Часть 2

Chapter 1. About the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist Until now, I have offered you, dear reader, four weapons that you need to defeat your enemies in invisible warfare, such as: about not relying on yourself, about unshakable hope in God, about resisting sin and fighting it, and about prayer. Now I want to point you to another powerful tool in this matter, namely the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist. This Sacrament, both among the Sacraments, is the highest, and among spiritual weapons it is the most powerful and most destructive. The four weapons we talked about receive their strength from the grace-filled powers and gifts acquired for us by the Blood of Christ; This sacrament is the very Blood of Christ and the very Body of Christ, with the inherent essence of Christ God Himself. With those four weapons we fight our enemies with the power of Christ; in this, Christ the Lord defeats our enemies with us or with us. For whoever eats the Body of Christ and drinks His Blood abides with Christ and Christ with him, as He Himself said: “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him” (John 6:56). Therefore, when we gain victory over our enemies, it is the Blood of Christ that defeats them, as it is written in the Apocalypse: “And you defeated him (the slanderer devil) with the blood of the Lamb” (Apoc. 12:11). This most holy Sacrament, this all-conquering weapon, and moreover Christ, who exists in this Sacrament, can be effectively accepted in two ways: first, mysteriously, in the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, with due preparation, that is, contrition, confession, cleansing through penance and necessary fasting; secondly, spiritually and mentally in the mind and heart. The first can take place as often as possible, depending on external circumstances, internal state and at the discretion of the spiritual father; and the second - every moment, so that you can always have this all-powerful weapon in your hands and constantly protect yourself from your enemies with it. Heed this and partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ as often as possible, as soon as you have permission from your spiritual father; Be constantly zealous to taste Christ the Lord mentally and spiritually, for which guidance I have offered you in the previous chapters on prayer. Chapter 2. How one should receive the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, or receive Christ the Lord mysteriously - in the Sacraments To achieve the goal with which we approach this Divine Sacrament, we must have certain special dispositions, perform certain special deeds and use certain special measures - before communion, during communion and after communion. Before communion, one must, through the Sacrament of repentance and confession, cleanse oneself from all filth of sins, both mortal and non-mortal, and fulfill what the spiritual father imposes during confession, uniting with this a firm determination with all the heart, with all the soul, with all the strength and with all the thought to serve the one Lord Jesus Christ and do the one thing that is pleasing to Him. Since He in this Sacrament gives us His Body and His Blood, with soul and Divinity and all the power of the incarnate Economy, then, thinking about how insignificant what we give to Him in comparison with what He gives us, let us put in our hearts, at least, everything possible for us to do with all diligence for His glory, and if we were to take possession of the highest gift that we have ever brought to Him earthly and heavenly intelligent creatures, let us express our readiness to offer this without reflection to His Divine Majesty. Having desired to accept this Sacrament, so that by its power you can defeat and defeat your enemies and the Lord’s, from the evening, or even earlier, begin to think how much our Savior, the Son of God and God, wants you, with the acceptance of this Sacrament, to give Him a place in your heart, so that, uniting with you, He will help you drive out all your passions from there and defeat all your enemies. This desire of our Lord is so great and ardent that no created mind can perfectly comprehend it. You, however, in order to get at least some approach to this, try to deeply imprint the following two thoughts in your mind: first, how indescribably joyful it is for the All-Good God to be in sincere communion with us, as the sacred Wisdom Itself attests, saying: “My joy... is with the sons of men” (Proverbs 8:31); and second, how much God hates sin, both because it prevents His union with us, which is so desirable for Him, and because it is directly opposed to His Divine perfections. Being by nature infinitely good and pure light and indescribable beauty, He cannot help but abhor sin immeasurably, which is nothing more than extreme evil, darkness, corruption, abomination and shame in our souls. And this God’s impatience with sin is so great that from the very beginning of it, all the providential acts of God for us and the institutions of the Old and New Testaments were aimed at destroying it and erasing its traces, especially the wondrous suffering of our Savior Jesus Christ, the Son of God and God. Some theologians and teachers even say (remember the legend of St. Dionysius the Areopagite about the vision of Titus) that if necessary, the Lord Jesus would be ready to raise the darkness of other deaths to destroy the power of sin. Thus, Divine indignation haunts him. Having realized from such thoughts and contemplations how great a desire God has to enter into your heart in order to completely defeat your enemies there, who are also His enemies, you cannot help but feel within yourself a living desire to receive Him, so that He may perform such an action in you in the very deed. Inspired in this way, with complete courage, and having received boldness from the sure hope that your Heavenly Archangel Jesus can come to you, often challenge that passion that worries you and which you want to overcome, and strike it with hatred, contempt and disgust, at the same time restoring in yourself the prayerful desire for the opposite virtue with readiness and for the corresponding actions, such as like this. This is what you should do the evening before communion. In the morning, a little before Holy Communion, go through with one glance of your mind all the passions, wrongs and sins that you have committed since the time of the preceding Communion until now, remembering with what fearlessness and blindness all this was done, as if you did not have God, the Judge and the Rewarder, who saw this and, in order to deliver you from such deeds, raised terrible passions and blasphemous death on the cross, which you trampled on when, inclined to sin, you placed your shameful lusts above the will of God, your Savior. Let the face of your soul be covered with shame at the consciousness of such ingratitude and such fearlessness. However, do not allow yourself to be drowned by embarrassment at this and push all hopelessness far away from yourself. Behold, the long-suffering Lord, bowing to mercy through your repentance and your expressed readiness to serve Him alone from now on, is coming to you and into you, so that with the immeasurable abyss of His goodness you will drown and swallow up the abyss of your ingratitude and your fearlessness and lack of faith. Approach Him with a humble sense of unworthiness, but also with complete trustworthiness, love and devotion, preparing a spacious tabernacle for Him in your heart, so that He may dwell entirely in you. How and in what way? By expelling from the heart every thought about anything created, and not just addiction and sympathy for it, and closing its door, so that nothing and no one except the Lord will enter into it. After communion of the Holy Mysteries, immediately enter into the recesses of your heart and, having worshiped the Lord there with reverent humility, mentally extend the following conversation to Him: “You see, my all-merciful Lord, how easily I fall into sins to my own detriment and what power the passion that fights me has over me, and how powerless I am to free myself from it. Help me and strengthen my powerless efforts, or even better, take my weapons and with them, instead of me, completely defeat this frantic enemy of mine.” After this, finally, turning to the Heavenly Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and ours, together with Him in these Mysteries, who descended into you with His good pleasure, and to the Holy Spirit, who by His grace aroused you and prepared you to receive the Body and Blood of the Lord and, upon receiving them, now abundantly overshadows you, worship this One God, glorified in the Holy Trinity and beneficial to us, and, Having given reverent thanks to Him for the great mercy towards you, at this moment revealed as a certain gift, offer an unshakable decision, readiness and impulses to fight your sin, in the hope of overcoming it with the power of the One Trinitarian God. For know that if you do not use all your efforts to overcome your passion, you will not receive help from God, and if, strengthening yourself diligently, you rely on your own strength alone, you will not have any success. Strengthen yourself diligently, but expect success from God’s help alone. Help will undoubtedly come and, having made your powerless efforts omnipotent, will give you a comfortable victory over what you are struggling with. Chapter 3. How to kindle love for God by deepening into the Sacrament of the Eucharist In order to deepen in the heavenly Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ to kindle in yourself a greater love for God, turn your thoughts to the contemplation of the love that God showed to you in this Sacrament. For this great God and Almighty was not content with the fact that he created you in His image and likeness, nor with the fact that when you, having sinned and offended Him, fell from your rank, sent His Only Begotten Son to live thirty and three years on earth in order to seek you and, having raised terrible passions and the painful death of the cross, to redeem and snatch you from the hands of the devil, to whom you enslaved himself to sin, and again to restore you to his rank, but, in addition, he deigned to also institute the Sacrament of the Body and Blood as food for you for the most essential merging with your nature of all the power of the embodied Economy. Make this last expression of God’s great love for you the subject of constant contemplation and deepening, so that, seeing its all-round fullness and abundance, you will thereby nourish and even more inflame your complete aspiration and love for God. 1) Think about when God began to love you, and you will see that this has no beginning. For as much as He Himself is eternal according to His Divine nature, His love for you is just as eternal, according to which He, before all ages, decided in His advice to give you His Son in some wondrous and incomprehensible way. Having seen this, rejoice with spiritual joy and cry: “So, even in that abyss of eternity, my insignificance was carefully visible and loved by the infinite God; Even then He was thinking about my good and, by the good pleasure of His unspeakable love, He decided to give me His Only Begotten Son as food. Can I, after this, allow myself at least one moment not to be attached to Him with all my thought, all my desire and all my heart? 2) Think also that all mutual loves of creatures among themselves, no matter how great they may be, have their own measure and their own limit, beyond which they cannot extend. God's love for us alone has no limits. Therefore, when it was necessary to satisfy it in some special way, He gave up His Son, equal to Him in greatness and infinity, as being of one and the same nature with Him. So, His love is such as is the gift, and, conversely, such is His gift as is love. Both are so great that no created mind can imagine a greater measure of greatness. Measure for this immeasurable love with at least the most possible measure of love for you. 3) Consider also that God was moved to love us not out of any necessity, but out of His sole natural goodness, He loved regardless of anything, from Himself, no matter how immeasurably, just as incomprehensibly. 4) That on our part this love could not have been preceded by any praiseworthy deed worthy of reward, so that the infinite God would reward our all-round poverty with the utmost love - that He loved us because He so desired, according to His sole good pleasure, and not only loved, but also gave Himself to us, His most unworthy creatures. 5) That this love, if you look at its purity, is not mixed, like most created love, with the expectation of some good from us ahead. For God has no need for any good from the outside, as He is all-satisfied and all-blessed in Himself. Therefore, if He deigned to pour out indescribable goodness and love on us, then He poured it out not for the benefit of Himself from us, but for the benefit of our own. Thinking about all this, can you help but cry out within yourself: “Oh, how wonderful this is! The Almighty God has set His heart on me, His least creation! What do you want from me, O King of Glory? What do you expect from me, who is nothing more than dust and dust? I see well, my God, in the light of Your immeasurable love, that You have one desire for this, which most shows the lordship of Your love for me, namely, that You deign to give me all of Yourself for food and drink for no other reason than to take all of me into Yourself, not because You need me, but because I have an extreme need for You; for in this way You live in me, and I in You; and through this loving union I become like You Yourself - and I will say this in human terms: through the union of my earthly heart with Your heavenly heart, a single divine heart is created in me.” From such thoughts you cannot help but be filled with amazement and joy, seeing yourself so highly valued by God and so dear to Him, and realizing that with His immeasurable love for you He does not seek or desire anything else from you but to attract your love to Himself and to bless you with Himself, tearing you away from all attachment to creatures and to yourself, so that you can thus offer all of yourself to Him, God. to yours as a burnt offering, and so that from now on, throughout the subsequent time of your life, a single love for Him and a zealous desire to please Him will possess your mind, and your will, and memory, and all your feelings. Every benefit of God’s love for you can be reflected in such an impact on your soul, but it is especially natural for this to happen with a reasonable view of the multi-graceful Sacrament of the Divine Eucharist, which, looking at with your mind, open your heart to it and pour out the following reverent prayers and loving sighs: “Oh, Heavenly Brass! When will the time come for me to be completely devoured by You, not by any other fire, but by the fire of Your love? When, O uncreated Love, O Bread of Life! When will I begin to live alone with You, for You alone and in You alone? When, O my Life, red Life, sweet and eternal Life, Manna from heaven, when, turning away from every other earthly waste, will I begin to lust after You alone and feed on You alone? When will this happen, O my all-satisfying Sweetness, O my supreme good! Oh, my Lord, most exalted and all-gracious! Pluck this poor heart of mine from the bonds of every addiction and every unkind inclination, decorate it with Your holy virtues and fill it with such good disposition that I can do everything with all sincerity only for the sole purpose of pleasing You! Then I will finally achieve the point that, having opened my heart to You, no longer unworthy of You, I will call on You and force You into it with love; But You, my Lord, having entered inside, will begin, without encountering resistance, to perform there all the effects that you usually perform in souls devoted to You.” You can spend your evening and morning in such loving thoughts and feelings, preparing for Holy Communion. Then, when the sacred hour of Communion approaches, with humility and warmth of heart, imagine more vividly who is the One Whom you have to receive into yourself, and who you are who have to receive Him. He is the Son of God, clothed in incomprehensible majesty, before whom the heavens and all powers tremble - he is the Holy of Holies, the brightest of the sun, unimaginable purity, in comparison with which all created purity is unclean, Who, out of love for you, taking on the form of a slave, wanted to be despised, mocked and crucified by the malice of the lawless world, being at the same time God, in to whose right hand is life and death of the whole world. Who are you? You are nothing, by your corruption, wickedness and malice you have become more insignificant than anything, worse than any most insignificant and unclean creature, a mockery of the underworld demons, who, instead of giving thanks to the generous God for so many good deeds, carried away by your fantasies and lusts, despised such a great Benefactor and Master and trampled His priceless blood, shed for you, and He with all then, out of His unceasing and unchanging love for you, He calls you to His Divine Table, and sometimes compels you to approach it with terrible threats, reminding you of His spoken word to everyone: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, nor drink His blood, you will not have life in you” (John 6:53), - and how He does not close the door before you His mercy, so He does not turn His face away from you, although you, by your sins, are a leper, and paralyzed, and blind, and poor, and enslaved to all sorts of passions and indecencies. This is just what He requires from you: 1) that you be sick in your heart about offending Him; 2) so that most of all you hate sin - everyone: both big and small; 3) so that you completely surrender yourself to Him and, with all the disposition and love of your heart, have one concern - always and in everything, in every deed, to be in His will and in complete submission to Him alone; 4) so ​​that you have strong faith in Him and firmly trust that He will have mercy on you, cleanse you from all your sins and protect you from all your enemies, visible and invisible. Strengthened by such inexpressible love of God for you, approach Holy Communion with holy and loving fear, saying: “I am not worthy, my Lord, to receive You, for so many times I have angered You with my sins, and have not yet mourned all such wicked deeds of mine. I am not worthy, my Lord, to receive You, for I have not yet cleansed myself of dispositions and predilections for that which is not pleasing to You. I am not worthy, my Lord, to receive You, for I have not yet surrendered with all sincerity to love for You, to Your will and obedience to You. O my God, omnipotent and immeasurably good! You Yourself, in Your all-generous love for mankind, deign me to receive You, flowing to You with faith.” After you have been honored with Holy Communion, close yourself in the secrets of your heart and, forgetting all created things, extend to God this or a similar conversation: “Most High, King of heaven and earth! Who created You to bring You into my unworthy heart, when I am damned, and poor, and blind, and naked? No one, of course, is like Your immeasurable love for me. O uncreated love! O sweetest love! What do you want from me, who have become impoverished in the end? Nothing, as I understand and see, except my love for You; nothing except that no other fire should burn on the altar of my heart except the fire of my love for You, which would consume every other love and every other desire except the desire to bring all of me to You as a burnt offering and into the stench of fragrance. You have never desired or sought anything else from me, and now You do not seek or desire anything else. Take heed, O Lord, now to the vows of my heart! I combine my desire with Your desire, and how You gave all of Yourself to me, and I surrender all of myself to You, that I may be wholly in You. I know, Lord, that this cannot happen if there is not complete self-sacrifice in me, if any trace of self-love remains in me, if sympathy and disposition for any of my wills or thoughts, or for my self-indulgent customs are hidden in me; That’s why I want and strive from now on to resist myself in everything that my soul desires that is displeasing to You, and to force myself to do everything that is pleasing to You, even if everything in me and outside of me rebels against it. I myself am not able to succeed in this, but since from now on You are with me, I boldly hope that You Yourself will accomplish in me everything that is right. I strive and search, and may my heart be one with Your heart; and I hope that this will be done to me by Your grace. I strive and seek not to see or hear anything, not to think about anything and not to sympathize with anything, except for what Your will, determined by Your commandments, will lead and indicate, and I hope that this will be the action of Your power in me. I strive and seek not to leave my attention from the heart in which You are, and there, constantly looking to You, to be warmed by the rays of light emanating from You; and I hope that this will be the touch and embrace of Your hands. I strive and search, so that from now on You will be my only light, strength and joy; and I hope that this will be Your saving influence on my inner being. This is what I pray for and will continue to pray unceasingly. O most merciful Lord! Be it for me, be it." Then, day by day, strive to become more and more abundant in faith in the power of this Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist and do not cease to be amazed at this wondrous Sacrament, think how God, under the guise of bread and wine, reveals Himself to you and essentially appears in you in order to make you most holy, reverend and blessed. For blessed are those who do not see, but believe, according to the word of the Savior: “Blessed are they who have not seen and yet believed” (John 20:29). And do not wish for God to reveal Himself to you in any other form other than this Sacrament. Try to kindle in yourself a warm desire for this Sacrament and daily succeed in zealous readiness to do the will of God alone and in spiritual wisdom to make it the queen and ruler of all your affairs, both spiritual, mental, and physical. Every time you receive communion, partaking of this Bloodless Sacrifice, offer yourself as a sacrifice to God, that is, express complete readiness, out of love for the Lord, who sacrificed for us, to endure every misfortune, every sorrow and every vain that may occur during your life. St. Basil the Great more fully depicts the duty imposed by Holy Communion on those receiving communion, in the words of St. Paul that those who partake of the Body and Blood of the Lord “proclaim the death of the Lord” (1 Cor. 11:26). Death was lifted up by the Lord for all people - and for those who receive communion - for what? “Let those who live live not for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again” (2 Cor. 5:15). Consequently, those who receive communion with faith, love and readiness to the point of their stomachs to be faithful to the commandments of God and to every will clearly expressed by Him, take upon themselves the duty of no longer living for themselves, nor for the world and sin, but for the Lord God accepted by them in Holy Communion, who died and rose again for them. Finally, having received the Lord, who was sacrificed for you, in Holy Communion, and having become a partaker of the power of this sacrifice, in its name, lift it up to the Heavenly Father, after thanksgiving and glorification, prayer and supplication for your needs, spiritual, mental and physical, then for the Holy Church of God, for your household, for benefactors and for souls who have rested in the faith. Being combined with the sacrifice by which the Son of God obtained for us all mercy from God the Father, this prayer will be heard and will not be left without fruit. Chapter 4. About spiritual communion You can partake of the Lord in the Sacrament of the Body and Blood only at certain times, depending on how you can and how diligently you are, but no more than once a day. Inwardly, in the spirit, we can be worthy of communion with Him every hour and every moment, that is, by His grace, we can remain in constant communion with Him and, when He is pleased, feel this communion in our hearts. Having partaken of the Body and Blood of the Lord, Himself, according to His promise, is acceptable, and He dwells in us with all His graces, giving the heart, ready for that, to feel this. True communicants are always in a tactile state of grace after Communion. The heart then tastes the Lord spiritually. But just as we are constrained in body and surrounded by external affairs and relationships, in which we must take part out of duty, the spiritual taste of the Lord, due to the splitting of our attention and feelings, is weakened day by day, obscured and hidden. The feeling of tasting the Lord is hidden, but communication with the Lord is not interrupted unless, unfortunately, some sin arises that upsets the state of grace. Nothing can compare with the sweetness of tasting the Lord, which is why zealots, sensing its depletion, rush to restore it in strength, and when they restore it, they feel as if they are tasting the Lord again. This is spiritual communion with the Lord. It thus has a place between one and another of His communion in the Mysteries of the Saints. But it can also be continuous - in the one who always keeps his heart pure and has continuous attention and feeling towards the Lord. With all this, however, it is a gift of grace given to workers on the path of the Lord, diligent and merciless to themselves. But even when someone tastes the Lord in spirit from time to time, there is a gift of grace. From us there is only thirst for this gift and hungering, and diligent seeking. There are, however, things that open the way for him and promote his acceptance, although he always comes as if by chance. These deeds are pure prayer with a childish cry from the heart and special acts of self-sacrifice among the virtues. When there is no sin in the soul, when sinful thoughts and feelings are not tolerated, that is, when it is pure and cries out to God, then what can prevent the Lord who is present from giving the soul a taste of Himself, and the soul from feeling this taste? This is what happens, unless the Lord sees that for the good of the soul it is necessary to somewhat prolong His hunger and unsatisfied thirst. Between acts of self-sacrifice, what is most powerful in this regard is humble obedience and throwing oneself under the feet of everyone, stripping oneself of acquisitions, complacently enduring falsehoods, all in the spirit of complete surrender of oneself to the will of God. Such actions most of all liken the actor to the Lord, and the Lord who is present allows Himself to be tasted by his soul. And diligent and pure fulfillment of all the commandments of God has as its fruit the indwelling of the Lord in the heart, with the Father and the Holy Spirit (John 14:23). The Lord's spiritual communion should not be confused with the mental recollection of His communion in the Sacraments of the Body and Blood, even if this is accompanied by strong spiritual sensations and thirsty impulses for His actual communion in the Mysteries of the Saints. It should also not be confused with what is given to those present in the church during the celebration of the Sacrament of the Eucharist. They are honored with the sanctification of God and God's favor as those who participate in the offering of the Bloodless Sacrifice by faith, contrition and readiness to sacrifice themselves for the glory of God and according to these dispositions; but this is not the same as communion, although it can take place immediately. Chapter 5. About thanking God Every good thing we have and every good thing we do is God’s and from God. Therefore, we have a duty to thank Him for everything, for every good received from His all-generous right hand, whether explicit or implicit, for every good deed, for every good deed and for every victory over the enemies of our salvation, as we are commanded: “In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus in you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Take care to kindle in yourself feelings of gratitude to God from the first moment after waking up from sleep, throughout the day and fall asleep with words of thanksgiving on your lips; because you are immersed in God’s blessings, including sleep itself. God does not need your thanksgiving, but you urgently need God's benefits. The friend and repository of these blessings in you is a grateful heart. “The best way to preserve the charity of a benefactor,” says St. Chrysostom, “there is remembrance of good deeds and unceasing thanksgiving.” And St. Isaac writes: “The gratitude of the receiver motivates the giver to give greater gifts than before. He who is not grateful for little will be deceived in his hope for more. The gift does not remain without aggravation, unless there is gratitude for it” (sl. 2). Saint Basil the Great also adds to this a certain intimidation, which is beneficial, however, saying: “Since we are not grateful for the blessings given by God, it becomes necessary to take away the blessings in order to bring us to our senses. Just as the eyes do not see too close, but require a certain distance in proportion, so ungrateful souls, usually, with the deprivation of goods, begin to feel the former mercy; and, not knowing any gratitude to the Giver, while they were using the gifts, after the loss they appease the past” (“A Word on Thanksgiving,” vol. 4, p. 74). Having listened to what has been said, you keep asking, how can I kindle in myself a feeling of gratitude to God and always preserve it? Consider all the blessings of God to the human race - our race - and to yourself, and pass them through your thoughts more often and rotate them in your memory, and if you have a heart, then you will not be able to help but lift up those who are grateful to God with songs. You will find examples of this in the prayers and writings of saints. This is how St. paints. Basil the Great showed God's greatness to us: “We are brought from non-existence into existence, created in the image of the Creator, we have both reason and word, which constitute the perfection of our nature and through which we have come to know God. By carefully studying the beauties of creation, from them, as from some writings, we explain to ourselves God’s great providence for everything and God’s wisdom. We can distinguish between good and bad; by nature itself they are taught to choose what is useful and to turn away from what is harmful. Having been alienated from God by sin, we are again called to communion with God, having been freed from dishonorable slavery by the Blood of the Only Begotten. And the hope of the Resurrection and the enjoyment of angelic blessings, the Kingdom in heaven, the promised blessings that surpass the power of understanding and words!” (ibid., p. 51) - Read this image of God’s blessings to us, or choose another one, or compose it yourself, including here the blessings given to you personally by God. And repeat this more often in thought and word, not only every day, but many times every day, and you will remain in feelings of gratitude to God. But an excited feeling does not like to remain hidden, but seeks discovery and expression. How is it appropriate for us to express our feelings of gratitude to Him before God? Do what God wants you to do, surrounding you with His generosity. What does God want? Surrounding you with His blessings, God wants you, seeing them, to constantly remember Him - and remember; wants you to cleave to Him with all your love - and cleave; He wants you not to deviate from His will in anything and to try to please Him with everyone - and do so; wants you to rely on Him alone in everything - and rely; He wants you, remembering how you repeatedly insulted your Benefactor with your evil and shameful deeds, to lament that, repent of that, mourn that until you are at peace with your conscience and accept the confirmation that God has forgiven you everything - and do so. Do you see how vast is the field of thanksgiving and how abundant are the ways of fulfilling this duty? Learn from this how unpardonably he sins, whoever turns out to be faulty in this, and be zealous not to stain yourself with this sin. Between people, ingratitude is called black. What word would you use to describe ingratitude towards God? Always kindle in yourself feelings of gratitude to God, especially take care of this in church during the liturgy, at which the Bloodless Sacrifice is offered to God, called the Eucharist, which means “thanksgiving.” Do not forget that here you cannot adequately express gratitude to God in any other way than by being completely ready to sacrifice everything and yourself to God for the glory of His all-holy name. Chapter 6. About devotion to the will of God The one who repents surrenders himself to God for service and immediately begins to serve Him by walking in His commandments and in His will. Labor and hard work begins. The commandments are not difficult, but their fulfillment encounters many obstacles in the external circumstances of the worker and especially in his internal inclinations and skills. The tireless worker, with God's help, finally overcomes everything: the flow of affairs is peaceful inside and calm outside - of course, relative. The worker himself does everything, although with the help of God. But experience from the first days makes him understand that with all his efforts, if anything good is done, then only that for which power is given from above. The further you go, the more deeply the confirmation of this takes root. With the establishment of feasible peace within, it comes forward and becomes dominant, and finally ends with complete devotion to the will of God, or surrendering oneself to the all-action of God. The action of God in those who work for salvation begins from the first minutes of turning to God, and it itself brings about the turning. But it increases as the worker, deviating from himself, cleaves to God and, becoming convinced of his powerlessness, is confirmed in his trust in the power of God. When he finally surrenders himself entirely to God, God is active in him both in indicating what should be done and in fulfilling it. This is the height of Christian perfection, in which “God... is the one who acts... and whoever wants and who does” (Phil. 2:13). Its seed rests in non-reliance on oneself and hope in God, as we said at the beginning; and here it is indicated in full maturity. What is the essence of perfect devotion to the will of God will be recognized when it manifests itself in its strength. It comes by itself, and there are no special rules for acquiring it, so that you can say: do this and that, and you will receive it. It grows imperceptibly under lack of self-reliance and hope in God. I mentioned it here because it was necessary to remember it somewhere, and the mention at the end of the previous chapter about sacrificing oneself to God gave reason to remember it now. Surrendering oneself completely to the will of God is offering oneself to God as a burnt offering. This state is evidenced by dying to oneself - to one’s understandings, one’s desires and one’s feelings and tastes, in order to live by God’s mind, in God’s will and in the taste of God. In this matter, the Lord the Savior is ahead of us. He gave Himself entirely to God and the Father and us in Himself, for we are “of His flesh and of His bones” (Eph. 5:30). Let us hasten after Him, since He gave His word to God the Father for us (John 17:19), hoping that we will really be like this and act like this. Why is such a sacrifice performed at the end and not at the beginning? Because the sacrifice to God must be perfect, without blemish. Perfection is initially an object sought, and not possessed. When they finally master it, then it is appropriate to sacrifice oneself. At the beginning a person only devotes himself to this sacrifice, and at the end he sacrifices himself. Before achieving perfection and sacrificing oneself, one cannot sacrifice oneself as a burnt offering. Other sacrifices can be offered, such as a propitiation sacrifice, an atonement sacrifice, a thanksgiving sacrifice, and not a burnt offering. You can encroach on this and you can talk about this, but it will be a word, not a deed. This deed is accomplished without words. Know that as long as you still cling to something earthly, as long as you rely on something in you or outside of you other than God, as long as you find a taste in something created and delight in it, then you are still unfit for a burnt offering. Try to renounce everything first, make sure that all lives freeze in you and only one life remains according to God, or so that it is no longer you who live, but God and Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit live in you, and then devote yourself to God, or then you will be given over to God. Until then, have a broken spirit and a contrite and humble heart as a sacrifice to God, and be content with that for the time being, and not forever. For nevertheless, you must finally come to the point of offering yourself to God as a burnt offering in full. Chapter 7. About the warmth of the heart and the cooling and dryness of the heart Spiritual warmth in the heart is the fruit of feelings for God and everything Divine. Its origin is contemporary with turning to God in repentance. During penitential work on cleansing the heart, it becomes more and more intensified and from intermittent or visiting the heart from time to time, it gradually passes into continuous, until it finally becomes a state of the heart. When St. John Climacus advised in one place: try to always be in feeling towards God and the Divine, then he meant this warmth. Every object that delights the heart warms it; because there is a lot of warmth from the heart. Spiritual warmth is generated from the influence of spiritual objects on the heart, which happens in the order of spiritual life. Its distinctive feature is renunciation from all created things and focusing attention on God and everything Divine. Along this line, it is separated from the warmth of the soul and body, like heaven from earth. The feeling of spiritual warmth is concentrated and simple and singular; but in the essence of the matter it is the merging together of many spiritual movements, just as a ray of the sun is the merging of seven rainbow rays. It contains reverence, contrition, tenderness, prostration, worship, holy zeal, love of God. Just as all such spiritual feelings are not suddenly established in the heart, so spiritual warmth does not suddenly become the property of our heart. Until spiritual warmth in the heart becomes its permanent state, it will come and go. It comes either by itself, like a heavenly guest, or it is the fruit of spiritual exercises - reading, meditation, prayer, acts of selflessness and good deeds. It departs when attention deviates from spiritual objects, and after it the heart tastes and delights in something non-spiritual. This extinguishes spiritual warmth, like fire with water. Do you want to keep this spiritual warmth in your heart? Be attentive inward and prayerfully present yourself to God in your heart, do not allow scattering thoughts to wander, do not allow sympathy for anything spiritual or carnal into your heart, immediately stop the generation of over-concern, keep alive the zeal you have perceived for pleasing God and for the salvation of the soul, in external affairs maintain a reasonable order, direct them all to your main goal and, while doing one thing, do not Burden your thoughts with worries about many things. But, I will add: when you recognize this warmth, you cannot help but strive to preserve it; becoming stronger, you will begin to use means suitable for this; By using them, you will see how it is more convenient for you to maintain your warmth. If you take on this matter wisely, then spiritual warmth will become for you a faithful teacher of how to manage your inner self and how to behave in external affairs and in all your behavior in order to guard it. No matter how sweet the presence of spiritual warmth in the heart is, it is just as bitter, painful and scary when it leaves. It departs, as noted, when the attention and heart deviate from the spiritual and turn to the non-spiritual. By this we do not mean something sinful - for whoever has tasted spiritual warmth is no longer willing to do so - but the entire mental-physical realm, vain, earthly, created. As soon as attention deviates from this, spiritual warmth immediately decreases; when the heart clings to it, it completely moves away and leaves coldness towards everything Divine and God himself, accompanied by indifference to all spiritual works and activities that were kept in the form of storing this warmth. Whoever comes to his senses immediately and hastens to put himself back into his usual heat-productive system, the warmth returns, whether soon or not so soon. But whoever does not pay attention to this and, out of absent-mindedness, enthusiasm and arrogance, allows himself to deliberately linger in this cooling atmosphere, and even more so, if he slips in action to satisfy his non-spiritual tastes that are resurrected in this way, his very zeal for spiritual life will waver, or even completely freeze. The latter is the threshold of a fall into former ordinary sins, which will not slow down to befall the careless. But the one who comes to his senses and from here conveniently returns to his spiritual order. This is how cooling always occurs; this happens through our fault, namely, through weakening of attention and vigilance over ourselves: either due to the temptations of the worldly environment surrounding the worker, when the charms of the world, having a stupefying effect, kidnap a person from himself, then due to the machinations of the enemy, who manages to lure a person out of himself, in which he sometimes succeeds, mixing only with the natural movements of the images of fantasy and his own, especially fascinating, sometimes influencing in some way the body. But whatever the reason, the cooling effect begins with the release of attention from within and is established in its further course by the attachment of the heart to something, first empty and vain, then passionate and sinful. And it is always the person himself who is to blame. For neither the world nor the devil rapes freedom, but seduces only it. There is a cooling and retreat from grace. Spiritual warmth in its true form is the fruit of the presence of grace in the heart. When grace visits, the heart is warm, and when it leaves, it is cold. Grace also departs when a person himself goes outside to undue things. And then this departure is what is called punitive. But sometimes grace itself departs in the form of promoting the spiritual success of God’s servants. And then this departure is and is called educational. But the consequence in this case is the same - cooling, a feeling of emptiness in the heart, because the guest and visitor has left. The difference in these coolings is that guilty cooling weakens even zeal for spiritual life; cooling due to the educational retreat of grace inflames it the most, which happens to be one of the purposes of the educational retreat of grace. The grace of God itself, educationally, recedes for the following reasons: in order to irritate jealousy, which is sometimes weakened by the length of time in peace, so that a person looks more carefully and removes sympathies and activities that do not directly belong to a godly life and do not have their end in God; in order to restore in greater strength the consciousness and feeling that everything good that happens in us is the fruit of God’s grace; so that in the future they value God’s gifts more, take care of their preservation more zealously, and become more humble; so that they sincerely surrender themselves into the hands of God’s providence, with the most complete selflessness and self-abasement; so that they do not cleave to the most spiritual consolations and thus do not divide their hearts in two, when God wants it all to belong to Him alone; so that even under the influence of God’s grace we do not give up, but work tirelessly on the path of God, straining all our strength, given to us by God precisely for this. Thus, even when cooling occurs from the educational retreat of God’s grace, you yourself are the reason for this, for although God’s grace retreats itself, it retreats while looking at you. Therefore, when you feel a cooling in yourself towards things and spiritual activities and towards everything Divine, go inside yourself and consider for what reason it happened, and if this is your fault, hasten to eliminate it and blot it out, being jealous not for the return of spiritual consolations, but even more so for the destruction in yourself of that which turns out to be inappropriate and displeasing to God. If you don’t see anything like that, submit to the will of God, saying to yourself: this is how God judged; May Thy will, O Lord, be upon me, weak and worthless. And then be patient and wait, without at all allowing yourself to deviate in any way from the usual order of your spiritual life and spiritual activities and exercises; overcome the bad taste that has attacked them by forcing yourself towards them, not heeding the thoughts that distract you from such work, as if such an activity is fruitless; Drink this cup of bitterness willingly, saying to the Lord: “See my humility and labor” (Ps. 24:18), and do not leave Your mercy from me - and inspire yourself with faith that this cup was brought to you by the love of God, desiring you greater spiritual perfection. Not only do you willingly go to Tabor in the footsteps of the Lord, but also to Golgotha, that is, not only when you feel within yourself the Divine light and spiritual consolations and joys, but also when you are attacked by darkness, sorrow, hardship and bitterness, which the soul sometimes has to taste from demonic temptations, internal and external. Even if this cooling is accompanied by such darkness and confusion that you do not know what to do and where to turn, do not be afraid at the same time; but stand firm in your rank, stand on this cross humbly, far from yourself all earthly consolation that the world or the flesh, at the instigations of the enemy, decides to offer. Try also to hide this weakness of yours from everyone and do not talk about it to anyone except your spiritual father, without complaining, however, about the burden sent to you, but rather seek learning how to avoid it in the future, and to endure this one complacently, until God is pleased to keep you in it. Continue to perform your prayers, communion and other spiritual exercises, as usual, not to receive spiritual sweets, not in order to be removed from the real cross, but so that you are given the strength to remain complacently on it for the glory of Christ the Lord, who was crucified for us, and always live and act in a way that is pleasing to Him. If sometimes you cannot pray in this state and remain in good thoughts, as usually happened, due to great darkness and confusion of the mind, do all this as best you can, only without laziness and self-indulgence; and what you cannot demonstrate perfectly by deed will be accepted as manifested perfectly by your desire, search and effort. Stay in this desire, search and effort and you will see the wondrous fruits of it - inspiration and strength that will fill your soul. I will offer you an example of how it is appropriate for you to cry out to God during such a darkening of your mind. Cry: “How sorrowful are you, my soul? And you confuse me so much? Trust in God, for we will confess to Him: (You are) the salvation of my face and my God” (Ps. 43:5). “O Lord, have you retreated far from me and despised me, who am in sorrow” (Ps. 9:22)? “Do not forsake me, O Lord my God, do not depart from me” (Ps. 37:22). Remember the prayer that, by the inspiration of God, Sarah, Tobiah’s beloved wife, prayed during her sorrow, and use it, crying out with a living voice: “Everyone who works for You knows truly, Lord, that this life, if it is under trial, will be crowned, and if it is in sorrow, it will receive deliverance, and even in decay itself will not pass away through Your mercy. You do not rejoice over our destruction, but after the storm and waves you provide calm, and after crying and tears you pour out joy. Blessed be Thy name forever, O God of Israel!” Bring to memory also Christ the Lord, Who in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross, due to immeasurable suffering, felt Himself abandoned from His Heavenly Father, and, feeling yourself in your present position, existing on the cross, cry out from His heart with His words: “Thy will be done, O Lord, not as I will, but as You do” (Luke 11:2; Matthew 26, 39)! By acting in this way, you will make your patience and your prayer rise up before the face of God, like the flame of the sacrifice of your heart. And you will testify by this that you are filled with a living readiness of will, with a love strong as death, to follow Christ the Lord with a cross on your shoulder along every path, no matter what He calls you to Himself. This is true life according to God! To desire and seek God for God's sake, and to have Him, and to taste Him in the way and to the extent that He wants it. If people embarked on the path of life according to God with such a mood and its firmness, measuring their successes in this flow, and not by influxes of spiritual sweets and consolations, then they would not be so conveniently seduced either by themselves or by the machinations of the enemy and would not languish uselessly, and sometimes to the point of grumbling, encountering dryness and cooling, but on the contrary, they would accept them with gratitude and endure in the confidence that this is how they want it. God, this happened for their good, and, not paying attention to them, with greater jealousy and self-denying violence, they continued to follow the path of a godly life according to all its established orders. It sometimes happens that while the soul languishes in such coldness, such lack of taste for everything spiritual, the enemy attacks more powerfully, raising up evil thoughts, shameful movements and seductive dreams. His goal is that, having fallen into insensibility from the feeling of God’s abandonment, a person should give up his hands and lean toward something passionate, because after this it is easy for him to be drawn back into the whirlpool of a sinful life. Knowing this, stand firm. Let the waves of sin rage around your heart, but as long as you have a reluctance to sin and a desire to remain faithful to God, your boat is safe. The grace of God has taken its consolations from you, but it is nearby and watches over you and will not leave you without help as long as your will is on the side of good. Stand firm, inspired by the confidence that this storm will soon pass, and with it your dryness will cease. Believe that this was allowed for your good, for, having endured this time of temptation, you will come out of it with greater recognition of your weakness, with greater humility and greater confidence in God’s help always ready for you. I have already had occasion to tell you about such violent enemy attacks. Review what is said there. Chapter 8. About keeping and testing conscience By all means, brother, keep your conscience clear in thoughts, words, and deeds, may it always be impeccable and may it never condemn or gnaw at you for anything. If you do this, she will gain greater strength in you both in your internal and external actions and, having become mistress over everything, will begin to rule your life kindly. A clear conscience will make your life impeccable, for then it will be sensitive and strong for good and against evil. She is the law inscribed by God in the hearts of people, to illuminate their paths and to guide them in everything worthy, as the Apostle Paul teaches, calling it “a work of the law written in the hearts” (Rom. 2:15); Based on this, St. Neil gives everyone this lesson: “In all your affairs, use the guidance of your conscience as a lamp.” In four respects you must keep your conscience impeccable: in relation to God, to yourself, to your neighbors and to all things that are in your hands. You know all this; I will remind you, however, of the most important thing. In “relationship to God” - abide in the memory of God and walk in the presence of God; realize that you are carried and preserved by the power of God and led to the end for which He called you into being; dedicate both yourself and everything you have to the service of God and to the glory of His name; Live in Him, trust in Him, and commit your fate to Him, both temporary and eternal. In “relation to yourself” - be fair to yourself and give each part of your nature its due: let your spirit, seeking God, heavenly and eternal, rule over your soul and body, whose purpose is to arrange a temporary life; The “soul,” obeying the dictates of the spirit, bends the neck of the mind to the Divinely revealed truth and with it illuminates the entire area of ​​its knowledge; keep the will in the order of God’s commandments, not allowing it, contrary to them, to deviate towards its own lusts; let the heart learn to find taste only in Divine things and in that which bears imprints and serves as an expression of the Divine, and in this spirit let it conduct everyday and social affairs and orders; Give to the “body” what it needs and, observing strict moderation in this, have it as a law - never in anything “to please the flesh in lust” (Rom. 13:14). By keeping this, you will be a good ruler of yourself and a true benefactor of yourself. In your “relationship to your neighbors” - honor everyone as images of God, be kind to everyone and do good to the best of your ability; Humble yourself before everyone and please everyone within the limits of goodness; rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn; do not judge or humiliate anyone, even in thought and feeling; Do not hide the truth from those who seek your advice and admonition when you know it; Don’t force yourself to be a teacher on anyone; above all, maintain peace and harmony with everyone, be willing to make all sorts of sacrifices on your part, and avoid at all costs seducing anyone. In “relation to things” - respectfully treat everything, as God’s creations, which God gives you to own, keep and use for the glory of God, be satisfied with them in every way and thank God for them, do not become addicted to anything and look at everything as external methods and tools, so that you can freely dispose of them and not have any bonds or obstacles in them in your good undertakings, not allow yourself to rest on them, as on fragile supports, do not boast about your own, do not envy others, do not be stingy and do not be wasteful in evil ways. Everyone has to do all this every day in one form or another, almost at every step. If you live this “good” way, you will also have a “good” conscience, imitating St. Paul (Heb. 13:18). “Those who want to live well,” those who are zealous for salvation, still act in this way, trying in every possible way not to sin in any way and not to sully their conscience in any way. With all this, however, sometimes thoughts and feelings, sometimes words, and sometimes wrong deeds slip through, sometimes unnoticed, sometimes even noticeably, and dust the clear face of conscience so that by the end of the day, it is rare to look like a traveler walking along a dusty road, who gets dust everywhere, in his nose, in his mouth, in his hair, and covers his entire face. For this reason, it is necessary for everyone who is zealous for salvation to examine their conscience in the evening and, having clarified for themselves all the wrongs committed during the day in thoughts, words and deeds, to cleanse them with repentance, that is, to do the same thing as a dusty traveler does: the traveler washes himself with water, and the one who is zealous for salvation cleanses himself with repentance, contrition and tears. The test must examine everything: good and bad, right and wrong, on all the above-mentioned sides. What you see as right in the essence of the matter, look to see whether it is right in motive and intention, whether it is right in the way it was done, and whether you looked at it right after it was done - whether you did it for show, or out of man-pleasing, or self-gratification, whether it was appropriate for the place, at the right time, to suit the person, and after that, whether you blew the trumpet before yourself and dreamed about yourself, without giving glory to God. A just deed is truly right when it is done out of submission to the will of God and for the glory of God, with complete selflessness and self-forgetfulness. What you see wrong, consider how it happened that you did something when you constantly have the desire to do only the right thing, what were the reasons and reasons for this, internal and external, how you should have governed yourself in this case so as not to sin, and why you didn’t do it; then, having condemned yourself, and no one or anything else, rationally determine how you should behave so as not to sin in the future in the same or similar circumstances, and prescribe this to yourself as a law with determination and to fulfill it without evasion or indulgence to yourself or man-pleasing, thus using impurities to fertilize the field of your heart. Having finished the test, give thanks to God for everything that is correct, without appropriating any part of it for yourself, for truly “He is the one who works in us, both to will and to do” (Phil. 2:13), and without Him we cannot do anything good (John 15:5). Having thanked God, forget it, imitating St. Paul, so that, following his example, with great zeal, “stretch out into the room before” (Phil. 3:13). Repent of everything that is faulty and lament before the Lord, cursing yourself that at your offering table you never bring Him completely clean bread, but everything with chaff and rubbish, and firmly intending to strictly monitor yourself the next day, so that nothing improper breaks through, not only in deeds and words, but also in thoughts and feelings. Those who pay attention to all this, that is, both the test and its final action just mentioned, perform it in the very flow of the affairs of the day, so that in the evening the test of conscience is only a repetition of the day, its correction and replenishment. And one cannot but agree that this way of acting is better and more natural. You cannot hide from your conscience that something bad has been done; Having noticed this, she immediately begins to worry. Isn’t it more natural to immediately calm her down with self-condemnation, contrition and a determination to be good in the future, than to leave it until the evening? I will enclose you one or two more indications on this subject. Examine your affairs as strictly as possible and go deeper into their proceedings, and then pronounce merciless judgment on yourself. The deeper you delve into everything that happens in you and from you, eliminating what is wrong, and affirming what is right, the sooner your conscience will be cleared, just as the deeper you dig to dig a well, the purer the water in it will be. Conscience, having recognized right and wrong, will no longer cease to demand action in accordance with the first and persecute with judgment and remorse for allowing the second. But until it reaches full knowledge of both, or until it acquires “the senses trained... in the judgment of good and evil” (Heb. 5:14) and thus begins to have eyes to see within itself, it consists in some dependence on this side from other spiritual forces, and especially from reasoning. Reasoning, until the heart is cleansed of passions, is often bribed by the latter and surrounds matters with many excuses, which, clouding the eye of conscience, mislead it, and it sometimes recognizes black as white. Therefore, when you are still in the struggle with passions, when testing yourself, put your deeds before the mirror of the word of God and be guided by it in determining their quality and dignity, and at the same time do not be ashamed and do not be lazy in turning to your spiritual father. Begin and end the discussion of your affairs with fervent prayer, that the Lord will give you eyes to see the hidden things of your heart, for “deep is the heart (of man) above all others, and who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9). No one like God, Who is “the pain of our hearts and the whole message” (1 John 3:20), “One... the weight of the hearts of all the sons of men” (1 Kings 8:39). There are wrong feelings hidden deep in the heart, which sometimes sneak into actions, and sometimes, without being noticed, they become filled with the stench of sin. So pray with the prophet David: “Cleanse me from my secrets” (Ps. 18:13). Chapter 9. About preparation for battle with enemies in the hour of death Although our whole life on earth is a constant struggle and we must wage it until the very end, the most important and decisive battle awaits us at the hour of death. And whoever falls at this moment will never rise again. And don’t be surprised at this. For if the enemy dared to approach the sinless Lord at the end of His earthly days, as the Lord Himself said: “For the prince of this world is coming, and in Me he will have nothing” (John 14:30), then what can keep him from attacking us sinners at the end of our lives? And Saint Basil the Great says in his interpretation of the 7th Psalm in response to the words: “Not when a lion snatches away my soul, I am not the one who delivers, nor the one who saves” (Ps. 7:3), that the most tireless fighters, who have tirelessly fought demons all their lives and escaped their snares and withstood their attacks, at the end of their lives are subjected to inspection by the prince of this age to see if they anything sinful; and those who have wounds or stains and imprints of sin are held by him in his power, and those who have nothing of the kind pass by freely and rest with Christ. If this is the case, then it is impossible not to keep this in mind and not prepare in advance to meet that hour in order to successfully pass it. Your whole life should serve as preparation for this. You will find yourself well prepared for that hour if, throughout the entire temporary life given to you, you courageously fight the enemies of your salvation. Having acquired the good skill of conquering enemies during your life, you will easily win the crown of victory even at the hour of death. Also, think more often with attention about death, bringing to mind everything that will happen then. If you do this, then that hour will not unexpectedly catch you, why it will not frighten you or not greatly intimidate you, and your soul, not weakened by fear, will turn out to be stronger and stronger to rise up in battle and overcome the enemy. Worldly people run away from thoughts and memories of death, so as not to stop their sensual pleasures and pleasures, which are incompatible with mortal memory. Because of this, their attachment to the blessings of the world grows and strengthens more and more, without encountering anything that contradicts it. But when the time comes to be separated from life and from all their favorite things and pleasures, they are incredibly troubled, tormented and horrified. In order for such a thought about death to bear all its fruit, you must, putting yourself mentally in the state of a dying person, in the cramped conditions and anguish of death, imagine vividly the enemy temptations that can then attack you, while simultaneously reproducing those thoughts and feelings that are strong to repel them. What kind of enemy attacks are possible then and how to repel them, I will explain to you after this, so that while you are alive, you will have the habit of practicing them mentally, and when the hour of death comes, you will use them in action. For that battle and that battle, which is only meant to happen once, must be able to be accepted and raised well by those who will inevitably encounter them, so as not to make mistakes and suffer losses that can no longer be corrected. Chapter 10. About the four enemy temptations that occur at the hour of death. – The first temptation is against faith, and about the way to overcome it There are four main and most dangerous temptations to which our enemies, demons, usually expose us at the hour of death: 1) wavering faith, 2) despair, 3) vanity, 4) different images in which demons clothe themselves and which they present to those who depart. As for the first, when a malicious enemy begins to instill in you thoughts of unbelief or, apparently appearing, speaks against faith, you, without entering into an argument with him, restore within yourself faith in what he attacks, and tell him with holy indignation: “Get away from my eyes, Satan, father of lies. I don’t even want to listen to you; With all my soul I have always believed and believe in everything that my Mother, the Holy Church, believes in. And this is enough for me.” And do not at all allow thoughts of unbelief and stand firm, according to the word of Scripture: “If the possessive spirit comes upon you, do not leave your place” (Eccl. 10:4). Realize more vividly and hold on to this awareness that this is only the intrigue of the devil, who is trying to confuse you in your last hour. If you cannot stand firmly with your mind, stand cheerfully with your desire and feeling, do not allow them to bow to what is being suggested, even if it is covered up by the sayings of Scripture given by the murderer-enemy, for no matter what from Scripture he reminds you, all of it is directed to your destruction through a crooked interpretation and distortion of the truth of the words of God. If this evil serpent asks you: “What does the Church teach?” - do not answer and do not pay attention to his words, despising him; but knowing that he is nothing but lies and deceit and that he began to speak to you in order to catch you in words, immerse yourself in the contemplation of faith in your believing heart. However, if you feel strong in faith and strong in thought and want to shame the enemy, answer him that the Holy Church believes that there is only one truth. If he again asks what kind of truth this is, tell him: the one in which he believes, namely: that Christ the Lord struck you at the head with the cross and crushed your power. And then attach the gaze of your mind to the contemplation of the Lord who was crucified for us and pray to Him: “My God, Creator and Deliverer! hasten to help me and do not let me waver, even the slightest, in the truth of Thy holy faith, but be pleased that I, just as I was born by Thy goodness in this truth, so, remaining in it, end my mortal life for the glory of Thy name.” Chapter 11. The second temptation at the hour of death - despair The second temptation at the hour of death, with which the enemy tries to completely defeat us, is fear when remembering the multitude of our sins. This fear cannot be avoided, but it is tempered by faith in the atonement of our sins by the death on the cross of Christ the Savior. The enemy, darkening this faith, inflates fear for sins to the point that it suppresses all hope of salvation and strikes with hopelessness and despair. Therefore, my brother, prepare in advance to repel this attack and from now on still plan, as you approach the gates of death, to more firmly hold our victorious sign - the cross of Christ, that is, plant in your heart a strong faith in the redemptive power of the Lord's death on the cross. When, upon actually entering these gates, you feel the attacks of despair, first of all hasten to realize that they are the actions of the enemy, and not the natural products of the memories of your sins. Such remembrance tends to give rise to humility, contrition and heartfelt sorrow for the insult of the righteous, but also all-merciful God; therefore, although it strikes with fear, it is one that does not extinguish hope in the mercy of God and, being dissolved by it, gives place to the bold hope of salvation, reflecting every feeling of rejection. Knowing this, you cannot help but admit that since the remembrance of sins suppresses you and plunges you into despair, extinguishing all hope of salvation and striking you with the fear of rejection, then all this is a demonic obsession. Having realized this, it will not be difficult for you to hope beyond hope, which will disperse all hopelessness. Hope, more than hope, immerses one in the contemplation of God’s mercy, into the abyss of which the one who feels it and plunges the most miserable multitude of his sins, establishing himself in the strong conviction that God wants and seeks our salvation, and not destruction. This conviction can always be strengthened, and especially then only on the boundless power of the death on the cross of the Lord the Savior. Therefore, just as we must always take refuge in the shadow of the cross, so much more so then. And this is the prayer that is appropriate for you, when entering the gates of death, to pray to the Lord your God: “Lord! I have many reasons to fear that You will not condemn me and reject me for my sins in Your righteousness, but I have even greater boldness to hope for mercy according to Your infinite mercy, in Christ Jesus, our Redeemer and Savior. Therefore, I beg Your immeasurable goodness, have mercy on me, a poor creature, condemned by my sins, but washed by the priceless blood of Your Son and our God, so that I may glorify You forever. I surrender myself entirely into Your hands - do with me according to Your mercy. You are the only Lord of my life.” Chapter 12. The third temptation at the hour of death - vanity The third temptation at the hour of death is the temptation of vanity and self-esteem, which inspire confidence in oneself and one’s deeds. Therefore, as always, and especially at the hour of death, do not at all allow your attention to dwell on yourself and yours and indulge in contentment with yourself and your deeds, even if you succeed in virtues more than all the saints. But may all your contentment be in God, and trust entirely in His mercy and the sufferings of the Lord Savior, so that you may be saved, humiliating yourself in every way before your eyes until your last breath. And if it happens that any good deed of yours comes to your mind, think that it was God who accomplished it in you and by you, and not you, and that it came from Him alone. Run under the shelter of God’s mercy, but do not allow yourself to expect it as some kind of reward for the many and great battles you have endured and the victories you have won in them. Always stand in saving fear, sincerely confessing that all your zeal, efforts and exploits would have been vain and fruitless if God had not taken them under the wing of His good will, contributed to them and acted in them. Now place all your trust in this merciful favor of God. If you follow my advice, then rest assured that your enemies will have no success in their attacks on you at the hour of death. And a free path will open for you, by which you will joyfully travel from the earthly vale to heavenly Jerusalem, your longed-for fatherland. Chapter 13. The fourth temptation at the hour of death - by ghosts If our enemy, evil, crafty and stubborn, who never tires of tempting us, wanted at the hour of death to tempt you with some ghosts, visions and transformations into the Angel of Light, you stand firm in the awareness of your poverty and your insignificance in everything. And tell him with a courageous and unafraid heart: “Return, wretched one, to your darkness. As an unworthy person, visions and revelations are not appropriate for me. I need only one thing – the immeasurable compassion of my Lord Jesus Christ, the prayers and intercession of our Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary and all the saints.” At least based on some obvious signs, you thought that you were seeing true visions given to you by God, and in this case, do not rush to believe them, but rather immerse yourself in the consciousness of your unworthiness and insignificance. Do not be afraid that you will offend God, because our humble feelings are never unpleasant to Him. If such visions are necessary for you, then God knows how to make sure that you do not close your eyes from them, justifying your inertia in the belief that they are from God. He who gives grace to the humble will not take it away for the actions that they perform in humility. These are the most commonly used weapons with which the enemy attacks us in the last hour of death. But he also uses for this every other passion, which one of the dying people possessed in life and which he was most greedy for, and tries to arouse it, so that he departs in a passionate mood, which will decide his fate. Therefore, before the hour of this great battle approaches, we must, beloved, arm ourselves against our strongest passions and, having courageously entered into battle with them, overcome and cleanse ourselves from them in order to facilitate our victory even then, in your last hour, which can be found at every moment. The Lord says to everyone in this regard: “fight them until you kill them” (1 Samuel 15:18). Chapter 14. About the spiritual world of the heart Your heart, beloved, was created by God for one purpose, so that it would love Him alone and serve as His abode. Therefore, He calls on you to give Him your heart, saying: “Son, give My... heart” (Proverbs 23:26). But since God is peace, surpassing every mind, it is in every possible way necessary that the heart that wants to receive Him into itself should be peaceful and free from all confusion, for only “His place is in the world,” as St. David sings (Ps. 75:3). Take care above all to establish your heart in a peaceful dispensation so that all your virtues, all your deeds and deeds are aimed at acquiring this world, especially your valiant deeds of struggle against the enemies of your salvation, as the great silent Arseny said: “Direct all your care to ensure that your internal dispensation is according to God, and you will overcome external passions.” The world of the heart is disturbed by passions; do not allow passions to reach your heart, and it will always be peaceful. The fighter in invisible warfare stands fully armed at the gates of the heart and repels those who try to enter it and disturb it. And as long as the heart is peaceful, victory over the attackers is not difficult. Peace of the heart is both the goal of spiritual warfare and the most powerful means for achieving victory in it. Therefore, when passionate confusion creeps into your heart, do not rush into passion in order to overcome it, but quickly descend into your heart and strain to pacify it. As soon as the heart calms down, the struggle is over. Human life is nothing more than continuous warfare and constant temptation, as Job said: “Is not man’s life on earth a temptation...?” (Job 7:1). Temptation causes struggle - and here comes the battle. Because of this battle, you must always be vigilant and guard your heart with all care, and watch over it so that it is peaceful and restful. When any disturbing movement arises in your soul, rise up with zeal to suppress it and pacify your heart, so that you do not deviate from the right path under the influence of this confusion. For the human heart is like a sentry weight and a ship’s rudder. Make the weight lighter or heavier, and the movement of all the clock wheels will immediately change and the clock hands will no longer be correct indicators of the time. Move the rudder to the right or left, the movement of the ship will immediately change, and it will leave the direction it was heading before. Thus, when the heart falls into confusion, our entire interior comes into disordered motion and the mind itself loses the rightness of its reasoning. That is why it is necessary to quickly pacify the heart as soon as it is troubled by anything, internal or external, whether during prayer or at any other time. And know that only then will you be able to pray well when you learn to act well in the feat of preserving your inner peace. Direct your attention here, thinking about how to achieve so that every thing you do is done in the peace of your heart with pleasure and joy. I will briefly say that the constant feat of your entire life should be to maintain the peace of your heart, not allowing it to fall into any disorderly confusion and doing all your deeds under the shadow of this world quietly, as it is written: “Child, in meekness (quietness) carry on your deeds” (Sir. 3:17), so that you will be worthy of the bliss promised to the quiet ones: “blessed are the meek, for These will inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5). Chapter 15. About ways to preserve inner peace To maintain inner peace: 1) First of all, keep your external feelings in order and take liberties in your external behavior, namely: don’t look, don’t speak, don’t wave your arms, don’t walk or do anything else in a confused way, but always decently and quietly. Having become accustomed to maintaining yourself with decorous quietness in your outer movements and affairs, you will easily and without difficulty achieve peace within yourself in your heart, for, according to the testimony of the fathers, the inner man receives his mood from the outer. 2) Make up your mind to love all people and live in harmony with everyone, as St. Paul: “If it is possible from you, have peace with all people” (Rom. 12:18). 3) Keep your conscience unsullied, so that it does not accuse you of anything and does not gnaw at you for anything, but is peaceful both in relation to God, and in relation to yourself, and in relation to your neighbors, and in relation to all external things. Such guarding of conscience gives rise to, deepens, and multiplies inner peace, as St. David: “There is much peace for those who love Your law, and there is no temptation for them” (Ps. 119:165). 4) Learn to endure all sorts of troubles and insults without embarrassment. It is true that before you acquire such a skill, you will have to suffer a lot and suffer in heart, due to your inexperience in managing yourself in such cases, but when you acquire it, your soul will begin to draw great consolation from the very troubles encountered. With determination, day by day you will manage yourself better and better and will soon reach the point where you will be able to keep your spirit in peace, despite all the turbulence outside and inside. If it happens sometimes that you will not be able to cope with your heart and, having driven away tightness and sorrow, establish peace in it, resort to prayer and be diligent in it, imitating the Lord Savior, Who prayed three times in the Garden of Gethsemane to give you an example that in any sorrow and hardness of heart you should have prayer as a refuge and that, no matter how sad you are and rejuvenated, you should not deviate from it until you reach the point where your will completely agrees with the will of God and your heart, having been pacified by this, will be filled with courageous boldness to joyfully meet, accept and endure what you were afraid of and wanted to avoid, just as the Lord was horrified, grieved and saddened, through prayer, having become pacified, he calmly said: “Get up, let’s go: behold.” Come near and betray Me” (Matthew 26:46). Chapter 16. Little by little peace is established in the heart Take constant care not to allow your heart to become confused and anxious, but do your best to keep it in a peaceful and calm mood. And God, seeing how you work and strive for this, by His grace will build a city of peace in your soul, and your heart will then become a house of consolation, as is allegorically understood in the following psalm saying: “Jerusalem, built like a city” (Ps. 121:3). God only wants this from you, that whenever you happen to be alarmed by something, you immediately restore peace within yourself and thus be peaceful in all your affairs and pursuits. Know what you have; for this I will require patience. For just as a city is not built in one day, so do not think in one day to acquire inner peace. For this is nothing other than the building of a house for the God of peace and a tabernacle for the Most High, so that you may be a church for Him. Know also that God Himself is the builder of this house in you, and without Him all your labor about this will be in vain, as it is written: “Unless the Lord builds a house, those who build it labor in vain” (Ps. 126:1). Know also that the main foundation of this peace of heart is humility and the avoidance of anxious and troublesome affairs, activities and undertakings. As for the first, who does not know that humility, peace of heart and meekness are so closely connected with each other that where there is one, there is another; he who is quiet in heart and meek is humble, and conversely, he who is humble in heart is meek and peaceful. Why did the Lord put them in an indissoluble union when He said: “Learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart” (Matthew 11:29). Regarding the second, we see a prototype in ancient history, precisely in the fact that God wanted a house to be built for Him not by David, who had to fight and be in anxieties almost all his life, but by his son Solomon, who, by his name, was a peaceful king and did not fight with anyone. Chapter 17. For peace of heart one must flee from honors and love humility and poverty So, my brother, if you love peace of heart, strive to enter it through the door of humility; there is no other way into it except humility. To acquire humility, force yourself and strain to accept into loving embraces all your displeasures and sorrows, like sisters, and in every possible way to run away from glory and honor, desiring above all to be humiliated and unknown from everyone and not to receive care and consolation from anyone except God alone. Confirm in your heart, having become convinced of its beneficialness, the thought that God is your only good and your only refuge, and all other things are thorns for you, which, if you put them in your heart, will cause you deadly harm. If you happen to suffer shame from someone, do not be sad about it, but endure it with joy, holding the confidence that then God is with you. And do not desire any other honor and do not seek anything other than to suffer for the love of God and for that which serves for His greatest glory. Force yourself and force yourself to rejoice when someone says an insulting word to you or condemns you, or shows you contempt. Because under such reproach and dishonor a great treasure is hidden, and if you accept them graciously, you will soon find yourself very rich spiritually, which even the one who did you such a benefit, that is, the one who dishonored you, will not know about it. Never seek for someone to love you in this life and honor you, so that you will be freer to sympathize with Christ crucified, without encountering any obstacles from anyone or anything. Beware of yourself as your worst enemy, and do not follow your will, nor your mind, nor your taste and feeling, if you do not want to get lost. Therefore, always keep your weapons ready against yourself, and when your desire leans towards something, even something holy, put it alone, naked from everything extraneous, before your God with the deepest humility, begging Him that His will be in this, and not your will; and do this with a sincere heartfelt surrender of yourself to the will of God, without any admixture of pride, knowing that you have nothing in yourself and on your own cannot do anything in the matter of your salvation. Guard yourself from thoughts that seem holy and incite unreasonable jealousy about them, about which the Lord allegorically speaks: “Take heed... from lying prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. By their fruit you will know them” (Matthew 7:15–16). The fruit is languor and ruin of the spirit. Know that everything that removes you from humility and from inner peace and tranquility, under whatever red guise it may appear, all of these are false prophets who, hiding behind sheep’s clothing, that is, hypocritical zeal to benefit your neighbor indiscriminately, are truly predatory wolves, stealing from you humility, peace and tranquility, so necessary for anyone who wants to firmly succeed in spiritual life. And the more a matter appears to be colored by holiness, the more strictly it should be subjected to your examination, without enthusiasm, but also anxiety. If you happen to sometimes fall into a mistake, do not give in to cowardice, but humble yourself before God and, realizing your weakness, take a lesson from this for the future. For, perhaps, God allowed this to humble in you some trait of pride hidden in you and unknown to you. When you feel that your soul is being wounded by some thorn of a poisonous thorn, that is, by a passion or a passionate thought, do not be dismayed by this, but increase your attention and strain not to let them reach your heart, facing them with resistance to them and holding your heart behind you, inaccessible to them and pure before God, Whom, thus, you will always have existing within you, in the depths of your heart, for the sake of purity of mood him. At the same time, overshadow your inner conviction that everything that happens to you and in you happens to test you and teach you, so that you can finally learn to correctly recognize what is saving for you, and, following this, be worthy to receive the crown of righteousness prepared for you by the goodness of God. Chapter 18. It is necessary for the soul to remain secluded in itself, so that God will overshadow it with His peace Since the God of gods and the Lord of lords deigned to create your soul for this purpose, so that it would be an abode and church for Himself, then you should have it in great honor and not allow it to be humiliated by inclining towards something lower than it. May all your desire and aspiration always be directed towards this invisible visitation of God. But know that God will not visit your soul if He does not find it secluded in itself. God wants her to be secluded in herself, that is, to be without any thoughts, as much as she can, without any wishes, and especially without her own will. In the latter regard, you should not, on your own, without reasoning, accept any strict feats and arbitrary deprivations, or look for reasons to somehow suffer for the love of God, following the mere suggestion of your own will. For this you should have the advice of your spiritual father, who guides you as God’s vicegerent. Listen to him in everything, and through him God will truly direct your will to what he himself wants and finds beneficial for you. Never do anything according to your own will, but let God himself do in you only what he wants from you. Let your desire always be free from yourself, that is, do not desire anything on your own, and if you desire anything, let your desire be such that, whether what you want happens or not, or even the opposite of it, you do not grieve at all about it, but be at peace in spirit, as if you did not want anything at all. Such a mood is true freedom of the heart and solitude, when, that is, it is not bound by either the mind or the will in relation to anything. If in this way you present to God your soul so abolished, free and individual in itself, then you will see what wondrous actions He will deign to perform in it; the main thing is that He will overshadow you with divine peace, which is a gift that has to become in you the receptacle of all other gifts, as the great Gregory of Thessaloniki says (in the “Word to the monk Xenia”, Greek “Philokalia”, p. 944). O wondrous unity, the hidden treasury of the Almighty, in which alone He deigns to listen to your conversations addressed to Him and Himself to talk to the heart of your soul! O desert and solitude, in which paradise was created! For in him alone God gives access to see Him and talk to Him. “I will see this great vision as I pass by” (bush), says Moses in the sensual, intelligent, but rich in contemplations of the desert of Sinai (Ex. 3:3). But if you also want to be worthy of the same, step into this place with bare feet, for this land is holy. First bare your feet, that is, the disposition of your soul, and let them be naked and free from every earthly thing. Take neither bag nor staff on this journey, as the Lord commanded His disciples (Luke 10:4). You should no longer desire anything from this world, and do not greet anyone on this path, as Elisha commanded his youth and the Lord commanded His disciples - turning all your thoughts, all your disposition and all your love towards the one God, and not towards any creatures. “Let the dead bury their dead” (Matthew 8:22); You flow alone through the land of the living, and let death have no part in you. Chapter 19. About prudence in matters of love for neighbors for the peace of mind The Lord said in the Gospel that He came to “bring... fire” of love onto the earth of our hearts and that He very much wanted this fire to “burn out as soon as possible” (Luke 12:49). Love for God has no measure, just as the beloved God has no limits and limitations. But love for neighbors must have its limit and limitation. If you do not keep it within appropriate restrictions, then it can remove you from the love of God, cause you great harm, and plunge you into destruction. Truly, you must love your neighbor, but in such a way as not to harm your soul. Do all your deeds simply and sacredly, not having anything else in mind except pleasing God, and this will protect you in matters of love for your neighbors from any wrong steps. In these matters, the most important thing is to contribute to the salvation of others. But here jealousy beyond reason often invades, which brings nothing but harm to both one’s neighbors and oneself. Set an example of sincere faith and a godly life, and you will be like the apostles with the fragrance of Christ, attracting everyone to follow Him. But don’t bother with all your words indiscriminately: this will only upset the world both with others and within yourself. Have an ardent zeal and a strong desire for everyone to know the truth in such perfection as you contain it, to the point of drunkenness with this wine, which God promised and now gives to everyone without price (Isa. 55: 1), - always have such a thirst for the salvation of your neighbor; but it must come from love for God, and not from unreasonable jealousy. God Himself will plant such love for brothers in your soul after it has been renounced from everything, and in due time will come to gather the fruit from this. You yourself do not sow anything, but offer God the soil of your heart, clean from all thorns and thistles, and He will sow seed on it, as and what He wants. This seed will bear fruit in due time. Always remember that God wants to see your soul detached from everything in order to unite it with Himself. Leave Him to work in you and do not hinder Him by the intervention of your will. Sit without any thoughts about yourself, except for one thing - to always please God by submitting to His will. Behold, the Master of the House has already gone out and is looking for workers in His vineyard, according to the Gospel parable. Put aside all care and every thought, strip yourself of all care for yourself and from all attachment to anything temporary, and God will clothe you with Himself and give you what you cannot even think about. Forget as much as you can completely about yourself, and let only love for God live in your soul. At the same time, you must carefully moderate the fervor of jealousy for others, may the Lord keep you in peace and tranquility of soul. See that your soul does not suffer damage in its main good: in the peace of the heart - from unreasonable concerns about the benefit of others. Where you can derive enrichment from this goodness is the complete submission of your soul to God, with renunciation from everything. And do not do this out of expectation of reward: and never at all keep in mind that you are doing something worthy of it. God acts in everything, and He wants nothing from you except that you humble yourself before Him and surrender your soul to Him, free from everything earthly, holding in the depths of your heart one desire: may the will of God be fulfilled on you in everything and through everything. Chapter 20. The soul, having laid bare its will, must surrender itself to God Trust, brother, in God, who calls everyone, saying: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28), and follow this calling voice, expecting at the same time the coming of the Holy Spirit. With your eyes closed, throw yourself into the sea of ​​Divine providence and favor, so that the strong waves of God’s will carry you like a soulless thing, without any resistance from your will, so that, in this way, you will sooner be brought to the harbor of salvation and Christian perfection. Doing this many times a day, try in every possible way to isolate yourself as much as possible, both internally and externally, so that with all the strength of your soul you can devote yourself to such activities that are especially powerful to build strong love for God, such as: prayer, the constant invocation of the sweetest name of the Lord the Savior, tears shed out of love for Him, warm and joyful reverence before Him and other spiritual activities. Let these deeds be carried out without coercion and violence of the heart, so that you do not become exhausted from unreasonably exhausting yourself with forced exercises, and do not thereby become hardened and become incapable of receiving the influences of grace. Stock up on the advice of experienced people for this task and, while doing it, seek the habit of always remaining in contemplation of the holiness of God and His innumerable benefits, and with humility accept the sweetest drops that will flow into your soul from His ineffable goodness. However, do not bother God about such manifestations of God’s favor towards you, but stand humbly in your inner solitude, waiting for God’s will to be fulfilled on you. And when God gives them to you without your own efforts, then you will experience how sweet and fruitful they are. The key that opens the mysterious treasuries of spiritual gifts of knowledge and divine love is humility, self-sacrifice and surrender to God at all times and in every matter. This same key also opens the door to ignorance and spiritual coldness. Love, as much as you can, stand silently with Mary at the feet of Christ the Lord and listen to what He will say to your soul. See to it that your enemies, of whom you yourself are the greatest, do not interfere with this holy one of yours standing before the Lord in silence. When you seek with your mind to find God, so that you may rest in Him, do not assign places and limits for Him with your weak and narrow imagination. For He is infinite and is everywhere and in everything; better yet, everything is in Him. You will find Him within yourself, in your soul, whenever you truly seek Him. It is desirable for God Himself to be with us, the sons of men, in order to make us worthy of Himself, although He has no need for us. When you read the Divine Scriptures, do not just keep in mind to read sheet by sheet, but delve into every word with meditation, and when any words force you to go deeper into yourself or produce movements of contrition, or fill your heart with spiritual joy and love, dwell on them. It is God who is approaching you; humbly accept Him with an open heart, as He Himself wants, so that you may partake of Him. If for this reason you have to leave unfulfilled what was supposed to be for this spiritual exercise (i.e. reading), do not worry about it. For the goal of all spiritual exercises, like this one, is to become worthy of tasting God, and when it is given, there is no need to dwell on the means to it. In the same way, when you reflect on any divine subject, especially on any part of the suffering of Christ the Lord, on that from which you will come to tenderness, stop and occupy your attention longer so that that holy feeling may also last. One of the great obstacles to preserving inner peace is, my brother, binding oneself, as an immutable law, to read every day so many kathismas from the Psalter, so many chapters from the Gospels and Apostolic Epistles. Those who have made this a rule for themselves usually rush to read everything, not caring whether the heart is moved by what they read, and whether any spiritual thoughts and contemplations are generated in the mind; and when they don’t have to read everything, they become anxiously confused and restless, not because they have lost the spiritual fruits of reading for the creation of their inner man, but because not everything has been read. Listen to what St. says about this. Isaac: “If you want to enjoy poetry and comprehend the meaning of the words of the Spirit that you pronounce, put aside the number and measure of the verses, and let your mind delve deeper into the study of the words of the Spirit until your soul is aroused by wonder at the Economy to their lofty understandings and through this is moved to doxology or spiritual sorrow. In slave work there is no peace for the mind, and confusion usually takes away the taste from meaning and intelligibility, and plunders thoughts like a leech sucking life from bodies with the blood of their members” (see page 30, p. 199; see also page 52). If you truly want to virtuously go through the course of this life, have no other goal for this than to find God, where He deigns to reveal Himself to you; and when you are worthy of this, stop every other thing and do not move forward in it, forget everything else and rest in your One God; when it pleases His Majesty to take from you and stop showing His closeness to you in the present case, then you can again turn to your usual spiritual exercises and continue them, keeping in mind the same goal, that is, to find through them your Beloved, so that, having found Him, you will again do the same as I said above, that is, stop what you are doing in order to rest in Him alone. Note what is well said to you, for there are many spiritual persons who deprive themselves of the saving fruit of the world from their spiritual works by prolonging them, believing that they will suffer damage if they do not complete them, in the confidence, false, of course, that this is what spiritual perfection consists of. Following their will in this way, they work hard and torment themselves, but do not receive true peace and inner peace, in which God truly finds and rests. Chapter 21. Seek not comforts and pleasures, but one God Always choose what is painful and regrettable and do not love joys and pleasures, from which there is no benefit for the soul; love to be subordinate and dependent on the will of others. Let every deed be a step closer to God for you, and not a single deed will be an obstacle to you on this path. This is what should make you happy. May God alone be the sweetest consolation for you, but the other may be bitterness. Take every burden you have to God. Love Him and surrender your whole heart to Him, without any thought or fear. And He will find a way to resolve all your perplexities and raise you up if you have fallen. In a word, if you love God, you will receive every good thing from Him. Sacrifice your whole self to God in peace and tranquility of spirit. And in order to more successfully walk this path without fatigue and confusion, put your will into the will of God; The more fully you invest it in this way, leaving nothing for yourself, the more strength and consolation you will receive. Let your will be so tuned as to desire only what God desires, and not to desire anything that God does not desire. Always and in every undertaking, renew the intention and determination of your soul to be pleasing to God in everything. Do not make plans for the future, for you do not know what the next day will bring forth (Proverbs 27:1), but keep yourself unbound and free. However, this does not prohibit everyone from caring with reasonable care and diligence for what is necessary according to his condition and rank, for such care is in accordance with the will of God and does not interfere with inner peace in devotion to God and all success in the spirit. In every matter, be determined to do everything you can, what is appropriate and what is obligatory for you, but be indifferent to everything else and humbly submit to what follows from it for you from the outside. What is always possible for you to do is to sacrifice your will to God, and you do not want anything more than this. As a result of this, always having freedom and not being bound by anything from any side, you will always rejoice and be at peace within yourself. This freedom of spirit consists of that great good that you hear about in the writings of the saints. It is nothing other than the strong abiding of the inner man within himself, according to which he does not move outside with the desire to seek anything outside of himself. And all the time that you keep yourself so free, you will at the same time taste that divine and inexplicable joy that is inseparable from the Kingdom of God, which is established within us, as the Lord said: “Behold, the Kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). Chapter 22 It often happens that those who walk the path of God experience how holy peace, sweet inner solitude and gracious freedom recede and are cut short in them, and sometimes from the movements of the heart such dust rises within them that the path along which one should go is not visible from it. When you happen to experience something similar, know that God allows you to do this for your good. This is the battle for which the saints of God were crowned with bright crowns. Stand courageously, remembering this in the trial that meets you. And at the same time, as during any other confusion, looking up to the Lord, say to Him from your heart: “Lord my God! Look upon Thy servant, and Thy will be done on me. I know and confess that the truth of Your words is sure and Your promises are not false. And trusting in them, I stand without wavering on Your path.” Blessed is the soul that thus surrenders itself to the Lord whenever it experiences confusion and burden! And if, despite this, the battle persists and you cannot, as quickly as you would like, harmonize and harmonize your will with the will of God, do not grieve and do not be faint-hearted, but continue to surrender yourself to God and bow complacently before His determinations - and thus you will win. Look what kind of battle Christ the Lord waged in the Garden of Gethsemane, when His humanity, at first horrified by the cup, cried out: “Father... if it is possible... let this cup pass from Me”; and then, returning to Herself and putting Her soul into the hands of God, with full and free will, in the deepest humility she said: “Not as I will, but as You will” (Matthew 26:39). When you are in difficulty, do not take any step without first lifting your eyes to Christ the Lord crucified on the cross. There you will see written in capital letters how you should behave in the sorrow you encounter. Blame this on yourself, not in letters, but in your actions, namely, when you feel attacks of self-loving self-pity, do not listen to them and do not come down from the cross in cowardice, but resort to prayer and endure with humility, trying to overcome your will and desire with a firm will, that God’s will be done on you. If you leave prayer with such fruit, rejoice and triumph. If you do not achieve this, then your soul will remain fasted, without tasting the food characteristic of it. Strive so that nothing, even for the slightest time, dwells in your soul except one God. Don't be sad about anything and don't be upset about anything. Do not turn your eyes to the wickedness of others and their bad examples; but be like a little child, who, out of kindness, does not notice and passes them harmlessly. Chapter 23. Many machinations of the enemy to ruin the inner world: beware Our enemy the devil rejoices when the soul is troubled and the heart is in anxiety. Therefore, he contrives in every possible way to disturb our souls. His first step in these attempts is to arouse pride, so that because of it, the grace that creates and preserves inner peace recedes. For this reason, it inspires the opinion that everything that is and seems good to us in us was acquired by our own diligence and labor, and, having driven away humility and simplicity, we are disposed to give ourselves greater value and weight and feel ourselves to be something important, covering with oblivion the action of God’s grace, without which no one can even name the name of the Lord, as St. Paul, saying: “No one can speak of the Lord Jesus except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3). This grace is given to all believers, and its presence serves as a sign that someone is a true believer. Having accepted it, the believer no longer does and cannot do anything truly good without its help; and she is always with him according to the promise of the Lord, and the enemy cannot do anything with him while she is in him and overshadows him. The enemy is trying in every possible way to push it away, and the first thing he does for this is, as has been said, instilling self-esteem, or the feeling that we are not nothing, but something, and an important one at that. Then the enemy gives the person who accepts such suggestions a new opinion, consisting in the belief that he is better than others, more zealous and richer in deeds. Having managed to plant such an opinion, the enemy then leads him to condemnation of others and contempt, which is inexorably followed by pride. All this can happen in the heart in an instant; Of course, however, grace immediately reduces its effect, as a result of which inattention to oneself appears, weakening of jealousy, the emergence of thoughts, first empty, and then passionate, then the movement of the passions themselves, with which the storm in the heart is inseparable. The inner world is lost. This is a one-time state, and if the victim comes to his senses, he comes to his senses, laments, repents and through prayer restores his usual peace. The enemy has been driven away, but he does not despair, but comes again and again with the same suggestions and with the same goal - to upset the inner world. Knowing this, my brother, counter the enemy’s attempts with this vigilant vigilance, according to the word of the Lord: “Watch and pray, so that you do not fall into misfortune” (Matthew 26:41). Pay close attention to yourself so that the enemy does not sneak up and rob you, depriving you of this great treasure, that is, inner peace and spiritual silence. The enemy tries to upset the peace of mind because he knows that when the soul is in turmoil, it is easier for him to direct it to something bad, and you take care of your peace, knowing that when the soul is peaceful, the enemy has no access to it, and then it is ready for any good and does it willingly and without difficulty, easily overcoming all sorts of obstacles. To make it easier for you to do this, try to predict the enemy’s approaches. The enemy's approaches are an arrogant thought. Make it a law for yourself to consider every thought that diminishes your conviction that everything good comes from God, that without the help of His grace you cannot succeed in anything, and that therefore you must place all your trust in Him alone, consider every such thought clearly hostile and, as such, angrily reject and persecute it until it disappears. The work of the Holy Spirit in us is to raise our souls in every case to unity with God, kindling the sweetest love for Him and good confidence in Him and strong trust in Him; the opposite of this is the work of the enemy. He uses all the methods and means that he can invent to upset the soul, puts unnecessary fears on the heart, increases the exhaustion of the soul, does not allow the soul to retain its proper dispositions and enjoy itself as it should, either in confession, or at Holy Communion, or in prayer, but does so that it goes through all this without humble boldness and love, fearfully and with embarrassment - makes the soul impoverished in religious feelings and deprived of inner she accepts sweets, which often happen during prayer and other spiritual exercises, with hopeless sorrow, instilling in her that such poverty was not allowed by God for her good, but that, therefore, all her deeds and labors lead to nothing and that it is therefore better to give it all up - and through this, she finally brings her to such great confusion and hopelessness that she actually begins to think that everything she does is useless and fruitless, and that God forgot her completely and left her. But this is an obvious lie. Let the soul experience dryness and impoverishment of religious feelings and spiritual sweetness, but despite this it can do all kinds of good deeds, following simple faith and arming itself with holy patience and constancy. However, in order for you to better understand this and so that it does not serve you to your detriment, if God is pleased, for your good, to allow in you or to send you such a depletion of spiritual feeling and sweetness, I will outline in the next chapter what benefits come from humble patience, which someone shows during the dryness and cooling of the heart - so that you learn not to lose peace of mind and not to be consumed by sorrow when you have to suffer or experience this another, what a confusing attack of thoughts and passionate movements. Chapter 24. Should not be embarrassed by the impoverishment of spiritual feelings and other internal temptations Although in the seventh chapter I already spoke about the dryness and cooling of the heart and the grief that the soul experiences as a result, but now I will also say something that was not said there, namely, that such grief and dryness of the heart or the impoverishment of spiritual joy and sweetness bring much benefit to the soul when we accept them and endure them with humility and patience. And if a person knew this benefit in advance, he would certainly not be burdened and upset when he happened to experience such a state. For then he would not consider this bitter impoverishment of inner spiritual consolations a sign of God’s displeasure, but would see in this a matter of His special love for himself and therefore accepted it with joy, as the great mercy of God. One thing that is not alien to consolation is that such states are experienced primarily by such persons who, with special zeal, devote themselves to the service of God and with special attention try to avoid everything that can offend Him, and experience this not at the beginning of their conversion to God, but after they have sufficiently worked for Him, when they have sufficiently purified their hearts with sacred prayer and contrition, when they feel a certain spiritual sweetness, warmth and joy, and when, as a result, they decide to devote themselves entirely God and they will start this business already. And we do not see that sinners and those who are given over to the vanities of life and worldly experience anything like this and are subjected to such temptations. From this it is clearly seen that this bitterness is an honest and precious meal, to which God invites His favorites to partake, and although it is not so pleasant when eaten, it brings us much benefit, despite the fact that this is not visible when we eat it. For the soul, being in a state of such dryness, tasting this bitterness and suffering from such temptations and thoughts, the mere memory of which makes one tremble, poisons the heart and almost completely kills the inner man - being, I say, in such a state, the soul learns not to trust itself and not rely on its own good mood and acquires true humility, which God so desires from us, and is also inspired to seek the warmest love for God, the most careful attention to one’s thoughts and the strongest courage to endure such temptations without harm, and comes out of this struggle with feelings trained to the most accurate distinction between “good and evil,” as St. Paul (Heb. 5:14); although, I repeat again, not seeing these hidden good fruits, she is embarrassed and runs away from the said bitterness, since she does not want to spend even a short time without tasting spiritual consolations, and without them she considers any other spiritual exercise to be time wasted in vain and fruitless labor. Chapter 25. All kinds of temptations are sent for our good To make it clearer to you how all kinds of temptations are sent by God for our benefit, take into account what I say. A person, according to the attraction of his corrupted nature, is proud, love-loving, loves ostentation, stands firmly for his thoughts and decisions and always wants to be strongly valued by everyone, much higher than he really is. Such self-esteem and conceit are extremely detrimental to the matter of spiritual success, so that one shadow of it is enough to prevent a person from achieving true perfection. Why does our man-loving heavenly Father, wisely thinking about all of us, especially those who have sincerely given themselves up to serve Him, with the temptations that He allows to come upon us, puts us in such a mood in which we can easily avoid the terrible danger from this self-esteem and are almost forced to reach the true, humble knowledge of ourselves: this is what He did with the holy Apostle Peter, allowing him to deny Him three times, so that he would know His weakness and stopped relying on himself, and with Saint Paul, on whom, after He had raptured him to the third heaven and revealed to him His Divine ineffable mysteries, He imposed a certain annoying and painful temptation, so that he, bearing within himself such an indication of his powerlessness and insignificance, would succeed in humility and boast only of his weaknesses and so that this greatness of revelations of which he was vouchsafed from God, did not lead him into exaltation, as he testifies about himself: “And so that I would not become exalted by the extraordinary revelations, a thorn was given to me in the flesh, an angel of Satan, to oppress me, so that I would not become exalted” (2 Cor. 12:7). So, God, moved by compassion for this unfortunate, lawless inclination of ours (to always think highly of ourselves), allows temptations to come upon us in different ways, often very difficult, so that, recognizing our weakness, we humble ourselves. In this, the Lord reveals His goodness and wisdom together, for what seems most harmful gives us the greatest benefit, because it humbles us, and humility is most necessary and beneficial for our soul. If in this way all temptations are given to teach humility, then it follows that the servant of God, feeling in his heart the aforementioned bitter states - dryness, spiritual tastelessness, poverty of spiritual consolations - experiences this so that he learns to humble himself, thinking that this happens to him because of his sins, that it is impossible for anyone to have a soul so meager for everyone like him, and for anyone to work for God with such coldness, like his soul, and that such states are found only in those whom God leaves, and therefore he is abandoned, and deservedly abandoned. From such humble thoughts the following good is born: that one who previously thought of himself that he was something, and something very important, now, after experiencing the bitter medicine sent to him from above, begins to think that he is the most sinful person in the world, unworthy even of the name of a Christian. And truly, he would never have come to such a debased opinion of himself and into such deep humility, if these special temptations had not forced him to do so, this great sorrow and bitterness of the heart, which therefore are the great mercy shown by God in this life to a soul that humbly surrenders itself to Him, so that He, as it pleases Him, would heal it with such medicines as He alone completely knows and finds necessary for its healing. and bringing it into good condition. In addition to this fruit, brought to the soul by the aforementioned temptations through the impoverishment of spiritual consolations, there are many other fruits from this. Devastated by such internal hardships, he is forced to diligently resort to God to seek immediate help from Him, diligently does everything considered suitable for healing spiritual sorrow and driving away the bitterness of the heart, and in order to get rid of such spiritual martyrdom in the future, he sets the firm intention to go through the rest of the path of spiritual life with all attention to the movements of the heart, avoiding even the shadow of sin and any, even slight, malfunction that could delay him from God and God from him in any way. Thus, this grief, which he considered so contrary to his goals and harmful, becomes after this a thorn for him, rousing him to seek God with greater warmth and with greater zeal to move away from everything that he finds incompatible with the will of God. In short, all the sorrows and torments that the soul endures during internal temptations and the depletion of spiritual consolations and sweets are nothing more than a cleansing medicine arranged by the love of God, with which God cleanses it if it endures them with humility and patience. And of course they prepare for such patient sufferers a crown, acquired only through them, and the crown is all the more glorious the more painful the torment of the heart endured during it. From this it is clear that we should not extremely confuse and torment ourselves, both because of other external temptations that come upon us, and because of the said internal temptations, as those who have little experience in this regard do, and consider what comes from God to come from the devil or from their own sins and imperfections; signs of God's love are recognized as signs of His wrath, blessings and gifts are attributed to scourges and blows inflicted due to His extreme indignation at them; They consider everything that they have done and are doing to be unnecessary labor, deserving nothing, and the loss they endure is considered to have no cure. For if they believed that from such temptations there is no damage in the acquisition of virtue, but, on the contrary, their great increase, when the soul accepts them with humility and endures them with gratitude, and if they believed that they are the dispensations of God’s loving favor towards them, then they would not be extremely embarrassed and would not lose peace of heart because they are exposed to such temptations, experience inappropriate and shameful thoughts and are dry and cold during prayer and other spiritual exercises. But then they would rather humble their souls before God and put in their hearts the decision to do the will of God in every matter, since in this only way God wants to be pleased in this world, and they would try in every possible way to keep themselves peaceful and calm, accepting everything that happens as from the hand of the Heavenly Father, from which comes this bitter cup that they are drinking at the present time. For even though some temptation may come from the devil, or from people, or because of sins, it depends in every possible way on God and is sent by Him for our good and the aversion of any greater temptation. Chapter 26 If you happen to fall into any forgivable sin in deed or word, namely, to be disturbed by some accident or to condemn, or to hear others condemn, or to argue about something, or to experience the movement of impatience, fussiness and suspicion of others, or to neglect something, then you should not be extremely embarrassed or grieve and despair, thinking about what you have done, much less attach sad thoughts about yourself to it, that it is true that you will never free yourself from such weaknesses, or that the strength of your will to work for the Lord is weak, or that you do not properly walk the path of God, in every such case, burdening your soul with thousands of other fears from cowardice and sadness. Because what comes out of this? The fact that you are ashamed to stand before God with boldness as having turned out to be unfaithful to Him, you waste time in vain considering how long you spent in each sin, whether you agreed with it and desired it or not, whether you rejected such and such a thought or not, and the like. And the more you torment yourself like this, the more your spiritual disorder, tightness and reluctance to confess increases. But even when you go to confession and confess with embarrassing fear, and after confession you again do not find peace, because it seems to you that you have not said everything. And thus you live a bitter, restless and unfruitful life, wasting a lot of time in vain. And all this happens because we forget about our natural weakness and lose sight of how the soul should relate to God, namely, that when the soul falls into some forgivable and immortal sin, then it should confidently turn to God with humble repentance, and not torment itself with unnecessary sadness, dullness and bitterness. I say this about forgivable sins, because only in them is it appropriate for a soul to fall that has accepted the strict life that we depict here. We address our speech here to those who live a spiritual life and actively seek success in it, avoiding mortal sins in every possible way. For those who do not live strictly, but what happens, without worrying, if they offend God with a mortal sin, another word is needed. The medicine that was said before is not for them. They should grieve deeply and weep bitterly, always strictly discuss their conscience and confess all their sins without self-pity, and they should not, through negligence, deprive themselves of the means necessary for their healing and salvation. Repentance should always be inspired and imbued with strong trust in God even during easy daily falls, and even more so during more serious sins than ordinary ones, into which sometimes even a zealous servant of God falls by allowance. For repentant contrition, which only torments and gnaws at the heart, never restores the soul to a trustworthy mood if it is not combined with firm hope in the mercy and goodness of God. Such hope must constantly fill the hearts of those who are zealous to achieve the highest degrees of Christian perfection. It revives and brings into tension all the powers of the soul and spirit. But many who have entered the path of spiritual life, without caring about it, stop in their flow with a weakened heart, not moving forward, for which they are unfit to receive the grace-filled benefits that the Lord has placed on this path and which are usually awarded only to zealots, who flow forward and forward along it with unremitting zeal. Most of all, those who experience any anxiety of the heart or any bewilderment, or a split in their conscience should turn to their spiritual father or to someone else experienced in the matter of spiritual life, accompanying this with a hopeful prayer, may the Lord open through them and give a soothing resolution to perplexity and confusion, and then completely calm down at their word. Chapter 27. A troubled person must immediately restore peace of mind Every time you fall into some forgivable sin, even if it happens a thousand times a day, as soon as you notice it, do not torment yourself and do not waste time in vain, but immediately humble yourself and, realizing your weakness, turn trustingly to God and cry out to Him from the depths of your heart: “Lord, my God! I did this because I am such that nothing else can be expected from me except such sins or something and more, if Your grace does not help me, leaving me with myself. I regret what I have done especially because I do not respond to Your care for me with the correctness of my life, but I keep falling and falling. Forgive me and give me the strength not to offend You anymore and not to deviate from Your will in anything. For I earnestly desire to work for You and please You and to be obedient to You in everything.” Having done this, do not languish in wondering whether God has forgiven you. The Lord is near and listens to the groans of His servants. Relax in this confidence and, having calmed down, continue your usual activities, as if nothing happened to you. You must do this more than once, but if necessary, a hundred times every minute, and the last time with the same perfect trust and boldness in God as the first. By acting in this way, you will render great honor to the infinite goodness of God, Whom you must always contemplate as infinitely kind to us. As a result of this, you will continually succeed in your life and keep moving forward, without wasting time and labor in vain. You can also protect your inner peace when you fall into the above-mentioned sins by doing this: with the inner action of realizing your wretchedness and humbling yourself before God, move towards a warm recollection of the great mercies that God has personally shown to you, and thus, having revived your love for Him, dispose yourself to give thanks and glorify Him and in the very deed thank and glorify His warmth from the depths of your soul. since thanksgiving and glorification of God is the highest manifestation of our living union with God, then the fruit of your fall, if you treat it wisely, with the help of God will be your greater elevation towards Him. This should be taken into account by those who are too restless and tormented by small sins in order to see how great their blindness is in this case and how they harm themselves through their recklessness. For them, in fact, we give the last instruction, putting in our hands the key with which the soul opens a great spiritual treasury and in a short time can be enriched by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom belongs all glory, honor and worship with His Beginning Father and the Holy Spirit, now and forever. When there is chastity, obedience, order and military valor in the squad, it becomes terrible for opponents... The same should happen with us in battle with demons, but it does not happen, because we take up arms not against them with each other, but against each other with them. We should be surprised not that we are being defeated, but even more so that, without doing anything to win, we want to win. Venerable Isidore Pelusiot “Let us not give in to despondency and relaxation if we see that our enemies have surrounded us with their intrigues and deceit. Their network and trap lies in the fact that they intensify either to drown us in laziness, sadness and bewilderment, or to plunge us into voluptuousness, or to arouse us to anger at our neighbor when he does something against us. Either they seduce our gaze with bodily beauty, then they bring us down with a lust for delicious food, then they present the word spoken to our neighbors as caustic, then they inspire us to challenge the word of our neighbor, then they teach us to pronounce judgment on the brethren and say: “this one is good, but this one is not good.” Let us not, I repeat, give in to despondency and relaxation if such thoughts attack us from everywhere and such attractions influence us; on the contrary, let us cry out from the bottom of our hearts in the words of David: The Lord is my enlightenment and my Savior, whom will I fear? Even if a regiment turns against me, my heart will not fear; If battle arises against me, I will trust in Him" ​​(Ps. 26:1,3)." “Two, as if there were two minds in me: one is good - it follows everything that is beautiful, and the other is fallen - it follows everything that is bad. One mind strives for light and is ready to worship Christ, while the other mind - flesh and blood - is drawn into darkness and agrees to surrender to the captivity of Belial. One revels in earthly things, seeks what is useful for himself not in the permanent, but in the transitory, loves feasts, quarrels, burdensome satiety, the shame of dark deeds and deceptions, walks the broad path and is covered with an impenetrable haze of unreason, amuses himself with his own destruction. And the other admires the heavenly and hoped-for things as real, in God alone he places the hope of life, but here, subject to various accidents, he considers things worthless as smoke, loves labors and good concerns and follows the narrow path of life. Seeing their struggle, the Spirit of the great God descended from above and gave help to the mind, stopping the uprising of restless flesh or pacifying the troubled waters of black passions. But even after this the flesh has furious strength and does not stop fighting...” Saint Gregory the Theologian “Every Christian has a double birth, old and carnal, spiritual and new, and one opposite to the other. Carnal birth is flesh, spiritual birth is spirit. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6). And since both of these births are opposite to each other, hence the battle and warfare between the flesh and the spirit arises: “the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit what is contrary to the flesh” (Gal. 5:17). The flesh wants to kill the spirit, but the spirit wants to kill the flesh. The flesh wants to be proud, to boast, to exalt itself, but the spirit does not want to, but wants to be humble. The flesh wants to be angry, be angry, quarrel, take revenge in deed and word, but the spirit does not want this, but wants to forgive everything with meekness. The flesh wants to live in idleness, to be lazy, but the spirit turns away from this, and wants to exercise itself in blessed labors. The flesh wants to go out, drink, and have fun, but the spirit turns away from this and wants to either live in moderation or fast. The flesh wants to seek glory, honor, and wealth in this world, but the spirit despises all this and strives for the same eternal blessings. A Christian, as a renewed Christian, needs to live not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit, and to subdue the flesh to the spirit according to the apostolic exhortation: “Walk according to the Spirit, and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16). Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk “Before the redemption of our race by the Savior, man could not resist the passions, even if he wanted to: they forcibly carried him away, they ruled over him against his will. A Christian, through holy Baptism, throws off the yoke of passions; he receives the strength and opportunity to resist passions and trample on them. But a redeemed person, a renewed person, placed in a spiritual paradise - in the Church - is given freedom: according to his will, he can either resist passions and overcome them in the Lord, or submit and enslave them. Every resistance offered to the demands of passion weakens it; constant resistance brings her down. Each infatuation with passion strengthens it; constant infatuation with passion enslaves the passions of those who are carried away by it. The Christian's resistance to passions must extend to the crucifixion of the flesh with passions and lusts; it must extend in the chosen spiritual fighters to the shedding of blood: give the blood and receive the Spirit. A feat is necessary for a Christian; but it is not heroic deed that frees a Christian from the dominion of passions: it is the right hand of the Most High that frees him, the grace of the Holy Spirit frees him.” Saint Ignatius of Stavropol.