constantly be vigilant over oneself. Glory to Your wisdom, goodness and omnipotence, Lord, save us sinners! One must certainly pray with the heart; you need to bring your heart closer to God; otherwise it will be difficult to pray; when you pray from the heart, with faith and love, praying is always easy and pleasant. And in general, anything is done easily if it is done from the heart, with love for it. The Word of God, recorded in the Holy Scriptures, was originally spoken in a certain place by the prophets in the Old Testament, by the Lord Himself directly or through the apostles in the New Testament; but then, having been written down, it spread throughout the entire universe (their broadcast went out to the whole earth Ps. 18:5); has nourished and nourishes millions of believers as the true, effective, life-giving Word of God, and will nourish and delight them until the end of time. Do you notice that, in the likeness of the Word of God, the all-good and all-powerful Lord created with His most pure secrets His Body and Blood? The Lord Himself in His most pure flesh was initially only in a small corner (so to speak) of the universe, just as His word also spoke in the beginning to a very small space, namely Jerusalem and the places near Jerusalem where He deigned to walk and teach; but then - after His resurrection from the dead and His ascension into heaven, by the almighty power and goodness of the Lord, His Body and Blood, through the builders of His mysteries, spread throughout the entire universe and every day - until now it is offered on the altars of Christian churches - wherever they are, cleansing, like coal, the sins of Christians, feeding and delighting the souls of pious Christians, and has to nourish them until the end of the age. Glory to the all-good Lord: He Himself is Omnipresent, therefore His holy word is everywhere and His Body and Blood are also performed everywhere - throughout the whole earth. “Oh, great and sacred Easter in Christ! Oh, Wisdom, and the Word of God, and Power! Grant us the opportunity to partake of Thy Kingdom in the eternal days!” (Easter hymn) What wisdom! What grace from the Lord to us! “Even if a seed falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much fruit” (John 12:24). Oh, how much fruit the seed of the Body of the Lord, which fell into the ground through death, has created and is creating! Beloved brother! You tell me that you often fall, despite your efforts to live decently and not offend the Lord with voluntary and involuntary sins, and that you, feeling the abyss of evil within yourself, despair of your salvation, of your pardon at the Last Judgment of God. - But believe that just as the enemy opposes many temptations, temptations and falls to your salvation, so the Lord, for His part, as a most merciful Father, whose goodness is infinitely greater than the malice of the devil, much more opposed the devil’s slander and your falls with many guarantees for your pardon at the trial - in the circumstances and deeds of your life. Just wish sincerely and try not to fall; and when you fall, try to get up. The food of the fallen does not rise (Jer.8:4)? Just as the devil tries in every possible way to destroy you, so the Heavenly Father wants to save you in every possible way. This is what Christian faith and hope inspires in me. Why do we groan over our sins, why do we shed tears in prayer? Why do we approach the sacrament of repentance and this terrible, but also sweet, restful and joyful cup of life? Is all this in vain? Doesn’t the Lover of Mankind hear our sighs before Him; Is it possible to hide a drop of tear from Him, even the smallest part of a drop of tear? Don’t sighs and tears cleanse sins? ABOUT! The Lover of Humanity washes us with them and we are whiter than snow after tears! - Moreover, has the word of the faithful and true failed? - What word? “The tree that you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and the tree that you loose on earth will be loose in heaven” (Matthew 18:18). No: “for he who promised is faithful” (Heb. 10:23), and he will do, and always does, as he promised. But does not the Blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, cleanse us from all sin, as His beloved disciple says? Hey, it cleanses. Witnesses of this are our hearts, in which we so often see the procession of our God (Ps. 67:25), cleansing the defilements of the heart. Look how many incentives there are to hope for salvation. One should never despair, no matter how great the sin. The Savior took upon himself all the sins of the world, no matter what they were and no matter how great they were. His mercy is immeasurable and His love for mankind is unsearchable, as the Church says. “All who have sinned and come short of the glory of God are justified through His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:24). Just try to love Him more, and your brethren and you will be forgiven many sins, “many sins will be forgiven, for you have loved much” (Luke 7:47), like the harlot who anointed the Lord’s feet with ointment and wiped her head with her hair. When praying according to ready-made prayers, you must certainly pray, for peace of mind and successful prayer, in your spirit, and not only with your tongue and mind, and you must not lose sight of the Lord. Otherwise, the Lord will leave you if you leave Him while reading your prayers in Him with faith and reverence, and your tongue will betray you like a zealous, unbridled horse, and your spirit will be stricken with shame and confusion. When, while reading prayers, you seek the Lord with your mind and heart, do not look far for Him: He is here, in the very words of the prayer. Just listen to them with a contrite and humble heart: and the Lord will move from them and into your heart. The Spirit of God breathes in the words of prayer. You just need to learn the art of translating Him from them into your soul. The Lord faithfully achieves His goal of renewing our nature, corrupted by sin, through His most pure, life-giving secrets of the Body and Blood. If I worthily receive communion, I am apparently renewed, come to life after the death of sin: there is an extraordinary light in my mind; in the heart there is peace, joy in the Holy Spirit. I know by experience the good yoke and light burden of my Lord, who life-givingly touches my soul, deadened by sin. And how magnificently the Lord always reveals Himself in life-giving mysteries! In order to receive them in a dignified, life-giving manner, I must always approach God with faith, humility, simplicity and sincerity. Communicating His mysteries, I see that He is always the same - All-Holy and All-Righteous, His greatness in the Holy. secrets are always the same; my soul is put to shame if I receive communion unworthily, but if it is worthily, it triumphs and rejoices. Oh, what sweetness, what peace, the worthy acceptance of life-giving mysteries spills into me! I then pray to God that He will grant me, before my death, to partake of their tender soul and contrite, childlike believing heart, so that even if I walk in the midst of the shadow of death (Ps. 22:4), I will not fear any evil with my Lord. But who is this enemy who, with such tenacity and persistence, prevents us from partaking of the animal’s bread with undoubted faith? Who is it that sows the weeds of unbelief in the heart, when living faith is what we need most? Who is it that I always fight so hard with? What invisible, undeniable enemy is nesting in my heart? ABOUT! This is the serpent who in the beginning instilled unbelief in our forefathers and boldly slandered God Himself, as if He were not true in His words and killed the unwary, sowing the poison of unbelief in their hearts and inflaming in them the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and pride. But glory to the Lord, who has given us power to tread on the serpent and the scorpion and all the power of the enemy (Luke 10:19). Experienced in battle, the warriors of Christ will not allow the poison of satanic unbelief to pour into their hearts and will not for a moment agree with their hearts that Life is not life, that the Savior is not a savior, that the Almighty is not omnipotent, that the Body and Blood of the Lord are only bread and wine. During the premium state of faith and after the worthy acceptance of life-giving mysteries, who do I fear as an enemy who deprives me of this state? Disbelief. This means that unbelief exposes itself, since it is painful for the soul. Should we be afraid of unbelief while believing? We must have so much faith and trust in God that we do not fear unbelief in our hope in Him. But if faith and hope in us have not yet increased to such an extent, then we need to be afraid of unbelief as a precaution, so that, through our carelessness, thoughts of unbelief do not creep in and deprive our souls of the premium state of faith. Fear is always necessary for a person who is not established in faith and hope. As in a war with a strong enemy, the king himself is with the army and with his presence encourages the soldiers to courageously attack the enemies and says: fight courageously, bravely: you are fighting for the faith, for me and for the fatherland; I am your reward and warriors bravely, with disregard for life, rush at the enemy and often overthrow him with bold tactics. So the Heavenly King, leading His faithful servants into the fight against strong enemies - the disembodied spirits of evil, Himself is with them and, encouraging them, says: fight courageously, looking with the eyes of faith at Me, the All-Powerful Helper: I am your reward; I will “give those who overcome to sit with me on My throne, just as I also have overcome and sat with My Father on His throne” (Rev. 3:21) - and those who have the Lord in their sight always overcome their enemies, and those who lose sight of Him and remain only in their weakness are overcome. But there is no need to despair even if we have suffered defeat: a cunning and strong enemy - like the devil - cannot be defeated suddenly - we, who have with us a constant domestic enemy - the flesh, through which he mostly fights against us. Yes, and the Lord knows our weakness; therefore, He gradually leads us into battle with the enemy, allowing us to be defeated, in order to thus accustom us through falls or defeats to place our trust in Him, the One All-Powerful Intercessor. What do the miraculous icons of the Mother of God and their appearances mean? What this means is that the Lady and Mother of our Deliverer always hears prayers, with faith, in a humble heart, offered to Her before Her icons - and through some of them she visibly displays Her gracious presence. How revered the images of the Mother of God should be in the eyes of those praying!.. Her invisible grace is inherent in Her images, especially if they are painted by the hand of a pious person. It is necessary to consume food and drink with extreme caution and discernment. The evil one sets snares in food and drink. It is not for nothing that the Savior warns us against temptations of this kind: “Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be burdened with gluttony and drunkenness” (Luke 21:34). Everywhere the unwary can be caught by the evil one. And he overwhelmed me with food today so much that I could hardly pray at evening prayer, and could not freely lift my mind and heart from grief. Great is the connection between the stomach and the heart! “Be faithful (to Me) until death and I will give you a crown with life” (Apoc.2:10), says the Savior. Everyone needs to sincerely take care to be faithful to the Lord in all situations and circumstances of life, in all cases, even seemingly unimportant ones. Often our faith is tempted, and often we find ourselves unfaithful to the Savior. And the loop (conscience) speaks to let us notice - to feel our infidelity, but we either do not listen to it, or try to lull it to sleep. Loop – conscience. Let us be faithful unto death to our Savior. When you come to pray for the repose of the soul of another, pray for it as if it were your own, with the most living faith, with the most sincere feeling, so that when you die, they will also pray for your soul with sincere feeling. When you measure according to measure, it will be measured back to you (Matthew 7:2). Imagine at this time the infinite goodness of the One who suffered and rose for us and beg Him, say: Lord Jesus! You, with Your most pure lips, said: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). This servant or servant (such and such) came to You through death, weary of the struggle with passions, the world and the devil: rest him (rest, O Lord, the soul of Your departed servant in a bright place, in a green place, in a place of peace, where all the righteous abide). The servant of Christ should never be indignant at anything: because Christ is peace, surpassing all understanding, and joy unspeakable; and He lives in His faithful servant; This means that His peace and joy live in Him. Confusion means losing Christ, letting Him out of sight; look steadily at Him, and you will never be troubled. The majority of people do not know how the Savior should be known: He is not a necessary, pleasant need of their heart for them, as their parents are a need for small children. For a long time I did not know this need, this heartfelt need for a Savior. Finally, the All-Good One allowed me to know Himself, and He now becomes the need of my heart - I cannot live without Him - I chase after Him, like a child chasing its mother who leaves him. It hurts a child when his mother deliberately leaves him for some pranks. And it hurts me when the Savior leaves me, offended by some impurity in my heart. If the weakness of the flesh requires a visual representation of the omnipresence of God: then imagine for it this omnipresence under the image of an intelligent, boundless ethereal ocean (a subtle voice of cold (1 Kings 19:12) - however, do not take the image as the object itself), which is everywhere, passes through everything and holds everything in being and at the same time itself is not limited by anything; in which all spirits, all worlds, all creatures live and move, and without which no life can be imagined; who is always with you, but often, and being with you, as if he were not with you: because with unbelief, lack of faith, pride, satiety or other sins, you block access to Him - the Pure - to you - the unclean; Which every minute, like a stream of air surrounding you, is ready, at your readiness, to fill you, your heart, to shed sweetness in your insides, as indeed it often fills (when you are worthy) and suddenly, instantly pours life-giving warmth, light, peace, sweetness and joy into your soul; - to Whom, whenever you call with faith, you will always call to His very ears, and never just by; Which incomprehensibly, but truly and significantly affects the minds and hearts of all earthly beings; Who, by His omnipresence, throughout the entire universe, offers Himself as food, descending on the altars of Christian churches and translating bread and wine into His most pure Body and Blood, and through visible mysteries, invisibly, but tangibly for the soul by the faith of Christians who partake; Who is everywhere, in every place, but to Whom without the key of faith you cannot approach and unite with Him, - Who gives everything to the believer, and takes away from those who do not have faith even what they think they have; Who always stands at the door of every person’s heart and pushes into it, waiting for its opening with the key of faith, hope and love. We know from experience that God is an Omniscient and Righteous Judge. Why are we so weak in the fight against sin, when we should stand firm in the thought of His omniscience and justice and not succumb to sin? Why do we fall? - From lack of faith. Faith and hope in the Lord overcomes everything. Let us not let the Lord out of our mental eyes, let us always imagine Him at our right hand, ready to help us according to our word, according to our sincere desire: - and we will always triumph. The Lord has a law according to which “all things are possible to him who believes” (Mark 9:23), but an unbeliever and a doubter cannot move forward. Whatever good deed you do in gratitude to the Lord for His countless and greatest blessings to you: tell yourself: this is a drop from the ocean, i.e. My most insignificant donation of the Lord’s countless gifts to me. From the Lord I have my being, and with being, all my powers, abilities and everything that I have, except sin. With the help of the God-given powers and abilities, by the mercy and bounty of the Lord God, I acquired everything that I have, and therefore everything that I have is not so much mine as the Lord’s. Should I keep the Lord's wealth within myself and use it only for my own benefit, and not for public benefit? Shouldn't I be merciful and generous, just as the Lord is merciful and generous to me? Good for those who rely in everything on God, the all-powerful helper and patron; he will not fear even the hour of death, for he is confident that the Lord, as a loving father, will surely prepare him for death as he should, and will give him a Christian death, painless, shameless and peaceful. Who, having tasted the sweet, wants the bitter? – You have tasted the sweetness of being in the love of the Lord, and you have also tasted the bitterness of the devil’s excuses: run to the Lord - into the arms of His sweet life-giving love whenever you feel the poison of the remorse of an evil spirit in yourself. “It is good for me to cleave to God, to place the hope of my salvation in the Lord” (Ps. 73:28). The strong and rich of this age, living in majestic, gilded palaces, are vain about them and do not think about what simple materials the walls of their palaces are made of: they see only a shiny finish, or a shiny surface. But what magnificent palaces do the strong and rich of this age have; - then people have bodies: people are often proud of the beauty, the grace of the shape of their body and do not want to think about what simple, rough principles the Creator composed their beautiful bodies from, and if the daily reminder of this nature gives them the thought of the roughness of the composition of the body, then they rather try to forget about it and transfer their thoughts back to their beauty. Let us not forget, let us not turn the reason for humility into an excuse for pride. When an evil spirit, through confusion and fear caused to your soul, deprives you of your saving, peaceful hope in the Lord, tell the evil one: God has poured out His mercies on me throughout my entire life without interruption; and this strengthens my good hope in Him, that even now, when you want to frighten me with hopelessness or despair, He will certainly surprise with His mercy, if only I turn the intelligent eyes of my heart to Him, and you, who do nothing to me except confusion, darkness, sorrow and all evil, get away from the servant of God: May my Lord drive you away, as He drove away your dark power during His earthly life, now and always. You want to deprive me of faith in the Lord, but why don’t you deprive me of faith in yourself? Why is disbelief in you not accompanied by the slightest heartache?!? Why do I feel your poisonous, soul-dead excuses? Do you already think that while I feel your traces in me, I do not feel the life-giving joyful traces of my Lord? Away with the insignificant creature that destroys all goodness! My God spreads goodness and joy everywhere - even in me when I cling to Him by faith. Man is completely dependent on God: he lives in a world in which everything is folded and arranged, everything lives and moves without the participation and power of man; he himself carries his body like a house created by someone else's hand; he doesn’t know this house well, or this own machine with which he has been running around on earth for several years: it feeds, grows, lives, but most people don’t know how this all happens; he would not know when he needs to eat and drink if hunger and thirst did not let him know about it; he would not have known how to strengthen his exhausted strength if nature itself had not shown him the means for this in a dream. “The blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). It is not by faith that we assimilate this truth to our hearts, but also by experience. I, a sinner, have been cleansed a thousand times from my sins and have found evidence in my conscience and in my heart of this saving, joyful cleansing. The future blessings are great and priceless: therefore, if it were necessary to buy them with the greatest sufferings of a lifetime, one should not refuse these sufferings, but willingly and joyfully endure everything, like martyrs. Therefore, after all the suffering, after all the labors, it will be pleasant to say: you walked through fire and water and brought us to rest (Psalm 65:12). After communion I change in a wonderful way. Before communion, I sometimes fear myself like a monster; because I see within myself the abyss of all evil, restrained and suppressed by tension towards the opposite virtues; and after communion I become a pure, meek angel - which in itself is impossible for me; The hundred-headed monster of sin subsides and freezes within me; I am no longer afraid of myself, but completely satisfied with myself: there is such peace in me, such wonderful calmness! Glory, glory, glory to the Divine mysteries! Holy Virgin Mary! By the Body and Blood of Your Son, of which I so often partake, I dare to call You akin to me. Oh, Lady! We know that the Son of God received this body and this blood from You; We know that both the body and blood of my Lord, of which I partake, are also one with the body and blood that are from You. How can I not love You, more than Your Son, Your God and mine. Oh, most pure Lady! grant me to become in saving affinity with You not only in body and blood, which I often receive, but also in faith, hope and love; grant me to become in saving intimacy with You in thoughts and feelings. Most pure Lady! I need, I desperately need a pure heart! You can do anything, all-powerful! You can, with your omnipotent prayers, ask me from Your Son and God for the grace of a pure heart, so that faith, hope and love may live in it. Ask, most immaculate! It is a wonderful and God-loving thing to imagine through what series of incidents in life we ​​have reached our present position: because, often imagining such a connection of incidents that make up our life, we come to the thought of our insignificance and humble ourselves before God: and to Him, the Creator, it is necessary to describe the entire combination of diverse paths, or events, by which He led us to our present position. And so - I imagine how I was conceived and born into the world in my life. At first I was my father's seed; then this seed fell into the mother’s soil, in which I was conceived, or - which is the same thing - in which God laid the beginning, the foundation of my present existence; then, by God’s providence, I began to grow in my mother’s womb and became an alien animal, like a worm, feeding on my mother’s juices; after I was formed in my mother’s artistic church, and was brought into the world by the Artist as a finished, artistic work of my Creator, my life separated from the life of my mother and I entered the society of people; I was numbered among them and gave me the name of a person who has perfected himself here on earth and passed on to another life - so that I would know later that my transformations have not yet ended, and that after my mother’s womb, after this world and the dark depths of the grave, I will dwell for endless centuries in the bright abodes of heaven, where my Creator is, at whose glory I will then look with a frank face, and not fortune-telling, as now (1 Cor. 13:12). How great was the weakness of my infancy! How many tears did I shed then - as if as a sign that my subsequent life would also be filled with many different sorrows, causing involuntary tears. How hard it took my mother to feed me until I got back on my feet! How many worries about me crushed the hearts of my parents! will I be healthy? how will I study? Will I finish my studies? what will I be later? Will I be their helper in old age, or a dissolute, ungrateful son? And what - oh Lord! - have you done this to me, insignificant? Thy right hand, O Lord, is glorified in strength (Ex. 15:6). Who could have imagined then that I would be what I am now? “The right hand of the Lord create strength, the right hand of the Lord exalts me” (Psalm 118:16). I thank You, Lord, with all my heart, and I pray to You: grant me to constantly remember my emergence from insignificance, the weakness of my childhood, the difficulty of my upbringing, the ignorance of my origin, so that I can always humble myself and revere You. You might be interested in: