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(1) About repentance, and that when someone does all the commandments of God, he succeeds in virtue and becomes perfect. 1. That person who, having despised everything earthly and his very life, wants to begin to perform true repentance according to the commandment of Christ, being confident that he himself cannot accomplish this saving work as it should, let him seek an experienced spiritual father and, having found him, fall to him with fear and trembling, obey him in everything that he tells him, with all attention, learn from him what should be done while walking the path repentance, learns to do all kinds of good deeds spiritually. I said that he needs to have fear and trembling: this is so as not to deprive him of the great good that he has to receive from him, and not to be condemned to the eternal fire of hell, as an unsuccessful and unskillful worker of God’s commandments. For if he accepts the words of his spiritual father as if they came from the mouth of God Himself, with the confidence that from them comes life if he fulfills them, and death if he transgresses, then he will observe them with great accuracy and attention. If he makes such a beginning to his work and undoubtedly maintains faith in the promises given to us by God, then he will begin to prosper according to God day by day, and, following the order of walking in the path of the commandments, will grow in spiritual life, and, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, will finally become a perfect man. Listen carefully to what promises our Lord Jesus Christ has given us. – There is joy in heaven, He says, about one sinner who repents (Luke 15:10), and again: he who comes to me - by this, of course, through repentance, I will not be cast out (John 6:37); also: if anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink (John 7:37); and in another place he says: come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28); also: if you have My commandments and keep them, you love Me: and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father... and to him - I and the Father through the Spirit - we will come and make our abode with him (John 14:21, 23); and again: even if you are evil, you know how to give good things to your children; How much more will the Father who is in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him (Luke 11:13). One must rely on these promises of Christ, as we said, with undoubted faith and do all the commandments of Christ with great and warm zeal. The first commandment of the Gospel is the following: repent, for the kingdom of heaven is drawing near (Matthew 4:17). Again: ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; push, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives it, and everyone who seeks finds it, and it will be opened to the one who asks (Matthew 7:7-8). Wanting to show us how and by what deeds we should seek so that we may find, Christ told us: whoever wants to be first in you, be a servant of all, a servant of all and the least of all... Whoever is exalted will humble himself; and he who humbles himself will be exalted (Mk.9:35; Matt.23:12). So, whoever has in his mind all this that we have said, and everything similar to this, day and night he is engaged in this, discussing how best to do what, and does it with all zeal and diligence, and thus little by little he forgets the world and what is in the world - money, property, relatives - and accordingly he unites and combines with the spiritual, that is, the more he moves away from the worldly, the more he cleaves to the spiritual. Succeeding in this way day by day, he notices how little by little the evil thoughts that previously gave him no rest are exhausted and run away from him, therefore he knows how his heart softens, is contrite, comes into humility and gives birth to humble thoughts, and when he feels all this, then through all this, and also through many sorrows and temptations, he comes into contrition and tears; and the more he humbles himself, the more he laments, because humility gives birth to crying, and crying feeds its mother, that is, humility, and brings it back. When the act of crying is combined with the fulfillment of God’s commandments, then it washes away—oh, a miracle! - and cleanses the soul from all filth and expels from it all passion and all carnal and worldly lust. Thus, finally, a person becomes free from all worldly reluctance and from all passions, both physical and mental. Just as a man, having thrown off his clothes, becomes completely naked, so the soul throws off, as if some clothes, first of all insensibility, which the divine Paul calls a veil, which veil of insensibility lies not only on the hearts of infidel Jews, but in every person who does not do the commandments of the Gospel with all his zeal and all his strength, this veil (that is, insensibility) is found and covers his mind, so that he cannot rise from earthly and to know as one should the Son and the Word of God, that is, Christ. Further, just as someone who is exposed physically sees the wounds, if any, on the body, so this one then sees purely the passions of his soul, such as: love of fame, love of money, memory of malice, brotherly hatred, envy, envy, curiosity (tendency to argue with words. - Ed. ), conceit and all other passions - and on all these spiritual passions he imposes the commandments of Christ, like medicinal substances, and like cauterizations, he imposes temptations and sorrows. And thus he humbles himself, cries, seeks God’s help with great zeal; and then he clearly sees how the grace of the All-Holy Spirit comes into him, and uproots and destroys the passions one after another, until he frees the soul from all of them, for the grace of the Holy Spirit does not free the soul from one or two passions, but completely from all, purely and completely. Along with the passions that we talked about, it drives away all laziness, carelessness and carelessness, all ignorance, oblivion and gluttony, all voluptuousness and evil lust. And in this way he renews a person both in soul and in body, so that he thinks that he no longer bears a mortal and feeble body, but something spiritual and immaterial, capable of being caught up into heaven, like St. Paul. And not only does the grace of the All-Holy Spirit accomplish in him, but it no longer allows him to listen to anything sensual and worldly and makes him see all this as if he had not seen it, for then the mind will unite with the mental and the divine, proceeding completely outside of everything sensual, with all that it seems to be looking at it. When one finally comes to this good state, about which the divine Paul says: our life is in heaven (Phil. 3:20), not seen by us, but invisible (2 Cor. 4:18), then he is illuminated and enlightened, grows every day in spiritual growth, sweeps away everything characteristic of infantile senseless wisdom, and succeeds in improving himself, until he reaches a man perfect, according to the age of the fulfillment of Christ (Eph. 4:13). As he grows, that is, as he succeeds in virtues, his spiritual strength and actions change, and he becomes more courageous and powerful in fulfilling the commandments of Christ; The more one succeeds in doing the commandments of God, the more one becomes purified, illuminated and enlightened, and one is honored to see the revelation of great mysteries, the depths of which no one has ever seen and absolutely cannot see any of those who have not strived to come to such purity. By sacraments I mean what everyone sees, but does not comprehend. But the one who is enlightened by the Holy Spirit, who renews everything, acquires new eyes and new ears, and no longer looks simply, like a man, at the sensual, sensually, but, as one who has become higher than man, looks at the sensual and bodily spiritually, as at the image of invisible things; and he listens not to the voice or voices of men, but to the one living word of God, although it is spoken through the word of man. Such a soul accepts through hearing only the living word of God, as known and desired by it, and only allows it to enter inside itself, and when it enters it, kisses it with joy, as Christ said: My sheep listen to My voice (John 10:27), but they do not know the voice of others (John 10:5). Although she hears all other human words, she does not accept them, and does not allow them to enter inside her, but turns away from them and drives them away in advance, and sometimes she does not feel their presence at all and their pushing into her ears, but for them she is like a deaf woman, not hearing anything - she does not hear them and does not accept, despite all that she hears. When he becomes such, then God dwells in him, and everything he desires happens for him, and even more than what he desires. For God is every good, and whatever soul He indwells, He fills it with every good that is possible for human nature to contain - such good as the eye has not seen, about which the ear has not heard and which has not entered the heart of a person - that person who has not become such as we depicted above. When God dwells in such a person, He teaches him everything - both about the present and about the future, not in word, but in deed and experience, practically. He removes the veil from the eyes of his soul and shows him what He Himself wants and what is useful for him, but about other things he instructs him not to investigate, not to question and not to be curious. And what God shows him, he cannot see without deep reverence and fear, but, penetrating and looking into the depths of the riches of the wisdom and mind of God, he trembles and is horrified, thinking about himself, who he is and what mysteries he is privileged to see. Seeing God’s immeasurable love for mankind, he goes into a frenzy, realizing and feeling how unworthy he is to look at such wonderful sacraments; Why does he not dare to inquisitively examine them or explore what they are, but only calls out with great fear and trembling, saying: Who am I, Lord, and what is the house of my Father, that You have entrusted me and deigned to show such sacraments to me, unworthy, and have done more than I hoped for, so that I would not only see such great blessings of Yours, but also wonderfully become a partaker of them? Such a person, as having become above every creature, no longer has the desire to go back and examine the creatures. Having acquired and possessed within himself the Lord of the Angels, he no longer likes to explore the essence and nature of the Angels, the servants of God, knowing, moreover, that God does not want him to be curious about what exceeds the power of man, for if we are commanded not to torture the minds of the dogmas of Scripture, then it is all the more inappropriate for us to be curious about what is higher than what is written. Such a person sees God as much as is possible for human nature and as much as is pleasing to God, strives to see Him here unceasingly and prays that he may be able to see Him even after his death; he is glad to see only Him alone and does not feel the need to look at anything else. Why does he have no desire to turn his attention away from his Master God, from Whom he is filled with light and accepts eternal life, and to look at His servants like himself. Such a person, since he is visible, is illuminated and enlightened by God, and he himself sees the great glory of God that surpasses every mind, then he no longer wants others to see him and guess what he is and in what glory he is. Holy souls are free from vanity. Being adorned with the radiant and royal robe of the All-Holy Spirit and filled with the overwhelming glory of God, they not only do not care about human glory, but when people surround them with it, they do not pay any attention to it at all. For the soul, seen by God and itself seeing God, will in no way want to turn to look at any other person, nor will it want anyone else to see it. Therefore, I beg you, my brothers, let us not study with words alone the unspeakable blessings of God - which, however, is impossible, both for those who teach and for those who listen. For neither those who teach, without having experienced it, about mental and divine things, can give clear proofs and explanations by examples and present the truth in practical applications; neither those who listen can understand from words alone what is being said to them. But one must strive through many illnesses and labors to come to a state of contemplation of those invisible things and learn to understand them from deeds and experiences. Then from such experiences we will learn and be enlightened regarding words about these benefits; may God be glorified in us for the sake of such a divine state - and through the knowledge of such things may we glorify God, and may God glorify us in Christ our God, to whom be glory with the Father and the Holy Spirit forever. Amen. You might be interested in: