66. Путешествие в Сергиеву Лавру. Наставление богомольцам

So who led you to Saint Pimen?! Someone who speaks with passion about divine things. I guess. This is probably the same one that I had with you. I am very glad about this circumstance - I am glad that there is someone near you who can speak like that. Use it and every time you have it, point it at such objects and pull everything out of it and assimilate it to yourself. Are you going to Sergiev! Fine. God bless. And on foot! Two and three times is good! To prevent others from chatting, you can hide it somehow. If they can’t, let them talk. But you are wrong to think that this will be a pleasant walk. You may walk about fifty versts rather pleasantly, and then you begin to feel something different from what you expected. You'll arrive in two days. At your first overnight stay, you will learn what pedestrianism means if you didn’t know it before. Don't forget to take a bottle of vodka with salt and rub your feet with it at night. By evening they will no longer belong. Rub them, they will come off a little by morning. In the morning you will not go the same way as from Moscow, but you will disperse. You can go back via cast iron, otherwise you’ll hardly be able to walk for another two days. But do what you have in your heart. Work is for the Lord; He will give you strength. And then it will give something, noticeably or unnoticed. And St. Sergius will give something. God gives saints the ability to see what believers are doing for them and to hear what they ask of them. If only everything came from the heart. Like a telegraph in an instant it makes itself known from Moscow to St. Petersburg and beyond, so that what is born in the heart - in an instant it makes itself known to the one to whom it is addressed. St. Sergius, as soon as you make a wish to go to him, already looks at you; when you begin the journey, the more you will see, and even more when you come to his monastery, having endured the toils of the journey with complacency and joy. So bless, Lord! Just don’t expect pleasant things, but fatigue, calluses, and aching bones. Prepare to make a sacrifice, not to gain pleasure. As you walk along the road, constantly repeat the short prayer that I wrote to you about, otherwise your thoughts will not know where they will take you in the open air. They can lead you to something that is not appropriate to think at all, much less to those walking on a pilgrimage. When you are tired of repeating such a prayer, take a psalm and read it from memory with meditation. Read “Have mercy on me, O God...”, or “God, come to my help...”, or another one you know. Don’t worry about reading it from beginning to end, but about thinking about and feeling its content. Delve into each word, surrounding it with questions about why it was said and where it leads you. As you go deeper, you won’t even notice how mile after mile they will pass you by. Reading the psalms from memory with meditation during the journey is the rule of the first great fathers, Anthony and Pachomius. It was their law that anyone who became their student would certainly memorize several psalms. Those who did not know how to read, before learning to read, learned the psalms from the words of another. Having learned several psalms, he then had to read them while sitting at work, and especially when going anywhere. Please make the experience of imitation ancient. Do not forget to confess and partake of the Mysteries of Christ at the monastery. The labor of traveling will be instead of the labor of fasting. It’s not difficult for you to confess now after your last confession, which was made in such detail. Do not hide anything that your conscience does not approve of, be it small or large. But don’t miss the main thing – a tear of contrition. One tear - and you will be like having taken a bath or washed yourself in a bathhouse. I wanted to write something to you about such a tear before, but I forgot. I'll write it down now. You take books from the library to read. Take Zhukovsky and read the article “Peri and the Angel”. She seems to be in the fifth volume. Instructive. She's big. I'll tell you briefly its contents. Peri, the spirit, one of those drawn to fall away from God, came to his senses and returned to paradise. But having flown to his doors, he finds them locked. The angel, their guardian, tells him: “There is hope that you will enter, but bring a worthy gift.” Peri flew to the ground. Sees: war. A valiant warrior dies and in his dying tears prays to God for his fatherland. Peri picked up this tear and carries it. He brought it, but the doors did not open. The angel tells him: “The gift is good, but it is not strong enough to open the doors of heaven for you.” This expresses that all civil virtues are good, but they alone do not lead to heaven. Peri flies back to the ground. Sees the pestilence. A handsome man dies. His fiancee takes care of him with dedication, but she herself becomes infected. And she had just managed to close his eyes when she fell dead on his chest. There were tears here too. Peri picked one up and carried it, but the doors of heaven did not open for this one either. The angel tells him: “The gift is good, but one is not strong enough to open Heaven for you.” This means that family virtues alone also do not lead to heaven. Search! There is hope. Peri back to the ground. I found someone repentant. He took his tear and carried it. And before he approached paradise, all its doors were already open for him. So this is the kind of tear you would like to bring to the Lord. There is joy in Heaven when someone cries and laments, feeling like a sinner. And this is the most reliable path for us: “repent and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1:15). You might be interested in: