Complete works of Archpriest Ioann Ilyich Sergiev. Volume 4

Volume 1 • Volume 2 • Volume 3 • Volume 4 • Volume 5 • Volume 6 • Volume 7 My life in Christ or moments of spiritual sobriety and contemplation, reverent feelings, spiritual correction and peace in God Everything is for Thy good pleasure, both in thought and in action. (Prayer before the Gospel at the liturgy) I do not preface my publication with a preface: let it speak for itself. Everything contained in it is nothing other than the grace-filled illumination of the soul, which I received from the all-enlightening Spirit of God in moments of deep attention and self-examination, especially during prayer. Whenever I could, I wrote down my blessed thoughts and feelings, and from these notes over many years a book has now been compiled. The contents of the book are quite varied, as readers will see if there are any. Let them judge the contents of my publication. This is the eternal belly, let them know Thee the only true one God and Jesus Christ sent Him (John 17:3) You have abundantly revealed to me, O Lord, Your truth and Your righteousness. Through educating me through the sciences, You revealed to me all the riches of faith and nature and human reason. I have known Your word - the word of love, which comes to the division of our soul and spirit (Heb. 4:12); studied the laws of the human mind and its philosophy, structure and beauty of speech; penetrated partly into the secrets of nature, into its laws, into the abyss of the universe and the laws of circulation; I know the population of the globe, I know about individual peoples, about famous persons, about their deeds that have taken place in the world; I partially learned the great science of self-knowledge and approaching You; in a word - I learned a lot, a lot - so that the things of the human mind are shown to me (Sir.3:23); and I still learn a lot. I have a lot of books with varied contents, I read and re-read them; but still not satisfied. My spirit still thirsts for knowledge; my whole heart is not satisfied, not full, and from all the knowledge acquired by the mind, it cannot receive complete bliss. When will it be satisfied? I will be satisfied when I am shown Your glory (Ps. 16:15). Until then I won't get enough. He who drinks from the water of sowing (from worldly knowledge) will thirst again; but he who drinks from the water that I will give him will never thirst; But the water that I will give him will be in him a fountain of water flowing into an eternal belly, said the Savior (John 4:13–14). How do the saints see us and our needs and hear our prayers? Let's make a comparison. May you be transported to the sun and united with the sun. The sun illuminates with its rays the whole earth, every grain of sand on the earth. In these rays you also see the earth; but you are so small in relation to the sun that you constitute only one ray, and there are infinitely many of these rays in it. By its identity with the sun, this ray closely participates in the sun’s illumination of the entire world. So the holy soul, uniting with God, as with the spiritual sun, sees through the medium of its spiritual sun, illuminating the entire universe, all people and the needs of those who pray. Have you learned to envision the Lord before you as an omnipresent Mind, as a living and active Word, as a life-giving Spirit? Holy Scripture is the realm of the Mind, Word and Spirit - God of the Trinity: in it He manifests himself clearly: the verbs that I spoke to you, the spirit is the essence and the life is the essence, - said the Lord (John 6:63); scripture of St. fathers - here again is the expression of the Thought, Word and Spirit of the hypostases, with greater participation of the human spirit itself; the writings of ordinary secular people are a manifestation of the fallen human spirit, with its sinful attachments, habits, and passions. In the Word of God we see face to face God and ourselves, as we are. Recognize yourself in it, people! Man, you see for yourself, does not die in his words; He is immortal in it and speaks after death. I will die, but even after death I will speak. There is so much of this immortal word among people, which was left behind by those who died a long time ago and which sometimes lives on the lips of an entire people! How tenacious is the word, even a human one! Moreover, the Word of God: it will survive all centuries and will always be alive and active. Since God is a creative, living and life-giving Thought, those who, with the thoughts of their spirit, deviate from this hypostatic Thought and are concerned only with material, perishable objects, thereby materializing their spirit; Particularly sinful are those who, during Divine services or home prayer, completely deviate in their thoughts and wander in different places outside the church. They extremely insult the Divinity, into which our thoughts should be fixed. What does fasting and repentance lead to? What is the labor for? Leads to cleansing of sins, peace of mind, union with God, sonship, and boldness before the Lord. There is something to fast about and confess with all your heart. The reward will be invaluable for conscientious work. You might say, how many of us have a feeling of filial love for God? How many of us boldly and uncondemnedly dare to call on Heavenly God the Father and say: Our Father!... Isn’t it the other way around, such a filial voice is not heard in our hearts, muffled by the vanity of this world or attachment to its objects and pleasures? Is not the Heavenly Father far from our hearts? Shouldn’t we, who have moved away from Him to a land far away, imagine Him as God’s avenger? - Yes, for our sins we are all worthy of His righteous wrath and punishment, and it’s amazing how He is so patient with us, how He does not cut us down like a barren fig tree? Let us hasten to appease Him with repentance and tears. Let us enter into ourselves, examine our unclean heart with all severity and see what a multitude of impurities block the access of divine grace to it, we realize that we are spiritually dead. The loving Lord is here: how can I allow even a shadow of malice into my heart? May all malice die within me completely, may my heart be anointed with the fragrance of kindness. May the love of God conquer you, evil Satan, inciting us evil-willed to evil. Anger is extremely deadly for the soul and body: it scorches, crushes, torments. Let no one bound by malice dare to approach the throne of the God of love. When praying, we must certainly take control of our heart and turn it to the Lord. It must not be cold, crafty, untrue, or double-minded. Otherwise, what is the use of our prayer, of our fasting? Is it good to hear an angry voice from the Lord: These people draw near to Me with their lips, and with their lips they honor Me; but their heart is far from Me (Matthew 15:8). So, let us not stand in church with spiritual relaxation, but let each one burn in his spirit, working for the Lord. And people do not value very much the services that we do coldly, out of habit. And God wants our heart. Give me, son, your heart (Proverbs 23:26); because the heart is the most important thing in a person, his life; more - our heart is the person himself. Therefore, whoever does not pray or does not serve God with his heart is the same as not praying at all, because then his body prays, which in itself, without a soul, is the same as the earth. Remember that when you stand in prayer, you stand before God, who has the mind of all. Therefore, your prayer should be, so to speak, the whole spirit, the whole mind. The saints of God live even after death. I often hear in church how the Mother of God sings Her wonderful song, passing through the heart, which She composed in the house of Her aunt Elizabeth, after the Annunciation of the Archangel. Here I hear the song of Moses, the song of Zechariah - the father of the Baptist, Anna - the mother of the prophet Samuel, the song of the three youths, the song of Mariam. А сколько новозаветных св. singers to this day delight the ears of the entire Church of God! What about the Divine Service? What about the sacraments? What about the rituals? Whose spirit moves there and touches our hearts? - The Lord God, and the saints of God. Here is proof of the immortality of the human soul. How is it that people died and control our lives after death; died, and still speak, teaching, edifying and touching us! Just as breathing is necessary for the body, and without breathing a person cannot live, so without the breath of the Spirit of God, the soul cannot live true life. What air is to the body, the Spirit of God is to the soul. The air is somewhat like the Spirit of God. Wherever the Spirit wills, it breathes... (John 3:8). When you are faced with a temptation to sin, then vividly imagine that sin greatly angers the Lord, Who hates lawlessness. For God does not will iniquity, You are (Ps. 5:5). And in order for you to better understand this, imagine a truthful, strict father who loves his family, who tries by all means to make his children well-behaved and honest, in order for their good behavior to reward them with his great riches, which he prepared for them with great difficulty, and who meanwhile sees, to his regret, that the children, for such love of their father, do not love him, do not pay attention to the inheritance prepared by their father’s love, live dissolutely, and are rapidly rushing towards destruction. And every sin, note, is death for the soul (James 1:15), because it kills the soul, because it makes us slaves of the devil - a murderer, and the more we work for sin, the more difficult our conversion, the more certain our destruction. Fear all sin with all your heart. When your heart wanders into the thoughts of evil, and the evil one, as they say, begins to wash away your heart so that it is completely moved from the stone of faith, then say to yourself internally: I know my spiritual poverty, my insignificance without faith; say: I am so weak that I only live in the name of Christ, and I am at peace, and I am glad, I am expanding in my heart, but without Him I am dead spiritually, I am worried, I am embarrassed at heart; Without the cross of the Lord, I would long ago have been a victim of the most severe sorrow and despair. Christ holds me in life, the cross is my peace and consolation. We can think because there is an infinite thought, just as we breathe because there is an infinity of air space. This is why bright thoughts about any subject are called inspiration. Our thought constantly flows precisely under the condition of the existence of the boundless thinking Spirit. That is why the Apostles say: we are not content with ourselves, thinking that we are content, but our contentment is from God (2 Cor. 3:5). That is why the Savior says: do not worry about what you say or what you say, for whatever you say he will give you (Matthew 10:19). You see, both thought and even the word itself (inspiration) come to us from outside. This, however, is in a state of grace and in times of need. But even in our ordinary situation - all bright thoughts are from the Guardian Angel and from the Spirit of God; whereas, on the contrary, unclean, dark - from our damaged being and from the devil, who always sits down on us. How should a Christian behave? God Himself is at work in us (Phil. 2:13). In general, everywhere in the world we see the kingdom of thought, both in the entire composition of the visible world, and in particular - on earth, in the circulation and life of the globe - in the distribution of the elements of light, air, water, earth, fire (in secrecy), while other elements are diffused in all animals - in birds, fish, reptiles, beasts and humans - in their wise and purposeful structure, in their abilities, morals or habits, - in plants in their structure, in nutrition, etc., in a word, we see the kingdom of thought everywhere, even in a soulless stone and grain of sand. Priests of the Lord! Be able, through the consolation of faith, to turn the bed of sorrow of a Christian sufferer into a bed of joy, be able to turn him from the most miserable man, in his opinion, into the happiest man in the world, assure him that, having been punished in childhood, he will be greatly benefited (Wis. 3:5) after death: and you will be friends of humanity, comforting angels, organs of the Comforter Spirit. If we do not warm the warmth of faith in our hearts, then through negligence our faith may completely extinguish; Christianity, with all its sacraments, may seem to completely die out for us. The enemy is only trying to extinguish faith in the heart and bring all the truths of Christianity into oblivion. That is why we see people who are Christians in name only, but who are perfect pagans in deeds. Do not think that our faith is not life-giving for us - shepherds - that we serve God hypocritically. No: we are the first to benefit most from the mercies of God and we know from experience that for us the Lord with His Sacraments, that His Most Pure Mother and His saints. For example, when we partook of the life-giving Mysteries of the Body and Blood of the Lord, we often, often experienced their life-giving nature, the heavenly gifts of peace and joy in the Holy Spirit; We know that the merciful royal gaze of the last of his subjects does not please as much as the gracious gaze of our heavenly ruler, as His Mysteries do. And we would be extremely ungrateful before the Lord and hardened in heart if we did not tell about this glory of the life-giving Mysteries to all the beloved of God; if we did not glorify His miracles in our hearts, performed at every divine liturgy! We also often experience the invincible, incomprehensible, divine power of the honest and life-giving Cross of the Lord, and by its power we drive away from our hearts passions, despondency, cowardice, fear and all the machinations of demons. He is our friend and benefactor. We say this sincerely, with the consciousness of all the truth and power of our words. You want to comprehend the incomprehensible; But can you understand how internal sorrows befall you, killing your soul, and find means - outside the Lord - how to drive them away? Find out with your heart how to free yourself from sorrows, how to make your heart calm, and then, if necessary, philosophize about the incomprehensible. As much as you can, you care for others (Luke 12:26). Think more often: whose wisdom manifested itself in the structure of your body, constantly supports it in being and functioning? Who prescribed the laws of your thought, and does it still follow them among all people? Who inscribed the law of conscience on the hearts of all people, and to this day it rewards good and punishes evil in all people? God Almighty, All-Wise and All-Good! Your hand is constantly on me, a sinner, and there is not a moment when Your goodness leaves me. Grant me to always kiss Your right hand with living faith. Why should I go far to seek traces of Your goodness, Your wisdom and Your omnipotence? Oh! These traces are so clearly visible in me! I, I am a miracle of God's goodness, wisdom and omnipotence. I, in a small form, am the whole world; my soul is a representative of the invisible world; my body is a representative of the visible world. Brothers! what is the purpose of our life on earth? So that, after our testing by earthly sorrows and disasters and after gradual improvement in virtue with the help of grace-filled gifts taught in the Sacraments, we may rest upon death in God - the peace of our spirit. That is why we sing about the dead: Lord rest the soul of Your servant. We wish the deceased peace, as the end of all desires, and we pray to God for this. Isn’t it therefore foolish to grieve a lot over the dead? Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest, says the Lord (Matthew 11:28). Here are our dead, who have fallen asleep through Christian death, come to this voice of the Lord and rest in peace. Why mourn? People who try to lead a spiritual life experience the subtlest and most difficult war through their thoughts every moment of their lives - a spiritual war; You need to be a bright eye every moment in order to notice the thoughts flowing into the soul from the evil one and reflect them; Such people should always have their hearts burning with faith, humility, and love; otherwise, the wickedness of the devil will easily take up residence in him, behind the wickedness there will be little faith or unbelief, and then all kinds of evil, which you can’t soon wash away with even tears. Therefore, do not allow your heart to be cold, especially during prayer, avoid cold indifference in every possible way. It often happens that there is prayer on the lips, but in the heart there is crafty lack of faith or disbelief; with the lips it is as if a person is close to the Lord, but in the heart he is far away. And during prayer, the evil one uses all measures to cool and deceive our heart in the most imperceptible way for us. Pray, and be strong, strengthen your heart. If you want to ask God for some good from God through prayer, then before praying, prepare yourself for undoubted, strong faith and take remedies in advance against doubt and unbelief. It is bad if, during the prayer itself, your heart becomes weak in faith and does not stand in it: then do not think that you will receive what you asked God for, doubting, because you have offended God; but God does not give His gifts to a scolder! “Everything,” said the Lord, “if you ask in prayer as a believer, you will receive (Matthew 21:22), and, therefore, if you ask unbelievingly or with doubt, you will not receive. If you have faith and do not doubt, He also says, then you can move mountains (Matthew 21:21). This means that if you doubt and don’t believe it, you won’t do it. Let (every person) ask in faith, without hesitating,” says the Apostle James... “let him not doubt, for he will receive what is from God.” The husband is double-minded, unsettled in all his ways (James 1:6–8). A heart that doubts that God can grant what is asked is punished for doubt: it painfully languishes and is embarrassed by doubt. Do not anger the Almighty God with even a shadow of doubt, especially you, who have experienced God’s omnipotence many, many times. Doubt is blasphemy against God, a bold lie of the heart, or a spirit of lies nesting in the heart against the Spirit of truth. Fear him like a poisonous snake, or not, what I’m saying is, neglect him, don’t pay the slightest attention to him. Remember that God, at the time of your petition, expects an affirmative answer to the question He internally offers you: do you believe that I can do this? Yes, you must answer from the depths of your heart: I believe. Lord (Matthew 9:28). And then it will be according to your faith. May the following reasoning help your doubts or unbelief: I ask God 1) for a good that exists, not just an imaginary one, not a dreamy, not a fantastic good, but that everything that exists has received its existence from God: because without Him nothing could have come into existence (John 1:3), and, therefore, nothing can happen without Him, what happens, but everything has either received its existence from Him, or by His will or permission it happens and is done through the power and abilities given from Him to creatures - and in all that exists and happens, the Lord is the sovereign Ruler. Moreover, He calls the things that do not exist as though they exist (Rom. 4:17), which means that if I asked for something that does not exist, He could give it to me by creating it. 2) I ask for the possible, and for God our impossible is possible; This means that there is no obstacle on this side either: because God can do for me even what, according to my concepts, is impossible. Our misfortune is that our faith is interfered with by myopic reason, this spider that catches the truth in the nets of its judgments, conclusions, and analogies. Faith suddenly embraces, sees, and reason, in a roundabout way, reaches the truth: faith is a means of communicating spirit with spirit, and reason - the spiritual-sensual with the spiritual-sensual and simply material; that one is spirit, and this one is flesh. All the goods of the soul, i.e. everything that constitutes true life, peace and joy of the soul comes from God! Experience. Then my heart says to me: You are the Holy Soul, treasure of the good! Having Christ in your heart, be afraid lest you lose Him, and with Him the peace of your heart; It is bitter to begin again; efforts to cleave to Him again after falling away will be difficult and will cost many bitter tears. Hold on to Christ with all your strength, gain Him and do not lose holy boldness before Him. You look at the icon of the Savior and see that He is looking at you with His brightest eyes - this looking is an image of the fact that He really looks at you with His clearest eyes of the sun and sees all your thoughts, hears all your heart desires and sighs. An image is an image; in features and signs it represents that which cannot be written or signified, but is understandable only by faith. Believe that the Savior always looks at you and sees you all - with all your thoughts, sorrows, sighs, with all your circumstances, in full view. Behold, your walls have been written in My hands, and you remain before Me forever, says the Lord (Is. 49:16). How much consolation and life there are in these words of the Almighty Provider! Итак, молитесь пред иконой Спасителя, как бы пред Ним Самим. The lover of mankind is inherent in it with His grace and with the eyes written on it looks exactly at you: His eyes look at every place (Prov. 15:3), which means, both in the icon and with the hearing depicted on it, He listens to you. But remember that His eyes are the eyes of God and His ears are the ears of the omnipresent God. In the well-intentioned writings of people, respect the light of Christ, which enlightens every person coming into the world (John 1:9), and read them with love, thanking the Light-Giver Christ, who generously sheds His light to all who are zealous. Wherever I am, as soon as I lift my heart’s eye in my sorrow to God, the Lover of Mankind immediately answers my faith and prayer, and the sorrow now passes. He is near me at all times and at every hour. You just don’t see, but you vividly feel Him in your heart. Grief is the death of the heart; and it is a fall from God; the breadth and calmness of the heart with living faith in Him proves more clearly than day that the Lord is always with me and He lives inside me. What intercessor or angel will deliver us from sins or sorrows? No one but one God. That is experience. We will measure the merit of our prayer by the human measure, by the quality of our relationships with people. How are we like with people? Sometimes we coldly, without the participation of the heart, out of position or out of decency, express to them our requests, praise, gratitude, or do something for them; and sometimes with warmth, with the participation of the heart, with love, or sometimes feignedly, sometimes sincerely. We are also not the same with God. But it’s not necessary. We must always express praise, thanksgiving, and petition to God from the bottom of our hearts; one must always do every deed before Him with all his heart; Always love Him with all your heart and hope in Him. Вера в бытие Божие тесно связана с верой в бытие собственной души, как части мира духовного. Душе благочестивой бытие Божие также очевидно, как собственное бытие, потому что с каждой мыслью доброй или недоброй, желанием, намерением, словом или делом происходят соответствующие перемены в сердце – спокойствие или беспокойство, радости или скорби – и это вследствие действия на нее Бога духов и всякия плоти, Который отражается в благочестивой душе, как солнце в капле воды; чем чище эта капля, тем лучше, яснее отражение, чем мутнее, тем тусклее, – так что в состоянии крайней нечистоты, черноты души, отражение прекращается и душа остается в состоянии мрака духовного, в состоянии бесчувственности; man has eyes and does not see, has ears and does not hear. The evil one tries to scatter prayer like a mound of sand, he wants to make words like dry sand, without connection, without moisture, that is, without warmth of heart. Prayer - sometimes there is a church on an arctic fox, sometimes there is a church on a stone. Those who build on the sand are those who pray without faith, absent-mindedly, with coldness - such prayer crumbles by itself and does not benefit the one praying; They build on stone who, throughout their prayer, have their eyes fixed on the Lord, and pray to Him as if he were alive, face to face, conversing with them. The Word of Grace, the Scriptures of St. fathers, prayers, especially the word of the Hypostatic Word Himself - truly living water; water flows, and the word flows like water: water refreshes and revives the body, and the word of grace revives, penetrates with peace and joy into the soul or with tenderness and contrition for sins. Our hope for receiving what we ask for during prayer is based on faith in the goodness and generosity of God, for there is a God of mercy and generosity and a Lover of mankind, and at the same time we remember the previous countless experiences of goodness and mercy both in other people (in Holy Scripture and in the lives of saints) and in us. Therefore, for the success of prayer, it is also necessary that the one praying has already received what he previously asked for and firmly believes in it in his heart. Often through prayer we receive what we ask for, especially for the salvation of our souls; надо восписывать это прямо Господу, Его благодати, а не случаю какому-либо. Where can chance be given place in the Kingdom of the Sovereign God? Without Him nothing truly comes into being, just as without Him nothing could come into being (John 1:3). Many do not pray because it seems to them that they have not received any gifts from God through prayer, or they consider prayer an unnecessary matter; God, they say, knows everything before we ask, and they forget what is said: ask and it will be given to you; seek and ye shall find; press and the opening will be opened to you (Matthew 7:7). Our petitions (prayers) are needed precisely to strengthen our faith, by which alone we are saved; salvation is by natural grace through faith (Eph. 2:8); O woman, great is your faith (Matthew 15:28)! This is why the Savior forced the woman to ask intensely, in order to arouse her faith, to strengthen it. Such people do not see that they do not have faith - the most precious asset of a Christian, which is necessary like life; that they are lying (1 John 1:10) to God through unbelief and are children of the devil, unworthy of any mercies of God; that they are perishing. It is also necessary that the heart burns during prayer with the desire for spiritual blessings, with love for God, who is clearly contemplated by the heart in His extreme goodness for the human race and is ready to listen with fatherly love to all his prayers. If you, who are evil, know how to give good things to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him (Matthew 7:11)? God, as the eternal Truth, does not tolerate even a moment of doubt in us about the truth. God, as eternal Goodness, wants all mankind to be saved and to come into the understanding of truth (1 Tim. 2:4). And we, as children of the good God, must also from the bottom of our hearts wish everyone, even our enemies, salvation and take care of this. Watch your heart all your life and look closely and listen to it, what prevents it from connecting with the all-blessed God? Let this be the science of sciences, and with God’s help you can easily notice what separates you from God and what brings you closer to Him, unites you with Him. This is evidenced by the very heart, now united with God, now rejected from Him. Most of all, the evil one stands between our hearts and God: it is he who alienates God from us with various passions or the lust of the flesh, the lust of desire and the pride of life. What is surprising if God the Word Himself, the Creator of everything visible and invisible, transforms and transubstantiates bread and wine into His most pure Body and His most pure Blood? In these bread and wine, the Son of God is not incarnated again, because He was once incarnate - and this is enough for all endless centuries - but is incarnated with the very body that was previously incarnated - in the likeness of how He multiplied the five loaves and fed several thousand with these five loaves. There are many secrets in nature, which my mind cannot comprehend even in things; however, things exist with their secrets. So in this Sacrament of the life-giving Body and Blood, it is a mystery to me how bread and wine are made by the Body and Blood of the Lord Himself; but the Mysteries of the Body and Blood actually exist, although it is incomprehensible to me. My Creator (I am His poor one - or the Lord created me from flesh and blood and put the spirit in me) - like the all-wise, infinitely omnipotent God - has many secrets: I am a mystery to myself, like the work of His hands. For my soul - the spirit of the Lord, for my soul and body - His Body and Blood. Just as the soul carries its body, so God carries the entire universe, all the worlds, being unencompassed by them; the soul fills the whole body, and the Spirit of the Lord fills the world (Wis. 1:7); only the soul is limited to the body, although imperfectly, because it can be carried everywhere; and the Spirit of the Lord is not limited to the world and is not contained in the world as in the body. Christ, introduced into the heart by faith, sits in it with peace and joy. It is not for nothing that it is said about God: Thou art holy and restest among the saints. 1 Don’t stare at the beauty of a person’s face, but look at his soul; do not look at his clothing (the body is temporary clothing), but look at the one who dresses with it; do not look at the splendor of the house, but look at the tenant, who lives in it and what kind of person he is, otherwise you will offend the image of God in man, you will dishonor the king by bowing to his servant without giving him the slightest honor due to him. Also – don’t look at the beauty of the book’s printed font, but look at the spirit of the book; But there are truly people who admire the beauty of the letters and the purity of the printing of a well-known book, but pay very little attention to its content - they sin. The spirit is humiliated, but the body is exalted; because the letters are the body, and the content of the book is the spirit. Do not be deceived by the melodic sounds of an instrument or voice, but by their impression on the soul or by their words, find out what their spirit is; if sounds evoke quiet, chaste, holy feelings in your soul, listen and feed your soul with them; if through them passions flow into your soul, stop listening, abandon both the body and spirit of music. The inner man, from under the vanity of light, from under the darkness of his flesh, unbound by the temptations of the evil one, looks out more freely in the morning, upon awakening, like a fish that sometimes jumps to the surface of the water. The rest of the time it is covered in almost impenetrable darkness; there is a painful bandage over his eyes, hiding from him the true order of spiritual and sensual things. Seize the morning hours, these are the hours of a new life, renewed by temporary sleep. They point us in part to the state when we will rise renewed on the general morning of the non-evening day of resurrection, or when we will be separated from this mortal body. And in prayer, a person for the most part is not a son of freedom, but a slave of necessity and duty. Look at any person, even a priest. How many pray with a free, spacious heart, with living faith and love? During prayer, there are sometimes moments of deadly darkness and oppression of the heart, resulting from unbelief of the heart (unbelief is darkness). Do not be faint-hearted in these moments, but remember that if the divine light in you is cut off, then it always shines in all its splendor and greatness in God, in the Church of God, heavenly and earthly, and in the material world, in which His ever-present power and Divinity are visible (Rom. 1:20). Do not think that the truth has fainted: it will never faint, because the truth is God Himself, and everything that exists in Him has its basis and cause. Only your weak, sinful, dark heart faints in the truth, which cannot always bear the tension of its light and is not always able to accommodate its purity, only when it is purified or cleansed from sin, as the first cause of spiritual darkness. The closest thing to proof of this is from yourself. When the light of faith or the truth of God lives in your heart, then it is calm, firm, strong, alive; and when it is stopped, then it is restless, weak, like a reed shaken by the wind, lifeless. Don't pay attention to this satanic darkness. Drive him away from your heart with the sign of the life-giving Cross. Do not spare yourself for heartfelt prayer, even when you have spent the whole day in labor. Didn't care at all about St. prayer, tell the Lord everything from your heart, see that it is God’s work. I picked up the tug, don’t say it’s not strong; Having laid your hand on the forehead, do not look back (cf. Luke 9:62). If you pray carelessly, not with all your heart, you will not fall asleep (if you pray at night) until you pay off your sin before God. This does not happen to everyone, but to those who have perfected it. Be careful not to place your flesh above God, but neglect bodily rest for Him. Whatever prayer rule you have undertaken to fulfill (if it is a long prayer rule, then fulfill the entire rule well; if it is short, too), fulfill it with all conscientiousness, and do not fulfill the works of God with a divided heart, so that one half belongs to God, and the other to your flesh. The zeal of the Lord God will not tolerate your wickedness, your self-pity. He will hand you over to the devil, and the devil will not give rest to your heart for neglecting the One who is the true peace of your heart and who will always do this for your own good, in order to keep your heart close to God, because every insincere prayer removes the heart from God and arms it towards man himself, and, on the contrary, every sincere prayer brings the human heart closer to God and makes it close to God. So, believe the word: if you hurry in prayer for bodily peace, so that you can rest faster, you will lose both physical and mental peace. Oh! with what labor, sweat and tears we achieve the approach of our heart to God; and will we really again make our very prayer (careless) a means of moving away from God, and won’t God be jealous about this? After all, He feels sorry for us and our previous labors: and now He wants to force us to certainly turn to Him again with all our hearts. He wants us to always belong to Him. Without God (without His presence everywhere) there cannot be a single movement of my thought and heart: there is an action - there must be a cause, there is a consequence - there must be a beginning. That is why the Apostle says: we are not content from ourselves (incapable of) thinking anything but from ourselves, but our contentment is from God (2 Cor. 3:5). God lives, and therefore my soul lives. If my life had continued for a few moments, let’s say ten - and five of them were moments of calm, and the other five were of languor and torment: and then I would undoubtedly have to say: yes, undoubtedly I also have a Life-Giver and my Life-Giver is providing for me; I would also undoubtedly have to say that there is a being in the world who has the power of death; because the five unfavorable moments must come from a being opposite to God; because the same cause cannot produce opposite effects. But I, a sinner, in my spiritual life, out of 100 parts, have at least 70 belonging to God, and only 30 to the devil. How can one not constantly see the Benefactor before oneself and waver mentally in living faith in Him! And time flows without stopping, and during my lifetime my body is still constantly changing and coming, and the whole world, as can be seen from its movement, also comes, and seems to be rushing towards its intended end, like a wound-up car. Where is the constant? What is constant is that it all moves and directs towards its goals; the constant first cause of everything complex and created, which itself is not complex and therefore not transitory, is eternal; the spirits of Angels and men, created in the image of the first Vina, are still constant. Everything else is a soap bubble. I do not humiliate creation with these words, but I say this about it in comparison with the Creator and with the blessed spirits. Appreciate the greatest miracle of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, revealed in communion with faith in His divine Mysteries. What miracle? The repose and revitalization of your heart, deadened by sin, so obvious after the heartache and spiritual death that often precedes communion. Out of habit, never regard it as something ordinary and unimportant: such thoughts and dispositions of the heart bring the wrath of the Lord upon you, and you will not taste peace and life after communion. With the most lively, heartfelt gratitude for the gifts of life, obtain life from the Lord, and let your faith grow more and more. Fear and anxiety come from unbelief. Consider their appearance during communion as a sure sign that you are moving away through unbelief from the Life presented in the Chalice, and do not pay attention to them. O faith! faith! You yourself are a miracle for us! You save us: your faith will save you (Mark 5:34). And after living faith in the truth of God, we always depart from the Lord in the world; on the contrary, after lack of faith - always without peace. Oh! Satan often enters after the unworthy communion of St. Tain, and he tries in every possible way to plant his lies in our hearts, i.e. unbelief, because unbelief is the same as lying. A murderer from time immemorial, he tries in every possible way and now to kill a person with his lies and various thoughts, and, having crept into the heart in the form of unbelief or some kind of passion, he then shows himself in a manner worthy of himself, more so with impatience and malice. And you see that it is in you, but you don’t suddenly often get rid of it, because it usually tries to lock in your heart all the ways to get out of it - through unbelief, bitterness and other creations of its own. You labor in vain in me, fallen archangel. I am a servant of my Lord Jesus Christ. You, exalted pride, humiliate yourself by fighting so hard against me, weak. So speak mentally to the evil spirit that lies as a heavy burden on your heart and forces you to do evil of various kinds. These words are like a fiery scourge to a proud spirit, and he, disgraced by your firmness and spiritual wisdom, will run away from you. You will now see this, feel it and be surprised by the wonderful change in yourself: the heavy, soul-killing burden in the heart will no longer be, it will become so easy, easy, and you will be tangibly convinced that there are spirits of evil in the heavens, constantly seeking our destruction, poisoning our heart with the poison of dark and evil thoughts, intensifying to destroy love for people and sociability with them. All my troubles occur in my invisible thoughts and in my invisible heart, therefore I need an invisible Savior to guide our hearts. O my strength, Jesus, Son of God! Oh the light of my mind! peace, joy, breadth of my heart - glory to You! Glory to Thee, the Deliverer from my invisible enemies, who attack my mind and heart and kill me at the very source of my life, in my most sensitive place. Keep a close watch on the manifestations of pride: it manifests itself unnoticed, especially in being upset and irritable with others for the most unimportant reasons. In every possible way, undoubtedly, tangibly assures us the miraculous effect of the life-giving Cross on our Soul, bitten by the poison of evil, assures us of: 1) that we definitely have a soul, a spiritual being, 2) that there are evil spirits that murderously touch our soul, 3) that there is God and our Lord, Jesus Christ, and He is always with us according to His Divinity and 4) that He definitely accomplished our salvation on the cross by His suffering on the Cross and death and destroyed the power of the devil with the cross. How much evidence in favor of our faith comes from the miraculous action of the life-giving Cross over us! Glory to the Christian faith! Those who lead a spiritual life see with the eyes of their hearts how the devil works, how the Angels guide, how the Lord sovereignly allows temptation and how he comforts. To spend the entire day completely holy, peacefully and sinlessly, the only means for this is the most sincere, fervent prayer in the morning after rising from sleep. She will introduce Christ with the Father and the Holy Spirit into the heart and thus give strength and strength to the soul against the attacks of evil; You just need to guard your heart. In the sorrow of your soul, sometimes you wish to die. Dying is easy, not for long; but are you ready for death? After all, after death comes the judgment of your entire life (Heb. 9:27). You are not ready for death, and if it came to you, your whole body would tremble. Don’t waste words, don’t say: it would be better for me to die, but say more often: how can I prepare for death in a Christian way - by faith, good deeds and generously enduring the troubles and sorrows that happen to me and meet death without fear, peacefully, not shamefully, not as a terrible law of nature, but as the paternal call of the immortal Heavenly Father, holy, blessed to the land of eternity. Remember the old man who, having toiled under his burden, wanted to die rather than live, and began to call death to himself. She appeared - she did not want to, but wished to better bear her heavy burden. With the mental eyes of my heart I see how I mentally breathe Christ into my heart, how He enters it and suddenly gives it peace and delight. Oh, may I not remain alone, without You, the Giver of Life, my breath, my joy! I feel bad without You. Is it possible to pray hastily without harming your prayer? It is possible for those who have learned inner prayer with a pure heart. In prayer, it is necessary that the heart sincerely desires what it asks for; felt the truth of what he was talking about, and a pure heart has this, as it were, in its nature. Therefore, it can pray with haste and at the same time be pleasing to God, since haste does not harm the truth (sincerity) of prayer. But those who have not acquired heartfelt prayer must pray slowly, waiting for the corresponding echo in the heart of each word of prayer. And this is not always easy for a person who is not accustomed to prayerful contemplation. Therefore, the rare pronunciation of the words of prayer for such people should be made an indispensable rule. Wait for each word to resonate in your heart with its characteristic echo. In the heart of a person, there is an approximation of him to God, then a distance from God, and at the same time - now peace and joy, now confusion, fear, crampedness, now life, now spiritual death. The approach for the most part happens in sorrow, when no one can deliver us except the Lord, to whom we turn with all our hearts and thus approach Him with all our hearts, and the distance is in the contentment and abundance of earthly blessings, which puff up the carnal old man, and precisely when a person thirsts for wealth, glory, nobility, and when, achieving this, he loses faith from the heart and forgets about God, the Judge and the Giver, about the immortality of his soul, about his duty - to love God and every person with all his heart as himself. Just as an unkind person, coming with a request to a good, meek and humble person, for the better success of his request, he himself tries to become like him, so a Christian, approaching with prayer to the Lord or His Most Pure Mother or the Angels or Saints - for the success of his prayer, he must become, if possible, like the Lord Himself or His Most Pure Mother or the Angels or saints. And this is precisely the secret of approaching and quickly hearing our prayers. The Tri-radiant God sees and hears me: this is the most life-giving confidence for the heart, penetrating my heart with peace and joy. The Compassionate Mother of God the Word also sees me and hears my prayers and sighs to her - another comforting confidence that is constantly justified in practice. I will walk in a sense of the omnipresence and omniscience of God! The most striking proof that there is a devil in the world is that people do not feel or feel very little (although others try) of the mercy of God in creation, providence, and redemption: there is a strong counteractor to everything good and righteous. The task of our life is to unite with God, and sin completely prevents this; Therefore, flee from sin as a terrible enemy, as a killer of the soul, because without God there is death, not life. Let us understand our purpose, let us constantly remember that the common Master is calling us to unite with Himself. Christians especially need to have a pure heart, because with the eyes of the heart they need to see God as He is - with His love for us and with all His perfections, the beauty of the Angels, all the glory of the Lady, the beauty of Her soul and Her greatness as the Mother of God, the beauty of the souls of the saints of God and their love for us; you need to see how they are in themselves; one must contemplate the truths of the Christian faith with all its sacraments and feel their greatness; you need to mature the state of your souls, especially your sins. An unclean heart, that is, occupied with an addiction to earthly things, nourishing carnal lusts, desires and worldly pride, cannot see anything that we have indicated. Prayer is the lifting of the mind and heart to God. From here it is obvious that someone whose mind and heart are firmly attached to something carnal, for example, to money, to honor, or who has passions in their hearts: hatred, envy of others, cannot pray, because passions usually bind the heart, just as God expands it and gives it true freedom. It is incomprehensible how Christ Himself unites with the sign of the cross and gives it the miraculous power to drive away passions, demons and calm the indignant soul. It is just as incomprehensible how the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ unites with bread and wine, transforms it into flesh and blood and clearly cleanses our soul from sins, bringing into it heavenly peace and tranquility, making it good, meek, humble, full of heartfelt faith and hope. This is partly explained by the fact that everywhere the omnipotent, creative Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ and everywhere He can even call something that does not exist - as if it exists (Rom. 4:17), much less makes another existing out of existing things. And so that a heart of little faith does not think that the cross or the name of Christ works miraculously on its own, and not by Christ, the same cross and the name of Christ do not produce a miracle unless I see with the eyes of my heart or with faith Christ the Lord and believe from my heart in all that He has done for our salvation. I am with you always, even to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20). So, Master, You are with us - all the days, not a single day, we live without You, without Your co-presence. You are with us especially in the Sacrament of Your Body and Blood. Oh, how truly and essentially you are in the Mysteries! You clothe yourself, Master, at every liturgy with a body subservient to us, except for sin, and feed us with Your life-giving flesh. Through the Mysteries You are completely with us, and Your flesh is united with our flesh and Your spirit is united with our soul: - and we feel, we feel this life-giving, premium, sweet union, we feel that, clinging to You in the Eucharist, we become one spirit with You, as it is said: cling to the Lord, there is one spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17). We become like You, good, meek and humble, as You said about Yourself: I am meek and lowly in heart (Matthew 11:29). True, often the evil and blind flesh or the prince of this age living in our sinful flesh whispers to us that in the Mysteries there is only bread and wine, and not the very Body and Blood of the Lord, and sends sight, taste and touch as evil witnesses for this. But we do not allow ourselves to listen to his slander and reason like this: for You, Lord, everything is possible; You create flesh for people, animals, fish, birds, reptiles - all creation: are You for Yourself, fulfilling everything everywhere and not creating flesh? What sculptor, making sculptures for others, is not able to make one for himself? Moreover, You transform dead matter into a living being, for example, the staff of Moses into a serpent, and nothing is impossible for You. Will You not create flesh for Yourself from bread and wine, which are so close to our flesh, being consumed as food and drink and transformed into our flesh and blood? You do not allow our faith to be tempted more than it can bear; You do not transform the lumps of the earth into Your most pure Body and Blood, but white, soft, clean, pleasant-tasting bread; You do not create water with Your blood, but wine suitable to the color of blood (which is called the blood of grapes in St. Scripture (Sir.50:17)), pleasing to the taste and gladdening the human heart; You know our weakness, the weakness of our faith, and therefore you deigned to use the most suitable substances for the Sacrament of Your Body and Blood. Let us firmly believe that under the guise of bread and wine we partake of the true Body and true Blood of Christ, that in the Sacrament of Communion the Lord will be with us all the days until the end of the age (Matthew 28:20). Our soul is, so to speak, a reflection of the face of God; the clearer, the larger this reflection, the brighter, calmer it is; the smaller, the darker, more restless. And as our soul is our heart, it is necessary that every truth of God be reflected in it through feeling, through gratitude, and that there should be no reflection of lies at all. Feel the love of God in the most pure Mysteries, feel the truth of all prayers. Our heart is a mirror; truth, like objects of the external world in an ordinary mirror, must be reflected with all accuracy in our heart. It's good, it's very good to be virtuous. A good person is calm and pleasing to God and kind to people. A virtuous person involuntarily attracts the attention of everyone. Why? Because the fragrance involuntarily forces you to pay attention to yourself and breathe it in. Look at the very appearance of the virtuous man, at his face. What kind of face is this? This is an angelic face. Meekness and humility flow through him and involuntarily captivate everyone with their beauty. Pay attention to his speech; there is even more fragrance from it: here you are, as it were, face to face with his soul - and you melt from his sweet conversation. Love calms and pleasantly expands the heart, revitalizes it, while hatred painfully constrains and disturbs it. He who hates others torments and tyrannizes himself is the stupidest of all fools. When you see the painful destruction of the body, do not murmur against the Lord, but say: The Lord has given, the Lord has given... let the name of the Lord be blessed (Job 1:21). You are accustomed to looking at your body as an inalienable property, but this is extremely unfair, because your body is God’s building. What kind of high figure is this priest? He constantly has a conversation with the Lord and the Lord constantly answers his speech; whatever is required, whatever prayer, speak with the Lord; Whatever is required, whatever the prayer, the Lord’s answer to it. When finding passions, how can a priest not remember that passions are low and unclean, especially for him to allow them into his heart, which must always be filled entirely by the one Jesus Christ. The priest is an angel, not a man; he must leave everything of everyday life far behind him. Lord Jesus! May your priests be clothed in truth, may they always remember the height of their calling and may they not become entangled in the nets of the world and the devil, may the sadness of this age, the flattery of wealth and other lusts entering their hearts (Mk. 4:19) flee from their hearts. Numerous and varied are the ways in which the devil enters our soul and removes it from God, pressing upon it with his whole being - gloomy, hateful, killing. Whatever the movement of passion is, it is a path for him, and he does not miss the slightest opportunity to enter into it. The paths of the Holy Spirit are equally numerous and varied: the path of sincere faith, heartfelt humility, heartfelt love for God and neighbors, and so on. But the trouble is that the primordial murderer is trying in every possible way to block these paths for us. More common for us sinners, who move away from God to a land far away, the path to God is the path of suffering and bitter tears. And St. Scripture and experience confirm that in order to get closer to God, a sinner must suffer, shed tears and cry, and correct his double-minded heart. Draw near..., suffer and tear down and weep (James 4:8-9). Tears have the power to cleanse the filth of our hearts, and suffering is necessary because through suffering the sinful breadth of the heart is salutarily constrained, and it is from the constraint of the heart that tears flow most easily. When the devil is in our heart, then there is an extraordinary, killing heaviness and fire in the chest and heart; the soul is extremely embarrassed and darkened; everything irritates her; feels disgust for every good deed; he interprets the words and actions of others in relation to himself crookedly and sees in them malicious intent against himself, against his honor, and therefore feels deep, murderous hatred towards them, is furious and rushes to revenge. By its fruit you will know it (Matthew 7:20). There are days when an evil spirit disturbs me. People fell into unbelief because they had completely lost the spirit of prayer or did not have and do not have it at all, in short, because they do not pray. The prince of this age has room to act in the hearts of such people; he is the master in them. Through prayer they did not and do not ask the Lord for the dew of God’s grace (but only those who ask and seek are given the gifts of the Lord), and so the hearts, corrupted by nature, without the life-giving dew of the Holy Spirit, dried up and from extreme dryness finally blazed with the hellish flames of unbelief and various passions, and the devil knows only inflames the passions that support this terrible fire, and triumphs at the sight of the destruction of unfortunate souls, redeemed by the blood of Him who trampled his dominion. Morning prayer. God! Creator and Lord of the world! look mercifully upon Thy creation, adorned with Thy divine image in these morning hours: may Thy Eye live, may Thy Eye enlighten, in darkness so much brighter than the rays of the sun, my dark soul, mortified by sin. Take away from me despondency and laziness, grant me joy and spiritual vigor, so that in the joy of my heart I glorify Your goodness, holiness, Your boundless greatness, Your endless perfections at every hour and in every place. For You are my Creator and the Lord of my life, Lord, and You are due glory from Your rational creatures for every hour, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen. Since man, of his own free will, fell away from God, he, like an animal that was once domestic, but then went wild in the dense forests, reluctantly looks at the place of his former residence, loves more the darkness of the forest, i.e. of this world than the light of the former place, i.e. heaven of God. It is difficult to unite with God and after union often falls away from Him; It is difficult for him to sincerely believe in God and in everything that He has revealed to him; he does not constantly care about preserving the heavenly gift of faith in his heart. If God does not leave a grass, a flower or a leaf on a tree with His good providence, will He leave us? Oh, be convinced with all your heart that the Lord is faithful to Himself in His providence for every creature, even the smallest one. Understand that every creature has an invisibly inherent Creator. According to the Savior, God clothes the flowers of the field (Matthew 6:30) and feeds the birds of the air (Matthew 6:26). How does God not make His creatures happy for us? Even flowers. Like a tender mother, according to His ever-present power and wisdom, He creates for us these magnificent plants out of nothing every summer. Let us amuse ourselves with them, and let us not forget to glorify the goodness of the Creator, our Heavenly Father; We ourselves will respond to His love for us with our loving hearts. He who does not believe in God, who saves in difficult circumstances, and is faint-hearted, does not want to give glory to God, imagines Him not awake, but asleep, or not omnipotent and not good, a lie creates the God of truth and through this sins gravely; Cowardice and lack of faith in a person who was often privileged to receive miraculous help from God the Savior are especially inexcusable. Oh, I am a great sinner! The invisible, all-fulfilling God often and tangibly touches my invisible soul, which from His touch tastes wonderful peace and heavenly joy. It is not my eyes that convey to me the message about my God (senses for the lower objects of existence), nor my hearing, only through words and the sounds of the voice, that conveys to me the message about the Incomprehensible, but the soul itself, so to speak, merges with God. When the malice of people confuses you and plunges your heart into despondency, remember how infinitely the almighty and all-righteous Lord God loves you, Who endures malice for a time and then punishes it in a worthy manner in due time. You cannot cope with yourself, with your tongue, with one member of your body. Judge, therefore, what is He like who rules the whole world, who keeps it in such amazing order, who rules the entire human race, evil, corrupt, always ready to destroy each other and yet more prosperous under His power than poor. How omnipotent and wise He is in managing such a heterogeneous multitude! Rely on Him completely. When it comes to the Mysteries of God, do not ask internally: how does this happen? You don't know how God created the whole world out of nothing; You cannot, and you should not know here, how God does anything in secret. The mystery of God is a mystery and must remain a mystery for you, because you are not God, you cannot know everything that the infinitely wise, omnipotent God knows. You are the work of His hands, His insignificant creature. Remember that there was a time when there was nothing, and then everything that is now was created out of nothing by the Word of God. Without Him nothing could have happened (John 1:3). Give, praying people, your heart to God, that loving, sincere heart with which you love your children, parents, benefactors, friends, in which you feel the sweetness of unfeigned, pure love. Sometimes in a long prayer only a few minutes are truly pleasing to God and constitute true prayer and true service to God. The main thing in prayer is the closeness of the heart to God, evidenced by the sweetness of God’s presence in the soul. Let it be as I want, and not as you. This is the sovereign voice of God that our soul always hears, having fallen into sin and wanting to get out of the state of spiritual sinful sorrow. Let it be as I want: either bring repentance commensurate with sin in the depths of your heart and return to the path of life indicated by Me, or bear the punishment corresponding to sin, determined by My justice: otherwise your sin will torment you, like deviating from My laws. And our soul will only taste peace when it really brings in the depths of its heart the repentance corresponding to sin or suffers the punishment due from God. O all-powerful and all-righteous power of our God, ruling invisibly over our invisible souls, all glory to You! Glory to You, God, our Savior! May Your will be done upon us! How conveniently and quickly the Lord can save us! Instantly, unexpectedly, unnoticeably. Often during the day I was a great sinner, and in the evening after prayer I retired justified and whiter than snow with the grace of the Holy Spirit, with the deepest peace and delight in my heart! How easy it is for the Lord to save us even in the evening of our lives, at the end of our days! Oh, save, save, save me, most gracious Lord, accept me into Your Heavenly Kingdom! Everything is possible for You. Whether we stand for our Lord or fall, let us stand: for God is able to raise us up (Rom. 14:4). What is especially important and constitutes the life of any being, the Creator placed and hid far away - in the depths, inside that being; это мы видим везде. So it is in a person: the soul is in the very middle of his being - in the heart, which is why the soul is often called the heart, and the heart - the soul. My spirit is depressed within me, my heart is troubled within me (Ps. 142:4). Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a right spirit in my womb (Ps. 50:12). Our God is a God of mercy and generosity and love for mankind (Ps. 102:8, etc.), and not a God of torment and punishment. Torment is the fruit of our sins and those of disembodied apostates from God. Therefore, if you grieve from the heart, blame it only on sin and the devil, and better yet on yourself, because the devil will not cause you any harm if he does not find anything in you to stick to. I am... God is jealous (Exodus 20:5). I will not give My glory to another (Is.42:8). These words of the Lord of glory are fulfilled every time I bring the glory of the works of my God, produced in me by the Holy Gifts, into my heart to someone else or something, and do not bring it to Him with all my heart. He will then instantly become jealous of the glory of His Mysteries, always wonderful, life-giving, and with His righteous judgment He will punish my soul with His fatherly rod! Oh, my soul clearly hears then the words of my Lord: My glory I will not give to another. Because you do not ascribe to Me the glory that is due to Me, so obvious to you in My Mysteries, I beat your inner being with the rod of My truth and with this I let you know and heartily believe that I will never give My glory to anyone else. I cleanse your sins and make your soul whiter than snow with My Blood; I visit your soul with peace and joy; I warm and caress you like the mother of a baby, and instill in you My meekness and humility; I pour love into your heart; I transform you all, transform you - to your surprise - into a new person - and to whom else will I give the glory of my deeds? Нет, Я вечно неизменяем; not as a man do I waver, but as a son of man am I changed (Num. 23:19). The invisible Lord acts on my soul as if he were visible, moreover, as if he were in front of me, knowing all my thoughts and feelings: any inner laziness, or obstinacy, or passion is always accompanied for me by a corresponding punishment. In general, if my inner disposition is unworthy of God, His holiness, then I endure punishment in my heart, burning fire, but when it is worthy, then I am cheerful and calm. No, no matter what you say, sometimes a person is too irritable and angry, not on his own, but with the most diligent help of the devil. Just watch yourself or others during times of irritability and anger, when you or someone else would like to destroy a person who is hostile to you, truly or imaginary; compare what follows after this (sometimes soon - according to the action of the Guardian Angel) the calmness, meekness and kindness of the character of yours or the person you are observing with the past opposite state, and you will say to yourself: no, this seems to be not at all the same person who was angry and furious shortly before - this is a person who came from the worthlessness of the devil, who sits at the foot of Jesus (Luke 8:35) (meek and humble) shell-shocked and intelligent. There is not even a shadow of the former anger and the former senselessness in him! Some reject the existence of evil spirits: but such phenomena in people's lives can clearly indicate their existence. If every phenomenon has a corresponding cause and a tree is known from its fruit, then who will not see in a madly angry person an evil spirit operating within him, which cannot manifest itself otherwise than in a manner worthy of itself! Who, in the outpouring of human malice, will not see the chief of malice? In addition, a person subject to irritability and breathing malice very clearly senses in his chest the presence of a hostile, evil force: it produces in the soul completely opposite to what the Savior says about His presence: My yoke is easy and My burden is light (Matthew 11:30). In that presence we feel terribly thin and heavy – both mentally and physically. In the church you hear most of all the voices of clergy, readers and singers singing about pardoning us. What does it mean? This means that all of us, no matter how many of us are in the church of God, for our sins are worthy of God’s executions and that first of all - upon our coming to the church - we must remember that we are sinners, that we came to the Lord of heaven and earth, the Creator and Benefactor, daily and hourly angered by our untruths, to beg Him each for ourselves and even - out of Christian love - for others for mercy. Prayers for mercy are sometimes great, sometimes small, sometimes severe. Since there is not a single superfluous word in the church, when singing the special litany one must pray especially strongly to God, from the very depths of the soul, from the most contrite heart, as it is said about this in the initial litany: reciting everything with all our soul, and reciting everything with all our thoughts. At this time, it is necessary to put aside the slightest coldness, the slightest inattention of the heart, and, burning with a humble spirit, becoming fully attentive, offer up the warmest prayer to the Creator for mercy on us sinners. But what do we see when the clergyman proclaims and the singers sing the special litany and the great one? For the most part - ordinary inattention and indifference of those praying. Both after unworthy communion and after unworthy, cold prayer, the soul feels equally bad. This means: the Lord does not enter our hearts, offended by our heartfelt unbelief and coldness, and allows evil spirits to nest in our hearts in order to make us feel the difference between His yoke and theirs. A terrible truth. Unrepentant sinners after death lose all opportunity to change for the better and, therefore, invariably remain devoted to eternal torment (sin cannot but torment). How to prove this? This is clearly proven by the present state of some sinners and the property of sin itself - to hold a person in captivity and block all outcomes for him. Who does not know how difficult it is without the special grace of God to turn a sinner from his beloved path of sin to the path of virtue! How deeply sin takes root in the heart of the sinner and throughout his entire being, how it gives the sinner its vision, which sees things completely differently than how he is in his being, appearing to him in some kind of charming form. Therefore, we see that sinners very often do not think about their conversion and do not consider themselves great sinners, because self-love and pride blind their eyes; if they consider themselves sinners, then they indulge in hellish despair, which spreads deep darkness in their minds and greatly hardens their hearts. Если бы не благодать Божия, кто бы из грешников обратился к Богу, так как свойство греха – омрачать нас, связывать нас по рукам и по ногам. Но время и место для действия благодати – только здесь: после смерти – только молитвы Церкви и то на раскаянных грешников могут действовать, на тех, у которых есть приемлемость в душах, свет добрых дел, унесенный ими из этой жизни, к которому может привиться благодать Божия или благодатные молитвы Церкви. Unrepentant sinners are sure sons of perdition. What does experience tell me when I am captured by sin? Я целый день иногда только мучаюсь и не могу обратиться всем сердцем, потому что грех ожесточает меня, делая для меня недоступным Божие помилование: я горю в огне и добровольно остаюсь в нем, потому что грех связал мне силы, и я – как закованный в цепи внутренне – не могу обратиться к Богу, пока Бог, видя мое бессилие и мое смирение, и мои слезы не умилосердится надо мной и не пошлет мне благодать Свою! Недаром человек, преданный грехам, называется связанным пленицами грехопадений ( 2Пет.2:4 ). Your spiritual life, apparently, is divided into two states that differ sharply from each other: a state of peace, joy, largeness of heart and a state of sorrow, fear and narrowness of the soul. The reason for the first state is always the harmonious action of my soul with the laws of the Creator; and the reason for the latter is the violation of His holy laws. I can always notice and actually notice the beginning of one and another state; in my mind there is always one or the other. Therefore, it always happens that having destroyed the beginning from which the state of sorrow and distress arose, you also destroy the consequence, i.e. the very sorrow and tightness of the soul. Or do you not know that Jesus Christ is in you, unless you are unskilled in nature (2 Cor. 13:5)? Truly Christ lives in me. Meanwhile, I was still inexperienced: I did not think and did not know for sure that the Lord was in me. It is He, the All-Holy One, who is so sensitive in me to the slightest impurity of heart; It is He who prompts me to drive away the very germ of sin in my heart from my soul. But alas! and Satan immediately, ready to devour me at every step, disputes me with the Lord. Pray for the forgiveness of the sins of others in the same way as you pray for the forgiveness of your own sins, when they, striking your soul with sorrow and oppression, prompt you with pain, contrition of heart and with tears to beg God for mercy; Equally, pray for the salvation of others as for your own. If you achieve this and turn it into a skill, then you will receive from the Lord an abundance of spiritual gifts, gifts of the Holy Spirit, Who loves a soul that sympathizes with the salvation of others, because He Himself, the All-Holy Spirit, wants in every possible way to save us all, so long as we do not resist Him and do not harden our hearts. The Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings that cannot be quenched (Rom. 8:26). We often hear from others or often read in the writings of others what God has placed on our minds and hearts, what we ourselves have cherished, i.e. Often we meet our favorite thoughts from others and dream as if they were taken from us and as if they were new and constituted exclusively our property. Proud thoughts! How? Is there not one Lord God of minds, is there not one His Spirit in all those who seek the truth? Isn’t there only one our Enlightener, who enlightens every person who comes into the world (John 1:9)? Glory to the One, glory to the One who loves everyone and endlessly gives his spiritual and physical gifts to everyone! Glory to Him who does not see faces and reveals the secrets of His love, omnipotence, and wisdom to infants (Luke 10:21). The saints of God are close to believing hearts and, like the most sincere and kind friends, are ready at a moment to help the faithful and pious who call on them with faith and love. For the most part, you need to send for earthly helpers and sometimes wait a long time for them to come, but for these spiritual helpers you don’t need to send and wait a long time: the faith of the one praying in an instant can bring them to your very heart, as well as accept by faith the necessary help, I mean, spiritual. What I say, I speak from experience. I mean frequent deliverance from the sorrows of the heart through the intercession and intercession of the saints. Especially through the intercession of our Lady Theotokos. Perhaps some will say to this that what is at work here is simple faith or firm, decisive confidence in one’s deliverance from sorrow, and not the intercession of the saints before God. No. How can this be seen? Because if I do not call upon the saints known to me (without distinguishing anyone) in heartfelt prayer, if I do not see them with the eyes of my heart, then I will not receive any help, no matter how much confidence I have in being saved without their help. I realize, I feel clearly that the help I receive is in the name of those saints whom I call upon, for the sake of my living faith in them. This matter happens as in the ordinary order of earthly things. I will first see my helpers with heartfelt faith, then, seeing, I ask them also with my heart, invisibly, but clearly to myself; then, having received invisible help in a completely inconspicuous way, but perceptible to the soul, I at the same time receive a strong conviction that this help is from them, just as a sick person healed by a doctor is convinced that he received healing precisely from this doctor, and not from another and not by himself, but from the doctor. All this is done so simply that you only need your eyes to see. I am a man, and the mercy, truth and righteousness of God continuously operate in me. God either has mercy and comforts, or punishes and saddens me with sorrows for internal spiritual movements that are contrary to Him. But the earth is full of people like me. This means that in them the Lord reveals His mercy, truth and righteousness, just as in me. He works all in all (1 Cor. 12:6). Let no one think that sin is something unimportant; no, sin is a terrible evil that kills the soul now and in the next century. The sinner in the next century is bound hand and foot (speaking of the soul) and plunged into outer darkness, as the Savior says: having bound his hand and nose, cast him into outer darkness (Matthew 22:13), i.e., he completely loses the freedom of all the powers of his soul, which, being created for free activity, suffer through this some kind of deadly inactivity for all good: he is aware in his soul the sinner has his own strength and at the same time feels that his strength is bound by some kind of indissoluble chains: everyone is burdened with the captivity of his sins (Prov. 5:22); Add to this the terrible torment from your very sins, from the consciousness of your folly during earthly life, from the idea of ​​an angry Creator. And in this age sin binds and kills the soul; Who among those who fear God does not know what sorrow and oppression strikes their soul, what painfully scorching fire rages in their chest when they commit any sin? But by binding and killing the soul temporarily, sin kills it forever, if we do not repent from our hearts of our sins and iniquities. Here is experimental proof that sin kills the soul temporarily and eternally. If one of the God-fearing people happens to go to sleep without repenting of that sin, or of those sins that were committed during the day and tormented the soul, then this torment will accompany the person the whole night until he heartily repents of the sin and washes his heart with tears. (It's an experience). The torment of sin will awaken him from his sweet sleep, because the soul will be in distress, bound by the captives of sin. Now let us assume that a person who goes to sleep in some sin and is tormented by sin will suffer death at night: isn’t it obvious that the soul will go to that age in torment, and since after death there is no place for repentance, it will suffer there, depending on the extent of its sins. Holy Scripture also testifies to this (Matt. 25:46; Rom. 2:6; 2 Cor. 5:10, etc.). Notice yourself - your passions, especially in your home life, where they are freely visible, like moles in a safe place; Outside the home, our passions are usually hidden behind other more plausible passions, and there is no way to drive out these black moles that undermine the integrity of our soul. In the soul of a pious, God-fearing person, invisibly spiritual communication with God occurs. Like a father or a strict mentor, the Lord God either approves or condemns our thoughts, desires and intentions; then he says that this is good, and this is bad, and rewards for good, and punishes for evil: and all this is so obvious to the soul - right there on the spot. Begin to fulfill the commandments concerning the small, and you will fulfill the commandments concerning the great: the small leads to the great everywhere. Begin to fulfill even the commandment about fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays or the tenth commandment concerning evil thoughts and desires, you will fulfill all the commandments. But he who is unfaithful is unfaithful in small ways and in many ways (Luke 16:10). A man who dreams of a perishable life and does not think about an endless, heavenly life! Consider: what is your temporary life? This is the constant supply of firewood (I mean food) so that the fire of our life burns and does not become scarce, so that our house (I mean the body) is warm and so that the constantly transient life of our body is restored by nourishing principles from the organisms of other living creatures that are deprived of life for the life of our body. Indeed, what an insignificant web is your life, man: every day you strengthen its support twice inside for its strength (that is, you reinforce yourself twice with food and drink) and every night you lock your soul once in your body, closing all the senses of the body, like the shutters of a house, so that the soul does not live outside the body, but in the body, and warms and revives it. What a web your life is and how easy it is to break it! Humble yourself and revere the endless life! Truth is the basis and diversity of everything that is created, and in your affairs (internal and external) let truth be the basis of everything, especially the basis of prayer; Let your whole life, all your deeds, all your thoughts and desires be strung on truth, as a foundation. Take the labor of spending at least one day according to God’s commandments, and you will see for yourself, you will experience with your heart how well it is to do the will of God (and God’s will in relation to us is our life, our eternal bliss). Love the Lord with all your heart, even as you love your parents and benefactors; evaluate by your strength His love and blessings towards you (go over them with your mind in your heart: how He gave you existence and with it all the blessings, how He endlessly endures your sins on you, how He forgives them infinitely for the sake of your sincere repentance due to the suffering on the cross and the death of His only begotten Son, what bliss He promised you in eternity if you are faithful to Him), blessings that are infinitely great and numerous. Next, love every person as yourself, i.e. do not wish for him anything that you do not wish for yourself; think and feel for him as you think and feel for yourself; do not want to see in him anything that you do not want to see in yourself; let your memory not retain the evil done to you by others, as you wish that the evil done by you be forgotten by others; do not intentionally imagine anything criminal or unclean in yourself or in others, imagine others as well-intentioned as yourself; in general, if you don’t clearly see that they are ill-intentioned, do for them what you do for yourself, or at least don’t do for them what you don’t do for yourself - and you will see what will happen in your heart, what silence, what bliss! Before heaven you will be in heaven, before heaven in heaven you will be in heaven on earth. The Kingdom of God, says the Savior, is within you (Luke 17:21). “Abide in love,” the Apostle teaches, “abide in God, and God abides in him (1 John 4:16). Worship God in spirit and in truth. With the truth - for example, you say: yes, hallowed be thy name. Do you really have a desire for the name of God to be sanctified by the good deeds of people and yours? you say: Thy kingdom come, do you really desire the coming of the Kingdom of God? Do you want to be a village of the Spirit of God, and not a village of sin; Don't you rather want to live in sins? You say: Thy will be done as it is in heaven and on earth; Are you not seeking your own will rather than God’s? Hey, yes! You say: Give us this day our daily bread; Don’t you say something else in your heart: I don’t need to ask You for this; I have without asking, so let the poor cry; or we greedily seek much and are not content with little or with what God has given us, we do not give thanks for what we have, but we must give thanks; You ask God in prayer: and forgive us our debts, just as we forgive our debtors; But don’t you think: I, not God knows what kind of sinner; I seem to live no worse than others and there is no need for me to ask for forgiveness of my debts or sins; or, while praying, do you have any displeasure, anger and, thus, are you blatantly lying in prayer to God; you say: lead us not into temptation; But don’t you yourself stumble upon, don’t you rush without temptation into all sorts of sins? You say: deliver us from evil; But don’t you yourself live in partnership with the evil one, or with evil of every kind, whose leader is the devil? - Be careful that your tongue is not at odds with your heart; do not lie, look to the Lord in your prayer. Always keep this in mind, both when you read the Lord’s Prayer and when you read other prayers; See if your heart agrees with what your tongue says? The purer the heart, the more spacious it is, the more it accommodates loved ones; the more sinful, the more cramped it is, the less capable it is of containing loved ones - to the point that it is limited to love only for oneself and that is false: we love ourselves in objects unworthy of an immortal soul: in silver and gold, in fornication, in drunkenness and the like. If the Lord imparts invincible, incomprehensible, Divine power to the Life-giving Cross, then what is surprising if He imparts the incomprehensible power to recreate our nature - to His Most Pure, Terrible and Life-Giving Mysteries of His Body and Blood. Oh, how great you are, Lord! and how wonderful are Your works! How infinite is Your omnipotence! Whatever is touched by Your power and Your grace becomes life-giving. If you want to correct someone’s shortcomings, do not think of correcting him by your own means: we ourselves spoil the matter more with our own passions, for example, pride and irritability that comes from there; but cast sorrow upon the Lord (Ps. 54:23) and pray to Him, who tests our hearts and bellies (Ps. 7:10) with all your heart, so that He Himself will enlighten the mind and heart of man; if He sees that your prayer breathes love and comes from the whole heart, then He will certainly fulfill the desire of your heart and you will soon say, having seen a change in the one for whom you are praying; This is the betrayal of the right hand of the Most High (Ps. 76:11). Who is it that arranges the ugly in flowers so wisely, subtly, beautifully, i.e. the formless, formless substance of the earth? Who gives him such an amazing shape? Creator, let us kiss Your wisdom, Your goodness, Your omnipotence in flowers. Our spiritual dispositions, even those not expressed by external signs, have a strong effect on the spiritual disposition of others. This happens all the time, although not everyone notices it. I get angry or have unfavorable thoughts about another: and he feels this and equally begins to have unfavorable thoughts about me. There is some means of communication between our souls and each other, besides bodily feelings; As for the action of the soul on others through the senses, then through the sense of sight the soul amazingly acts on another person, even if he were far from us, but only if he were accessible to our vision and was alone for this case, when we direct our gaze to him. This is how we can use our eyes to put another into an awkward position, into confusion. It happened to me more than once to look intently from the window of my house at those passing by the house - and they, as if attracted by some force to the very window from which I was looking, looked back at this window and looked for a human face in it; others came into some kind of confusion, suddenly quickened their pace, preened themselves, straightened their tie, hat, and so on. There is some secret here. Distinguish within yourself between the Life-giving Spirit and the deadening spirit that kills your soul. When good thoughts are in your soul, it is easy for you; when there is peace and joy in your heart, then you have a good spirit, the Holy Spirit; and when you have unkind thoughts or unkind movements of the heart, then it’s bad, it’s hard; when you are internally confused, then there is an evil spirit in you, an evil spirit. When there is an evil spirit in us, then, with tightness of heart and confusion, we usually feel the difficulty of reaching the Lord with our hearts, because the evil spirit binds the soul and does not allow it to rise to God. The evil spirit is the spirit of doubt, unbelief, passions, oppression, sorrow, confusion; and the good spirit is the spirit of undoubted faith, the spirit of virtues, the spirit of spiritual freedom and breadth, the spirit of peace and joy. By these signs, know when the Spirit of God is in you and when there is an evil spirit, and as often as possible rise with a grateful heart to the All-Holy Spirit, who revives and sanctifies you, and with all your might, flee doubt, unbelief and passions with which the spiritual serpent, the thief and murderer of our souls, creeps into our souls. There are in the lives of pious Christians hours of abandonment by God - hours of darkness of the devil, and then a person from the depths of his heart cries out to God: why have You cast me away from Your presence, O Light that never goes away? For now the alien darkness of the accursed, evil Satan has covered me, my entire soul; it is hard for the soul to be in its painful darkness, which gives one a premonition of the torments of a gloomy hell; turn me, Savior, to the light of Your commandments and correct my spiritual path, I fervently pray to You. You will not experience the actions of the evil machinations of the evil spirit, you will not recognize and honor as you should the benefits bestowed on you by the Good Spirit; Without recognizing the killing spirit, you will not recognize the Life-giving Spirit. Only because of the direct opposites of good and evil, life and death, do we clearly recognize both; without being exposed to troubles and the dangers of physical or spiritual death, you will not heartily recognize the Savior, the Giver of Life, who delivers from these troubles and from spiritual death; Oh, Jesus is the consolation, joy, life, peace and spaciousness of our hearts! Glory to God, the All-Wise and All-Good, that He allows the spirit of evil and death to tempt and torment us! Otherwise, how would we begin to value the consolation of grace, the consolation of the Comforting, Life-giving Spirit! The Lord God, as the Self-Belly and the abundance of life, Himself from eternity, as St. Gregory the Theologian, the feat of Three Persons and settled on Three, i.e. God is Father, Word and Spirit. You ask how there are three Persons in God? I answer: I don’t understand how, but I know that it should be this way and it cannot be otherwise. You will also ask: why is the third Person in God called Spirit and why is He a special Person, when God is without that a Spirit? - I answer: The Spirit of God is called Spirit in relation to creation: the Lord breathed His Hypostatic Spirit - and, at the beck of His life-giving Spirit, an innumerable multitude of spirits appeared: By the Spirit of His mouth all their power (Ps. 33:6); He breathed His Spirit into the human body: and man became a living soul (Gen. 2:7), and from this breath people are still being born and will be born until the end of the age according to the commandment: grow and multiply (Gen. 1:28). If the Lord created so many personal individual beings by His Spirit, then how could the Spirit of God Himself not be a Person or a personal creative Being? Wherever the Spirit wills, it breathes (John 3:8). You see, the Spirit is called the Spirit, as the Hypostasis of God. If there are countless created personal spirits, then should God Himself remain without a Spirit, as without His Person—Independent, Hypostasis? And the Son, the Wisdom of the Father, Personal, Living, is not necessary in God? Look at you. You are a creature; and there is such wisdom in you that very many are surprised at you; You sometimes create truly amazing things, and you are called the creator of these things. But it’s you – a small, weak creature. - How, judge now, can there not be self-personal Wisdom in God, how can there not be a Creator in God, how can He not have His own living, self-existent Wisdom? Look at everything in the world, how wise everything is! How amazing wisdom is visible in all the smallest things, the amazing fulfillment of an all-wise thought with amazing precision and impeccable purity! How can there not be Personal wisdom in God? Think about it: how did God, having created many rational, personal, wise, living beings, not give birth to personal Wisdom from Himself? Is this cool? Is this possible? Is this consistent with the perfections of the Creator? – So in God there must be Hypostatic Wisdom, or the Hypostatic Word of the Father, as well as the Life-Giving Spirit, proceeding from God the Father and resting in the Son. You have a material, impersonal breath, but with God, as the Life Itself, it is a personal Spirit, not spilled, but simple, reviving everything. The unnatural dominance of the flesh over the spirit is expressed, among other things, in the fact that the spirit seems to be buried in the flesh, bound by the flesh. This is especially evident when it comes to serving God: then a person rather approaches God only with his lips, flesh, falsely, and not with his heart, not with his spirit, not with the truth. In fact, we often live as if there is no spirit in us, and the highest degree of human corruption is revealed by the fact that the spirit is completely suppressed and man becomes, as it were, one flesh. My Spirit shall not abide in these men forever, for they are flesh (Gen. 6:3). Take a good look at the deeds of human reverence for God: you will see how here the flesh intensifies to gain predominance over the spirit. In the saints, the predominance of the spirit over the flesh is visible in the fact that they live in the spirit and see the spirit throughout the world, in everything - the wisdom, omnipotence and goodness of God; in all phenomena, in all deeds they see the imprint of the spirit; in sensual people, the preponderance of the flesh over the spirit is revealed by the fact that in everything they see only what appears to their senses and, as they say, do not see beyond their nose; A sensual, carnal man looks at the world and sees it, almost like an unreasonable animal, and is not surprised in it by the wisdom, the ever-present power and goodness of the Creator; reads a holy book - and sees only a letter in it; whether he prays: mechanically runs through prayers with his mind and does not penetrate into their spirit, does not know the art of bowing in spirit and truth. The flesh also dominates in the education of people. (Look, do they learn in institutions the most important Christian work - prayer, do they learn to see God?) The flesh will dominate the world until the end of the age, so that the Lord, having come to judge, will this find faith on earth (Luke 18:8)? (and unbelief is a work of the flesh), like the people of the first world. God is pleased that a person notices His actions in the heart, because He is Light and Truth, and the devil is in every possible way afraid of this, because he is darkness, a lie; but darkness does not come to the light, lest its deeds be exposed. The devil is only strong through darkness, through deception and lies: expose his lies, bring them to light, and everything will disappear. He deceives a person into all passions; through deception he puts people to sleep and does not allow them to see things in their true form. The devil's veil lies over quite a lot. Why does a sinful soul not first receive remission of its sins until it feels with all its heart all their folly, all their ruin, all their falsity? Because the heart is our soul; just as she committed sins, recognized them as pleasant, plausible, so she must repent of them, recognize them as disastrous, completely false. This repentance takes place precisely painfully in the heart, just as the desire for sin usually also occurs in the heart. Do not be embarrassed by the anger roaring in you and the bitterness rushing to pour out in words, but command it to be silent in you, to freeze. Otherwise, accustomed to seeing your obedience and flowing from your tongue, she will overcome you. Just as the water standing behind an earthen dam, having found a well, erodes it more and more and seeps through it, if we do not fasten it or weakly fasten it, and finally, with increasing weakening on our part and with frequent breakthroughs, the water breaks through strongly, and the further it goes, the stronger and stronger, so that finally it becomes very difficult, even impossible, to block it - so with the malice hiding in the heart of man: if we give it break through once, twice, and three times, it will flow out more and more and, finally, it can break completely and flood your dam. Know that there are waters of evil in the soul, as the Psalmist says: the waters came down into my soul (Ps. 68:2). When you sin against God, and your sins torment and burn you, then quickly seek the One Sacrifice for sins, eternal and living, and cast your sins before the Face of this Sacrifice. Otherwise, there is no salvation for you from anywhere. Don't think about saving yourself. The Lord could have created the whole world - heaven and earth - with His body, or without creating the world, instead of it, create for himself a church of the body; but only for you He deigned to create for Himself a body similar to yours, in order to save you, and, having created the world out of nothing, He creates only from a small substance of it His body to revive you, leaving the world to be what He created it. Oh, the goodness and mercy of God! We are of His flesh and of His bones (Eph.5:30) because of the communion of His life-giving Mysteries! The world, as the work of the Living, Wise God, is full of life: everywhere and in everything there is life and wisdom, in everything we see the expression of thought, both as a whole and in all parts. This is a real book from which one can, although not as clearly as from revelation, learn the knowledge of God. Before the world became, there was only the living, infinite God; when the world was called into being from non-existence, God, of course, did not become limited, all the fullness of life and infinity remained with Him; but this fullness of life and infinity was also expressed in creatures, living and organic, of which there are immeasurably many and all endowed with life. The limitations of the world and especially of man. The world is like a support point for bodily creatures, so that they do not disappear into infinity. The writings of the Word of God speak more truly and clearly about the world than the world itself or the arrangement of the layers of the earth: the writings of nature within it, as dead and voiceless, do not express anything definite. Where were you, O man, when you founded the earth (Job 38:4)? Were you with God when He created the universe? Who understands the mind of the Lord, or who is His adviser (Is. 40:13). And you, geologists, boast that you have understood the mind of the Lord in the construction of the layers of the earth and claim this in defiance of the sacred description of life! You believe more in the dead letters of the layers of the earth, in the soulless earth, than in the divinely inspired words of the great prophet and God-seer Moses. You wonder how the saints from heaven listen to us when we pray to them. And how do the rays of the sun from heaven bow down to us and shine everywhere - all over the earth? Saints are the same in the spiritual world as the rays of the sun are in the material world. God is the eternal, life-giving Sun, and the saints are the rays of the intelligent Sun. Just as the eyes of the Lord constantly look at the earth and earth-born, so the eyes of the saints cannot help but turn to where the providential gaze of the Lord is directed to the creatures and where their treasure is (their bodies, their deeds, sacred places, faces devoted to them). Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also (Matthew 6:21). You know how the heart sees quickly, far and clearly (especially objects of the spiritual world); notice this in all knowledge, especially in spiritual knowledge, where very much is learned only by faith (the vision of the heart). The heart is the eye of the human being; the purer it is, the faster, further and clearer it sees. But among the saints of God, this spiritual eye, even during their lifetime, was brought to the purity possible for a person, and after their death, when they united with God, by the grace of God it became even brighter and more extensive within the limits of its vision. That is why the saints see very clearly, widely and far; see our spiritual needs; they see and hear everyone who calls on them with all their hearts, i.e. those whose intelligent eyes are directly directed towards them and are not darkened or eclipsed during aspiration by doubt and lack of faith, when the eyes of the hearts of those who pray coincide, so to speak, with the eyes of those who are called upon. Mysterious vision here! An experienced person understands what is being said. Therefore, how easy it is to have communication with the saints! You just need to clear the vision of your heart, direct it firmly towards a well-known saint, ask for what you need - and it will happen. What does the Lord say about vision? He is all sight, all light, all knowledge. He always fills heaven and earth and sees everything in every place. In every place the Eyes of the Lord behold the evil and the good (Prov. 15:3). Heartfelt faith in the spiritual world, especially in the spiritual all-enlightening and all-reviving Sun, pleases and enlivens the soul that has an immaculate conscience. Faith must reach the vision of the heart. This means that the soul must rise, as it were, above sensuality, above its corporeal, dark nature, and penetrate itself - perhaps with the pure vision of the heart - into the spiritual world. This is where she will feel good, this is where her true life, her peace and joy are. Experience. Imagination and representation are the vision of the heart or soul, creating or reproducing a known object: that is why it is quick, instantaneous, and has a spiritual character. This is a daguerreotype or photograph taken by the soul from a known object. Reason is the painter who takes pictures from this photograph. If the Lord had not been humane and long-suffering, would He have endured such great insults from us, would He have become incarnate, would He have suffered, would He have died for you, Would He have given you His most pure Body and Blood, which the Angels look at with fear and trembling? Would I begin to deliver you from sins and from spiritual death so infinitely many times? He would then say: suffer, if you are so evil, I will not deliver you anymore, having delivered so many hitherto, but now He has been suffering countless insults from us all his life and is still waiting for our conversion. Glorify His love and patience. Imagine what would have happened without Him, without His salvation! Terror and trembling embrace the soul. But unrepentant sinners will finally suffer the wrath of God itself on the day of wrath and revelation of God’s righteous judgment (Rom. 2:5). When starting to pray to the Queen Theotokos, before praying, be firmly confident that you will not leave Her without receiving mercy. To think this way and be confident about Her is worthy and righteous. She is the All-Merciful Mother of the All-Merciful God the Word, and all centuries and all Christian Churches proclaim Her mercies, innumerably great and countless; She is definitely an abyss of goodness and generosity, as it is said about Her in the canon of Hodegetria 2. Therefore, approaching Her in prayer without such confidence would be unreasonable and impudent, and doubt would offend Her goodness, just as the goodness of God is insulted when one approaches God in prayer and does not hope to receive from Him what is asked. How do they rush for mercy to some tall and rich person, whose mercy everyone knows, who has proven his mercy through numerous experiments? Usually with the calmest confidence and hope of getting from him what they want. So we must not doubt in prayer, and not be cowardly. Just as a mother teaches a baby to walk, so the Lord teaches us living faith in him. The mother will put the baby down, leave him to himself, and go away, then tell the baby to go to her. The baby cries without his mother, wants to go to her, but is afraid to try to take a step, tries to approach, takes a step and falls. So the Lord teaches a Christian to have faith in Him, like walking (faith is a spiritual path): our faith is so weak, so elementary, like a baby learning to walk. The Lord leaves him with His help and gives him over to the devil or various disasters and sorrows, and then, when help is desperately needed, to get rid of them (when we have no need for salvation, until then we are ready not to go to Him), as if he orders us to look at Himself (be sure to look at Him) and go to Him for this help; a Christian strengthens himself to do this, opens the eyes of his heart (like a baby spreading his legs), strengthens them to see the Lord, but the heart, not taught to see God, is afraid of its courage, stumbles and falls: the enemy and the innate depravity of sin close his opening heart eyes, separate him from the Lord, and he cannot approach; and the Lord is close, ready to take you to Himself, as if in your arms, just approach Him by faith, and - when you make an effort to completely see Him with the eyes of your heart of faith, you fall on Him with your heart's vision - then He Himself extends a helping hand, as if taking you in your arms and driving away your enemies, and the Christian feels that he has fallen into the arms of the Savior Himself. Glory to Thy goodness and wisdom, O Lord! So, in violence from the devil and in all sorrows, one must vividly see with one’s heart, as if before one’s eyes, the humane Womb of the Savior; look boldly into this Womb, as into an inexhaustible treasury of goodness and generosity, and pray to Him with all my heart that He will give us from this inexhaustible source of goodness and spiritual help: and immediately what we ask will be received. The main thing: faith or heartfelt vision of the Lord and hope to receive everything from Him, as the All-Good One. Truly! From experience! By this the Lord also teaches us to recognize our extreme moral weakness without Him, to be contrite in heart and to be in a constant prayerful mood! There is no reason for a Christian to have any malice in his heart against anyone; malice, like malice, is the work of the devil; a Christian should have only love in his heart; and since love does not think evil, it should not think any evil regarding others, for example: I should not think about another without a clear reason, that he is angry, proud, etc., or - if I, for example, show respect to him, he will become proud - if I forgive the offense, he will again harm me, laugh at me. It is necessary that evil does not nest within us under any guise; and malice usually comes in too many forms. Peace and abundance of life of the heart after communion is the greatest, invaluable gift of the Lord Jesus Christ, surpassing all gifts related to the body and taken together. Without spiritual peace - with crampedness and torment of the heart - a person cannot enjoy any benefits, neither material nor spiritual; for him then there are no pleasures that come from the sense of truth, goodness and beauty, because the very center of his life - the heart, or inner man - is suppressed and killed. Unite your soul with God through heartfelt faith and you can do everything. Are you being fought by strong, invisible, never-ending enemies? You will win. Enemies visible, external? You will win. Tormented by passions? You will overcome. Suppressing sorrows? You will disgust me. Are you discouraged? You will get courage. With faith you can overcome everything and you will receive the Kingdom of Heaven itself. Faith is the greatest good in earthly life: it connects a person with God and in him makes him strong and victorious. Cling to the Lord; you are one spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17). The Lord, in His goodness, gave us, undeservedly on our part, to see and enjoy the sun and the light of the sun; He will also give us to enjoy His unapproachable light. Let the light of the sun be your guarantee of this, but especially the quiet light of the holy glory of the Heavenly Father - His only begotten Son, given to us, and the Spirit of love, given into our hearts. Looking at God's world, what do I see? I see everywhere an extraordinary breadth and playfulness of life: in the animal kingdom, among four-legged animals, between reptiles, insects, birds, between fish. Now the question is: why is the cramped and sorrowful path of life for a person and especially for people who are zealous for piety? The Lord has spread life, contentment and joy everywhere everywhere, and all creatures, except man, glorify the Creator with contentment, life and playful joy. Why am I at odds with general life? Am I not a creation of the same Creator? The solution is simple. Our lives are poisoned either by ourselves, by sin, or by the disembodied enemy, especially by him and especially by those people who strive in piety. The life of a person - a true Christian - is ahead, in the next century; there all joys and complete bliss will open up for him. But here he is an exile and under punishment: here sometimes all of nature arms itself against him for sin, not to mention the original enemy, who, like a lion, walks roaring, looking for someone to devour (1 Pet. 5:8). So, I am not embarrassed by why there is joy and contentment everywhere in the world, but there is often no joy in me and I look gloomily at the joy and spaciousness of God’s creatures. I have an executioner for sin, this executioner is always with me and beats me. But joy will come for me too, just not here, but in another world. Looking at the world of God, I see everywhere the extraordinary generosity of God in the gifts of nature: the surface of the earth is like a rich meal, prepared in abundance and variety by the most loving and generous owner; The depths of the waters also serve to nourish man. What to say about four-legged animals and birds. And there is so much generosity in delivering food and clothing to a person! The bounties of the Lord are endless. Look what the earth does not deliver in summer and autumn. So, every Christian, especially a priest, imitate the generosity of the Lord, so that your table will be open to everyone as the Lord’s table. The stingy is the enemy of the Lord. A tree established by its roots in the earth grows and bears fruit. The human soul, confirmed by faith and love in God as spiritual roots, also lives, grows spiritually and bears the fruits of godly virtues, by which the soul lives and will live in the next century. A tree uprooted from the ground ceases the life it received from the ground through its roots. So the human soul, having lost faith and love in God and does not abide in God, in Whom its whole life is, dies spiritually. What the earth is for plants, God is for the soul. In order not to be servile to passions and the devil every day, you need to set yourself a goal, constantly keep it in mind and strive for it, conquering all obstacles in the name of the Lord. What is this goal? The kingdom of heaven, the divine palace of glory, prepared for believers from the foundation of the world. But since the goal is achieved by known means, it is necessary to have these means at one’s disposal. What are these means? Faith, hope and love, especially love. Believe, hope, love, especially love, despite any obstacles, God most of all, and every neighbor as yourself. You do not have the strength to keep in your heart these priceless treasures of the human spirit, fall more often to the God of love, ask, seek, tell: you will receive, you will find, it will be opened (Matthew 7:7-8), - the One who promised is faithful. Walking, sitting, lying down, talking, studying, at all times, pray with your heart for the gift of faith and love. You have not asked yet, as you should, with fervor and constancy, you did not have a firm intention to acquire them. From now on say: Behold, I have begun. When on the path to God you encounter obstacles presented by the devil: doubt and unbelief of the heart, sometimes also heartfelt malice towards persons deserving unconditional respect and love, as well as other passions, do not be indignant at them, but know that they are the smoke and stench of the enemy, which will pass from the one mania of the Lord Jesus Christ. When educating youth, what should we strive for most? About obtaining for him the enlightened desire of the heart (Eph. 1:18). Don't you notice that our heart is the first agent in our life and in almost all our knowledge; the vision of known truths (ideas) with the heart precedes mental knowledge. It happens like this in knowledge: the heart sees at once, inseparably, instantly, then this single act of vision of the heart is transferred to the mind and in the mind it is decomposed into parts, sections appear: previous, subsequent; the vision of the heart in the mind receives its analysis. The idea belongs to the heart, not to the mind, to the inner man, not to the outer. Therefore, it is a very important matter to have an enlightened search of the heart (Eph. 1:18), with all knowledge, but especially with the knowledge of the truths of faith and the rules of morality. The future life is the perfect purity of the now gradually cleansed heart, which is most often closed, darkened by sin and the devil’s breath, and sometimes, through the action of God’s grace, it becomes clearer and sees God, uniting with Him sincerely, in prayer and the Sacrament of Communion. How to celebrate holidays? We celebrate either an event (to delve into the greatness of the event, its purpose, its fruits for believers), or a person, such as: the Lord, the Mother of God, the Angels and the saints (to delve into the attitude of that person towards God and humanity, into his beneficial influence on the Church of God in general). You need to delve into the history of an event or person, approach the event or person with your heart, absorb them into yourself, otherwise the holiday will be imperfect, unpleasing. Holidays should have an impact on our lives, should enliven, warm our faith (hearts) in future blessings and nourish pious good morals. But they go through more sin, as they are met with unreasonably little faith, a cold heart, often not at all prepared for the feeling of those great blessings of God that God bestowed through a certain celebrated person or event. You never know what kind of evil is in your soul, but “not everything that is in the oven comes to the table.” Let it be known to God alone, who knows everything secret and hidden, and do not show people all your impurities, do not infect them with the breath of the evil hidden in you, close the stove: let the smoke of evil die in you. Tell God your sadness, that your soul is full of evil and your life is close to hell, and show people a bright, gentle face. What do they care about your madness? Or announce your illness to your confessor or friend, so that they can enlighten you, guide you, and hold you back. Looking at heaven, contemplate the Lord Jesus in its heights, from where He appeared to the first martyr Stephen and Saul, and beg Him for salvation. His appearance does not mean that He then only allegedly opened the heavens and looked at them from the open heavens, but that He always sees us all from heaven, all our deeds, words, thoughts and intentions, as you have been convinced of this by many experiences, lifting your eyes to heaven to the Lord and receiving wonderful and great help from Him: this only means that in the indicated cases He opened up, revealed Himself in heaven. To sin is a great disadvantage and madness; for the sinner man despises himself and turns away from the human community, because the inner tightness of the heart and the worm of the heart make any society difficult for him, which does not correspond to him in space, the breadth of his life. The sinner is cramped in the vast world of God, because peace is the work of the All-Holy and Righteous God; and a sinner who does not obey the laws of God, the laws of love and peace, is a monster of God’s creation, who has no place in the world; This is why he is cramped: he is persecuted by God, his own conscience, persecuted by His entire creation. With thoughts of doubt, disbelief, blasphemy - who suffers: is it the object about which they doubt, do not believe, which is blasphemed, or those who doubt, do not believe, blaspheme? These are the last ones. They are then afraid of fear, where there is no fear (Ps. 13:5), they are tormented by their doubt, unbelief, blasphemy; and the object of their agony remains firm, motionless and takes obvious advantage over them by the fact that it forces them to change their thoughts about it for their own peace of mind and does not allow them to calm down until they repent of their previous, false thoughts regarding it and bring favorable, true thoughts. Therefore, it is foolish to hesitate and be indignant, and even more so to become faint-hearted and discouraged in spirit when thoughts of doubt, unbelief, blasphemy, and other similar things come during prayer or at other times. This is all satanic charm. Anger or any other passion, settling in the heart, strives - according to the indispensable law of evil - to pour out. That is why they usually say about an evil or angry person that he took out his anger on this and that, or took out his anger on that and that. The trouble with evil is that it does not remain only in the heart, but tries to spread outward. From this it is already clear that the author of evil is himself great and has a vast area in which he reigns. The whole world lies in evil (1 John 5:19). Just as vapors or gases, having accumulated in abundance in a locked place, tend to erupt out, so passions, like the breath of the spirit of malice, filling the human heart, also tend to spill out of one person onto others and infect the souls of others with their stench. If God gave us existence - the greatest gift of goodness, if after we fell away from Him and fell from life to death, He gave us His Son to regenerate us, to bring us to life, then how small are all the other benefits that we ask Him in prayer, so that at the first sincere word of faith He can grant them to us, if they are essential for us, and how inexcusable we are when we doubt receiving them from God in prayer. The Savior said directly: ask, and it will be given to you (Matthew 7:7). Here, in a world of vanity, in an adulterous and sinful world, worms and aphids constantly and often imperceptibly corrupt our souls and bodies, mental thieves dig in and steal... the treasures of the soul (Matt. 6:19), truth and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17). What is the sure remedy for this constant corruption of sin, for these mental thieves? Prayer of repentance and faith. She revives, resurrects our soul, which is decaying in seductive lusts, drives away mental thieves; she is their scourge, but for us she is the source of strength, life and salvation. - Glory to the Lord for this! Prayer both protects and delivers us from sin. We live well with the prayer of faith, for in prayer we live with the Lord, Who promised all blessings to those who ask: 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). - Glory, Lord, to Your all-true words. God! Grant to all who ask You, through my unworthiness, various blessings, the petitions of their hearts. Amen - wake up! If you want the Lord to give heartfelt faith to your prayer, try from the bottom of your heart to say and do everything with people sincerely and do not at all be double-minded with them. When you are straightforward and trusting with people, then the Lord will give you straightforwardness and sincere faith in relation to God. The Lord inconveniently accepts someone who is not straightforward with people in prayer, making him feel that he is insincere in his attitude towards people, and therefore cannot be completely sincere in his attitude towards God, without spiritual suffering. A person subject to passions, what do you need? Life, you say. What are you fussing about? Because of life. But are you living a true life? Reason and experience force us to say no. So what makes up your life? Faith, hope and love - reason and experience tell me. The life of our soul is God, living faith in Him and love for Him, love for people like me - they are the peace and breadth of my heart, without them I am a martyr of sin, a slave, a slave of passions; My life passes in sorrow and distress. Here too I rest in Christ with Christ; How can I not believe that after death, eternal rest awaits me in Him after the fight against earthly enemies! Even here, without Christ, it’s hard and painful for me; How can I not believe that it will be all the more painful for me without Him there, when He finally rejects me from His Face! Thus, the current state of our souls prefigures the future. The future will be a continuation of the present internal state, only in a changed form relative to its degree: for the righteous it will turn into the fullness of eternal glory, for sinners - into the fullness of eternal torment. It is good for me to cleave to God,” says David (Ps. 72:28), who experienced sweetness in prayer and praise to God. Other people confirm the same, and I, too, am a sinner. Note: even here - on earth - it is good and good to cleave to God (when we are in sinful flesh, which has many of its own pleasant or unpleasant). How good it will be to unite with God there - in heaven! And the bliss of clinging to God here on earth is a model and guarantee of the bliss of clinging to God after death - in eternity. Do you see how good, merciful, and true the Creator is to assure you of future bliss that comes from union with Him. He allows you to experience the firstfruits of this bliss here on earth when you sincerely approach Him. Yes, my invisible soul really still rests here in the invisible God, which means that after detachment from the body it will rest in Him all the more. The spirit is strong and powerful, which is why it easily carries heavy matter; and the flesh is inert, powerless, and therefore it is easily suppressed by its native substance. Therefore, God, as nothing, carries the whole world with His mighty Word (Heb. 1:3); That’s why the spirit of a person blessed with grace easily, with God’s help, subjugates his flesh, even the flesh of others - to their spirit (as we see in the saints), easily copes with the letter of the word in prayer, transforming it all into the spirit; and the carnal man at every step submits to his flesh and is burdened by the letter of prayer, which he is unable to turn into spirit, being himself flesh, or to penetrate his unclean, embodied spirit into its pure, holy spirit. Man is continually lost to sin and needs a constant daily savior. This savior is Jesus Christ, the Son of God; just cry to Him inwardly with living, clairvoyant faith for salvation, and He will save you! Thus He miraculously saved me countless times; this salvation was as obvious as, for example, some deliverer clearly comes to a prison and delivers a prisoner from it. The priest himself needs to experience the power of faith, and the sweetness of prayer, and the remission of sins, and when it is unsuccessful, and spiritual sorrows when they befall, and gracious consolations, so that in prayer to God about believers he can say this: grant them the same benefit as You always grant it to me, unworthy, in order to ask for everything from my own experience. He is close to his heart, it speaks of two unequal persons, one of whom patronizes the other. And the one who has been awarded the patronage of the highest and closeness to his heart knows about this and is mutually close to him in his heart. This is what happens between God and people who serve Him with a pure heart: God is always close to the hearts of these people and they are close to God’s heart. This should be the case when every Christian prays: when praying, we must certainly be close to God in our hearts. Our good, sincere relationships with people must be transferred to God. Remember that you always walk in the presence of the Sweetest Jesus. Tell yourself more often: I want to live in such a way that my life pleases my Love, crucified on the cross for me. I will especially take for myself a companion and friend of my life, Holy Love, who contains everyone in my heart, thirsting for the salvation of all, rejoicing with those who rejoice and weeping with those who weep: this will especially comfort my Comforter Christ. Parents and educators! Protect your children with all care from the whims before you, otherwise the children will soon forget the value of your love, infect their hearts with malice, early lose the holy, sincere, ardent love of their hearts, and upon reaching adulthood they will bitterly complain that in their youth they were cherished too much and indulged in the whims of their hearts. Caprice is the germ of heart corruption, the rust of the heart, the moth of love, the seed of malice, an abomination to the Lord. The mystery of the cleansing of sins is especially performed in the church. Reverence the place where the cleansing of your spiritual impurities takes place, where you are reconciled with God, where you receive the true life of the spirit. How many times has the Lord given me here the cleansing of my sins, without which I could not enjoy the gifts of God: the greatest gift of life, the gifts of peace and joy and material blessings! Glory to You, Jesus, Son of God! You are cleansing for our sins, not for ours specifically, but for the whole world! (1 John 2:2). There is nothing more changeable than matter; it changes into millions of species in a natural way, according to the laws of the Creator: not to mention the wonderful changes, for example, fire into dew, water into blood, water into wine, staff into a serpent, even a person sometimes changes matter into thousands of species, what can we say about God, who created everything? The property of a substance is changeability. The Lord does not do this and does not want to do this with the rational spirit: the property of the spirit is immutability. But improvement in goodness is the work of the rational, created spirit. That triumph of spirit over matter is that spirit changes it into thousands of species. Notice, for example, how this spirit changes matter in the plant kingdom, how the forms of plants are infinitely varied and all from one earth: one light of the sun, one air, one water, one earth. And the bodies of animals - how diverse they are! So, the property of matter is changeability; Under this condition, the world was created with all its diversity. Glory to the One, eternally unchanging God - the omnipotent Creator! If matter were unchangeable, then God would not be omnipotent. Glory to spiritual nature! May she always conquer material nature! Ask God to give you consistency in goodness. Why is it that we remember human grievances and are angry and angry at those who offend us, but we very quickly forget the devil’s grievances, the most evil, most harmful and continuous, even though we were wronged by him a thousand times a day; Meanwhile, how do we sometimes hold one insult of a person in our hearts for more than one day? This is the devil's charm! The devil cleverly knows how to deceive us: while offending us himself, he always hides behind our own pride, as if wanting to please us at first through the movement of a certain passion, although afterwards he always kills, and we get bitterly from him for our stupid, unreasonable pride. He always magnifies the insults inflicted on us by others a hundred times and presents them in a false form: and again here he hides behind our pride, as if jealous of our well-being, which others allegedly think to destroy with their insults. Two forces, completely opposite to each other, influence me: a good force and an evil force, a vital force and a deadly force. As spiritual forces, they are both invisible. The good force, through my free and sincere prayer, always drives away the evil force, and the evil force is strong only because of the evil hiding within me. In order not to endure the continuous oppression of the evil spirit, you must constantly have the Jesus Prayer in your heart: Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me. Against the invisible (the devil) - the invisible God, against the strong - the Strongest. If people - weak, transitory, mortal creatures - do so many great and wondrous deeds with the powers and abilities given to them by God, if sometimes many millions of people obey the word of one person, then what will not the All-Center of human life do that does not obey His word? Remember the words of the centurion: “I,” he says, “and a man under authority, but having soldiers under my command, I will say to one: go, and he goes, and to another: come, and he comes, and to a third: do this, and he does (Luke 7:8). Further, if many animals are gifted with the art of doing various amazing things that man cannot do - animals that we trample under our feet, which are so insignificant and weak - then what will not the Creator of everything do, who generously endowed everyone with all kinds of art, all kinds of abilities and powers! If soulless plants exist today and are swept into the oven in the morning (Matthew 6:30), at His word they are formed into such tender and beautiful forms, if we see every substance subordinate to His word and modified to immeasurable extent (to infinity) according to His mania (through only the five elements), then who else, seeing all this, will demand the guarantees of His omnipotence! Wonderful are Your works, O Lord! at every step in every moment of life. Fill heaven and earth with the glory of Your wisdom, the glory of Your goodness, the glory of Your omnipotence! You are not only the wise Creator Yourself and constantly reveal Yourself to be the wise Creator, but You have given Your creatures the creative ability and they do, according to Your word, with the powers given to them, amazing and useful things. Oh, in what splendor you have clothed yourself! How we have humiliated ourselves, our nature with sins; but how dear and high we are in the eyes of God! God did not spare His Son for us, but clothed Him in our flesh, in our entire nature, for our salvation; He has prepared for us from the foundation of the world an eternal kingdom; our essentially good Angels rejoice at our conversion; - what about us? We don’t even want to know this and we humiliate ourselves more and more, destroying our souls with various vices and worldly addictions. It is pitiful, inexpressibly pitiful to look at man - this creature created in the image of God, especially at a Christian who has been awarded such a high calling, who has been honored so much, who has been blessed by God. Forced prayer develops hypocrisy, makes one incapable of any activity that requires reflection, and makes a person sluggish in everything, even in fulfilling his duties. This should convince everyone praying in this way to correct their prayer. One must pray willingly, with energy, from the heart. Neither out of sorrow, nor out of need (forcibly) pray to God - God loves a willing giver (2 Cor. 9:7). In all the churches not made by hands of the bodies of pious Christians there is an intelligent light - the soul, and that light is from the intelligent Sun - God, Whom we see in the world as the soul does in the body. I notice how the mental Sun - God - enters and shines in my soul: for then it becomes easy, warm, and light for me, and how it moves away from it and leaves it in darkness and suffering. Just as in material nature the cause of darkness is the removal or concealment of the sun, so in spiritual nature darkness comes from the removal of the mental Sun from our soul and from covering it with the darkness of the accursed. Just as in material nature there is always some remnant of light even after the sun sets, due to its incomparable magnitude; So, in the soul, a certain remnant of light remains even after the removal of the spiritual Sun, due to His omnipresence and due to the comparative powerlessness of the prince of darkness, who, without God’s permission, cannot completely darken the soul. But we must also be wary of this, lest, as the Savior said, darkness completely overtake us (John 12:35). When you receive healing from any illness, give thanks to the Lord with the following brief praise: Glory to You, Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son, the beginningless Father, who alone heals every ailment and every disease among people (Matthew 4:23), for you have had mercy on me, a sinner, and delivered me from my illness, without allowing it develop and kill me according to my sins. Grant me from now on, Master, the strength to firmly do Your will for the salvation of my damned soul and for Your glory with Your beginningless Father and Your consubstantial Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen. What is a pure heart? - Meek, humble, unkind, simple, trusting, undeceitful, unsuspicious, kindly, kind, unselfish, unenvious, non-adulterous. My soul! remember your heavenly dignity and do not be indignant over perishable and insignificant things. Respect their heavenly dignity in other people and do not dare to insult or hate them because of something perishable. Love the spiritual and heavenly with all your might and despise the material and earthly. Remember the words of your Savior: give us our daily bread this day, only this day. Great Christian wisdom is hidden in these words. Remember also how the Lord Himself showed in His life an example of carelessness about food and was content only with voluntary offerings: My food is that I may do the will of Him who sent Me, and complete His work (John 4:34). Do you hate the enemy? You're stupid. Why? Because when the enemy persecutes you, you are also internally persecuting yourself, for tell me, isn’t persecution, isn’t the most cruel persecution - to torment yourself with hatred of the enemy? Love your enemy and you will be wise. Oh, if you only knew what a triumph, what a bliss it is to love an enemy and do good to him! Thus the Son of God, thus God in the Holy Trinity, has triumphed and triumphs with His love over the ungrateful and malevolent human race; Thus the saints of God triumphed over their enemies, loving them and doing good to them. Because we are a sinner, Christ died for us... Even if we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we will be saved in His life (Rom. 5:8, 10). Do not be discouraged while fighting the incorporeal enemy, but glorify the Lord in the very sorrow and crampedness, who has made you worthy for Him to endure the struggle with the insidious serpent and to be hurt for Him at every hour; for if you had not begun to live piously and strive to unite with God, then the enemy would not have attacked you and would not have tormented you. Glory to You, Savior, Almighty Power! glory to You, Savior, Omnipresent Power! Glory to Thee, most merciful Womb! Glory to Thee, ever-opening Hearing to hear the prayer of the accursed me, to have mercy on me and save me from my sins! Glory to Thee, brightest Eyes, looking at me with kindness and perceiving all my secrets! Glory to Thee, glory to Thee, glory to Thee, Sweetest Jesus, my Savior! Heartfelt faith is necessary for a person, because the light of our mind is very limited, it does not contain much intelligent light, and the Lord God is an infinite Light, and the world is the abyss of His omnipotence and wisdom, while in us there is only an insignificant, so to speak, drop of His power and wisdom, because we could contain so much, and not more, in our mortal body. The earth is hard and inert, although it moves around the sun very quickly; water is liquid and fast and therefore they say fast flowing; the air is even thinner, thinner and faster and therefore it moves, for example in the winds, very quickly; light, light is even thinner and faster, and in one second it passes through an incredible amount of space. If the light is so subtle and passes through a huge space in the most insignificant shortness of time, then what must the created spirit be like and how light and fast should it be; finally, what should the uncreated Spirit—the Lord Himself—be like? How is He immeasurable? If light per second spreads with terrifying speed, then how quickly does the uncreated Light, the Source of all light and everything created, spread in created intelligent spirits; finally, how does the Light, which created everything, embrace all its creations, all the abysses of the worlds? Glory to You, immaterial, uncreated Light, enlightening every person coming into the world (John 1:9)! Most people voluntarily carry the satanic burden in their hearts, but are so accustomed to it that they often do not feel it and even increase it imperceptibly. Sometimes, however, the evil enemy increases his weight in them tenfold, and then they become terribly despondent, faint-hearted, grumble, and blaspheme the name of God. The usual means of driving away melancholy among people of this century are evenings, cards, dances, theaters. But these remedies then further increase boredom and languor of the heart. If, by luck, they turn to God, then the heaviness falls from their hearts, and they see clearly that previously the greatest burden lay on their hearts, although they often did not feel it. Oh, how many people are there who have forsaken the Lord, the Fountain of living waters, and dug up broken treasures for themselves, who cannot contain (living) water (Jer. 2:13). People have a lot of these broken wells - almost everyone has their own. Contrite treasures are our hearts, our passions. When you see shortcomings and passions in your neighbor, pray for him; pray for everyone, even your enemy. If you see a proud and obstinate brother speaking proudly to you or to others, pray for him, so that God will enlighten his mind and warm his heart with the fire of His grace, say: Lord, teach Your servant, who has fallen into the pride of the devil, meekness and humility and remove from his heart the darkness and burden of satanic pride! - If you see an evil one, pray: Lord, do good to this servant of Yours through Your grace! - If he is money-loving and greedy, say: Our treasure is incorruptible and our wealth is inexhaustible! Grant to this Thy servant, created in Thy image and likeness, to know the flattery of wealth, and like all earthly vanity, shadow and sleep. The days of every man are like grass, or like a spider, and like You alone are our wealth, peace and joy! - When you see an envious person, pray: Lord, enlighten the mind and heart of this Thy servant to the knowledge of Thy great, countless and unsearchable gifts, which they have received from Thy countless bounties, for in the blindness of their passion they have forgotten Thy rich gifts, and are impoverished to be imputed to themselves, rich in Thy blessings, and for this reason deceiving the good. Thy servants, in the image, O most inexhaustible Goodness, Thou hast afflicted everyone, in every way against his power and according to the intention of Thy will. Take away, O all-merciful Master, the veil of the devil from the sight of the heart of Your servant and grant him heartfelt contrition and tears of repentance and gratitude, so that the enemy will not rejoice over him, captured alive from him into his will, and may he not tear him away from Your hand. - When you see a drunken person, say with your heart: Lord, look mercifully on Your servant, seduced by the flattery of the belly and carnal joy, grant him to know the sweetness of abstinence and fasting and the fruits of the spirit that flow from it. - When you see someone who is passionate about food and places his bliss in them, say: Lord, our sweetest food, which never perishes, but abides in eternal life! cleanse this Thy servant from the filth of gluttony, all that is made flesh and alien to Thy Spirit, and grant him to know the sweetness of Thy life-giving spiritual meat, which is Thy Flesh and Blood and Thy holy, living and effective word. - So, or in a similar way, pray for all those who sin and do not dare to despise anyone for his sin, or to take revenge on him, for this would only increase the ulcers of those who sin; correct with advice, threats and punishments that would serve as a means to stop or keep evil within the boundaries of moderation. From the action in our heart of two opposing forces, of which one strongly opposes the other and forcibly, insidiously invades our heart, always killing it, and the other is chastely offended by all impurity, quietly moves away from the slightest heart impurity, and when it acts in us, then it pacifies, delights, enlivens and delights our heart, i.e. from two personal opposing forces, it is easy to be convinced that there is undoubtedly both the devil, as the everlasting murderer, and Christ, as the everlasting Life-Giver and Savior; one is darkness, death, the other is Light and life. Therefore, lover of God, if you sometimes notice in your mind and heart extreme darkness, sorrow, melancholy, crampedness and unbelief, as a force that strongly opposes the faith of God, then know that in you there is a force hostile to Christ - the devil. This dark and killing force, having crept into our hearts through some sin of the heart, often prevents us from calling on Christ and the saints, hiding them behind the darkness of unbelief. For what? In order to torment a person, because faith saves us from his wiles. But this is what she proves that there is a sovereign power of Christ God that is contrary to her, to which she does not allow us through the abomination of unbelief and which, through our faith, crushes her and contains her herself in the bonds of darkness for future judgment (Jude 1:6). Therefore, you need to make every effort to call on Christ the Savior with faith. Every Christian needs to acquire the skill of hastily turning to God with a request for everything (as weakness to the Source of all strength and every good): let your requests be made to God with thanksgiving (Phil. 4:6), give thanks in everything (1 Thess. 5:18) and with doxology, in the likeness of the Angels crying out: Alleluia. The greatest gift of God, which we most need and which we receive very often from God as a result of our prayer, is peace of heart, as the Savior says: come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28). And rejoice and consider yourself rich, having everything, when you have received the world. Let everyone constantly remember that he is God’s in soul and body and in all the needs of the soul and body depends at every moment of his existence on God, and therefore let him turn to Him whenever he feels a need for something (soul and body), when, for example, his mental or physical existence is embarrassed, i.e. when he is struck by sorrows (spiritual illnesses) or passions (physical illnesses), then when the elements threaten him with their inconstancy (fire, water, air, storm), when he undertakes to do something. May he then remember the One Creator, who created everything from nothingness and gave His creatures various powers to do many and various things. Every good thought presupposes in us a good, higher principle that sacredly teaches our soul. This is obvious from the fact that all goodness seems to be hidden somewhere in us, and we try in vain to contain in our hearts what was previously, as it were, its property. How true are the words of the Apostle: what have you received? (every good thought, all natural gifts) did you also receive that you boasted as if it were not received (1 Cor. 4:7)? We notice in ourselves the struggle of faith with unbelief, of good power with evil, and in the world - the spirit of churchliness with the spirit of the world. There, in spirit, you will clearly distinguish two opposite sides: the side of light and the side of darkness, good and evil, churchliness, religiosity and secularism, unbelief. Do you know why this is? - from the struggle of two opposing forces: the power of God and the power of the devil. The Lord works in sons who submit to Himself, and the devil works in sons of disobedience (the same spirit now works in sons of disobedience (Eph. 2:2)). And I often feel within myself a struggle between two opposing forces. When I begin to pray, sometimes an evil force presses painfully and sinks my heart so that it cannot ascend to God. The surer and stronger the means that unites us with God (prayer and repentance), the more destructive actions are directed against it by the enemy of God and ours, who uses everything for this: our body, which is disposed towards laziness, and the weakness of the soul, its attachment to earthly goods and worries, doubt so close to everyone, lack of faith, unbelief, nasty, crafty and blasphemous thoughts, heaviness of heart, darkness of thought - everything is directed. for those who are inattentive, the action of the enemy causes them to falter in prayer, on this ladder that leads us to God. That is why there are very few sincere and zealous prayer books; That is why Christians fast very rarely - they repent and receive communion; Perhaps half of them would not have fasted if civil law had not commanded everyone to attend confession and Holy Communion every year. Those who have experienced know all this. Our strength, our soul is invisible; in animals their soul is also invisible; Plants also have their strength, their life is invisible; the entire material world exists and moves by an invisible force (the laws of nature). In the mountain villages there are pure heavenly forces, alien to all materiality. Everything heavenly and earthly, above and below is brought to a single omnipotent Power, which has produced every power in heaven and on earth. So, let every power praise the One Power in Three Persons - the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And let the earthly ones praise her primarily for the all-binding power of love, spreading life and bliss everywhere. For a long time I did not know clearly how necessary it is for our souls to be strengthened by the Holy Spirit. And now the Most Merciful has let me know how necessary it is. Yes, it is necessary every minute of our existence, like breathing, it is necessary in prayer and throughout life; without strengthening Him, our soul is constantly prone to all sin and, therefore, to spiritual death; she weakens, becomes completely weakened by the evil entering her heart and becomes weak for good; Without strengthening from the Holy Spirit, you feel how your heart is washed away from various evils and is ready every minute to drown in its abyss. This is where we need our hearts to stand on stone. And this stone is the Holy Spirit: He strengthens our strength and, if a person prays, He strengthens his heart in faith and hope of receiving what he asks; It inflames his soul with love for God; It brings to the soul bright, good thoughts that strengthen the mind and heart; if a person does various things, He strengthens his heart with the consciousness of the importance and necessity of his work and with indestructible patience, which overcomes all difficulties; He, when dealing with people of different conditions and both sexes, breathes into him respect for the face of a person who is equally the image of God, whoever he may be, redeemed by the blood of Christ God, and diverts his heart and attention from his sometimes very unseemly appearance of body and clothing, his rudeness in word and address. He unites us all with love, as children of the Heavenly Father and in Christ Jesus teaches us to pray: Our Father who art in heaven... Imagine that you see the unapproachable Light from which the light of the sun, the month and the stars came - that you see that infinite Love that sent His Only Begotten Son into the world... may the world be saved by Him (John 3:16-17) from eternal torment - that you see that initial Beauty from which is all the diversity and beauty in the world, the diversity and beauty of plants, stones, shells, fish, birds, animals, all human beauty! Imagine that you see the loving One, shining with the unapproachable light of His perfections, the Creator of heaven and earth. How will you feel then? But the Christian faith prepares us all for this vision. Note about plants: in plants it is obvious 1) a wise Mind, visible in all parts of the plant; 2) the power that animates, holds together and maintains in proper relations all parts of the plant; and 3) the omnipotence with which infinite Wisdom modifies the ugly substance itself, so easily making it serve His infinite intentions and purposes. How great are Your works, O Lord (Ps. 91:6)! For Thy mind was astonished at Me (Ps. 139:6). Just as objects on the earth at a distant distance, although they are large, but if the sun is not reflected in them, are not visible from afar at all, and if the sun is reflected, then even those that are small are visible from afar; so it is between people: those in whom the eternal Sun of Truth, God, is not reflected by His perfections, are visible only at close range to very few, and if the Sun of Truth is reflected in them, then they are visible to everyone from afar, everyone glorifies them, people of all places and times (saints), and some of them shine like the sun, others like the moon, others like stars. Looking at God's creatures and seeing their infinite multitude, I see myself exalted above all their hosts by the image and likeness of God, reason and freedom, the ability to consider everyone with my mind and marvel at the all-wise and all-good Creator in them! Oh, how I will revere my Creator! Oh, how honorable the creators of my existence must be for me - my father and my mother! They gave me existence in time - for time and eternity; They brought me, by the will of God, who created me in my mother’s womb, into the magnificent palace of the world - so that at a certain time the Creator would introduce me to the palace of heaven. The state or any society is a body. Just as in the body all members together and each individually are placed in their place by God, so in the social body each member is placed in his place by God, and each one’s own deeds are the cause of this or that place. Everyone sees that light pours onto the earth from the sky, for the sun, month, and stars shine for us from the heavenly circle. This indicates to us that the uncreated intelligent Light - the Lord our God dwells primarily in heaven and from Him all light, both material and spiritual, descends to us, the light of the mind and heart. This is the true Light, which enlightens every man who comes into the world (John 1:9). God is love (1 John 4:16). All thoughts, feelings and dispositions of the heart that tend towards the destruction of love and the planting of enmity are from the devil; write this on your heart and adhere to love in every possible way. Hold on to love (1 Cor. 14:1). Pay attention: what is contrary to the carnal, old, sinful man, then do it, go against him all your life. This is the purpose of your life and together your glory in Christ Jesus. Those who are Christ's are the flesh crucified with passions and lusts (Gal.5:24). Confirm in your heart the following truth: one thing is worth all our hatred - it is sin or vice, and only have love for people. The royal law is clear: you shall love your sincere as yourself (Matthew 22:39). When, during prayer, despondency and melancholy take possession of your heart, know that this comes from the devil, who is trying in every possible way to occupy you in prayer. Be strong, take courage, and with the memory of God, drive away the murderous sensations. Notice: if not in his thoughts, then in his heart, the enemy often intensifies to blaspheme the name of the Almighty God. What is heartfelt blasphemy against God? Doubt, unbelief, despondency, impatience of God’s punishments and grumbling are all passions. By unbelief in the truth and goodness of God, the enemy spews blasphemy against the truth, goodness and omnipotence of God; despondency also blasphemes His goodness; in general, an outburst of human passions blasphemes the all-good Providence and the truth of God. Confirm in your mind and heart the truth that the invisible plays the first role in the whole world, in all creatures, and when the invisible leaves a known creature, this latter loses life and is destroyed, so that the visible in creatures without the invisible constitutes one mass of the earth. I and all people live by an invisible principle. People are covered in the darkness of ignorance about God, about themselves and about the enemies of their salvation, who therefore easily rob the mental home of our soul, its mental wealth. When it is said to the inner man: Arise, sleep, and rise from the dead (Eph. 5:14), then of course there is a real sleep of the soul, very similar to an ordinary bodily sleep. Also, when it is said: my soul, arise that you have written it off, of course it is a real dream of the soul, and is not said only allegorically. When the body sleeps, it relaxes everywhere and becomes insensitive: so the soul, sleeping in a sinful sleep, weakens in strength and becomes insensitive to everything that concerns faith, hope and love. Tell her, for example, that the Son of God came down to earth for you and became Man in order to save you from eternal death, explain to her about His saving teaching, about His miracles, about His suffering, about death on the cross, about the resurrection and ascension to heaven, about His second coming, she cannot accommodate this, does not feel the blessings of God, she is asleep, completely asleep for faith, hope and love. She is not afraid of the righteous Judge, future torment, the never-ending worm, or the unquenchable fire. Sleeping - does not hear, does not see, does not feel. It is remarkable that bodily sleep begins from the heart; The heart falls asleep first, then the body. The eyes of the sleeping person are closed and do not see, the ears do not hear, and the soul sleeping in a sinful sleep, too; and the soul must always ripen with the eyes of the heart, even during sleep, according to what is written: I sleep, but my heart watches (Song. 5:2). You couldn’t help but notice that all the strength is in the heart: the heart is easy - and the whole person is easy, good; the heart is heavy - and everything is bad; but you can find this relief only in faith and, therefore, especially in the Church, as the place of faith par excellence; here God touches your hearts with His cleansing grace and gives you to wear His good yoke. Here is a great secret that everyone should know. With a light heart, a person is ready to run and jump: that is why David galloped while playing in front of the ark of hay 3. When you are slandered and because of this you are embarrassed and sick at heart, it means that you have pride, and it is this that must be wounded and driven out of your heart by external dishonor. And so, do not be irritated by ridicule and do not hate those who hate and slander, but love them as your doctors, whom God sent you to enlighten you and teach you humility, and pray to God for them. - Bless you who slander (Matthew 5:44), - say: they do not slander me, but my passion, they do not beat me, but this snake that nests in my heart and affects it painfully when slander is applied; I console myself with the thought that, perhaps, good people will knock it out of there with their barbs, and then it won’t hurt. Thank God for external dishonor: he who suffers dishonor here will not be subjected to it in that age. Accept... your own sins (Is. 40:2). Give us your peace, for you have given us everything (Is. 26:12). When you pray for the forgiveness of your sins, always strengthen yourself with faith and trust in God’s mercy, which is always ready to forgive our sins through sincere prayer, and be in every possible way lest despair set in your heart, expressed as a heavy despondency of the heart and forced tears. That your sins are against God’s mercy, whatever they may be, as long as you sincerely repent of them! And it often happens that a person prays and does not inwardly hope in his heart that his sins will be forgiven, considering them, as it were, above God’s mercy. For this, indeed, he does not receive forgiveness, although he sheds springs of involuntary tears, and with a sorrowful, constricted heart he departs from the generous God—that is what he is worthy of: believe as you receive, says the Lord, and it will be done for you (Mark 11:24). Uncertainty about receiving what you ask from God is blasphemy against God. When there is disbelief in something true and holy, the mind is usually clouded, the unfaithful heart is struck with fear and narrowness, but with sincere faith, it feels joy, calmness, breadth or expansion of life within itself, so that the mind becomes bright and far-seeing. Doesn't truth clearly triumph over the madness of the heart? Isn't the heart obviously deceitful? Yes, the suffering of the heart when it does not believe in anything true, holy is a sure sign of the truth of what it does not believe in. The heart itself dies, questioning the truth, encroaching on the destruction of what cannot be destroyed, while the expansion of the heart, with sincere faith, is the same sure sign of the truth of what you believe in, because the object in which we believe imparts life to our heart and renews, strengthens this life. Our heart, infected with sin, is an insignificant repository of life, which is why sin is death, not life, the fullness of life is outside of us. But just as this spiritual life is invisible and communicated to us through our faith in the invisible, personal life of God, the conductor of life in our heart is our living, sincere faith in God. Without faith, the heart should naturally feel oppression, sorrow, as a shortening, diminishment of life. But with faith there must also be agreement between our spiritual activity and the object of faith, since this is a moral being. Carnal wisdom is death: but spiritual wisdom is life and peace (Rom.8:6). What person would not agree with these words of the Apostle? The wisdom of the flesh is indeed death. Come here, money-loving, covetous, envious, proud, proud, ambitious man, and let us look at you, at your actions, at your life! Reveal to us, if you want, your heartfelt thoughts! We will be convinced by you - by a living example, that carnal wisdom is death: you do not live a true life, you are a spiritual dead man, in freedom you are bound internally; with the mind - like a madman, because the light that is in you is darkness (Matthew 6:23); you have received from God a heart capable of enjoying the feelings of everything that is true, holy, good and beautiful; but you, through carnal wisdom, suppressed noble feelings, noble impulses in him, you are a dead man, you have no stomach in yourself (John 6:53). But spiritual wisdom is life and peace. Any Christian person who leads a life of faith, destroys passions in himself and thinks that what is true, what is honest, what is righteous, what is most pure, what is most loving, what is good praise, whatever virtue and whatever praise (Phil. 4:8) - come to us and tell us what you feel in your soul from wisdom. spiritual: - I, you tell us, feel in my heart constant peace and joy about the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17), I feel the expansion of the heart, the abundance of life, I laugh at everything carnal, I marvel at how it has such great power over the hearts of carnal people, and I am engaged in unceasing contemplation of the heavenly, spiritual, invisible blessings prepared for those who love God. Alas! many are tempted by the gift of freedom given to man by God, and by man’s ability to be good and evil, and after falling into sin, by man’s inclination towards evil rather than good. They blame the Creator and say: why did God create us this way, why didn’t he create us so that we could not fall and do evil? And others attribute the damage to man by sin to the imperfection of nature, bypassing God in their thoughts and recognizing the whole world, with all its phenomena and objects, as some kind of disorderly, dependent, unfree being, of which they are parts. This is what removal from the Church does! This is the kind of ignorance you are falling into, you fools! Meanwhile, our children know clearly, distinctly, firmly what you do not know. You blame the Creator; Yes, is He to blame for the fact that you, through inattention to His voice, through your ill-will and ingratitude, used for evil the greatest gift of His goodness, wisdom and omnipotence - I mean freedom, which is an integral feature of the image of God! Shouldn’t He be recognized all the more good because He gave this gift, not being shaken by the ingratitude of those who received the gift, so that His goodness would shine brighter than the sun for everyone? And didn’t He prove by the very deed of His immeasurable love and His infinite wisdom in giving us freedom, when, after our fall into sin and separation from Him and spiritual destruction, He sent His only begotten Son into the world, in the likeness of the image of corruptible man (Rom. 1:23), and gave Him to suffer and die for us? After this, who will blame the Creator for giving us freedom! Let God be true, but every man is a lie (Rom. 3:4). Save yourself, everyone, fight, win, but do not become arrogant and do not accuse the Creator of unkindness and unwisdom; do not blaspheme the Almighty God. In our body all our lives the principles of life and death, good and sin, illness and health are at war with each other. The principles of death, long suppressed by the principles of life (vitality), finally prevail over the principles of life, because our body, as elemental and sinful, does not have in itself the principles of life, borrowing them from the soul, which through sin itself carries many of the principles of death - and is too weak to counteract the principles of mortality found in the soul itself. Moreover, the inner man is renewed through the corruption of the outer. A vigorous, constantly active spirit finally, by the very effort of its activity, destroys a weak, mortal body. Moreover, hereditary bodily diseases become more and more intensified over time and also destroy the physical body. Thus, human life on earth is a gradual, daily dying. What about our passions? How they take away our health! What about immoderation and disorder in the consumption of food, drink, sleep, and pleasure? How all this upsets the body! So, if our body is constantly being destroyed and is apparently nearing its end, then we will despise it as transitory and strive with all our might for the immortal soul. The body is an unfaithful, transitory friend. We have a true barometer that shows the rise or fall of our spiritual life, this is the heart. It can also be called a compass, which guides us in sailing the sea of ​​this life. He shows where we are going: to the spiritual east - Christ, or to the west - to the dark power of the one who has the power of death - the devil. Just look carefully at this compass, it will not deceive you and will show you the true path. If our heart does not deceive us, the imam’s boldness towards God (1 John 3:21), i.e. We are approaching the East. What a person loves, what he turns to, he will find: if he loves earthly things, he will find earthly things, and this earthly thing will settle in his heart and impart its earthiness to him and bind him; if he loves the heavenly, he will find the heavenly, and it will settle in his heart and move him life-giving. There is no need to attach our hearts to anything earthly, for with everything earthly, when we use it immoderately and biasedly, the spirit of malice, which has grounded itself in immeasurable resistance to God, somehow dissolves. When God is in all the thoughts, desires, intentions, words and deeds of a person, then the Kingdom of God comes to him; he then sees God in everything: in the world of thought, in the world of activity and in the material world; for him then the omnipresence of God is revealed in the clearest way, and the purest fear of God takes root in the heart: every minute he seeks to please the Lord and every minute he fears lest he sin in anything against the Lord who is at his right hand. Thy kingdom come! Test yourself more often: where do the eyes of your heart look - to God and to the life of the next century, to the worldly, blessed and luminous powers of heaven and saints established in heaven, or - to the world, to earthly goods: food, drink, clothing, housing, to sinful people and their vain occupations? Oh, if only our eyes were fixed on God! Otherwise, we only turn our eyes to the Lord in times of need and trouble, but in times of prosperity our eyes are turned to the world and its vain affairs. What, you say, will this looking to the Lord bring me? Deep peace and tranquility to your heart, light to your mind, holy zeal for your will and deliverance from the snares of the enemy. “I will lift up my eyes to the Lord,” says David, and gives the reason for this: “for He,” he says, “will pluck my noses from the snare (Ps. 24:15). The Lord... speaks peace... to those who turn their hearts to Him (Ps. 84:9). When you doubt the truth of any person or event described in Holy Scripture, then remember that everything is Holy. Scripture is inspired by God (2 Tim. 3:16), as the Apostle says, which means it is true and there are no fictitious persons, fables or fairy tales in it, although there are parables, and not their own legend, where everyone sees that the speech is trivial. The entire Word of God is one truth, integral, indivisible, and if you recognize one legend, saying, or word as a lie, you will sin against the truth of all Holy Scripture, and its original truth is God Himself. “I am the Truth,” says the Lord (John 14:6); Your word is truth, says Jesus Christ to God the Father (John 17:17). - So, consider all sacred scripture to be the truth: whatever is said, so it was, or happens. Do not succumb to gloomy, angry dispositions of the heart towards your neighbor, but master them and eradicate them with the power of faith, in the light of a sound mind - and you will be complacent. I walk through my kindness (Ps. 25:1). Such locations often appear deep in the heart. He who has not learned to master them will often be gloomy, thoughtful, and heavy with himself and others. When they come, force yourself to be cheerful, cheerful, and innocent jokes: and they will dissipate like smoke. - Experience. It is a strange and wild phenomenon in our nature, damaged by sin, to sometimes hate those who do good and repay them with dislike for our good deeds! Oh, how tight, how poor is our heart with love and mercy! How proud it is! The enemy laughs at us greatly; he wants to destroy the fruits of our good deeds. But you love the more the more you do good to whom, knowing that the one who receives mercy from you also serves as a guarantee of your mercy from God. When asking the Lord or the Most Pure Mother of God, or the Angels, or the saints, you need to have the kind of faith that the Capernaum centurion had (Luke 7:6-9). He believed that just as his soldiers obeyed and fulfilled his words, so much the more, according to the almighty word of the All-Good Lord, his request would be fulfilled. If the creatures, with their limited power, fulfilled what he asked them to do, then will not the Lord Himself, with His almighty power, fulfill the requests of His servants, who turn to Him with faith and hope! Will not our petitions, submitted with faith, hope and love, be fulfilled by His faithful servants, strong in grace and intercession to God - the Most Pure Mother of God, Angels and holy men! Truly, I believe with the centurion that if I ask as I should and for what I should of any saint: give this and he will give, come to my aid and he will come, do this and he will do it. – This is what simple and strong faith you need to have! Every false thought carries within itself proof of its falsity. This proof is its mortality for the heart; carnal wisdom is death (Rom.8:6). Equally, every true thought contains within itself the proof of its truth. This proof is its life-giving effect on the heart; Spiritual wisdom is life and peace, says the Apostle (Rom. 8:6). A weapon will pierce your very soul, so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed (Luke 2:35). This happened with the Mother of God in all the power of the spoken words; it also happens with other good and God-fearing people, and their hearts are pierced by weapons in order for the heartfelt thoughts of the people touched by them to be revealed, i.e. The Lord sometimes puts them in such a relationship with people who hide a lot of evil in their souls, but do not reveal it, that they involuntarily speak out from the excess of internal evil, their lips begin to speak, and this evil, like an unclean stream, or like a whole river, flows from their lips. Then they begin to do things that are not worthy of the human name, and only then do people learn what these people, who were previously considered smart, educated and respectable, were like in themselves. Thy Kingdom come, i.e. the kingdom of life, for now the kingdom of death continues under the dominion of the one who, for the most part, has the power of death - the devil. How does the Kingdom of God come to a person in this life? Through heartfelt repentance. Repent, for fear the Kingdom of Heaven will draw near (Matthew 3:2). Let the wicked forsake his advice, the lover of money - his love of money, the deceiver - his deceptions, the drunken - drunkenness, the glutton - his gluttony, the prodigal - his fornication, the proud - his pride, the vain - his vanity, the envious, the insatiable - his envy and insatiability, the impatient and murmuring - impatience and your murmur; and let everyone learn the works of Christian love, especially to bear the weaknesses of the weak (Rom. 15:1). External prayer is often performed about the internal one, and internal prayer about the external one, i.e. if I pray with my lips or read, then many words do not lie in my heart, I am double, I am a hypocrite; I say one thing with my lips, and another in my heart; the mouth speaks the truth, but the disposition of the heart does not agree with the words of the prayer. And if I pray internally, with my heart, then without paying attention to the pronunciation of the words, I concentrate it on the content, on their strength, gradually accustoming my heart to the truth, and I enter into the same disposition of spirit in which the prayer words are written, and thus little by little I learn to pray in spirit and truth, according to the words of the eternal Truth: whoever bows to God is worthy of bowing in spirit and truth ( John 4:24). When a person prays outwardly out loud, then it is not always possible for him to follow all the movements of the heart, which are too fast, so he, of necessity, needs to take care of the pronunciation, the external form of the word. Thus, many clerics who read fluently form a completely false prayer: with their lips they seem to be praying, in everything you see them as if they are pious, but the heart is asleep and does not know what the lips are saying. This happens because they are in a hurry and do not think with their hearts about what they say. We must pray for them as they pray for us; you need to pray that their words reach their hearts and breathe its warmth. They pray for us with the words of holy people, and we pray for them. We sin in thought, word and deed. In order to become pure images of the Most Holy Trinity, we must strive for the holiness of our thoughts, words and deeds. Thought corresponds in God to the Father, words to the Son, deeds to the Holy Spirit who accomplishes everything. Sins of thought in a Christian are an important matter, because all our pleasing to God lies, according to the testimony of St. Macarius of Egypt, in thoughts: for thoughts are the beginning, from them come words and activity: words, because they either give grace to those who hear, or are rotten words and serve as a temptation for others, corrupt the thoughts and hearts of others; things are even more so, because examples have the strongest effect on people, attracting them to imitate them. Your Lord is Love; love Him and all people in Him, as His children in Christ. Your Lord is Fire; do not be cold in heart, but burn with faith and love. Your Lord is Light; do not walk in darkness or do anything in darkness of mind, without reasoning and understanding or without faith. Your Lord is the God of mercy and bounty; be a source of mercy and generosity for your neighbors. If you do this, you will receive salvation with eternal glory. Whoever hastily, without heartfelt understanding and sympathy, reads prayers, overcome by his lazy and sleepy flesh, serves not God, but his flesh, his self-love, and curses the Lord with his inattention, the indifference of his heart in prayer: for God is the Spirit: and those who worship God must worship Him in spirit and truth (John 4:24) - unfeignedly. No matter how lazy and relaxed your flesh is, no matter how it makes you sleepy, overcome yourself, do not spare yourself for God, deny yourself, so that your gift for the Lord will be perfect, give God your heart. The heavens tell the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims that it is the creation of His hands, day to day successively conveys the legend about this, and night to night, so that everyone understands this (Ps. 19: 2-3). Such a silent but obvious tradition of the heavens about their creation by the Almighty has reached us, and there is no language or dialect that would not understand this tradition. Now, from the time of the incarnation of the Son of God, all the glory of God, the glory of His love for the human race, as well as the glory of creation, will be told by the Gospel and St. Church ; the voices of preachers of the Gospel, performers of the Mysteries and prayers - shepherds, readers and singers; the voices of bells; preaching the sky with its luminaries is not excluded. But preaching with a living voice is more vivid, clearer, and more striking. The whole earth, all earthly existence, speaks about the glory of the Lord. In any undertaking, domestic or official, do not forget that your strength, your light, your success is Christ and His Cross; Therefore, do not fail to cry out to the Lord before starting the work: Jesus, help me! Jesus, enlighten me! In this way, your living faith and hope in Christ will be supported and warmed in your heart; for His is the power and the glory forever and ever. See, do not forget, Christian, and do not ever lose your heartfelt faith in Him Who is your invisible Life, your peace, your light, your strength, your breath, i.e. - in Christ Jesus. Do not trust your heart when it becomes clouded, darkened, untrustworthy and cold from food and drink, from worldly distraction, or finally because you live with your mind and not your heart - when you exercise your mind and leave your heart neglected - when you enlarge and decorate the net, and leave the fisher himself in poverty and misery: for the heart is comparative, the fisher. or a fisherman, and reason is a fisherman’s net. With peace, space, and pleasure of the flesh, the flesh comes to life with all its passions and inclinations, and with cramped conditions, embitterment, and languor, it is mortified with all its passions; This is why the wisdom and goodness of the Heavenly Father exposes both our soul and body to severe sorrows and illnesses, and this is why we must not only graciously endure sorrows and illnesses, but also rejoice in them more than in a state of mental peace, space and physical health, for undoubtedly the mental state of that person is bad who is not subjected to mental sorrows or physical illnesses, especially with an abundance of earthly blessings; his heart inconspicuously produces all kinds of sins and passions and subjects him to spiritual death. Remember that the Lord is in every Christian. When your neighbor comes to you, always have great respect for him, for the Lord is in him, who often expresses His will through him. God works in us, both to will and to do for good pleasure (according to the good will of God) (Phil. 2:13). Do not spare anything for your brother as for the Lord, especially since you do not know in whom the Lord comes to visit you; Be impartial to everyone, kind, sincere, and hospitable to everyone. Remember that through unbelievers the Lord sometimes speaks or wins their hearts towards us, as happened in Egypt with the prison guard, whose heart the Lord moved towards Joseph (Gen. 39:21). The peace of my heart is in the heavenly and spiritual, and not in the earthly and material. Grant me, Lord, to philosophize everlastingly above and to completely reject worldly philosophies. I hope for Your goodness! I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains, from here my help will come (Ps. 121:1). Just as the human word reveals what is on the mind and heart of a person (opens the mind - invisible, sovereign, creative), and through the word, which opens the mind or thought, breath comes from a person, so somewhat similarly the Word of God reveals to us the Father - this great, all-creating Mind, and through the Word the Holy Spirit, the Life-giving, eternally comes and appears to people from the Father, Who is the power of the Most High (the power of the Most High will overshadow You ( Luke 1:35)). Now the words of the Savior are clear: no one knows the Son except the Father; no one knows the Father but the Son, and he will be revealed to him if the Son wills (Matthew 11:27). Do you see? Only the Son reveals the Father to people, just as our word reveals our innermost thought. This is the closest unity between the Father and the Son! And each person has his own dominion and his own, so to speak, business. Therefore, the Savior says to the disciples: if I do not go, the Comforter will not come to you: if I go, I will send Him to you (John 16:7). Glory to You, Son of God, who revealed to us the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit! Your word is truth; We live by each and every one of Your words. They are sweetness, peace, life to us; especially the word about the Comforter. Strengthen yourself in the undoubted calling of the Comforter of the Spirit, He is very well known to you. You so often call upon Him for St. Gifts, He, through your prayer, always and unceasingly transubstantiates them, and you yourself taste the fruits of His divine actions many times over. With the greatest care you need to keep in your meager vessel, in your heart, the treasure of the Spirit, rivers of living water in your belly (John 7:38); you need to watch over your heart, be meek, refrain from irritability and movements of pride, attachment to earthly things, from unclean rebellions of the flesh; otherwise, the priceless treasure of the Spirit will instantly leave us: peace and joy will suddenly disappear from the heart - this feeling of extraordinary, angelic-spiritual lightness of the soul, soaring in the freedom of heart and thought; These rivers of living water will also disappear, which before only flowed and abundantly watered the reins of the soul; the soul will be filled with an alien fire, painfully scorching the insides, depriving it of peace and joy and filling it with a feeling of sorrow and oppression and inciting it to irritability and blasphemy. So clearly, so sharply, the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of the enemy, the kingdom of life and the kingdom of death are indicated and alternate in us! A Christian sees this with his inner eyes and is amazed at God’s truth and holiness, and is amazed at the vigilance of the enemy, always like a lion roaring and looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8). God the Father is life, God the Son is life, God the Holy Spirit is life: the Holy Trinity is life. Life in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit: if you reject the Father with your heart, you will reject the life of your heart; reject the Son - you reject your life; reject the Holy Spirit - you will reject your life - and so your doubt will respond with death in your heart, sorrow, painful tightness, and God will remain the God of life in Three Persons; you will reject the doubt of your heart, you will recognize with all your heart all Three Persons as God, as your life, and life will again enter your heart. God, worshiped in the Trinity, exists in Himself - and that is amen. When reading or listening to sacred works, it is almost heartfelt in the people who produced them, images of God the Word, or God the Word Himself, speaking through them. Always remember when reading a book of spiritual or secular content that man is the image of God, and this image of God is in his thought, word and spirit with which he speaks. Accustom yourself to always look at every person with high respect as the image of God, but especially when he speaks and especially when he speaks about God. Oh, then he's divine. From the habit of people, from getting to know them, from their everyday life, from the habit of the gift of speech in ourselves and in people, we value the gift of speech little, even sometimes we despise it in others - and thus the devil, through our pride and inattention, blasphemes the image of God in people; We must humble ourselves in every possible way in our hearts and trample upon our proud minds, so as not to be like the contemporaries of the prophets, who looked at them as sweet-voiced singers - nothing more; they did not want to carry out their orders, they even despised, persecuted, beat and killed them; lest we become like those people for whom a prophet is not acceptable in his own country (Luke 4:24). No matter how small and insignificant a person may be, the image of God is almost in him, especially when he speaks with love, especially when he speaks and does deeds of love. You wrote a book, let’s say, about the Holy Trinity, and printed it in a thousand copies, or as many as you like. And in all these books you have not only the same spirit, but the same words, the same form. So it is with the offering of the Body of Christ. Throughout the universe, in countless churches it is offered, on all the altars of Christian churches the same Trinity operates, in all the lambs there is the same Christ and His Spirit (as in the book its contents), everywhere the same form of offering - and it turns out that this Most Holy Sacrament is as if the one great sacred book of the Lord’s love for the human race, which is prepared in countless numbers throughout the universe in the same form with the same living in her by the loving Spirit, who took upon himself the sins of the world, the spirit of Christ. Another similarity: what a multitude of individual human personalities there are on earth: they all have the same body shape, they all have the same soul, with the same, although not the same, abilities, and all these individuals have the same name - man. All people are like one person, and from one beginning they all originated: initially from God the Father and the Son and His Spirit, and then from one couple. Therefore, by the way, God’s commandment commands us to love everyone as ourselves, according to identity, i.e. our nature. So, you see many faces, and they are one in the identity of the nature of soul and body. So the Lord, in His life-giving Mysteries, wherever they are offered, is the eternally one and indivisible Creator from the one blood of the entire human race (Acts 17:26). Through His one Spirit, living in the Mysteries of the Body and Blood, performed in all the churches of the world, He wants to unite us with Himself, who have fallen through sin and obedience to the devil from union with Him, and to cut off and cleanse that which in all of us is separating from Him and from each other: that they may all be one: as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us ( John 17:21). This is the purpose of communion! Is it surprising that bread and wine are the Body and Blood of Christ and Christ rests in them, like the soul in the body? Is it surprising that when the devil nests in the insignificant embryo (in the heart) of a baby, it intensifies along with the growth of the body, so that later the baby is born with the devil hidden and nesting in his heart? Oh, what infinite goodness and wisdom of the Lord is revealed in giving us the most pure Mysteries of His Body and Blood, in the fact that they are accepted by a Christian into the very heart! Notice, in the heart - where the devil nests, who has the power of sin and death (Heb. 2:14) - as a perfect antidote to him, to give us holiness and life and to drive away sin and death! Just as it is certain that the devil and every sin often nests in our hearts, so it is certain that Christ the Giver of Life, our shrine, dwells in our hearts. Our Lord is more than the devil, if the devil lives and acts in our hearts through our various attachments to earthly objects, then how can Christ not enter our hearts through faith and repentance, when it was created by Him to be the church of God, how can Christ not enter our hearts, precisely in His flesh and blood, in accordance with our spirituality and together with carnality? Also: if the devil can give spirit and speech to an animal icon (Rev. 13:15), then how can Christ not dwell in the bread and wine and transform them, and completely assimilate them to Himself, like flesh and blood? The burning glass then ignites wood or paper, or anything else that is easily combustible, when we point it at an object in such a way that the rays of the sun, concentrated at the focus of the glass, are all concentrated on one point of the ignited object, with their entirety acting on it, and thus, as if the entire sun in a reduced form is placed on the object. So it is in prayer: then our soul is warmed, enlivened and ignited by the intelligent Sun - God, when with our mind, like a burning glass, we point this mental Sun at the heart, as at a spiritual point in our being, and when It acts on the heart with all Its simplicity and Its power. The same is true about the Mother of God, and about the Angels and saints. Bring their images to your heart as they exist, with all their strength and holiness, let your heart receive their illumination upon itself with possible fullness and strength, and it will be ignited by their loving, as if fiery action, their purity, holiness, goodness, power is communicated to your heart, and it will itself be cleansed, itself strengthened in faith and love, and the further, the more decisively and constantly you will have your heart turned to God and to His saints, the more your heart will be enlightened, cleansed and enlivened. If you call on any saint with doubts about his closeness to you and his hearing of you, and your heart is struck by tightness, break yourself, or better said, immediately overcome with the help of the Lord Jesus Christ the slanderer (the devil) nesting in your heart, call on the saint with heartfelt confidence that he is near you in the Holy Spirit and hears your prayer: and now you will feel at ease. The heaviness and languor of the heart in prayer comes from insincerity, from the deceit and deceit of our heart, just as in ordinary speech with people we feel internally awkward when we speak to them not from the heart, untruely, insincerely. You are cruel against the pricks of the enemy (Acts 26:14). Be always and everywhere true in heart, and always and everywhere you will have peace in your heart, but especially be true in conversation with God and with the saints: for the Spirit is Truth (1 John 5:6). During prayer, each word must be pronounced with the heart with the power that is contained in each of them, just as medicines are usually taken with the medicinal power corresponding to each of them, given to them by the Creator. If we release the power or essence of the medicine, then it will not be effective and will only set the teeth on edge; so exactly, if in prayer we pronounce words without their power, without feeling their truth in our hearts, we will not receive any benefit from prayer, because true, fruitful prayer must be in spirit and truth. The words of the prayer correspond to medicinal compounds or spices, each having its own power and together constituting a healing technique for the body. Just as pharmacists preserve the power of aromatic medicinal compounds, keeping them tightly sealed in glass bottles or some other vessel, so we must keep the power of each word firmly in our hearts, as in a vessel, and pronounce it only with the strength corresponding to it. When praying, you need to imagine all creation as nothing before God, and the one God as everything, containing everything like a drop of water, existing in everything, active and animating everything. Prayer is the golden connection of a person - a Christian, a wanderer and a stranger on earth, with the spiritual world, of which he is a member, and most of all with God - the Source of life; the soul came from God, to God and may it come again through prayer. Prayer has great benefits for the one praying: it gives peace to the soul and body; it gives rest not only to the soul of the one who prays (I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28)), but also often to the souls of our departed forefathers, fathers and brothers. You see how important prayer is! Just as smoke from a burning tree goes into the air, so does the soul from a body given over to the burning of corruption. Conscience in people is nothing more than the voice of the omnipresent God walking in the hearts of men. As the creator and one of everything, the Lord knows everyone as Himself: all the thoughts, desires, intentions, words and deeds of people, present, past and future. No matter how I run ahead with my thoughts, my imagination, He is there before me, and I always, inevitably, make my run in Him, I always have Him as a witness of my paths. His eyes are open over all the paths of the sons of men (Jer. 32:19). Where shall I go from Your Spirit? And do I flee from Your presence (Ps. 139:7)? Here is a living man in front of us: his eyes are fixed on us, his ears are open to listen, his body and soul are in front of us, but we see the body, but not the soul: we do not see his thoughts, his desires, intentions, while there is no moment in which his soul does not think and live in a manner that corresponds to it. So exactly before us, around us and in us is visible nature, the whole beautiful world of God; we see in him everywhere life, harmonious order, activity, but we do not see the Author of life and order, we do not see the Artist, and yet He is at all times in every place, like a soul in a body, although He is not limited to it; There is not a moment in which He, as the Most Perfect Spirit, the All-Wise, All-Good, All-Knowing, Almighty, Omnipresent, does not think and pour out in goodness and wisdom on His creatures; There is not even a moment in which He does not apply His wisdom and omnipotence to the work, for God is a most active Being, producing into infinity. So, you see the world: but see, notice in it everywhere the Author of His God, everywhere existing in it, fulfilling everything and acting and arranging everything. The conscience of every person is a ray of light from the one spiritual Sun that enlightens everyone - God. Through conscience, the Lord God rules over everyone, as the Righteous and Almighty King. And how powerful is His power through conscience! No one is able to completely drown out her voices! She speaks without partiality to one and all, as the voice of God Himself! Through conscience, we are all with God as one person, therefore the Decalogue is addressed as if to one person: I am the Lord your God... let them not be to you... Thou shalt not make an idol... Thou shalt not accept... remember the Sabbath day... honor father and mother... Thou shalt not kill. Don't commit adultery. Don't steal. You shall not bear false witness... You shall not covet... ( Exodus 20:1-17 ). Or: love your God with all your heart... and your neighbor... as you love yourself (Mark 12:30–31), because “he” is exactly the same as “I.” Be diligent in guarding the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Eph.4:3-4). Great commandment! It needs to be implemented. Maintain unity of spirit. This is what he has always desired and desires; this is what the Son of God prayed and prays to the Father for. Holy Father! “Keep them in Your name,” He prayed for the disciples, “You have given them to Me, so that they may be one, as We are... I pray not only for these, but also for those who believe their words for Me. That they may all be one... that the world may have faith, for thou hast sent me (John 17:11, 20-21). Do you see that our unity in spirit and in life loudly proves the Divinity of the Founder of our faith - the Lord Jesus Christ? Whoever wants to unite everyone, to make everyone, as it were, one soul, and does so, he, therefore, came from the one God, who created everything, united everything under Himself and again wants to lead those who were separated from unity by disobedience to unity with Himself through faith and obedience. Teachers who do not come from God, who are not called from Him, who are not sent by Him (they do not send them, but they teach (Jer. 23:21); no one receives honor for himself, but he who is called from God, like Aaron (Heb. 5:4)), usually bring disunity and discord into the society of people, and by this they clearly expose themselves that they are not from God. Such is Luther, such are the dissenters, such are all heretics. They separated the one Church of God, dissected the inseparable, multiple unit united under the one Head of the Church - Christ, animated by the one Spirit of God, and by this they proved that they were the tools of the devil, who takes care of this in order to separate, scatter and scatter the sheep of the Lord. The wolf will plunder them and scatter the sheep (John 10:12). Glory to the Christian faith - Orthodox! Its true fruit has always been and is the unity of believers among themselves through love and communication of spiritual and material benefits. The more Christians move away from the spirit of their faith, the more they are separated by self-love, the more they become enclosed in themselves, the less they have communication in spiritual and material goods - especially material ones - with those in need, the more love dries up in them and the more poor humanity becomes. True Christianity brings prosperity on earth, because it looks at Christians as one great body, in which there are noble and ignoble members not by nature, but by place and deed, strong and weak, rich and poor, and the Spirit of God intercedes in the souls of the strong or rich to help the weak or needy - through the communication of spiritual and material benefits. The people who believed were one in heart and soul (Acts 4:32). Dislike, enmity or hatred should not be known among Christians even by name. How can there be dislike between Christians? Everywhere you see love, everywhere you smell the fragrance of love. Our God is a God of love; His kingdom is the kingdom of love; out of love for us, He did not spare His only begotten Son for us and gave Him up to death for us (1 John 4:9): at home you see love in those at home (because they are sealed in baptism and confirmation with the cross of love and wear the cross, eat the supper of love with you in church). In the church there are symbols of love everywhere: crosses, signs of the cross, saints who have pleased with their love for God and their neighbors, and Love itself incarnate. Love is everywhere in heaven and on earth. It calms and delights the heart, like God, while enmity kills soul and body. And you always and everywhere discover love! How else will you not love when everywhere you hear preaching about love, when only the murderer the devil is eternal enmity! He who did not show mercy to His Son... why then does He not also give us all things with Him (Rom. 8:32)? The greatest thing is given, everything else, whatever we ask, is infinitely less than the Son of God. Therefore, we can confidently ask God for everything in the name of Jesus Christ - for every good thing that we can think of. Whatever you ask of the Father in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son (John 14:13). Do you ask for forgiveness of sins and peace for the departed? He is the cleansing for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2). His blood cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7). He can forgive the deceased any sin they committed in word, deed or thought. “He is the resurrection and the life and rest of His fallen servants”... Do you ask for good things for living people and for yourself? If you want, ask, He says, and it will be done for you (John 15:7). Just as the Lord knows the number of the stars of heaven, so He knows the number of heavenly angels and the number of their thoughts; how He knows the number of the sand of the sea and the number of the sand and the creatures of the whole earth with their organs and their constituent parts, great and infinitely small; Just as He knows the number of atoms of all elements into an infinite infinity of small ones, so He knows the number of the entire human race, which was, which is and which will be, the number of thoughts of all former people, all present and all future, the number of all their heart movements, words and deeds. Just as in sensual nature nothing is hidden from Him, not the slightest atom is lost, because just as what He brought into existence can be destroyed without God, without His will, so in spiritual nature not a single thought, not a single thought, not a single heart movement, desire and deed is lost for Him: everything in its treasuries is preserved by number and measure, i.e. in the same quantity and in the same degree and strength as what was, except for bad thoughts, desires, words and deeds, confessed or smoothed out by the correction of life. The number of all earthly atoms and the atoms of earthly creatures, like the number of thoughts and movements of the human spirit, in this respect stand in perfect parallel. In fact, if what is created, instrumental, and dead is not destroyed in itself, then will that which itself received from the Lord the ability to create, the dominant, the living, be destroyed? - I mean thought clothed in words and the very culprit of thought - the soul. So it’s impossible - prepare for the answer, mortals? Awaiting you at the judgment are all your thoughts, desires, words, deeds, good and bad, which you sent there from the earth: good - all, bad - unconfessed or not erased by thoughts, desires and deeds that are contrary to them. God will bring you to judgment about all of them. Blessed Lord! Do not enter into judgment with Your servants (Ps. 143:2). If you see iniquity, O Lord, O Lord, who will stand (Ps. 129:3)? The greatest luminary is reflected in the infinitely small bodies of the earth, in an infinite number of them, and the image of a person is reflected in the infinitely small pupils of the eyes: thus the mental Sun - Christ is depicted in infinitely small creatures - people in an infinite multitude of them, also in infinitely small particles of His Body and Blood, because the First-Eternal Life is very simple and singular. The sun, reflected in many small and great bodies, illuminates the whole world, covering it all: so does the Lord. The wind is the same, but in countless places it produces power: so the Spirit of God is one and the same, but in countless councils of angels it reveals His power and strength, in all holy men, breathing wherever He wants, and you hear His voice (John 3:8). The Lord preserves not only all the bones (Ps. 33:21), but also the images of St. saints, not allowing them to perish in corruption, neglect and debt, seeking them miraculously, as we know from the description of the appearances of miraculous icons, especially icons of the Most Pure Mother of God - our Lady. Thus, the image of a person is dear to the Lord, especially a holy person, a vessel of grace. Through the image He works miracles, or gives invisible powers of healing and consolation. Bolius is the God of our heart, and the whole message (1 John 3:20). With the eye of our heart we see and know the smallest movements of the heart, all our thoughts, desires and intentions, in general, almost everything that is in our soul. But God is greater than our heart. He is in us and around us and everywhere, in every place, as a single, all-seeing, spiritual Eye, of which our heart’s eye serves only as a small example, and therefore knows everything that is in us better, a thousand times clearer than ourselves, knows at the same time everything that is in every person, in every Angel and in all the powers of heaven, in every creature, animate and inanimate, sees everything at a glance. our insides and the insides of all creation, being inherent in each of them and containing each of them as the Creator and Provider in being and powers. Just as in Jesus Christ dwells all the fullness of the Divinity bodily (Col. 2:9), so also in the life-giving Mysteries of His Body and Blood. In the small human body is the entire fullness of the infinite, incontainable Divinity, and in the small lamb, or bread, in every smallest particle of it, is the entire divine fullness. Glory to Thy omnipotence and goodness, Lord! Like the sun, although it is itself always in the sky, but with its rays, as if with countless hands, it reaches the earth, its entire surface, and communicates with all organic bodies, entering them (the sun enters bodies with its rays), warming, revitalizing and increasing them with its warmth, passing through transparent ones or being reflected in them throughout its entire circle (as many transparent bodies, so many images of the sun), heating opaque, solid and inorganic ones, - so the mental Sun is God, although He Himself is primarily in heaven, but by His Life-giving Spirit, as if by His rays, is communicated to all rational creation - Angels and people, penetrating their spiritual being, sanctifying, reviving, strengthening and returning, like the sun's rays penetrating organic and plant bodies, reviving and returning them. Just as the sun, itself in the sky, illuminates the whole earth, imparting light to every and most insignificant creature and thing, so the Lord enlightens all people with His hypostatic light, for He is the true Light, illuminating every person coming into the world (John 1:9) All who begin to work for the Lord in prayer, learn to be like Him meek, humble and true in heart; do not have guile in your soul, do not be double-minded, do not be cold, try to have His Spirit, for whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ is not His (Rom. 8:9); - and the Lord is looking for something similar to Himself and akin to us, into which His grace could be grafted. Remember that not a single word is wasted in prayer if it is said from the heart: the Lord hears every word and every word is in His balance. It sometimes seems to us as if our words beat the air in vain, sounding like the voice of one crying in the desert; no no! We must remember that the Lord understands us in prayer, so to speak, that is, our words - exactly as perfect prayer-books understand themselves, for man is the image of God. The Lord answers every desire of the heart, expressed in words or unexpressed. By partaking of the Life-giving Mysteries with undoubted faith, I tangibly learn from the omnipresence of Christ. How? This is how: in every particle of the body and in every drop of blood I accept the Whole Christ and thus see with the eyes of my heart that He is at the same time complete in all particles and drops, no matter how many there are, to infinity. In the same way, the Lord is all in every church, in St. Mysteries and in every smallest particle; and since Orthodox churches are located throughout the entire earth, the Lord is present not only in Divinity, but also in His soul and body throughout the entire earth, everywhere communicating with the believers inseparably and producing sweet fruits in them: the cleansing of sins, the sanctification of Christian souls and bodies, righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, uniting everyone with Himself, with the Father and His Holy Spirit. We know, moreover, that through fervent prayer He dwells in the souls of believers with His Father and the Holy Spirit. Being inherent in the entire material world and at once animating it all and every part of it separately, the Lord is all the more inherent in people and especially Christians, living in them: or do you not know that Jesus Christ is in you, unless you are unskillful (2 Cor. 13:5)? Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who dwells in you (1 Cor. 6:19)? The human race is one, great tree of God, which has grown throughout the entire earth and covers the entire earth with its branches. To the old rotten root - fallen Adam, God's wisdom and goodness grafted a new, living root - the Lord Jesus Christ, from whom Christians originate, like a branch from a whole tree. In trees there is earthly, organic life; in the Christian race - the life of Christ, heavenly, spiritual, and the spiritual abilities and powers of true Christians must be looked at as the powers of Christ Jesus Himself. The mind of Christ is imams, says the Apostle (1 Cor. 2:16) about true Christians; Likewise, deeds of virtue must be viewed as the fruit of Christ’s grace. Christians who do not live like Christians form dry branches on the branch coming from the root - Christ, and every rod that does not produce fruit will be cut off by the Heavenly Father and thrown into the fire (John 15:2, 6). The pagans are an unregenerate, unrevived branch, coming from a rotten root - Adam. By faith they too are grafted into a living, healthy branch - into the body of the Church, this body of Christ (Col. 1:18). Whose leaves are these on the tree? God's. Whose good thoughts are you having? God's. Whose ability do trees have to grow and weave woody tissue and to produce and develop leaves and fruits? God's, i.e. God given. Whose ability of thought and speech do you have? God's. Do trees use their God-given powers to harm? No. Is a person using the abilities and powers given to him by God to harm? Uses: abuses the mind received from God to know God and His truth; abuses his heart, created for the love of God and neighbors, to feel the bliss of God's communion, and his free will, given for endless improvement in virtue. In our body, in its natural functions, God acts, supporting, nourishing and growing it. In grass, or in a tree, or in an animal, He acts: dressing the grass (Luke 12:28), returning trees and decorating them with leaves and fruits, feeding animals and returning bodies. We ourselves cannot create anything in our body, not even half an iota, as they say, nor can we create a single hair, white or black (Matthew 5:36). In the infinitely great and the infinitely small, there is equally the Lord, not limited by either one or the other, but existing entirely in everything, being indivisible and above all. Can there be tree leaves without a tree, and can a tree exist without earth, air, water and heat? So not a single soul exists without God, without His Son, without His Spirit. God is my being, my breath, my light, my strength, my water, my nourishment. He carries me like a mother carries a baby in her arms, more: carrying me, my soul and body, He abides in me and merges, so to speak, with me. When praying to God, remember that God is Three Persons, and since He is a Person and Persons, He has in infinity all those perfections that we can imagine in any most perfect person, by the grace of God, for example, in the Most Holy Virgin Mary, in St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, in John Chrysostom, in the apostles, prophets filled with the Spirit of God. Man is the image of God and the likeness of God; by the perfect image one can partly judge the Prototype, what He is like; all the best that attracts our heart’s gaze and heart’s disposition in man comes from God, from His Son and from His Spirit. For example, St. Nicholas was and is compassionate and merciful to people by the grace of God. He has always and now obediently obeys those who sincerely call him, according to the same good heart that he had during his life and now has by the grace of God. Now, is the Lord God Himself uncompassionate and unmerciful, and how much more compassionate and merciful? – Infinitely more, just as St. Himself is infinitely more. Nicholas. Or take the Apostle Paul. What a humane womb is in the Apostle! About Philemon’s servant, he says to the master: you, that is, my womb, receive him (Phil. 1:12). There is so much love in these words! And what love breathes in his messages! “My heart is enlarged,” he says to the Corinthians, “so that you do not fit too tightly within us (2 Cor. 6:11–12). He described in one message what divine love consists of. Reading this description, you feel that the Apostle actually fulfilled everything that he wrote about love. But where does this love come from in the Apostle, the former persecutor and annoyance of Christ, who, entering houses, dragged husbands and wives, delivering them mercilessly to prison (Acts 9:1–2, 22:5, 26:10–11)? From the Lord, the Source of love. He alone is eternal and boundless Love, embracing all creatures. Just as the Trinity - our God - is One Being, although there are three Persons, so we must be - one. As our God is simple, so we must be simple, as simple as if we were all one person, one mind, one will, one heart, one kindness without the slightest admixture of malice - in a word, one pure love, as God is Love. – Let them be one, as We are one (John 17:22). All people, like the Angels of God, are the breath of God, which is why Angels are called spirits, or, what is the same, breaths of the Divine, and human spirits are called souls, because these came from the breath of the Divine and breathe God. By the Holy Spirit, it is said, every soul is alive and exalted in purity 4 . But all other creatures are also called breaths: every breath, it is said, let it praise the Lord (Ps. 150:6), because they too are from the Spirit of God, although they are not involved in reason and freedom, therefore every creature must be protected, not beaten, not exhausted. Blessed is he who has mercy on cattle (Prov. 12:10; 1 Cor. 9:9). God is Spirit, a simple Being. How does the spirit manifest itself? In thought, word and deed. Therefore, God, as a simple Being, does not consist of a series or of many thoughts, or of many words or creations, but He is all in one simple thought - God - Trinity, or in one simple word - Trinity, or in three Persons united together. But He is all and in all that exists, passes through everything, fills everything with Himself. For example, you read a prayer, and He is all in every word, like Holy Fire, penetrating every word: everyone can experience this for themselves if they pray sincerely, diligently, with faith and love. But especially He is all in the names that belong to Him: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, or the Trinity, or the Lord, Lord God; Lord of Hosts; Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God; Holy Spirit; Heavenly King, Comforter, Soul of Truth... and His other names. Angels and saints are just as close to us in their names as their names and our faith in them are close to our hearts; for they are nothing other than the breath of God and are one spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17). Do the saints we call pray for us? They pray. If I, a sinful person, a cold person, sometimes an evil and unkind person, pray for others who commanded and did not command me to pray and do not doubt, do not get bored patiently going through their names in prayer, although sometimes not heartily, then are the holy people of God - these lamps and flames, burning in God and before God, full of love for their earthly brothers, do not pray for me and for us when we are able to Do we call them with faith, hope and love? They too, the ambulance helpers and prayer books, pray for our souls, as our God-enlightened Mother, St., assures us. Church . So, pray without a doubt to the holy men of God, asking for their intercession for yourself before God. In the Holy Spirit they hear you, only you pray with the Holy Spirit and from the heart, for when you pray sincerely, then the Holy Spirit breathes in you, which is the Spirit of truth and sincerity, is our Truth and sincerity. The Holy Spirit is one and the same in us and in holy people. The saints are holy from the Holy Spirit, who sanctified them and dwells in them forever. God! You, whose love for us infinitely surpasses the love of every father, every mother, every tender wife, have mercy on us! Lady Theotokos! You, whose love for Christians surpasses the love of every earthly mother, every wife, listen to us in our prayers and save us! May we always remember You! May we always pray to You fervently! May we always resort to Your shelter without laziness and without doubt. We pray to the All-Good and All-Immaculate Mother of God - and She prays for us. We glorify Her, the Highest of all glory, and She prepares for us eternal glory. We often say to Her: “Rejoice,” and She asks Her Son and God: My beloved Son, give them eternal joy for greeting Me with joy. So undoubtedly believe that God sees you, as you are sure that your father or someone else who stands face to face with you sees you, with the difference that the Heavenly Father sees everything that is in you, what you are, all creatures, angels, saints, us sinners, animals, he sees at once, just as the sun illuminates everyone at once, however, the eyes of the Lord in darkness are less than the brightest of the sun (Sir. 23:27). A living performance before the face of your Lord is a source of peace and joy for the soul. Doubt in His presence produces confusion, sorrow and distress. Heartfelt prayer is a source of peace of the heart, but heartless, superficial, inattentive prayer causes wounding of the heart. Jesus Christ with the Father and the Holy Spirit is the unsearchable abyss of love for mankind. In this abyss of mercy, there will be mercy in abundance for everyone, just turn to God with faith, hope and heartache about your untruths, about the insults we have caused to the Lord, Master and Benefactor. God is closer to us than every person at all times: closer to my clothes, closer to air, light, closer to my wife, father, mother, daughter, son, friend. I live by it mentally and physically, I breathe by it, I think by it, I feel, I conceive, I intend, I speak, I undertake, I do. In Him we live and move and are (Acts 17:28). God is the One who works in us to do whatever we will and to do for good pleasure (Phil. 2:13). Therefore, we must always look upon the Lord before us at our right hand, lest we move, lest we sin; we must position ourselves in such a way that nothing displaces Him from our thoughts and hearts, nothing blocks Him; no addiction to food, drink, money, clothing, home and its furnishings, to different persons, no secular entertainment and games would take away from us our Most Sweet, Most Beloved Lord, but every hour and minute we would belong to Him and would be inseparably with Him, as He is inseparably with us, as He constantly cares for us and protects us. But when I sin or have an addiction to something, then He is far from me, not in space, for He fills everything at all times, but because of my heartfelt distance from Him, because of my dislike for Him, because He actually abandoned me with His grace and His presence in my heart, for then His enemy is in me - the devil. Just as in the sea, lake or river, each particle is in connection with other particles and surrounded by them, or as in the air each particle is surrounded by others and connected with them, so all of us, earth-born creatures, are surrounded by God on all sides, and those who are pure among us or those who are being purified are united with Him and are everywhere in Him. We are all earth-born - like water, like air, like a many-branched tree, we form one whole, although often torn apart by the envy of the enemy by pride, irritability, enmity, strife, pride, heresies and schisms, envy, stinginess, unsociability, malice, contempt and other passions. On the other hand, the devil and his angels are one with each other, like dark, malignant, poisonous water or fiery, suffocating, murderous air. They surround us and are trying to break into our soul due to its inattention and various addictions in order to darken, outrage, embarrass, burn and torment us in every possible way. So, for example, sometimes you walk in clean, fragrant air - and suddenly the stench from a garbage pit or from human eruptions strikes your sense of smell in the most unpleasant way, and you rather want to pass this place in order to breathe in the beneficial air again - similar to this is the stench of demons. The Lord Himself likens the dark hordes of demons to air and water when He says: the rain came down, and the rivers came, and the winds blew, and attacked that church (i.e., on a person, they fell on the human soul), and did not fall: it was founded on stone (Matthew 7:25). They say: no matter how you look, you won’t be tempted, no matter how you hear, your heart won’t hurt, no matter how much you taste, you won’t want to... You see how much temptation there is from our eyes, hearing and taste. How many people have suffered and are suffering because, not being strong in their hearts in good dispositions, they looked carelessly with unclean eyes, listened with ears unaccustomed to distinguishing between good and evil, and tasted with a greedy taste. The feelings of sin-loving, greedy flesh, unbridled by reason and God’s commandments, drew them into various worldly passions, darkened their minds and hearts, deprived them of peace of heart and took away freedom from their will, making them their slaves. How carefully you need to look, listen, taste, smell and touch, or, better yet, how you need to take care of your heart, so that through external feelings, like through a window, sin does not sneak in and the culprit of sin himself - the devil, does not darken and hurt with his poisonous and deadly arrows the heavenly chick - our soul. The soul receives the Lord into itself in the Life-giving Mysteries with the thought of faith and the heartfelt consciousness that the Lord Himself is truly present in the Mysteries, and our body receives the Lord with its lips and belly. When the soul receives the Lord with firm faith, then the Lord passes in an instant both the soul, as a simple being, and the entire body, all its joints, due to the filling of the entire body with the soul and due to the all-filling nature of the Divine. In the Christian life, temptations, trials or tests of our mental state are necessary, and just as our life, in the likeness of the things in the house, is covered with a kind of uncleanness, it is necessary to cleanse it. Just as to try some things, for example silver, you need tools, so to try or test the soul you need people, for similar things, who, willy-nilly, intentionally or completely unintentionally, by their actions towards us, would make it clear to us and to others whether we are obedient to God’s commandments announced to us in the Gospel or not, whether we live in the spirit, putting to death the deeds of the flesh, or in the flesh, obeying, like slaves, the will of the flesh and carnal thoughts and passions, and we, having learned that we live not according to the will of God, not according to the commandments of our Sweetest Savior, but according to our sinful and blind will, would soon correct ourselves, hastily and diligently follow the commandments of the divine Gospel. Our body lives by the elements from which it itself is composed, constantly absorbing air, water, organic bodies; our soul lives by the Divine Spirit, from Whom it has its origin and constantly absorbs into itself, to support its life, the life of the Trinitarian God, through the light of the mind, goodwill and desires of the heart and will, and strength in goodness. Just as a body, without being nourished by principles akin to it, cannot live and dies, so our soul, without being nourished by prayer or good thoughts, feelings, and deeds, also dies. Just as in our bodily nature the nourishment and growth of the body takes place safely for a time, but if poison or infection enters through food or drink, or breathing, then pain and even death are suddenly caused to the body if help is not given, so in our spiritual nature everything flows well for a time, but when the devil attacks it, then it suffers grievously, as if numb, and it needs immediate help from the heavenly Doctor, the God of spirits, which will not be obtained. otherwise than through the prayer of faith. (Diabolic pretexts in the human soul correspond to poisons in bodily nature; only poison of material nature rarely enters our body, and these are always with us or near us). How to nourish and maintain the life of our body, the environment (middle) in which it lives is always ready, namely: light, air, water, food, and with air, as more necessary for its life, it is constantly surrounded, and water everywhere, so to speak, is at hand, as well as plants and animals; so for our soul, strength is always ready in abundance to support its life, its spiritual food, drink, clothing - in the Triune God. Being all in every place, like air or like mental light, the Lord is ready every moment of our life, according to our faith and for the sake of the constant prayerful mood of our soul, to support our spiritual strength with His all-effective grace, being for us incessantly the light of our mind and heart, the air with which our soul breathes, the food with which it is nourished and strengthened, and the life-giving warmth with which it is warmed, and the clothing with which it not only covers his sinful nakedness, but is also adorned with it, like royal purple - this is the garment of Christ’s justification. Man, every moment of his existence, is in two environments - material and spiritual, from which he receives everything: one supports his physical, the other his spiritual nature; one is visible nature, the other is the infinite, hypostatic Spirit of God, which, being all everywhere, is above all and, containing everything, is not limited by anything. Every person is so insignificant and weak in himself that he receives everything not from himself, but from the outside to support his being; he himself is nothing. And just as his body is supported by air, food and drink, so his soul is supported by prayer, reading the Word of God and the Holy Sacraments. On the other hand, since in the kingdom of the All-Good and All-Powerful God there are fallen evil spirits, and their place is precisely the air and the earth, and as man from the very beginning was drawn towards evil by them, as they have always been and now are and will be until the end of time together with the human race, they constitute, so to speak, the environment in which we are surrounded and in which we live. People, beings who are free and, moreover, fallen, although restored by the Son of God and standing freely in this grace by faith, a good disposition towards God and good deeds, must be protected by constant prayer to God from the opposing forces fighting for our soul, who want to take us into captivity and make us similar to them in spirit. We all need to be extremely careful, so that in our spirit and in our deeds we do not become familiar with the spirits of evil in high places; so that they do not become the breath of our soul instead of God, so that the evil that constitutes their nature does not become our evil. However, we must always remember that there is a greater One in us than in the world (1 John 4:4), that the Lord holds them in full His power and only allows them, as much as His truth, goodness and wisdom allows them to act in the world, to admonish and correct people. But there are people who have the devil for their clothing, food, and drink, just as true Christians put on Christ and feed on His Body and Blood. Everywhere in the world there is duality - one against the other: spirit and body, good and evil. Satan has his minions and assistants to spread his dominion among people; God has Angels, whom he gives to every Christian to protect him and to guide him to the blessed kingdom of Christ. He who does not believe in the omnipresence of God in his thoughts and in his heart slanderes the power of God, does not attribute to Him the properties that air has, for air is everywhere. Isn't the Creator of air everywhere? That God is everywhere, a strong proof of this is the very lack of belief in omnipresence or any kind of sin at all. So, with unbelief, my heart feels embarrassed, suffers some kind of burning, languishes, suffers, my mind becomes darkened, I find myself in a completely desolate position. But with a living faith that God is everywhere, in every place, and, therefore, always with me and in me, my heart is wide, free, light, lively, my mind is bright, I am in a joyful position. Thus, the very thing that kills me serves as striking proof of the existence of which I doubt. Unbelief torments me because it is the slander of my heart or the evil spirit against God, Who is my life. The mental denial by my free soul of the Life-Itself is, naturally and righteously, death for it. Also: God is a mental Being, and my soul is also a mental being from the first mental, therefore I have communication with God through thought, through the faith of the heart, which is nothing more than a living and clear thought that God is in every place; when I don’t have such a thought, it means I have an opposite, negative thought; when the connecting principle of my soul with God is cut off, then there is no true life for me, but only the ghost of an external, false, animal life. The degrees of bliss and torment in the next century will be different. This is also proven by the present state of souls of different people or the same person at different times, in different situations. The simpler, kinder, more sociable a person is, the more blissful he is internally; the more crafty, evil, and self-loving, the more unhappy; the stronger his faith and love, the more blessed he is; the weaker, the worse, so those of little faith, faithlessness, and misanthropes are the most unfortunate people. Therefore, be aware of future torment. Love every person, despite his sins. Sins are sins, but the basis in man is one - the image of God. Others with obvious weaknesses are angry, proud, envious, stingy, money-loving, greedy, and you, too, are not without evil, perhaps even more of it in you than in others. At least with regard to sins, people are equal: everyone, it is said, has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23), we are all guilty before God and still need God’s mercy towards us. Therefore, loving each other, we must endure each other and leave each other, forgive others for their sins against us, so that our heavenly Father will forgive us our sins (Matthew 6:14). So, with all your soul, honor and love the image of God in every person, not paying attention to his sins; God alone is holy and sinless. And look how He loves us, what He has created and is creating for us, punishing mercifully and having mercy generously and graciously! Also, honor a person, despite his sins, because he can always improve. Some of the progressives consider the Church to be their enemy. But if there is anyone more loving, more benevolent and wiser in his love towards people (after God), then this is the Church: everything that is most consistent with our nature and most beneficial for it - all this is contained in the Church, as a treasury, just as the Gospel contains the verbs of Life. The Church is the true mother of all humanity, the right of the believer in Christ, the most faithful friend of Christians. She sympathizes and meets all the essential needs of the soul and body of a Christian with active assistance or alms of help by the power of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, by whom every soul is alive. About doxology. The soul involuntarily rushes to praise when you look at the starry sky; but she rushes even more towards praise when, looking at the heavens and the stars, which God founded, you imagine God’s providence for people, how God endlessly loves people, cares about their eternal bliss, not sparing His only begotten Son for our salvation and rest in the kingdom of heaven. It is impossible not to praise God when you remember that you were created from nothing, that you were destined from the foundation of the world to eternal bliss, completely undeserved, when you remember what grace of God is given to you from God for salvation throughout your life, what countless number of sins are forgiven to you and, moreover, not once, not twice, but an uncountable number of times, what many natural gifts are given to you, starting from the health of the body to a stream of air, to a drop of water. You are involuntarily excited to sing praises when, in amazement, you see the endless variety of creations on earth, in the animal kingdom, the vegetable and mineral kingdoms. What a wise arrangement in everything - great and small! You involuntarily glorify and say: Wonderful are Your works, O Lord, You have done all things with wisdom (Ps. 103:24); glory to You, Lord, who created everything. If the Church compiled and handed over for general use prayers and hymns to the Triune God and His saints, this means that God hears our prayers and is always near those who pray. But for the most part, people pray as if God is not with them, or as if He is not listening. Let us give the Lord at least the attention that good parents show to the requests of their children, at least the providential and attentive love that good parents have for their children. This is what the Lord Himself teaches. If you, - He says, - are wicked, you know how to give good things to your children, how much more will your Heavenly Father give good things to those who ask Him (Matthew 7:11), therefore our petitions will be fulfilled if we pray with all our hearts. Right. Daily experience. When anger flares up in your heart against someone, then believe with all your heart that it is the work of the devil working in your heart: hate him and his offspring, and it will leave you. (Do not recognize her as something of your own, do not sympathize with her). Tested. The trouble is that the devil hides behind us, hides his head and his tail, hides, and we are blind and think that only we ourselves are doing this, we stand for the devil’s work, as for something of our own, as for something just, although every thought about any justice of our passion is purely false, ungodly, destructive. Be guided by the same in relation to others; when you see that someone is angry with you, do not consider his anger to be his direct work; no, he is only a passive instrument of the all-evil enemy, he has not yet fully learned his flattery and is being deceived by him. Pray that the enemy will leave him and that the Lord will enlighten the eyes of his heart, darkened by the poisonous, corrupting breath of the spirit of malice. We must sincerely pray to God for all people subject to passions: the enemy is active in them. Passions for spiritual dispensation are contagious; for example: anger, not yet expressed in words, not expressed in deeds, but hiding only in the heart and reflected slightly on the face and eyes, is already transmitted to the soul of the one against whom I have anger, and is noticeable to others; I am indignant with passion, my indignation also touches the heart of another, there is some kind of spiritual overflow of an unclean stream from one spiritual container to another. If you destroy your passion for your brother, it will also be destroyed in him; If you calm down yourself, he will calm down too. What a close connection between souls! The word of the Apostle is true: we are pleased with each other (Eph. 4:25) - members or one body of many (1 Cor. 10:17). The whole human race is of one blood (Acts 17:26). That is why the divine commandment demands: You shall love what is sincere as yourself (Matthew 22:39). The action or inaction of preaching words is based on the mutual feeling or understanding of our souls of each other: if the preacher does not speak from the heart, hypocritically, the listeners with their inner instinct understand the discrepancy between the preacher’s words and his heart, with his life, and the word does not have the power that it could bring if the preacher uttered it from the heart, especially when he himself fulfilled his word in practice. There is too close an internal connection and communication between human souls. That is why good, pious, heartfelt dispositions are communicated to the souls of others, especially good deeds. Since a person consists of a soul and a body, then, accordingly, the means for maintaining his life are twofold: bodily and spiritual; the following serve to maintain bodily life: air, food, drink, light, warmth; to maintain spiritual life - prayer (like air), reading the word of God, Life-giving Mysteries, pious reflections. You know from experience that the flight of thoughts is not hindered by walls or the place in which you live; in an instant it can be carried away from home behind the clouds, or from one part of the world to another, from one state to another, from one city to another. But your soul, this thinking rational principle, is the image of God, a small image of the infinite Spirit - God. If your thought is not held back by four walls, if space and time are not constrained, then what can hold back the Lord, who created everything? Can walls hold Him back, limit space and time, no matter how infinite they may be in our opinion? Oh, in every place of His dominion (Ps. 103:22)! His eye sees everyone and everything. Those hiding in secret places, even in the mountains or in inaccessible castles, He sees as if on the palm of His hand. For this reason, sometimes the Lord hides His face from you and, as it were, leaves you in painful spiritual darkness, so that you always remember by whose light your soul lives, i.e. God, and that if God turns His face away from you, removes His Holy Spirit from your heart, then you will truly remain in the darkness of hell, in the torments of hell, and in fact you will at least somewhat know what the future hell is. Believe and firmly remember that you are a dual person: one – carnal, sick with passions, old, devilish, seeking the flesh and supplying life in the flesh; he must be killed and not satisfied with anything, not bowed to his sinful, persistent, painful cries; and the other is spiritual, new, healthy, Christ’s, seeking Christ in everything, living by Christ (instead of the lusts of the world) and finding peace and life in Christ; He who desires to have nothing in this world except Christ, who counts earthly goods in his mind, may gain Christ (Phil. 3:8). Just as the demands of that person must be despised by all means, because their fulfillment is fatal to the soul, so the demands of the latter must be fulfilled by all means, because they lead to true and eternal life. Every Christian should know this and take upon himself the work of putting into practice what he has learned. Do not be discouraged when hellish clouds descend upon your soul, one darker than the other, when hellish anger, envy, doubt, resistance, etc. attack your soul; know for sure that the presence of these gloomy clouds on the mental horizon is inevitable, but it does not always happen and does not last long, as in nature the presence of gloomy clouds in the sky: they rush and pass, and again the mental atmosphere of the soul becomes clear. In nature, there must be clouds in the sky and darkness of daylight, but these clouds are fickle, they soon pass, and after them the light will shine again, the light of the sun, and with renewed vigor. A wondrous creature is man! Look: in everything created from the earth there is contained God’s breath, personal, independent - the image of God Himself. How much wisdom, beauty there is in the construction of man’s bodily tabernacle, how much wisdom, love, in a word - likeness to God, is shown in life by man himself - this ruler of the earth, as it is said: let us create in our image and may he possess... all the earth! (Gen.1:26). But so that a person does not become proud, look what happens to you when that which is in you in the image of God leaves the body as if it were its church? It’s as if you won’t exist at all, you’ll disappear for this world; the church of your spirit loses all its goodness and splendor, becomes earth and is thrown into the earth, and taken from it (Gen. 3:19), completely mixing with it, as a part of it. Wonderful creation of God man! Miraculously, the Lord instilled His image - an immortal spirit - into the dust. But marvel, Christian, even more at the wisdom, omnipotence and goodness of the Creator: He transforms bread and wine into His Most Pure Body and Most Pure Blood and infuses Himself into them, His Most Pure and Life-Giving Spirit, so that His Body and Blood are together Spirit and Life. And what is this for? In order to cleanse the sinner from sins and sanctify you, and unite the sanctified one with Himself and deify the united one, bless you and immortalize you. Oh, the miracles of the goodness, wisdom and omnipotence of the Spasovs! Have you seen how respectfully, humbly, and orderly subordinates of all classes and ranks approach their superiors, and by this mutual address they fulfill their duty of subordination? But have you seen with what reverence and strict etiquette the king’s close associates treat themselves? And all these are examples of the creature’s behavior around the Creator, and in this harmonious circulation around the Creator, in obedience to His laws, lies their well-being and the purpose of life. Sometimes a person prays, apparently fervently, but his prayer does not bring him the fruits of peace and joy of heart in the Holy Spirit. Why? Because, praying according to ready-made prayers, he did not sincerely repent of the sins that he committed that day, with which he desecrated his heart, this church of Christ, and with which he angered the Lord. But remember them and repent, judge yourself impartially with all sincerity - and immediately peace will be established in your heart, surpassing all understanding (Phil. 4:7). In church prayers there is a listing of sins, but not all of them, and often those very ones that we have committed ourselves to are not mentioned; You must certainly list them yourself in prayer with a clear consciousness of their importance, with a sense of humility and heartfelt contrition. That is why in the evening prayers it is said when listing sins: either this or that did something bad, i.e. It seems to be our choice to mention certain sins. Our faith and the Church are like the most venerable, holy, God-wise, firm, ageless old woman, in whom a young, lively spirit always lives, reviving her faithful children. Just as we always behave with great respect before the elders, respecting their gray hair and wisdom - the fruit of centuries of experience, and we highly value their every word and apply it to life, so we must especially honor the Church, revere its holiness, antiquity, unshakable firmness, before its God-enlightened wisdom and spiritual experience, before its soul-saving commandments and decrees, its Divine services, Sacraments and rituals. How can one not honor her for the fact that she saved a countless number of people in her bosom, relocating them to a place of eternal peace and joy, and, not forgetting them after her death, announces them to this day on earth with eternal praise and glorification of their virtues, as her faithful children! Where will you find a more appreciative friend, a more tender mother? So, may Christians cleave their hearts entirely to the Church of Christ, may they be firmly established in it until the end of their temporary life, may they all be zealous for the fulfillment of all its commandments and statutes, and may they find in it eternal salvation in Christ Jesus our Lord. According to the wise dispensation of God, in this world one thing precedes another and one thing is replaced by another: dishonor and honor, poverty and wealth, health and illness; Before giving wealth, the Lord often tests him with extreme poverty, and deprives the rich of everything; before honor - dishonor, and the exalted by honor - humiliation, so that we learn to appreciate the gifts of God and are not proud in happiness, knowing that it is a gift from the Master, undeserved by us. It is necessary to stimulate the heart to prayer: otherwise it will completely dry out. Love for God, sincerity, simplicity: these are the properties of prayer. You must pray in spirit, because God is Spirit, not flesh; - the truth, not flattery, because God is truth. The same must be said about prayer to the saints. Do not call them only with your lips, for they do not have lips, voices, or anything bodily, but with a burning heart or soul, then they will hear, for they seek kindred and kindred. Yes, it is not flesh and blood that inherits the Kingdom of God, but a pure spirit, burning with love for God. Do not quench the Spirit, says the Word of God (1 Thess. 5:19). Remember this for every Christian, especially a priest and a teacher of children. Especially we need to always be burning in spirit in our high service to God and humanity. How much we would do for God, for people and for ourselves if we were to do our work with faith and love, with zeal, fervor and energy, and how little, dry, fruitless our work will be when we begin to do it sluggishly, lazily, with coldness, without any zeal and energy! We will be greatly responsible before God both for ourselves and for those entrusted to our care. Be attentive to yourself when a poor person in need of help asks you for it: the enemy will try at this time to fill your heart with coldness, indifference and even disdain for the person in need; overcome these non-Christian and non-human dispositions in yourself, arouse in your heart compassionate love for a person similar to you in every way, for this member of Christ and your own - we have been pleased with each other (Eph. 4:25) - for this temple of the Holy Spirit, so that Christ God may love you; and whatever the needy one asks of you, fulfill his request according to your strength. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away the one who wants to borrow from you (Matthew 5:42). Say the words of prayer with firmness of heart. When praying in the evening, do not forget to express in prayer to the Holy Spirit with all sincerity and contrition of heart those sins into which you fell on the previous day - a few moments of warm repentance - and you will be cleansed by the Holy Spirit from all filth, whiter than snow, and tears that cleanse your heart will flow from your eyes, and you will be covered with the robe of the truth of Christ and will be united with Him as with the Father and the Spirit. Spiritual poverty consists in considering oneself, as it were, non-existent and the One God as existing, honoring His words above everything in the world and not sparing anything to fulfill them, not one’s very life; to consider the will of God to be everything for oneself and for others, to reject one’s own completely: the poor in spirit desires and says with all his heart: hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done; he himself seems to disappear, he wants to see God everywhere and in everything - in himself and in others. Let everything be Yours, not mine; desires to contemplate His holiness in himself and in everyone; His kingdom also; His will is also to see Him alone filling human hearts, as it should, because He is the One Existing, All-Good and All-Perfect, Creator of everything, and the enemy is the devil and his detractors and people who resist God - those in the kingdom of God and opponents to God. For the poor in spirit the whole world is like nothing; everywhere he sees One God, who animates everything and controls everything; He has no place without God, no moment without God - everywhere and every minute he is with God and, as it were, with Him Alone. The poor in spirit do not dare and do not think to comprehend the incomprehensible, to reveal the Mysteries of God, to philosophize on a high level; he believes one word of the Lord the Giver of Life, knowing that every word of His is truth, spirit and eternal life, and by the word of His Church, ever guided by the Holy Spirit into all truth; believes as a child believes his father or mother, without demanding evidence, completely relying on them. The poor in spirit considers himself the last and the most sinful above all, and counts himself as trampling on everyone. How vividly they represented God to St. Men of God who composed their prayers with the Holy Spirit to guide themselves and us; with what trepidation they stood at prayer, but also with what love and hope! Every word of their prayer says: God is with us and God is in us, He hears our every word, sees our every thought, our desire, our tears, every tearful particle. Sometimes we stand in church or at home in prayer, relaxed in spirit and body: and our soul becomes powerless, cold, and barren, like that pagan barren church; but as soon as we strain our hearts to sincere prayer to God, turn our thoughts and hearts to Him with living faith, our soul will immediately come to life, become warm and fertilized; what sudden calm, what lightness, what tenderness, what inner holy fire, what warm tears for sins, what a sincere feeling of regret that they angered the Most Good Lord, what light in the heart and in the mind, what an abundant stream of living water will flow into the heart, flowing freely from the tongue, or from pen and pencil to paper; the desert of the soul flourishes like a shrine with the coming of the Lord into the heart. Oh! Why don’t we turn our hearts to the Lord more often! How much peace and consolation He always has hidden for us! How many multitudes of Your goodness, O Lord, have You hidden from those who fear You, O Lord (Ps. 30:20)! The bird is cunning and careful, it does not allow itself to be caught by catchers in the vastness of God’s world, and when it sees that someone is approaching it and wants to grab it: now it flies up from the ground and thus gets rid of the catchers. Likewise, a Christian must be wise and vigilant so that the incorporeal fisher does not catch his soul: our soul is like a bird of heaven, the devil is an evil fisherman seeking to devour someone’s soul. Just as a bird, flying to the mountain, thereby escapes from the catcher, so we, when we see the enemy - the devil, catching our soul with earthly things, must immediately leave them with our hearts, not for a moment becoming attached to them, and fly the mountain with our thoughts to the Lord Jesus, our Savior, and thus we will easily get rid of the trap’s net. The remedy will achieve success in any good deed. When you pray at home during evening or morning prayer, or in church during a service, have in your heart concern about completing this task and a heartfelt desire to fulfill it for the glory of God. The Lord and His Most Pure Mother will certainly enlighten you and put a bright thought on your heart on how to accomplish it. If you want to write a conversation or a sermon and don’t know what to write about, there is no living water in your heart, just take care of it sincerely in prayer, and the Lord and the Most Pure Mother will certainly clearly show you the subject of the word and its parts, your mind and heart will be illuminated with a clear knowledge of the sides of the subject. Thank God every day with all your heart for giving you life in His image and likeness, a life that is rationally free and immortal. Thank you especially for the fact that He restored you, who had fallen into eternal death, and sent you back to life, and not by a simple act of omnipotence, for this would be inconsistent with His justice, but by giving His Only Begotten Son, who suffered and died for us, as a ransom for us; Thank you also for the fact that He daily, by His will through sins falling from life to death, countless times again gives you life just because you say from your heart: those who have sinned, Father, in heaven and before You (Luke 15:18)! Thank you also for the fact that He, who recklessly plunges yourself into illness - a harbinger of bodily death, often delivers you from them, corrects your mistakes and does not deprive you of your earthly life, knowing that it is dear to you, that you are not yet ready for that eternal life. Thank Him for all the means of life, for all the joys and sorrows in life, for everything is from Him, the All-Good Father, everything from that First Initial Life, which gave to everyone and gave to everyone the life of a noble and sublime spirit - that person who graciously and generously scatters his gifts to everyone and rejoices that he has the opportunity to do good and pleasure to everyone, without thinking about reward for it. A person of a noble and sublime spirit is one who never becomes conceited with a person who often visits him and takes advantage of his generosity, does not neglect him in any respect, does not humiliate him one step in his thoughts, but always considers him the same as he considered him when he first met him or even much higher. Otherwise, we usually become conceited with the one who has become ours, as well as with what has become ours, and, having become accustomed to him or that, we soon, so to speak, become saturated with him and regard him as nothing: we often place a person lower than the thing we love or our favorite animal. It is good sometimes to say a few of your own words in prayer, breathing with ardent faith and love for the Lord. Yes, we can’t all talk to God in other people’s words, we can’t all be children in faith and hope, but we have to show our minds, burp out our good words from our hearts, and at the same time we somehow get used to other people’s words and grow cold. And how pleasant this babble of ours, coming directly from a believing, loving and grateful heart, is to the Lord - it is impossible to retell: it is only necessary to say that the soul, at its words to God, trembles with joy, becomes all excited, enlivened, and blissful. You will say a few words, but you will taste so much bliss that you will not receive it to the same extent from the longest and most touching prayers of others, pronounced out of habit and insincerely. When you ask the Lord for anything, immediately contemplate His gracious and generous Hand, who gives you His gifts, Who from the abundance of God has given and continues to give everything to everyone, and to doubt whether you will receive what you ask for or not, consider it madness, similar to that about which the prophet said that he said in his heart: there is no God (Ps. 13:1). So, asking some kind and generous person for help, we present his giving hand in advance, for earthly benefactors, in the likeness of their All-Good Father, are good and generous and give what we ask immediately after our request, as it is said: who is a man of you, whose son, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone to eat? Or if he asks for fish, will he give him food for a snake? If you are wicked, you know how to give good things to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him (Matthew 7:9-11). When you feel in your heart the languid whims of the heart or unbelief regarding any object of faith, then know that the enemy is in your heart - and he laughs at your ignorance, your weakness and inconstancy in faith; Now sincerely condemn your recklessness, your blindness, your sinful inconstancy in faith and your ingratitude to God for the former light of your heart and for the previous blessings you received from faith in that object (holy relics), which your heart now rejects out of blind stubbornness or in which it does not believe as it previously believed - and the Lord will have mercy on you: the languor will pass and it will become easy. O enemy! he wants everything in faith to be according to his lies. The new man (renewed) finds pleasure in obedience, but the old man wants to resist and disobey. So, Lord, Thy will be done! I accept as an expression of Your will everything that the authorities placed over me require of me, everything that others do to me (patience), everything that happens to me, for nothing happens without You. You are in everything, through everyone and everything. God is such a spiritual Being, from Whom everything and without Whom nothing is conceivable, in Whom the beginning, continuation, life and preservation of everything, Who is above infinitely all time and space, Who, never beginning, will never end, before Whom everything is as non-existent, Who is all everywhere, Who by His power contains in being everything that exists, Who is in every place, on every even unimaginable line space, and He Himself contains unlimitedly all space - in a word, God is Himself, i.e. One Existing, One Who Is. If your brother does something incorrectly or somewhat negligently during the service, do not be irritated either internally or externally against him, but generously condescend to his mistake, remembering that you yourself make many, many mistakes in life, that you yourself are a man with all your weaknesses, that God is long-suffering and abundantly merciful and forgives you and all of us our iniquities without number. Remember the words from the Lord’s Prayer: forgive us our debts, just as we forgive our debtors. These words should always remind us that we ourselves are at all times great debtors, great sinners before God, and that, remembering this, we should humble ourselves in the depths of our hearts and not be very strict towards the sins of our brothers, who are weak like us; so that, just as we do not judge ourselves strictly, we should not judge others strictly, for the brethren are our members, just as we are ourselves. Irritability of disposition comes from lack of self-knowledge, from pride, and from the fact that we do not reflect on the severe damage to our nature and have little knowledge of the meek and humble Jesus. The Lord tests the many different sinful affections of our hearts in different ways: he tests others (the stingy) with the loss of money or property, or any part of the property, he allows thieves to steal, robbers to rob; some by fire, some by flood, some by wasted expenses for failed business, some by illness and the costs of medicines and doctors associated with the disease; another by the loss of a wife, sister, boyfriend or girlfriend; another by dishonor - everyone is tested in every way, so that everyone will reveal the weak, painful sides of the heart in everyone and teach everyone to correct themselves. The weapon pierces the soul of many, so that their thoughts may be revealed from their hearts (Luke 2:35). Therefore, no matter what loss occurs from your property, believe that it is the will of the Lord and say: The Lord has given, the Lord has given: as the Lord willed, so it was: blessed be the name of the Lord (Job 1:21). Why does a person sometimes suddenly become so enraged that he gets very excited, speaks quickly, abruptly and incoherently, breaks his hands, tears out his hair or beats others in a rage, insanely breaks everything that comes into his hands, and does other things characteristic of someone who is insane and frenzied? Obviously because the spirits of evil from heaven are at work in his heart, inciting people to all kinds of evil and breathing malice and murder at everyone and everything. Why are there suicides of all kinds, as well as murderers of others? From the action in the hearts of suicides and murderers of the original suicide - the devil. That is why Christ the Savior and the Christian faith command everyone to have meekness and humility, which do not allow the spirits of malice and pride to act in their hearts, seeking the death of one and all. The Lord says: learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart (Matthew 11:29). Human anger is a terrible, unnatural phenomenon in a person; it is often aroused in the heart because of the most unimportant reasons, because of self-love, pride hidden in our heart. We must remember that the anger of a man does not accomplish the righteousness of God (James 1:20). For a true believer in God, all earthly matter and all visible worlds seem to disappear; for him there is not even one mental line of space without God; everywhere he contemplates a single, infinite Being - God. He imagines that with every breath of air he breathes God; The Lord is everywhere and everything for him, and creatures seem to not exist, and he himself willingly disappears mentally in order to give a place within himself to the One Existing God, who is all active in him. Sometimes you just enjoy the Lord, and soon after that the enemy, either himself or through people, will inflict extreme sorrow on you. This is the lot of those who work in this life for the Lord. For example, you rested and rejoiced at the Chalice of the Lord, and sometimes immediately after the service a fiery temptation meets you, and with it sorrow; Even at the Chalice itself, the enemy plays tricks on you and confuses you with various thoughts, and if you don’t want to, fight, and you would like to rest with the Lord for a long, long time, but your enemies won’t let you. As long as passions continue to operate in us, as long as the old man in us lives and does not die, until then we will have to grieve a lot from various temptations in life, from the struggle of the old man with the new. Great encouragement and consolation and great hope are given to those praying by these assuring words of the Lord: ask and it will be given to you... and further - who is the man of you whose son, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone for food (Matthew 7:7, 9)?... If others ask me for something and I, although evil due to the depravity of nature, listen to the requests of others, their words move my heart to mercy and help, and my hand to giving, then won’t my words, my sincere petition move the most humane Womb of the Lord to mercy and help to me, although a sinner, but still His creation, the work of His hands? If earthly fathers are good, then how much more so is the Heavenly Father? If I am good, isn’t God, the Source of goodness, even more good? If you, who are evil, know how to give good things to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him (Matthew 7:11). Confirm your faith and hope in God through the earthly relationships of fathers to children. After all, we are all children of the Heavenly Father, the One, in truth, Father of all creatures. When you feel that there is no peace in your heart due to addiction to something worldly, but instead irritability and anger are breathing in it, immediately stand guard over your heart and do not let the devil’s fire flood it. Pray with heartfelt prayer and strengthen your passionate, impatient heart with God’s power. Be firmly convinced that the evil kindling of the heart is the work of the enemy; and the enemy fights strongly in the heart through a full stomach. Experience. When you go to visit one of your relatives or friends, go not to have good food and drink with them, but to share a friendly conversation with them, to revive your soul from the vanity of everyday life with a conversation of love and sincere friendship, to be comforted by a common faith. I do not seek yours, says the Apostle, but you (2 Cor. 12:14). Love, it is said, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth (1 Cor. 13:4, 6). We often have to see unrighteous, sinful human deeds or hear about them, and we have the sinful custom of rejoicing in such deeds and expressing our joy without shame with crazy laughter. What we do is bad, un-Christian, unloving, ungodly. This means that we do not have Christian love for our neighbor in our hearts: for love does not rejoice in untruth, but rejoices in the truth. Let us stop doing this in the future, so that we will not be condemned along with those who do injustice. Do not breathe malice, vengeance, murder even on animals, so that your own soul is not put to death by a spiritual enemy who breathes malice in you even against dumb creatures, and so that you do not get used to breathing malice and vengeance on people. Remember that animals are also called to life by the goodness of the Lord so that they can taste as much as they can, in a short period of life, of the joys of existence. The Lord is good to everyone (Ps. 144:9). Do not hit them if they are unreasonable, if they do something wrong, or if any of your property suffers from them. Blessed is he who has mercy on cattle (cf. Proverbs 12:10). When the holy peace of thoughts reigns in my soul, then the King of the world - the Lord Jesus Christ with the Father and the Holy Spirit - rests faithfully in me: and then I should especially be filled with feelings of gratitude to the Leader of the world and try with all my might to preserve this peace of heart through prayer and removal from all sin, internal and external. The Comforter, the Holy Spirit, filling the entire universe, passes through all believing, meek, humble, kind and simple human souls, living in them, reviving and strengthening them; He is one spirit with them and everything happens for them: light, strength, peace, joy, success in business, especially in a pious life - everything good. Through everything pass intelligent, pure spirits (Wisdom 7:23). Let us all drink of one Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13). All pious people are watered by the one Divine Spirit, like a watered sponge. Walking in the forest, in the garden or in the meadow and seeing young shoots of plants, fruits on trees and a variety of wild flowers, take for yourself a lesson from all this God's vegetation, just such a lesson: every tree in the summer certainly gives off significant shoots, certainly grows in volume and height - every year, as it were, strengthens to move forward with the strength God has given it; so tell yourself: and I must certainly every day, every year become morally higher and higher, better and better, more perfect and perfect, I must move forward on the path to the Kingdom of Heaven or to the Heavenly Father by the power of the Lord Jesus Christ and His Spirit, living and acting in me. Just as a meadow is decorated with many flowers, so the meadow of my soul should be decorated with all the flowers of virtues; just as trees bear flowers and then fruits, so my soul must bear the fruits of faith and good deeds. Do not feed your flesh with partiality, do not caress it, do not please it, and do not strengthen it thereby against the spirit. Otherwise, when you have to work with the spirit, for example, to pray or write a spiritual and moral essay, then you will see how she prevailed over the spirit and tied him hand and foot; He will overthrow all his impulses and will not allow him to stand up and enter into his strength. The spirit will be a slave to the flesh. Then a person’s love for God or neighbor is especially revealed and its purity, firmness and constancy are revealed when there is an opposing force (diabolical) acting fervently in our heart - to the rooting of dislike, resistance, contempt, hatred, enmity; It is then that love strengthens in our heart, when the opposing force strengthens, so to speak, uproots it, and a person resists the opposing force in every possible way, purifies, elevates and strengthens his love through confrontation with the enemy. It is for this constant struggle and out of love for God and neighbor, for this firmness, for this fiery, persistent and constant invisible war with the spirits of evil in heaven that the Master interweaves the brilliant heavenly crowns of the ascetics of love for God and neighbor. In this regard, the holy ascetics, called venerable fathers, deserve a thousand crowns, who, out of love for God, leaving the world and everything in the world, went into empty, completely uninhabited places and there, shutting themselves up in their cells, spent their entire lives in contemplation of God, prayer, cutting off their will, fasting, vigil, work and feat for the sake of God, and endured their entire lives attacks from opposing forces, trying in every possible way to shake their faith and hope in God, especially love for Him. To fight out of love for God with your flesh and the devil, this cunning, strong and evil enemy, not for a few hours, days and months, but for many years, sometimes 60 and 70 years, what crowns does this deserve? And what, in comparison with these ascetics, are people living in the world, without attacks so often falling and without defeats so smitten by their flesh? What do they mean in comparison with St. ascetics, lay people living according to their own will, in luxury, in pleasures of every kind, in glorious clothing and food, indulging in pride, ambition, envy, hatred, stinginess, irritability, anger, revenge, entertainment, fornication, drunkenness - all vices, although not committed in one person? They are caught alive without any resistance into the will of the devil, and therefore he does not attack them, leaving them, long ago entangled in his nets, in dying peace and self-forgetfulness. Remember the saying of St. Scripture: Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (Rom. 12:21). They are rude to you, they irritate you, they breathe contempt and malice at you - do not repay the same, but be quiet, meek and affectionate, respectful and loving towards those who behave unworthily in front of you. If you yourself become embarrassed and speak with emotion, rudely, contemptuously and, therefore, without any love, then you yourself are defeated and those who offended you have the right to say: heal yourself to the doctor (Luke 4:23) or why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye, but don’t recognize the log in your own eye? First remove the logs from your hair (Matthew 7:3, 5). Do not be surprised if rudeness from those who insult you is often repeated to you, for they will notice your weakness and will deliberately irritate you. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (Rom. 12:21). Show the one who insulted you that he did not offend you, but himself, take pity on him from the heart, that he is so conveniently overcome by his passions, that he is mentally ill, show him the greater meekness and love the more rude and irritable he is, the more he hates you - and you will surely defeat him. – Good is always stronger than evil and therefore is always victorious. Remember also that we are all weak, we are extremely easily overcome by any passion, and therefore be meek and lenient towards those who sin against you, knowing that you yourself often suffer from the same illness as your brother; forgive your debts to your debtors, and the Heavenly Father will also forgive you your debts, unlike the great debts of your debtors. Be always calm, sublime, unobtrusive, strong in spirit, simple and kind in heart - and you will always triumph over your enemies. Rebuking the wicked wounds him. Do not rebuke the wicked, lest they hate you;... speak to the righteous and apply it (Prov. 9:7-9). Sometimes the enemy tricks us in that when we see any sin or vice in a brother or in society, he strikes our heart with indifference and coldness, reluctance or, rather, shameful cowardice to say a firm, accusatory word to untruth, to break the horn of the sinner. Christ the King! Grant me apostolic zeal and the fire of the Holy Spirit in my heart, so that I may always boldly rebel against the impudent vice that has especially infected many, and may I not spare anyone for the sake of their salvation and the rest of Your people, so that they are not tempted, seeing the spread of vice, and do not fall themselves. If anyone seduces one from these little ones who believe in Me, he will not eat, and the millstone of the village will come crashing down on his neck, and he will drown in the abyss of the sea (Matthew 18:6). For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost (Matthew 18:11). When a reckless thought comes into your head - to count any of your good deeds, immediately correct yourself in this mistake and quickly count your sins, your continuous, countless insults to the All-Good and Righteous Master, and you will find that you have them like the sand of the sea, and in comparison with them there are no virtues. When your heart is struck by stinginess, say to yourself: my life is Christ – the Love of all – my inexhaustible wealth, inexhaustible food, inexhaustible drink. Our blind flesh dreams of finding life in food and money, and is at war with those who deprive it of these material means of life. But be firmly convinced that life is not money and food, but mutual love for the sake of love for God. Remember that God is Love, who has united all animate things by the laws of love and who produces life from the unity of love. When praying, adhere to the rule that it is better to say five words from the heart than ten thousand words with the tongue. When you notice that your heart is cold and reluctant to pray, stop, warm your heart with some living idea, for example, of your wretchedness, your spiritual poverty, poverty and blindness, or the idea of ​​God’s great, moment-to-moment blessings to you and to the human race, especially to Christians, and then pray slowly, with a warm feeling; even if you don’t have time to read all the prayers in time, there is no problem, and you will receive incomparably more benefit from warm and unhurried prayer than if you read all the prayers, but hastily, without sympathy. I would like to speak five words with my mind rather than ten thousand words with my tongue (1 Cor. 14:19). But it would be very good, of course, if we could say a thousand words in prayer with due sympathy. The Lord does not abandon those who work for Him and stand by Him for a long time; they measure in every measure, He also measures, and according to the abundance of the true words of their prayer, He sends into their soul an abundance of spiritual light, spiritual warmth, peace and joy. It is good to pray long and unceasingly, but not everyone can receive this word, but to them it has been given to eat... He who is able to receive it, let him receive it (Matthew 19:11-12). For those who cannot endure long prayers, it is better to say short prayers, but with a warm soul. From the constant miracle of the transubstantiation of bread and wine into the true Body and Blood of Christ, united with His Divinity and soul, I see the miracle of the constant revitalization of man by divine breath and his creation into a living soul. And it came to pass, it is said, that man lives in his soul, and on St. At the meal, bread and wine, after transubstantiation, become not only a living soul, but also a life-giving spirit (1 Cor. 15:45; Gen. 2:7). And this is all before my eyes; and I experience it with my soul and body, I feel it vividly. My God! What terrible Mysteries You perform! What unspoken Mysteries You have made me a spectator and a participant. Glory to Thee, my Creator! Glory to Thee, Creator of the Body and Blood of Christ! And the saints of God were overcome by devilish despair and despondency. What is wrong with us sinners? Oh, the enemy often hurts us with heartfelt bitterness, humiliation and fierce despondency! We must constantly turn to the Lord and be with Him every minute so that the enemy’s bitterness and despondency do not take possession of us. There is also another way to get rid of the enemy of despondency - the vast path of the world: just indulge in the pleasures of the world, and despondency will leave you, at least for the duration of the pleasures; and then he will draw you to these pleasures, and they will become a need for you, you will find in them and only in them alone joy and fun; but God forbid every Christian from getting rid of devilish despondency by such a means. It is better to walk the narrow path, endure despondency and seek frequent help and deliverance from the Lord Jesus Christ, who gives joy to those who labor for His sake for their salvation, than to descend onto the broad and smooth path of the world and there, with the pleasures of the flesh, buy freedom from the spirit of despondency. The enemy, with the spirit of despondency, drove many from the narrow and saving path onto the wide and smooth, but disastrous path. Here you are praying, your prayer is being completed successfully, you have inner evidence that the Lord hears it and is pleased with it; you have peace of mind, your heart is light and sweet; but at the end of your prayer, because of the slightest relaxation of your heart and thoughts, some kind of heavy burden is thrown into your heart, a fire that weakens your heart, and you feel both the extreme heaviness of prayer and aversion from it, instead of the former lightness and disposition towards it. Do not despair, friend, these are the machinations of the enemy, who loves to laugh at us, especially at the end of our pious activities, so that we fall into despondency and consider all our previous labors in the holy cause to be lost. Learn from this in advance not to quench your spirit even for a minute during the continuation of prayer, to pray in spirit and in truth, unremittingly and not to flatter the Lord in prayer with a single word, i.e. Do not utter a single word feignedly, hypocritically, let your entire prayer be one expression of truth, the trumpet of the Holy Spirit, and not a single word serve the lie of the enemy, not be the organ of the devil. And to remove the burden of the enemy from your soul and to extinguish its fire, pray heartily to the Lord, admitting before Him from the heart your guilt - hypocrisy while saying a prayer - and you will receive relief and peace. Take your time, say and do everything peacefully. You'll have time. The enemy hurries and confuses, because vague haste is of no use. Our Father! May your kingdom come. The Lord reigns everywhere, in the entire visible world (he is in every place) and in all angelic councils; He reigns with His infinite power and truth both over evil spirits and over evil or unrighteous people; He bound some of them with eternal chains of darkness for the judgment of the great day, while He punished others in various ways in this life and He will punish them in the future with unquenchable fire. But He, the Truth, does not reign over demons and wicked people with His truth, because there is a lie in them; love does not reign, for there is malice in them; He does not reign in wicked people by faith, he does not reign in hope and love, he does not reign in them by the exact fulfillment of His laws. Why do you call Me, Lord, Lord, and do not do the things I say (Luke 6:46). Keep My commandments (John 14:15). Reigning in every slightest natural action of my body and soul (for example, in word), for my body obeys His laws in nutrition, rest, sleep, growth, walking, thought and word are built and moved according to His laws; but it does not always reign in my heart, in my heartfelt dispositions and in my free will: I often incline towards evil and do evil instead of the good set before me. I often resist Him, His laws. I am often of little faith, unbeliever, self-lover, proud, despiser of others, envious, miser, covetous, money-lover, carnivore, pleasing my sinful flesh in every possible way, ambitious, impatient, irritable, lazy, I do very few good deeds and that is more due to coincidence of circumstances than due to the free disposition and attraction of my heart, I do not have compassion for the suffering, as members of the single body of the Church, in a word: the Lord does not reign in me through thoughts, feelings and deeds of faith, hope and love. We need to pray for the constant and firm confidence of the heart that everything - our souls and bodies with their well-being and ill-being, and all our possessions, and all the circumstances of life - we have from God, from His power, and not from nature, not from chance, not from ourselves. Don’t pray to God, and you will soon forget in your heart your Benefactor, your Creator and your Lord, and with forgetting Him you will fall into all kinds of evil. So you see that only prayer brings you significant benefit. Both the mental and physical powers of a person are improved, multiplied and strengthened by their exercise. Exercise your hand often in writing, in sewing, in knitting - you will improve your hand, as they say: you will write, sew, knit well; Practice composing more often, and you will compose easily and well; practice doing good deeds or conquering passions and temptations - and over time you will do the deeds of virtue easily and sweetly, you will overcome passions conveniently with the help of the all-pervading grace of God. But if you don’t write, sew, or knit, or write, sew, or knit rarely, you will write, sew, and knit poorly; do not compose anything, or compose very rarely, live in only the material concerns of life - and, perhaps, it will be difficult to put together a few words, especially about something spiritual: the given composition will be an Egyptian work; don’t pray, or pray rarely - prayer will be disgusting and heavy for you, like a five-pound weight, don’t fight with passions, or fight only occasionally and weakly - and it will be very difficult to fight them, you will often be defeated by them; You will have no peace from them and you will poison your life with them, without learning to defeat these domestic, evil, internal enemies who are always sitting in your heart. So everyone needs work and activity: life without activity is not life, but something ugly, some kind of ghost of life. Therefore, the constant, persistent struggle against the laziness of the flesh is the duty of every person; God forbid every Christian from indulging her. Those who are Christ's are the lazy, evil, sin-loving flesh that has been crucified with its passions and lusts (Gal. 5:24). To the one who has, there will be given everywhere and he will have more; but from the one who has not, even if he thinks he has, it will be taken away (Matthew 25:29). A person who is embittered against us is a sick person; you need to put a plaster on his heart - love; we need to caress him, talk to him with affection, with love - and if he does not have any deep-rooted anger against us, but only a temporary outbreak - see how his heart or his anger will melt from our affection and love, how good will overcome evil. A Christian must always be good, wise, so that good can overcome evil. If you are offended by someone, do not be vindictive, and when those who have offended you show you a kind look and turn to you with a speech, do not turn your heart to anger, but speak to them kindly and good-naturedly, as if nothing had happened between you and them; learn to overcome evil with good, malice with goodness, meekness and humility. Do not say in your heart to the one who offended you: how! he speaks to me, having offended me, imputes his insult to me as nothing, but I do not consider him worthy to speak to me; I reject him, I despise him; let him know what it’s like to offend me. Don’t be proud and vindictive, don’t say that, so that the Lord will not be angry with your hard-heartedness. The whole material world is like nothing before God; some spiritual beings are like something, somehow; Angels and humans. Those only creatures who have lasting existence are those who are close to God, who have His image and likeness; The rest of creation comes like a shadow—heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away (Matthew 24:35). We must constantly remember that the devil is constantly trying to litter our soul with hellish rubbish, of which we have too much and which is too small and varied. So, is your heart's eye clouded by enmity, by pride, by impatience and irritability, by pity for material wealth for a brother or for yourself - I mean stinginess - by covetousness and love of money, by the unpeaceful and offensive words of others, by despondency and despair, by envy, by doubt, by lack of faith or disbelief in revealed truths, by vanity? whether it is laziness in prayer and in every good deed and in general in the work of service - say in your heart with the firm confidence of the word: this is the rubbish of the devil, this is the darkness of hell. With faith and hope in the Lord, with constant sobriety and attention to yourself, you can, with God’s help, avoid hellish rubbish and darkness. He who is born of God keeps himself, and the evil one does not touch him (1 John 5:18). All my happiness and unhappiness lies in the thoughts and dispositions of my heart. If the thoughts and dispositions of my heart agree with the truth of God or with the will of my God, then I am at peace, filled with spiritual light, joy, bliss; if not, he is restless, filled with spiritual, choking darkness, heaviness, and despondency. If I completely change the thoughts and dispositions of my heart that are false and opposed to God into those that are true and pleasing to God, then I will again be at peace and blessed. My neighbor is a being of equal rights to me, the same person as me, the same image of God; and since he is the same as me, then I need to love him as I love myself. Love your sincere one as yourself (Matthew 22:39), - you need to observe him as your own flesh and blood: treat him with love meekly, kindly, forgiving his mistakes, as I willingly forgive myself, as I myself thirst for forgiveness or indulgence from others for my weaknesses, i.e. so that they would not notice them, as if they were not there, or they would notice them affectionately, meekly, kindly, benevolently. In order to partake of the Life-giving Mysteries with undoubted faith and defeat all the machinations of the enemy, all slander, imagine that what you receive from the Chalice is “Sy,” i.e. one who exists. When you have such a disposition of thoughts and heart, then from the reception of the Holy Mysteries you will suddenly calm down, rejoice and become enlivened, you will know with your heart that the Lord truly and essentially dwells in you, and you are in the Lord. - Experience. When you pray to the Lady, you call Her the abyss of goodness and bounty. In your own strengths, in kindness and generosity, become like those who need your kindness and generosity; do not be angry with them, do not despise them, but love them the more, the more they need you. Reason lightly and sensibly, evangelically about their situation, often putting yourself in their place, and the Lady will increase Her mercies to you. You will say different words: some will bring you to life, and others will kill your soul and, perhaps, the soul of your neighbor. That is why it is said: let your word always be in grace, mixed with salt (Col. 4:6), so that it may give grace to those who hear; Let not every corrupt word proceed out of your mouth (Eph.4:29). With satiety and drunkenness, the incorporeal enemy enters a person’s heart—everyone who is attentive can feel this. This is the reason why, with increasing drunkenness, the inclination to drunkenness increases so terribly (because the power of the enemy over a person increases), why such a force is noticeable among drunkards, attracting them involuntarily to satisfy a passion or internal desire for wine - these unfortunates have an enemy in their hearts. How to cast out the demon of drunkenness? By prayer and fasting. The enemy enters because people indulge in a carnal lifestyle, gluttony and do not pray; naturally, he can leave them for the opposite reasons: fasting and prayer. What if we had not been given the prevenient grace of God, if it had not suddenly, unexpectedly embraced our entire being after the sins we had committed and did not itself dispose it to repentance and tears? What if you could only receive it through your own efforts? Oh, we would be damned people then, rare, rare, who could get rid of the burden of sins, for our nature is generally lazy towards intense labor, especially in spiritual life, and without help, without strong relief and delight in spiritual labor, would abandon them, would abandon the work of our salvation. Now the all-wise God and the gracious Father will either lighten and delight our spiritual burden, or sometimes aggravate it for our testing, to teach us patience and exhaustion of our evil, destructive flesh, wisely replacing one with another - and the work of our salvation, thanks to God, is always possible, not too difficult and very often pleasant for us. How sad it is to see that on the feasts of the Lord the enemy takes his dues from Christians, an extremely large dues, and the greater the holiday, the more dues Christians pay to the enemy, for what do we see on holidays? Complete idleness, unbridledness of the flesh, drunkenness, debauchery, fights, thefts, amusements. My God! what a delight for the flesh! What zealous service to the devil! Are these people Christians, just think, redeemed by the honest Blood of the Son of God? Do you live in Christian times, or in pagan ones? Are these the communicants of the Life-Giving Mysteries? Are these the people who visit the church of God and pray to the Lord with you? If it was them, why did they come to the church? Apparently, by habit alone, and not by the attraction of a heart grateful to Christ the Savior. Apparently, they did not pray to God, did not approach Him with their hearts, but only approached Him with their lips - if only they approached Him with their lips - and they did not enter into the power of the holiday, in general they do not understand the essence and purpose of Christian holidays, they do not participate in them the way children participate in the family holiday of their parents. Thin children from such a loving, kind, holy mother - the Church! The mother is holy, the children are sinners; spiritual mother, carnal children; mother is heavenly, children are earthly; the mother wants to give her children eternal, spiritual blessings, instead of corruptible and temporary ones, but the children reject them and choose earthly, sinful, and transitory pleasures for themselves. However, among people who are drunk and devoted to various vices on holidays, you meet more people who have not been to church (and do not know the holiday at all, because they have never thought about it). For such there is only one holiday - the holiday of the flesh. Oh! How long will we priests not rise up against all the outrages on the feasts of the Lord? Which of the priests of God will have the zeal of Elijah, or Phineas, or Isaiah, or Jeremiah (to rise up with the power of the Holy Spirit against all these outrages on the feasts of the Lord in the new Israel), so as to use all their strength, their whole life for the glory of God - to eradicate these indecencies among Christians? God! when will we hallow Thy feasts, as befits a shrine? When will we console our holy mother, the Church, by obeying her statutes? When will we be drunk with her spirit? How long, starting in the spirit, will we finish with the flesh the celebration of the great, saving events of the Orthodox faith? How long will the enemy mock the members of Christ, who are Christians? How long will people of other faiths and confessions point to us and say: look - these are the Christians who call themselves Orthodox - how they live! What faith they have in their hearts! What knowledge do they have about faith! What kind of priests they have! How badly they teach the people the faith, how little they explain to them the holidays, their object and purpose of establishment! How little they teach them to live by faith! My God! what a criticism of our Orthodox faith and of us shepherds! Or, however, perhaps what they say about us shepherds is true? There is a lot of our fault that Christians do not spend holidays as they should; we do not rebuke, do not forbid, do not beg them to spend the holidays and generally live like Christians with all patience and teaching. We talk little about idleness, drunkenness, debauchery; We do not thunder in the Church of God with the word of God against these vices that have terribly taken hold of Christians. We do not always excommunicate, out of fear of others, from the Holy Chalice persons known for their drunkenness and adultery, and thereby allow these contagious and vile vices to increase more and more; We give weak penances in confession to persons who deserve strict church punishment, and we do not follow, as it were, the fulfillment of those penances that we impose on them! Good God! Both shepherds and flock are irresponsible before You. All evaded, together with indecency there was. Do not do goodness among us, not even one (Rom. 3:12). What will finally happen given the current chaos in our lives? Lawlessness spreads across the earth; The enemy's kingdom is expanding, Your kingdom is shrinking; There are few of Your chosen ones, in whose hearts You rest, - many are the slaves of the devil, in whose hearts the original murderer sits like a thief. What will you do to us, Lord? The Blood of Your Covenant cries out from the earth, but Your gospel voice does not penetrate the hearts of Christians. Your commandments are neglected, church statutes are trampled upon - what will you do to us, Lord? God! Send zealous workers to Thy garden, not seeking their own (1 Cor. 13:5), but seeking Thy Christ. Grant them prophetic zeal, apostolic strength and wisdom, so that they tirelessly cultivate the fields of human hearts day and night. They say: we soon get tired of praying. Why? Because you do not imagine the Lord alive before you, as if He is at your right hand. Look at Him unceasingly with the eyes of your heart, and then you will spend the whole night praying and will not get tired. What am I saying – night! Stand for three days and three nights and not get tired. Remember the stylites. For many years they stood in a prayerful mood of spirit on the pillar, and overcame their flesh, which, both in you and in them, was also prone to laziness. And you are burdened by several hours of public prayer, even one hour! Love... thinks no evil (1 Cor. 13:4-5). To think of any kind of evil is the work of the devil: the devil in man and with man thinks it. Therefore, do not have any evil in your heart against your friend and do not think about him, lest you dissolve with the devil. Overcome with good things every evil (Rom. 12:21) that you see or that seems to you. This is your spiritual wisdom and the feat of Christian love. Our Father, who art in heaven! What a lofty, touching, spiritual spectacle when these words in a large church meeting or in a circle of family members, or in a meeting of pets, or in a meeting of soldiers are pronounced from the soul, truly with one heart and one mouth! What a lofty spectacle when you see that these words are justified in the very lives of people, when everyone has feelings of brotherly love for each other, they live peacefully, the younger ones obeying the older ones, the less intelligent to the more intelligent, giving each other their due, respecting each other, creating greater honor for each other (Rom. 12:10)! What, truly, a heavenly spectacle when, sitting down at the table with a large and diverse family, everyone says with one mouth and one heart: Our Father! and they confess the one Heavenly Father as the all-holy King, desiring the fulfillment of His One will on earth, confessing His One as the nourisher of all! What a sublime sight it is when the owner of the house ascribes his goods, food and drink, not to himself, but to God, considering His gifts common to all; when he compares himself with everyone else, it is as if he himself is accepting the treat, and not treating others! But what an amazing and comforting sight it would be if the whole earth, all peoples, with one mouth and one heart, cried out to heaven: Our Father! like you are in heaven! Hallowed be Thy name - in us all! May Your Kingdom come as in the beginning before the Fall; may Your good and perfect will be done, as in heaven - forever, so on earth, and may self-will not reign! Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, and so on. What if everyone had this way of thinking and wanting! But someday it will be; for the time will come when all who live on earth will be one flock under one Shepherd (John 10:16). Angelic minds cannot comprehend and marvel at what wisdom, goodness and omnipotence the Lord showed us in His incarnation from the Most Holy Virgin Mary. Every angelic nature was amazed at the great work of Your incarnation; unapproachable because like God, in vain is the approachable man 5. Glory to Your goodness! Glory to Your bounties! Glory to Your wisdom! Glory to Your power! Through His incarnation the Lord clearly taught us all the Mysteries of faith that were unknown or little known in the Old Testament. Through His incarnation, we, damned sinners, have been rewarded with His Most Pure Body and Blood and are most closely united with Him, we abide in Him, and He in us. Through His incarnation, the Most Holy Virgin Mother of God became our all-powerful Intercessor and Protection from sins, troubles and misfortunes, praying for us day and night, our Queen and Lady, before whose power no enemies, visible or invisible, can stand, and our Mother Herself by grace, according to the words of the Lord on the cross to His disciple John: behold your Mother, - and to Her: behold your son Yours (John 19:26–27)! Glory to Your bounty, Lord! How we humiliate our godlike, immortal soul, becoming addicted to the corruptible and fading, disappearing splendor of gold and silver and turning our gaze away from the heavenly, eternal, all-joyful light, or to corruptible, transitory, harmful and relaxing sweets of the soul and body, and turning our gaze away from the eternal, spiritual sweetness, from the sweetness of the sight of God, or to vain, earthly glory, turning away eyes from the honor of the heavenly calling, from the honor of the children of God, heirs of the eternal Kingdom of God. Oh, earthly vanity! Oh, worldly passions! Woe behold Christian. The highest good in this life and in the future is God, who lives forever, is all-perfect, all-blessed. He who has acquired this Good, who has It in his soul, is the happiest person. Everything else earthly, everyday, recognized as good, is vanity, emptiness. What is near me or on me does not constitute me; even my flesh, with which I am surrounded and of which I consist, as part of my earthly existence, does not actually constitute me. What is it that is written: His praise is not from man, but from God (Rom. 2:29)? Who gets the credit? - To the one who works for God internally, in the heart, who does all his deeds according to conscience and does not care about human opinion or human glory. But we seek praise from people and do not seek it from God, Who is the God of glory. We are looking for earthly rewards, crosses and orders. Why did the Holy Cross appear to King Constantine in heaven? – To signify that through the Cross our Lord Himself entered into His glory, as well as all the apostles and the entire martyr’s army; that the Cross is an invincible victory; that just as the devil was overthrown by the Cross, so by him (the Cross) all the enemies of the Cross of Christ or Christians will be overthrown; that through the persecutors of Christians the devil acts, whom he must defeat with the Cross; that persecuted Christians are members of Christ, soldiers of Christ, who are always under the intercession of Christ God and His Cross. Behold, you are healthy: let no one sin (John 5:14). – Experience shows that sins and passions destroy the health of the soul and body, and victory over passions brings heavenly peace to the soul and health to the body. Defeat the many-headed hydra of sin - and you will be healthy. Keep peace of mind within yourself and do not be indignant, do not be irritated by any contradictions, insults, faults, untruths - and you will always enjoy mental and physical health. Excitement, indignation, the fire of various passions give rise to many mental and physical illnesses in us. To manage others, you must first learn to manage yourself; In order to teach others, you must acquire knowledge yourself. When I do not know how to control myself, when I do not have the spirit of self-control, the spirit of meekness, holiness, love and truth, then I am a bad manager. When all sorts of passions play with me, it is better for me not to take control of others, so as not to cause great harm to myself and them. The Lord is life in my death, strength in my weakness, light in my darkness, joy in my sorrow, boldness in my cowardice, calm in my confusion, goodness in my prayer, glory in my dishonor and deliverance from my dishonor. Wonderfully, powerfully, quickly He intercedes and saves me in my troubles and difficulties, in my hobbies. When I cry to Him for my salvation, invisible enemies flee from me after their dirty tricks within me, and I tangibly recognize the saving right hand of my God, my Savior, above me. Glory, thanksgiving to the Shepherd and Visitor of my soul! When you stand for prayer, burdened with many sins and overcome with despair, begin to pray with hope, a burning spirit, then remember that the Spirit of God Himself helps us in our weaknesses, interceding for us with groanings that cannot be uttered (Rom. 8:26). When you remember with faith about this action of the Spirit of God in us, then tears of tenderness will flow from your eyes, and in your heart you will feel peace, sweetness, justification and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17), you will cry out with the verb of your heart: Abba Father! The omnipresence of God is spatial and mental, that is, God is everywhere in a spatial sense and everywhere in a mental sense: wherever I go physically or mentally, everywhere I meet God and everywhere God meets me. When praying, you need to have such faith in the power of the words of prayer that you do not separate the words themselves from the very deeds expressed by them; one must believe that the word, like a shadow following the body, is followed by deed, since with the Lord word and deed are inseparable: for He spoke and it happened; He commanded it, and it was created (Ps. 149:5). And you also believe that what you said in prayer, what you asked for, will happen. You praised - and God accepted the praise, thanked the Lord - and God accepted your thanksgiving into the stench of spiritual fragrance. The trouble is that we are of little faith and separate words from deeds, like the body from the soul, like form from content, like a shadow from the body - we are also in prayer, as in bodily life, not having the spirit (Jude 1:19), which is why our prayers are fruitless. My eyes and my heart will be there all the days, it says about the church (1 Kings 9:3); that, that is, more on the hearts of those present and praying, for the Most High does not live in churches made by hands. How gratifying it is to read these words from the wise Solomon! The eyes of the Lord in the church of God are turned to each of us, the heart of the Lord is turned to each of us! Is it possible to demand more intimacy? The very heart of the Lord is turned to me. Sometimes you stand face to face with a person and talk with him, but his heart is not turned to you, but is occupied with something else; and here the heart of God - everything is turned to you, all His love, all His goodness, all His bounties are ready to pour out from Him on you according to your faith. When we call upon the saints in prayer, saying their name from the heart means bringing them closer to our very heart. Then undoubtedly ask for their prayers and intercession for yourself - they will hear you and present your prayer to the Lord soon, in the blink of an eye, as the Omnipresent and All-Knowing One. When at proskomedia you prayerfully call upon the Lord Jesus Christ or His Most Pure Mother and the saints, or commemorate the living and the dead, then the particle taken out represents and, as it were, replaces the Lord or His Most Pure Mother, or some saint, or collectively many saints, living or dead, commemorated, and what is thought in the name represents and replaces the soul of the being invoked or commemorated. Thus, in a small form, the beings of the high and low world are reflected in our mouths and in our hearts, and all this through faith, by the Holy Spirit, Who is the One - existing everywhere and fulfilling everything. When I pray, I firmly believe that 1) God is the One and fulfills everything, therefore at my right hand, 2) that I am His image, 3) that He is the abyss of goodness, and 4) the Source of all goodness and that He Himself has authorized me to pray to Him. Just as stones or pieces of wood, or anything else thrown upward, certainly fall to the ground or into the water, depending on where they are thrown, so the words of prayer will certainly reach God if they are spoken from the heart, and if not from the heart, falsely, then they fall into the serpent of the abyss, into the ocean of lies - the devil, who is the creature of lies. When praying, you need to imagine all creation as nothing before God, and the One God as Everything, containing everything, existing everywhere, acting and animating everything. The Lord, filling all creation - which is before Him like a drop of morning dew descending to the earth, and like a guardian in prestige (Wisdom 11:23), containing it, to the smallest blade of grass and speck of dust in His Right Hand and not being limited to either the great or the small creations in it - exists in infinity, completely filling, as it were, the void, for He is the only being, which is why He calls Himself Sy (Ex.3:14), i.e. I am the One that I am. No matter how small the substance may be, if only it exists, the Lord also exists, fulfilling everything and containing everything: for can it be that matter somehow exists, but the Lord, who created everything, does not exist? Ridiculous. Without Him, not a single speck of dust can exist in existence, if left to itself, deprived of God’s presence and omnipotence. Without Him nothing could have happened (John 1:3). Who our union with God will be in the next century and that it will be for us a source of light, peace, joy, bliss - we partly know this experimentally in this life. Through prayer, when our soul is completely turned to God and unites with Him, we feel wonderful, calm, light, joyful, like children resting at their mother’s breast, or, better to say, somehow inexpressibly good: it is good for us to be here (Luke 9:33). So strive unremittingly for the future endless bliss, the firstfruits of which you know experimentally in this life, but pay attention: these are only the firstfruits of the earth, imperfect, visible only in part, as if in a mirror and fortune telling (cf. 1 Cor. 13:12); What will it be like for us when we truly and sincerely unite with God, when images and shadows pass and the kingdom of Truth and vision begins? ABOUT! Until death we must strive for future bliss, for our future unity with God. You see how bright the sun and stars are: the righteous will one day shine just like the sun (Matthew 13:43), from the inner, immaterial light of God. – When Angels appear on earth, they are almost always illuminated with light. Strive for this enlightenment, discard dark things. We can elevate our nature to a participation of the divine Nature; and God is the uncreated Light, surpassing every created light. Human! when I look at you, at your earthly feelings, at your flesh, when I remember the day of your birth and the subsequent days of your infancy and growth until now, and then my thoughts are transported to the day of your death, and then to the eternity that was awarded to you from the creation of the world, then I do not know what to marvel at: your insignificance or the omnipotence and goodness of the Creator, Who was pleased to give you life and your bodily and to once clothe a mortal body with immortality? My surprise increases when I see that the Lord God, the Eternal King, gives you, flesh and blood, to eat His own Flesh and Blood, since He, in the days of His flesh,... sincerely partook of our flesh and blood (Heb. 5:7, 2:14) in order to make you eternally alive. A person who has died is a living being: God is not the God of the dead, but of the living; for to Him all things live (Luke 20:38). His soul hovers invisibly near his body and in the places where he loved to stay. If she died in sins, she cannot help herself to get rid of their bonds and is in great need of the prayers of living people, especially the Church - the Most Holy Bride of Christ. So let us pray for the dead sincerely. This is a great benefit to them, greater than a benefit to the living. When the Lord looks mercifully on earthly creatures with the eyes of nature, with the eyes of clear, favorable weather, everyone becomes light and cheerful; when there is a breath of well-dissolved air, there is a goodness of air in all bodies and souls, and when there is a breath of cold, damp, heavy dissolved air, everyone will feel some kind of heavy burden in the soul and body, many earthly creatures will groan from illness, many will give in to despondency and melancholy. The influence of nature on people is so powerful and irresistible. And it is remarkable that whoever is least bound by worldly lusts and pleasures, who is least devoted to gluttony, who is abstinent in food and drink, nature is favorable to him and does not torment him, at least not in the same way as slaves of nature and his flesh. Oh, how clear it is that our life is in the Lord, and not in sensible things; since it is clear that the Lord is in everything, He acts all in everyone (1 Cor. 12:6): in the air - He is our breath, in food - our satiation, in drink - the quenching of our thirst, in clothing - our robe, in the home - our cover, warmth and peace; in a dream - our peace; in pure, instructive, chaste and edifying word - our word; in mutual love - our love. Lord, Master, our Creator and Benefactor! Grant to us always, every moment of life, to remember You, that we live and move and exist through You (Acts 17:28), that from You we have life, breath and everything. But let us remember that if in everything that is counted we pervert the statutes of God, He becomes our grievous punishment: He is our punishment in the air; in food and drink - not satiation and quenching of thirst, but either aversion from it, or illness: this happens when they say that food does not benefit him; in clothing and housing there is languor or collapse of spirit; in a dream - not calm, but intimidation and anxiety; in a word – connection; in perverse love there is fiery torment. – The sources of punishment are usually revealed in our most sinful inclinations: for whoever sins is the one who suffers (Wis. 11:17). The truth and saving power of our holy faith is clearly revealed from the fact that not a single Sacrament, not a single prayer of faith remains in vain for us, but is brought to us from heaven and reveals its power in our souls and bodies, cleanses our sins, gives rest to our souls, according to the word of our Savior: come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest (Matt. 11:28), deliver us from heart troubles and bodily illnesses. No, we never pray in vain to our Lord or the Most Holy Theotokos, or the Angels and saints, but we receive all petitions that lead to salvation; the powers of healing and various kinds of help constantly descend to us from heaven. Our Lord is the Lord of the many different powers that are revealed to us, and our God is the God of mercy and salvation. Likewise, the Ever-Virgin Mother of the incarnate God the Word imitates the love for mankind of Her Son and God, praying for us, does not cease and constantly reveals Her powers to the believers. Feeling the incessant, all-saving powers of the Mother of God manifested over us, we cry out to Her: let us never be silent, O Mother of God, Thy power to speak unworthy; If only You had not stood before us, praying, who would have delivered us from so many troubles... 6 or: manifest Your power as ever... and we turn to Her in every sorrow, need and situation. The same must be said about Angels and saints: those called by us, they listen to us and, by the grace of God, show us help. A carnal man does not understand the spiritual bliss that comes from prayer and virtue, and cannot understand at least to some extent what kind of bliss there will be in that age. He knows nothing higher than earthly, carnal bliss, and considers future blessings to be a dream of the imagination. But the spiritual person knows from experience the bliss of a virtuous soul and anticipates future bliss in his heart in advance. The more a person leads a spiritual life, the more he becomes spiritual: he begins to see God in everything, in everything a manifestation of His strength and power; always and everywhere he sees himself abiding in God and depending on God in all the smallest things. But the more carnal a person’s lifestyle is, the more he becomes entirely carnal: he does not see God in anything, in the most wonderful manifestations of His divine power, he sees flesh, matter in everything, and everywhere and at all times there is no God before his eyes (Ps. 35:2). The Lord is called and is the Good Shepherd (John 10:11); if you believe His guidance, you will understand in your heart that just as a diligent shepherd tends his flock in the forest, not allowing it to wander into the forest, but gathering the sheep together, so the Lord shepherds our souls, not allowing them to wander in lies and sins, but gathering them on the path of virtue and not allowing the mental wolf to plunder and scatter them. Since the devil is simple in his essence and in an instant with a single thought he can attack us completely and enter our heart, then it is necessary to reflect him in the same instant, with one strong word of the heart, containing all the power of truth, as a complete antidote to the enemy’s lies. In this sense, the Savior said: be wise as the serpent (Matthew 10:16), i.e. as a spiritual one, this serpent quickly, accurately, with hellish wisdom always attacks us, realizing when it is easiest for him to attack and overturn us; peeking out what our weaknesses and habits are and, for the most part, striking a blow for sure. But at the same time, the Savior said, be your targets like doves (Matthew 10:16), i.e. simple and gentle; borrow only one wisdom from the serpent, but let your heart remain simple, pure and uncorrupted; be meek and humble, as I am, do not give in to anger and irritability, for the anger of a man does not accomplish the righteousness of God (James 1:20); Keep yourselves clean from all filthiness of flesh and spirit. Our soul, as a spiritual, active being, cannot remain idle: either it does good or evil, one of the two: either wheat grows in it, or tares. But just as every good thing comes from God, and the means to receive every good thing from God is prayer, those who pray diligently, from the depths of their souls, sincerely, receive from the Lord grace to do good and, above all, the grace of faith, and those who do not pray naturally remain without spiritual gifts, voluntarily depriving themselves of them through their negligence and spiritual coolness; and just as the wheat of good thoughts, dispositions, intentions and deeds grows in the hearts of those who fervently pray and work for the Lord, so in the hearts of those who do not pray the tares of all evil grow and choke out the small amount of good that remains in them from the grace of baptism, confirmation, then repentance and communion. Therefore, you need to look very carefully at the field of your heart, so that the tares of evil, laziness, sloth, luxury, unbelief, covetousness, stinginess, envy, hatred, etc. do not grow in it - daily weed the field of your heart, at least at evening and morning prayer, refresh it with saving sighs, like early and late rain. In addition, by all means you need to introduce into the field of your heart the seeds of virtues - faith, hope in God, love for God and your neighbor, fertilize and fertilize it with prayer, patience, good deeds and not remain for an hour in complete idleness and inaction, for in times of idleness and inaction the enemy diligently sows his tares: the enemy came as a sleeping man and all the tares in the midst of the wheat, and Matthew 13:25). We must remember that without coercion, without effort, one cannot do good deeds. The Kingdom of God, after our free fall into sin, can no longer be taken other than by force, and only those who use force take it away (Matthew 11:12). Why does the narrow path and narrow gate lead to life? Who narrows the path of the chosen? Who makes the gate narrow? The world oppresses the elect, the devil oppresses, the flesh oppresses: they narrow our path to the Kingdom of Heaven. The Lord brought both my soul and body from non-existence into existence - so omnipotent is He! How can I not believe in His omnipotence! What would I, who myself have been brought from non-existence into being, consider impossible for Him? What does God have in the world that is higher and more precious than me, a human being? Am I not, first of all, the greatest miracle of omnipotence? I, accepted by God Himself into unity with Him, I, humbled by the Angels, I, who united with Him by faith and purity of life, I myself perform miracles of God’s omnipotence, for example: I raise the dead, like Elijah and the apostles? If the spirits of Angels and the souls of men are brought by Him from non-existence into existence, then what kind of body will He not create, animate and inanimate? Moreover, if God Himself became human flesh and soul, without ceasing to be God, if He did something impossible for us, then what could be impossible for Him after this? What is more infinite than this miracle? This is how our God has shown and continues to show His omnipotence in practice. If disembodied Angels can take on a body that is not illusory, but true, having received the ability to do so from God, then with what convenience can the Lord Himself create a body for Himself? – One can even say that every animate being is characterized by creativity, according to the gift of God the Spirit of the All-Creator. Will not the Lord God Himself, who gave such laws to nature with instant ease, transform any substance into a body with a single wave? Are not all bodies composed of unformed and inanimate matter? After this, what kind of little faith will doubt the transformation, for example, of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ during the Divine Liturgy? This is God’s usual work of miracles after He Himself created flesh for Himself from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. What is firmer, more immutable and more powerful than the Word? By the word the world was created and stands: bearing all things by the word of His power (Heb. 1:3); and yet we sinners treat the word so frivolously and carelessly. What is less respected among us as a word? What is more changeable among us, like a word? What do we throw around like dirt every minute if not the word? - Oh, we damned people! What a treasure we treat so carelessly! We do not remember that with the word that comes from a believing and loving heart, we can create miracles of life for our souls and for the souls of others, for example, in prayer, during Divine services, in sermons, during the performance of the Sacraments! Christian! treasure every word, be attentive to every word; be firm in your word; be trusting in the word of God and the word of holy men, as in the word of life. Remember that the word is the beginning of life. The word must also be strongly respected because in one word there is the omnipresent and all-fulfilling, one and indivisible Lord. That is why it is said: “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord Thy God in vain” (Ex. 20:7), because in one name is the Lord Himself, a simple Being, an Ever-worshipped Unit. When the Lord strikes you with severe sorrow or illness or misfortune, then be confident that He will faithfully send you joy and, in accordance with your suffering, will then give you the grace of peace, strength and joy. For the Lord is generous and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in mercy. He is not completely angry, ... he did not make us eat because of our iniquities, he repaid us because of our sins (Ps. 102:8-10) Looking at the cross of the Savior, contemplate the Love crucified on it for the sake of our salvation and think for what bliss He saved us, from what torment He redeemed us! From the jaws of what beast did He pluck us and to what Father does He bring us! Oh love! Oh, ransom! Oh, the horrors of endless torment! Oh, indescribable and endless bliss! Saying: Our Father, we must believe and remember that the Heavenly Father never forgets and will not forget us, for what kind of earthly good father forgets and does not care about his children? I will not forget you, says the Lord (Is. 49:15). This is the message of your Heavenly Father, that you require these all (Matthew 6:32). Take these words to your heart. Remember that the Heavenly Father constantly surrounds you with love and care and is not called your Father in vain. Father is not a name without meaning and power, but a name with full meaning and power. When you pray, as a rule, especially according to a book, do not rush from word to word without feeling its truth, without placing it on your heart, but do and constantly do the work of feeling with your heart the truth of what you are saying; your heart will resist this - sometimes with laziness and petrified insensitivity to what you read, sometimes with doubt and unbelief, with some kind of inner fire and tightness, sometimes with absent-mindedness and deviation towards some earthly objects and concerns, sometimes with the remembrance of an insult from your neighbor and a feeling of vengeance and hatred towards him, sometimes with the imagination of the pleasures of the world, or the imagination of the pleasure of reading novels and secular books in general - do not be being proud, conquer your heart, give it to God as an acceptable sacrifice; give me, son, your heart (Proverbs 23:26) - and your prayer will connect you, unite you with God and with all heaven, and you will be filled with the Spirit and His fruits: truth, peace and joy, love, meekness, long-suffering, tenderness of heart. Do you want to finish your prayer rule soon in order to give rest to your weary body? Pray heartily and you will fall into the most peaceful, quiet and healthy sleep. Don’t rush to pray somehow: for half an hour of prayer you will gain three whole hours of the healthiest sleep. Are you in a hurry to go to work or to work? Get up early, don’t wake up - and pray fervently - you will gain peace, energy and success in your affairs for the whole day. Is your heart yearning for the vanity of life? Break it; let his treasure be not earthly vanity, but God: teach your heart most of all to cleave through prayer to God, and not to the vanity of the world, so that you will not be put to shame in the days of your illness and at the hour of your death, as rich in the vanity of the world and poor in faith, hope and love. If you do not pray as I said, then you will not prosper in life and faith and spiritual intelligence. The Lord Jesus Christ did not have anywhere to lay His head during His earthly life (Matthew 8:20), but He had His belly and the belly of all within Himself (John 3:36, 5:26, 11:25, 14:6), while rich people build magnificent palaces for themselves, live in them, but, alas, in such a brilliant environment they do not have true life in their hearts, they cannot enjoy their vanity: they are bored and stuffy in their magnificent palaces, so that many rich people and important dignitaries would exchange their palaces for a poor man’s hut, just to get his peace of mind. Perfect pleasing to God consists in having perfect impartiality towards one’s body for Him; for example, when during prayer, despite laziness and a strong disposition to sleep, we force ourselves and do not give in to it, then we have dispassion for the body. The martyrs and ascetics had perfect impartiality. At the end of your home morning and evening prayers, call on the saints: patriarchs, prophets, apostles, saints, martyrs, confessors, saints, abstinents or ascetics, unmercenaries - so that, seeing in them the implementation of every virtue, you yourself become an imitator in every virtue. Learn from the patriarchs childlike faith and obedience to the Lord; among the prophets and apostles - zeal for the glory of God for the salvation of human souls; among the saints - zeal to preach the word of God and, in general, through the scriptures to contribute to the possible glorification of the name of God, to the establishment of faith, hope and love in Christians; among martyrs and confessors - firmness for faith and piety before unbelieving and wicked people; among ascetics - crucifying the flesh with passions and lusts, prayer and contemplation of God; among the unmercenary - non-covetousness and free help to those in need. With peace, space, and pleasure of the flesh, it comes to life with all its passions and inclinations; and in times of cramped conditions, embitterment, and languor, he is mortified with all his passions; this is why the wisdom and goodness of the Heavenly Father exposes our soul and body to severe sorrows and illnesses, which is why we must not only graciously endure sorrows and illnesses, but also rejoice in them more than in a state of mental peace, space and physical health, for, undoubtedly, the mental state of a person who has not been subjected to mental sorrows or physical illnesses is bad, especially with an abundance of earthly blessings: his heart inconspicuously multiplies from himself all types of sins and passions and exposes him to spiritual death. Do not leave children without attention regarding eradicating from their hearts the weeds of sins, nasty, evil and blasphemous thoughts, sinful habits, inclinations and passions; The enemy and the sinful flesh do not spare children, the seeds of all sins are also in children: present to children all the dangers of sins on the path of life, do not hide sins from them, so that, out of ignorance and lack of understanding, they do not become established in sinful habits and addictions, which grow and bear corresponding fruits when children come of age. A carnal man has his whole life, all his activities have a carnal direction and a carnal goal: prayer is carnal, teaching and teaching others is carnal; writing or writing is carnal; in life, at every step, in almost every word, carnal life is visible. Carnal life has a particularly strong manifestation in the womb of man: here is the seat and platform of the carnal man. As a person puts off carnal life by the grace of God, he begins to trample on his belly, changes his food, ceases to live for an insatiable belly; faith, hope and love gradually reign in his heart. Instead of food and drink, clothing, wealth - God, soul, eternal life, eternal torment occupy his thoughts and imagination; instead of love for money, food, drink, clothing, luxury in the home and its surroundings - love for God, for people, for heavenly cohabitation with Angels and saints; instead of food and drink, there is also hunger and diligent reading and listening to the word of God and the divine service. Previously, his enemies were those who hindered his external well-being, now he himself destroys his external well-being and loves those who destroy it: before he slept a lot and found pleasure in his sleep, now he sleeps little and deliberately deprives himself of sweet sleep; Previously, he calmed the flesh in every possible way, now he embitters it, but does not fight too much against the spirit. When you see that someone, through the violence of the devil, is heartily occupied with some empty, earthly object (idée fixe), grieves greatly about it, constantly talks about it and thus arouses annoyance in you, do not be irritated by this, but firmly knowing that this is a disease of the spirit from the enemy, be meek and quiet with the sick person, immediately, with calm, unperturbed faith, turn to God in prayer and read the troparion to the One Not Made by Hands Image; We worship Your Most Pure Image, O Good One, asking for forgiveness of our sins, O Christ our God: by the will of Your flesh You have deigned to ascend to the Cross, so that You may deliver what You have created from the work of the enemy. Thus we cry out to You in gratitude: You have filled all with joy, our Savior, who came to save the world. Be careful: the enemy is tempting your patience too; the triumph is doubly for him if he irritates you too: understand his intrigues and laugh at them. – When a person, especially one close to the heart, is violated, then it hurts the heart to see and hear crazy words from him, expressing the heart’s addiction to something earthly. But do not be faint-hearted, do not be discouraged, do not be eager, do not lose your temper: if you take care of yourself, lest you also be tempted (Gal. 6:1). Call on the Savior: Save, save us! Do not betray Him in any spiritual sorrow, in any violence of the devil or passions. Remember what the Savior Himself says: call upon Me in the day of your sorrow, and destroy you, and glorify Me (Ps. 49:15). The infinite power of the Lord is always ready to come to our aid; It pleases the Lord of Hosts and the Lord of goodness to show His saving power in us and to deliver us from enemies visible and invisible. The more pitiful, the more worthy of compassion a person is, the more empty the reason for his spiritual sorrow, for then you clearly see that this reason is the devil. It is never so difficult to say from the heart: Thy will be done, Father, as in severe sorrow or serious illness, especially when there are untruths from people, during obsessions or the machinations of the enemy. It is difficult to say from the heart: Thy will be done - even when we ourselves have become the culprits of some misfortune, for, we think, it is not God’s will, but our will that put us in such a position, although nothing happens without the will of God. In general, it is difficult to believe from the heart that the will of God is our suffering, when the heart knows both by faith and experience that God is our bliss, and therefore it is difficult to say in misfortune: Thy will be done. We think: is this really the will of God? Why does God torment us? Why are others calm and happy? What have we done? Will there be an end to our torment? etc. But when it is difficult for our corrupted nature to recognize the will of God over itself, without which nothing can happen, and to submit to it with humility, then let it submit to it, then let it bring to the Lord its most precious sacrifice - heartfelt devotion to Him not only in peace and happiness, but also in sorrow and misfortune; Let him subdue his vain, erroneous wisdom to the perfect wisdom of God, for as the heavens are separated from the earth, so are our thoughts separated from the thoughts of God (Is. 55:8-9). May every man offer his Isaac, his only begotten, his beloved, his promised one (who is promised peace and bliss, and not sorrow), as a sacrifice to God and may he show his faith and his obedience, may he be worthy of the gifts of God, which he has used or will use. To accurately understand the words of the Lord's Prayer: lead us not into temptation, we must remember that this prayer was given to the Apostles, who asked to be taught how to pray, given before the descent of the Holy Spirit on them, when Satan asked them from the Lord to sow them like wheat (Luke 22:31). Then the Apostles were still weak and could conveniently fall under temptation (like Peter), which is why the Savior puts the words in their mouths: do not lead us into temptation. – And it is impossible to live without the temptations of our faith, hope and love: tests of the innermosts of the heart are necessary for the person himself, so that he himself can see what he is like and correct himself. Yes, temptations are necessary, let their thoughts be revealed from many hearts (Luke 2:35), let our strength or weakness in faith, knowledge or ignorance, the depravity or purity of our heart be revealed, its trust in God or in earthly things, love for ourselves and for perishable things, or - most of all, for God. When I remember the Son of God, who accepted human nature into the unity of His Divinity, and how those who call themselves Christians live, then fear and pity take over me: fear because I expect the great wrath of God on the inattentive, ungrateful and malicious; pity because I see many Christians voluntarily depriving themselves of the indescribable bliss of the future life and plunging themselves into eternal fire - to eternal torment. Almost every honor of every person, especially a Christian, for the reason that God was pleased to accept human nature into the closest unity of His Divinity, so that He became the God-man. Look at a person and think: the Lord of man himself was like this man in everything, except for sin, and if you know or see that he does not know this truth of the incarnation of the Son of God and lives unworthily, teach him and instruct him. Also love every person as yourself, because he is another you, which is why he is called a friend in the commandment of the Lord: do not listen to false testimony against your friend (Ex. 20:16). The carnal man considers Christian freedom to be bondage, for example: going to Divine services, fasting, fasting, confession, communion, all the sacraments, but does not know that all this is a requirement of his nature, a necessity for his spirit. A proud person, while others talk about the virtues of a person, slyly fears that this person will be superior to him in virtues and eclipse him, for the proud person puts himself above everyone else and does not imagine finding the same or better virtues in other people. The trouble for him is the collaboration of others. When you read prayers for all people, but do not pray with your heart for all people, then your soul becomes heavy, for then the Lord does not favor prayer, but as soon as you begin to pray with your heart for everyone, it will immediately be easy, for the Lord graciously listens to such prayer. The devil often grabs our hearts with his teeth. What teeth? Unbelief, doubt, cramped conditions and all passions. Sometimes the enemy torments us with suspicion regarding the loyalty of our servants, regarding our property (and mainly food items), and this is done especially when our hearts should be exclusively occupied with the thought of God and the contemplation of heavenly things. To get rid of the devil's care and sorrow, remember the words of Holy Scripture: The Lord is near; worry about nothing (Phil.4:5-6). Don't worry in vain. The Lord guards your property; you are not at home, but He is there for you, everywhere and doing everything: He speaks in the consciences of your servants or household, He judges their thoughts of the heart at every time and for every hour, He says to them internally: do not steal, and He confuses their hearts with fear and dread, when they have the sinful intention of stealing something, He will show the miracle of His power over them and will not allow them to steal. However, you must learn to consider everything earthly as rubbish and neglect it. The Word is the Creator and our God, every word of Him is truth and deed. Our word should be the same (for we were created in the image of God; as well as the word of all verbal beings, that is, it should be truth and deed: the word of the gospel of the Archangel Zechariah, the Virgin Mary), this is so among the Angels and holy people; but the devil, who fell away from God, was left with only a shadow of thought and word without truth, without the essence of the matter, a lie, a ghost; and just as the true word, being the image of God the Word and coming from Him, is life, so the false word of the devil, being his image, is death; a lie is certainly death, for, naturally, it causes death to the soul that which itself has fallen from life into death. You cannot constantly eat, smoke, you cannot turn human life into constant eating and drinking and smoking (although there are those who almost constantly eat, drink, smoke), so the devil achieved this through smoking tobacco, turned life into smoking and turned the lips that should thank and praise the Lord into a smoking furnace. – The lighter and less you consume both food and drink, the finer and lighter the spirit becomes. Little one! Do not doubt My omnipotence: I created every soul and all flesh, and I am the God of spirits and all flesh. – The spirit will go out from Me, and I have created every breath (Is. 57:16). Thou shalt not kill. By the way, doctors also kill the patient out of ignorance of their illness, prescribing him harmful medications. Those who do not want to be treated or treat a patient who needs the help of a doctor also kill. Those who kill are those who irritate a patient for whom irritation is fatal, for example, a person susceptible to consumption, and thereby hasten his death. They kill those who do not promptly, out of stinginess or for other evil reasons, provide medical benefits to the patient. Some people have ugly hearts! When performing the Sacraments, they breathe unbelief and insensibility, moral impotence, they are sick with laughter or embarrassment and demonic fear! When they are sick, they are also struck by insensibility and even diabolical gloating, recognizing their brother as if they were an extra thing in the world and internally thinking: now it will be more spacious for me if he dies - not thinking that every person himself, perhaps, will die tomorrow and not having compassion in his heart for the suffering one, as for his own member. An irritable and unreasonable person, adapting a certain thing to some use and not being able to help the matter with the sharpness of his mind, seeing that the thing does not serve him as he would like, often gets angry, loses his temper, throws, sometimes breaks this thing, as if it were animate, reasonable and with the intention of resisting his desires. It happens that one thing falls, it clings, then it breaks, this thing does not move the way he would like, this one does not fall into a certain place - everything seems to be armed against him, and he is almost ready to cry from frustration. But if a master of this business takes on all this, everything will go as it should. Why? Because the man got to work with intelligence, with reasoning and sharpness, with soul. What does this observation of our ordinary everyday handling of things lead me to? What thoughts? I see that everywhere the mind or the rational human spirit reigns over matter, and without mind nothing can happen by itself, even if we assume correct movement; Equally, no thing can adapt itself to a known goal, nor can it achieve a known goal, for the goal is achieved through known, definite laws, and laws come from the mind. I turn to the universe. Where does this amazing order come from in soulless matter and in irrational animals? Where does this beauty come from, this wonderful transformation of an ugly and lifeless substance into a beautiful and vital one? Where does this adaptation to thousands of different goals come from and such wise, with simple means, the achievement of goals by things that themselves can neither have a known goal nor achieve it? Who is this invisible Lord of matter? Who is this Mind that reveals Its wondrous wisdom in matter and in various animate creatures? Who is this eternal Artist and Sculptor, invisibly producing His art in our eyes? The One is the Creator of all, Lord! I contemplate you with the eyes of my heart on every line of space; You have been doing everything invisibly until now with Your Son and Your Holy Spirit. I kiss You in every place with my heart and I worship You and I glorify and sing praises to You! Those who give bread or money to the hungry with pity, with an evil eye and an unsatisfied heart, are the same as putting poison in their bread or in their alms, although this poison is spiritual, invisible. It is necessary to give with love, with respect for the person of your neighbor, willingly, with joy, for it is characteristic of love to rejoice when helping a loved one. God save you from sparing your material property as a sacrifice to the Lord or His Most Pure Mother, or to other saints of God, and thus preferring substance to spirit; see that your wealth does not become your destruction. You must firmly believe that instead of perishable blessings, the Lord or His saints will reward you with incorruptible ones, instead of temporary ones - with eternal ones, and consider spiritual blessings, for example: spiritual light, forgiveness of sins, the gift of living faith, strong hope and unfeigned love, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit - infinitely higher than material gifts. Joyfully squander your gains as sacrifices to the Lord and His saints; If you send them through someone’s hands, believe that they will arrive according to their belongings, and if people hide the Lord’s sacrifice, the Lord your God will exact it from them, and not a single mite of yours will be wasted, but will bring you a gift commensurate with the faith and disposition of your heart from the Lord, Who is the God of gifts, especially for those who bring Him their heartfelt gifts. The holy people of God in their inner work seem to be attentive to their inner Visitor and Doer - the Lord, reverent before Him from inner sweetness and bliss, smiling and tasting heavenly peace. Return now to the Shepherd and Visitor of your souls (1 Peter 2:25). This is why the Lord created matter, so that it could change and turn into countless species according to the thought of the Creator; This is the purpose of the substance, in order to manifest His wisdom, omnipotence and goodness in many different ways for creatures and in creatures; in order to do good through him to animate creatures and especially to rational and fleshy creatures. The alms of the person who does not give it willingly are insignificant, because material alms are not his, but God’s gift, and only his heart’s disposition belongs to him. Therefore, many alms will turn out to be almost vain because they were given grudgingly, with regret, with disrespect for the person of one’s neighbor. Like hosts, many will turn out to be vain due to their hypocritical, vain treatment of their guests. With heartfelt affection, let us offer our sacrifices on the altar of love for our neighbor. God loves a good giver (2 Cor. 9:7). The enemy acts murderously on human hearts, among other things, through external nature, as on Job: with winds, water and fire; Due to the machinations of the enemy, sometimes houses are washed; ships and houses are drowned by water; winds collapse buildings; or the enemy in damp weather, under the cover of humidity and gases, treacherously in our insides, burdening, constricting and striking them with an insensitive cold towards everything true and holy. Oh, how varied are the machinations of the prince of the power of the air, and how difficult it is sometimes to recognize them! A corrupt person wants to constantly eat, drink, constantly comfort his sight, his hearing, his sense of smell, his touch; carnal people satisfy themselves with exquisite food and drink, shows, music, smokes, magnificent buildings, external splendor. But the decoration of sacred objects, since it leads to God, is not only not sinful, but holy and edifying, as well as sacred singing, the fragrance of the censer, the splendor and splendor of the decorations of the church and all its utensils. All this - since it is intended to serve the glory of God and the arousal of pious feelings - is not sinful and holy. But there, in the world, everything serves the carnal, corrupt person and removes him from God. The corrupted heart seeks unclean carnal sensations - and they satisfy it; the corrupted mind seeks knowledge corresponding to its corruption - and it is satisfied; corrupted imagination and memory look for images that correspond to themselves - and they are satisfied. This is all the old man, the works of the old man. But we are Christians, a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17), or people of renewal (1 Pet. 2:9), new people, clothed according to God with righteousness and the excellence of the truth (Eph. 4:24). We must put off the old man with his deeds mentioned above, and act against his desires and lusts. When you read a long prayer rule out loud to the people, then the enemy knocks your heart and extinguishes the word on your lips with the thought that the people do not understand many words and that it is a waste of time to read such prayers. Obviously - nonsense. But what about the Holy Spirit, the Guide to all truth? Does He remain idle and not act enlighteningly on human hearts? Have you ever experienced this illumination of your heart from the Holy Spirit? You previously did not understand some words and expressions, and then suddenly the Holy Spirit opened your mind to understand previously incomprehensible words and expressions - and such light suddenly enlightens your heart; The same thing happens, believe me, to others. Read with firmness of heart, without suspiciousness. Sow the seed - God will grow. The tightness of the narrow path is varied: if you want to pray, the enemy oppresses you spiritually and physically; If you want to write a sermon out of obligation, you are pressed by laziness, there are crowds everywhere. The smoke of hell intensifies to darken and oppress the soul even when the Holy and Terrible Sacrifice is laid before you, when you partake of It, and when performing all the Sacraments. The more important the ritual, the stronger and more furiously the enemy attacks. God is Goodness, as if inexhaustible myrrh; The spiritual world is the development of this Goodness, like an ocean of the fragrant world, and the material world too. How can one not hope to receive all good things from such goodness? How the Lord poured out myrrh in goodness throughout all creation, and He Himself was not in the least exhausted. Before the onset of great holidays, you need to be especially attentive to yourself. The enemy tries in advance to cool hearts towards the subject of the event being celebrated, so that a Christian cannot sincerely honor it with heartfelt reflection on its essence. Here he acts on us either through the atmosphere, or through food and drink taken in, or through his kindled arrows, which are thrown in abundance into the heart and strongly scorch the whole person, while evil, nasty and blasphemous thoughts and heartfelt aversion to the subject of celebration are felt. We must overcome the enemy by forcing ourselves to think about God and pray. When, during prayer, the enemy produces in you a strong urge for food, despise this material, nervous irritation, strengthen your heart more strongly in prayer, inflame it with faith and love, and tell the tempter the words of the Savior: man will not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4). Prayer is my best food, strengthening and enlightening both soul and body. The enemy sometimes acts through evil people: through the proud - with humiliation and contempt; through fanatics - unbelief, freethinking and blasphemy against the sanctity of faith; through bestial rulers - tyranny and torment; through gluttons - by temptation to delicacy, gluttony and intoxication (here, however, our flesh has an inclination); through the dissolute - inclination to debauchery or loss of chastity; through tatei - the theft of our property; saddens us through haters and envious people; through the hard-hearted he deprives us of food, clothing, and shelter; through everyone and everything earthly - by the permission of God - he, as the prince of this world (John 16:11), the prince of the power of the air, as the ruler of the darkness of this age (Eph.6:12), acts on the human race to embitter it and attract it to his side, using for this purpose various seductions and oppression. If the All-Wise, All-Good and Almighty Heavenly Father had not kept a vigilant watch over us and had not turned the tempter’s countless deceits over us to good consequences, if we had not heeded ourselves, then long ago the incorporeal villain would have conquered the whole world, and there would not have been left on earth the seed of the saint, which constitutes his standing (Is. 6:13). When a person begins to pray, he must humble his proud heart, throw away earthly vanity from it and introduce into him a living and undoubted faith. If it is easy for a carnal man, it is hard for a spiritual man; If the outer man blooms, the inner man smolders. This is how opposite the old man, sinful, carnal, and the new man by the grace of Christ are in us; That’s why the Apostle said: even if our outer man decays, yet our inner man is renewed all the days (2 Cor. 4:16). And we often experience this ourselves. Therefore, a true Christian must desire external, carnal, worldly suffering; they strengthen his spirit. He shouldn’t even think about grumbling. How to grumble about something that benefits his immortal soul, although by means very disgusting for his carnal man! – Diseases, fires, kidnappings, poverty, misfortunes, wars, hunger are often blessings to the soul. Since God is life, and illnesses and ailments are deviations from life, then one touch of the inaccurate, first Life on us heals them, which is why the Savior, Who is the Life of all, healed and heals people with one touch. The same should be said about the correction of any infectious objects: one wave, the word of the All-Creator and All-Giver, and they are non-infectious (air, water, plants, animals). Along with sorrow and oppression, a new temptation occurs: petrification, stiffness, insensitivity of the heart to everything that is true, good and holy; you are all like a stone, like a log, without faith, without the ability to pray, without hope for God’s mercy, without love. How hard it is to be a stone or a tree, without faith and love, being created to believe, feel, hope, love! And we must endure this and patiently pray that the Lord will roll away the stone of insensibility from the door of the tomb of our heart, so that he will take away the heart of stone from us and give us a heart of flesh. But what does this petrification or woodiness of a person mean? This shows the presence in our heart of the devil, who, having forcibly occupied our heart, in our lack of faith, pushes away every good thought from it, not allowing it to rest on the heart, tears away all faith, every good feeling and makes a person burdensome to himself. This really happens to people. Yes, they know what this means. Our varied earthly service to the Tsar and the Fatherland is an image of the main thing, which must continue forever, of our service to the Heavenly King. First of all, we are obliged to serve Him faithfully, as His true servants through creation, redemption and providence. Do the servants of the earthly fatherland think about this? But you need to think. Earthly service is a testing, preparatory service for service in heaven. For a little while you were faithful: I will make you ruler over many (Matthew 25:21). Do not be merciless judges of people who work for God and who fall into contradiction with themselves in their lives, i.e. to his piety; they are put into contradiction with themselves by the devil, their evil opponent; he grabs their hearts with his teeth and forces them to do the opposite. Not only do things when you want, but especially when you don’t want to. Understand this both about every ordinary everyday matter, and especially about the matter of saving your soul, about prayer, about reading the word of God and soul-saving books, about going to God’s services, about good deeds, whatever they may be, about preaching the Word of God. Do not obey the lazy, crafty and sinful flesh: it is ready to rest forever and, through temporary peace and pleasure, lead you to eternal destruction. “By the sweat of your brow,” it is said, “thou shalt bear thy bread” (Gen. 3:19). Work hard at the talent given to you, damned soul, 7,” sings the Church. The Kingdom of Heaven is taken by force, and those who use force acquire it, says our Lord and Savior (Matthew 11:12). When your heart is troubled in spirit by some passion and you are deprived of peace, you are filled with embarrassment and words of discontent and enmity towards your neighbors fly from your tongue, do not hesitate to remain in this state that is harmful to you, but immediately bow your knees and confess your sin before the Holy Spirit, binding with all your heart: I have offended you, Holy Soul, with the spirit of my passion, the spirit of malice and disobedience to You; and then from the bottom of your heart, with a feeling of the omnipresence of the Spirit of God, read a prayer to the Holy Spirit: “Heavenly King, Comforter, Soul of truth, Who is everywhere and fulfills all things, Treasure of good things and Giver of life, come and dwell in me and cleanse me from all filth, and save, O Blessed One, my passionate and lustful soul,” and your heart will be filled with humility, peace and tenderness. Remember that every sin, every passion and addiction to something earthly, every displeasure and enmity towards your neighbor because of something carnal offends the All-Holy Spirit, the Spirit of peace, love, the Spirit that draws us from earthly to heavenly, from the visible to the invisible, from the corruptible to the incorruptible, from the temporal to the eternal, from sin to the sacred, from vice to virtues. O All-Holy Soul! Our steward, our educator, our comforter! Preserve us with Your power, Holy Holy One! Soul of our Heavenly Father, plant in us, raise in us the Father’s Spirit, so that we may be His true children in Christ Jesus our Lord. When you pray, pay attention to yourself so that your inner person prays, and not just the outer one. Although I am sinful beyond measure, still pray. Do not look at the devil’s incitement, deceit and despair, but overcome and defeat his wiles. Remember the abyss of Spasov’s philanthropy and mercy. The devil will present to you the face of the Lord as menacing and unmerciful, rejecting your prayer and your repentance, and you remember the words of the Savior, filled with all hope and boldness for us: He who comes to Me will not be cast out (John 6:37), and come to Me, all you who labor and are burdened with sins and iniquities and the devil’s wiles and slander, and I will give you rest. you (Matthew 11:28) Man! the wisdom, goodness and omnipotence of the Creator, poured out on the visible and invisible world, are ready to pour out with all their infinity on you, if you try to be a faithful child of the Heavenly Father, if you fulfill His commandments about love for God and neighbor. Fight with all your might, without sleep, in a good fight. Every person who does any evil, satisfies any passion, is sufficiently punished by the evil he commits, by the passion with which he works, and most importantly, by the fact that he departs from God and God departs from him, therefore to harbor evil towards this person would be extremely insane and extremely inhuman; this means drowning a person who is already drowning, pushing into the fire someone who is already being consumed by flames. To such a person, as if he were perishing, one must show deep love and fervently pray to God for him, and not condemn him, not gloat about his misfortune. Sin, instead of any evidence that it does not have on its side, acts through violence, wounding, stinging the insides, and pouring out the burning poison of sin. Blessed is the one who despised everything earthly and was wounded by the love of God, the love of heaven. But how few such people are among the fallen sons of Adam. The sting of sweets, self-interest, honor, in whom does it not work, in whom does it not sting? And conversely, who has the sting of true love for God and neighbor? The sting of passions and pleasures has driven out the sting of God's love and gives it no place. In others, these two principles struggle every day and alternately displace each other, but in others there is no struggle; The earthly sting completely dominates in others, suppressing the heavenly sting, for example: in covetous people, sensualists, ambitious people, drunkards, deceivers, murderers, fornicators and adulterers, etc. Oh, when will our hearts be kindled with complete love for the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Life-Giving, Trinitarian Godhead, who commanded us to keep His commandments? Why are we worried and tormented when we do not receive what we expected or lose some treasure? Because the expected, as well as the lost treasure, was the idol of our heart, because our heart departs from the Lord, the Source of living waters, who alone can fill and calm our heart. Let us cleave to God with all our hearts, and no earthly loss, no unfulfilled expectation of any earthly good, for example: money, a badge of honor, etc. - what is external and perishable will not upset us. Let's learn to live within ourselves. Let us turn our thoughts to heavenly blessings, to the heavenly reward, which alone is desirable, faithful and makes the one who receives it truly blessed. We usually admire good, clear, warm weather and love to talk about it; but in the heavenly settlements of Angels and holy men, the lightness, the goodness, the coolness are incomparably better: why don’t we like to talk about the abodes there, about the life there, about the lightness there, about the bliss there? The sun is joyful, life-giving, and brilliant, but the light of God’s face, which the Angels and the souls of the righteous enjoy, is infinitely more joyful, life-giving, and brilliant. Oh, grant me, O Lord, to reign with Your saints in Your eternal glory. Save Thy people, O Lord, and bless Thy inheritance, and I will correct them, and exalt them forever 8 . Diligent, tearful prayer not only cleanses sins, but also heals bodily infirmities and illnesses, and renews a person’s entire being, and, so to speak, regenerates (I speak from experience). – Oh, what an invaluable gift – prayer! Glory to Thee, Father of bounties and God of all joy! Glory to You, Son of God, only begotten, who interceded for us endless forgiveness of our sins! Glory to Thee, All-Holy Soul, interceding for us with groanings that cannot be uttered (Rom. 8:26), giving fiery prayer with sighs and tears, warming a cold soul, giving tenderness and sorrow for sins, cleansing, sanctifying, pacifying, strengthening and renewing us! Glory to Thee, Holy Trinity, Beginningless, Life-Giving, forever blessed from all intelligent creatures! It is impossible to give more than what God has given you, for He gave you Himself or His Flesh and Blood united with His Divinity; He made you His son (Rom.8:16) when you were a child of wrath (Eph.2:3) and curse; He gave you everything you needed from external goods, even excess, and He did not give you more from external goods because they would be harmful to you, to your soul and your body. If now you are already receiving severe harm from these external blessings, clinging to them and suffering misfortunes and wounds from addiction, falling away from love for God and neighbor and from striving for things above and falling into things below, then what would happen if you had even more of these blessings? You would be mired in sensuality. From the all-good and generously gifted God, through the prayer of faith, one can receive all spiritual and necessary material benefits, if only the desire for these benefits is sincere and the prayer is fervent. And what prayers the Church puts into our mouths! Such that they can conveniently incline the Lord for every kind of mercy towards us, for every good gift. The enemy, knowing the goodness of God and the power of prayers, tries in every possible way to turn us away from prayer or during prayer to scatter our minds, to trip us up with various worldly passions and addictions or haste, confusion, etc. A heart that cares about everyday things, especially unnecessary ones, leaves the Lord, the Source of life and peace, and therefore is deprived of life and tranquility, light and strength, and when it repents of vain care and from corruptible things again turns with all its heart to the incorruptible God, then the source of living water again begins to flow in it, silence and tranquility, light, strength and boldness before God and people again begin to flow. You have to live wisely. You don’t want to pray for a person you hate and despise; but that’s why you pray because you don’t want to, that’s why you resort to the Doctor, because you yourself are spiritually sick, sick with anger and pride; your enemy or despised by you is also sick; pray that the kindly Lord will teach you kindness and patience, that He will teach and strengthen you to love your enemies, and not well-wishers only, that He will teach you to sincerely pray for ill-wishers as well as for well-wishers. Someone during prayer, when he became sluggish, relaxed in spirit and body and wanted to doze off, aroused himself with the following internal question: with whom are you talking, my soul? and after this vividly imagining the Lord before him, he began to pray with great tenderness and tears; his dull attention was sharpened, his mind and heart were enlightened, and he was completely revived. This is what it means to vividly imagine the Lord God before you and walk in His presence! If, he said further, my soul, you do not dare to rant sluggishly and carelessly with people above you, so as not to offend them, then how dare you rant sluggishly and carelessly with the Lord? God! how I will praise You, how I will glorify You for Your powers, for the miracles of healing from Your Holy Mysteries, revealed to me and to many of Your people, to whom I, unworthy, taught after the sacrament of repentance these holy, heavenly, life-giving Mysteries of Yours! Here they confess before me Your power, Your goodness, they say publicly that You stretched out Your miraculous hand on them and raised them from their sick bed, from their death bed, when no one expected that they would live - and after communion of Your Body and Blood, Life-Giver, they soon came to life, were healed, and at the same hour and day they felt the life-giving Hand on them Yours. But I, Lord, an eyewitness of Your deeds, have not yet glorified You publicly, to confirm the faith of Your people, and I do not know how and when to glorify You, for every day I am busy with some kind of deeds. Create a name for yourself, O Lord, just as you created it; You yourself glorify Your name, Your Mysteries. Deny yourself sensual pleasures in the hope that instead of them you will receive higher, spiritual, divine pleasures. Show every kindness to your neighbor in the hope that, according to the truth of God, it will be measured to you, in the least measure (Matthew 7:2), that the good you show to your neighbor will sooner or later return to your bosom, just as the evil you did to him will either immediately or soon return to your bosom. Remember that we are one body. We are many in one body (1 Cor. 10:17). Remember that God is righteous to the highest degree, every iota. Where would there be a place for struggle, for exploits, for virtue, if we were not harmed by our neighbors, if we were not offended? Where would there be a place for tolerance of insults, meekness and humility? You see that we need to experience many different evils in order to demonstrate our virtue and receive crowns. Do not be irritated by those who sin, by those who insult you, do not have the passion to notice all sorts of sins in your neighbor and condemn him, as is usual for us; everyone will give an answer to God for himself, everyone has a conscience, everyone hears the Word of God, knows the will of God either from books or from conversation with others; especially, do not look maliciously at the sins of your elders, about which you do not care, each one stands or falls in his own Lord (Rom. 14:4); Correct your sins, correct your heart. Why did the Lord allow you to be poor? For your good, so that you can cleanse and atone for your sins, for alms cleanses all sin (Sir. 3:30), in order to obtain for you those who pray for you in their presence, so that you can make your Lord merciful to you, for mercy will give mercy (Matt. 5:7). Why did the Lord allow you to be poor? - for the same reason, by the way, why he doesn’t suddenly make you righteous according to your desire. God could make everyone sufficient, even rich, but then a great oblivion of God would occur, pride, envy, etc. would increase. And how would you dream about yourself if the Lord soon made you righteous. But just as sin humbles you, showing you your great weakness, abomination and incessant need for God and His grace, so the beggar is humbled by poverty and the need for other people. Enrich the poor: many, many of them will forget both God and their benefactors, and will destroy their souls in the luxury of this world. So destructive is wealth and so blinds the eyes of the heart! It makes the heart rude and ungrateful! Thoughts on the street, while walking, at the sight of the rising moon. “I please you through everything,” says the Lord: “I created you in My image and likeness; I have illuminated the sun, moon and stars for you; I created the earth for you with all its fruits; I have poured out the air for your breathing; I have given you fire to light and to warm you and to cook your food; He gave you a variety of foods and sweets, as well as a variety of drinks; I made you able to make many different fabrics for your clothing and gave you materials for it; I have given you gold, silver, copper and other metals from the depths of the earth for coin and for your wares; I have gathered you into well-ordered societies; I have given you a king after My heart, My anointed, My image on earth; I finally gave you My only begotten Son, I gave Him to death, with His will, for food and drink, I established the Church on earth under His leadership; What have you done and are doing for Me? How do you repay for all My goodness? - By forgetting Me, by ingratitude towards Me, by rejecting Me, by contempt for My laws. O wicked and perverse generation! How long will I be with you? How long will I bear with you (Matthew 17:17)? Your name is Almighty, Lord, as you hold not only heaven and earth, but the entire human race, the life of every person, the hearts of everyone in Your hand, and not only every person, but also every animal, every bird, fish, insect, worm, reptile and ciliate invisible to the eye. Glory to Your infinite sovereignty, Lord! Glory to Your all-good, wise and all-powerful providence, Lord of heaven and earth! Almighty Master! You hold all hell with Satan and his countless hordes in Your hand, and only by Your permission, for our admonition and punishment, Satan and his angels plot intrigues over us. Let us pray to You, our Savior, we will unfeignedly repent before You of our sins - and You, having brought us to understanding, will take away our enemies from us, saying: It is sufficient for you to act evilly against My servants, they again belong to Me. So, Lord, when Your incessant blessings and mercies toward us do not enlighten us, what remains to be done? It remains with punishments, bitterness, cramped conditions, fire, and our own malice to admonish us - us voluptuous ones, who love space, carnal coolness, vain things. The world is in a state of slumber, sinful sleep, sleeping. God wakes him up with wars, pestilences, fires, and devastating storms. We cry out the angelic song to You, the Mightier: Holy, Holy, Holy art thou God, O Theotokos have mercy on us 9. You glorify with the Angels, you form one cathedral, one church, one family of God with them by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. You must live like an angel - in constant vigil over yourself and over the souls of the spiritual children entrusted to your care; you must constantly praise and thank the Lord; you must strive for holiness; you must live in abstinence and fasting, in all humility, obedience and patience. May it be by the grace of the Lord! What will I bring to You, Lord, for all Your goodness, with which You constantly reward me? - My only faith, for I have not done any deeds that will justify me, for I have done nothing good before You. But my faith is also Your gift; Otherwise, what is offered to You is Yours, accept what is offered to You. For everything is Yours, and we are all Yours, You are our most perfect Prototype, we are images of Your ineffable glory, even if we bear wounds of sins, spare Your creation, Master, and cleanse us with Your compassion and grant us the desired fatherland, creating a paradise for us as inhabitants 10, take away from us the passions of the flesh, and carnal lusts will all get better, we will go through spiritual life, all to please You both wisely and in action 11. God! just as it is characteristic of the Proto-Image to attract, to assimilate images, to inhabit and live in them, so it should be characteristic of those who are in Your image to strive with all love, with all zeal for the Proto-Image, to cleave to It. But behold, our greedy and voluptuous, plump, inert flesh tears us away from You; we need: fasting, abstinence, and we are passionate about sweets. Strengthen us to abstinence! When we have Christ in our hearts, then we are happy with everything: inconvenience is like the best comfort for us, and bitter is like sweet, and poverty is like wealth, and hunger is like satiety, and sorrow is like joy! and when there is no Christ in the heart, then a person is dissatisfied with nothing; He finds happiness in nothing: neither in health, nor in comfort, nor in ranks and honors, nor in amusements, nor in rich chambers, nor in a richly served table filled with all sorts of food and drinks, nor in rich clothing, nor in anything. Oh, how necessary Christ is for man, the Giver of Life and Savior of our souls! How necessary it is for the sake of Christ, for the sake of Him to dwell in us - to hunger, and to thirst, and to sleep less, and to dress more simply, and to endure everything with a calm, patient, kindly spirit! The catcher of our souls - the devil every minute catches our souls, as if to hurt us with some sin, some passion, as if to ingrain more strongly this or that sinful habit, passion, as if to make the salvation of the soul as difficult as possible! as if to produce a cooling of her towards God, towards shrines, towards the Church, towards eternity, towards humanity. So the Lord created me, brought me from non-existence into existence, restored the fallen one through His suffering and death; He cleansed the sinner, adopted him as his son; promised me an inheritance of eternal blessings; enlightens me with the light of His Gospel; fatherly punishes and has mercy on me, illuminates me with the sun, gives me sweet food and drink every day, and most of all His sweetest and life-giving food - His Body and Blood - teaches me; he shed air for my breathing, and above all, he poured out his Holy Spirit into me, he clothes me with garments of beauty, and above all, he clothes me inwardly with himself, according to what was said: if you were baptized into Christ, you put on Christ (Gal. 3:27); in a spacious and clean dwelling he rests me and promises me an eternal, radiant dwelling in heaven; He girds me with health, but most of all he gives me spiritual health in abundance through prayer, especially through St. Sacraments, etc. What will I repay Him for this? How can I repay? I cannot repay anything except, according to my strength, by observing my faithfulness to Him, through fulfilling His commandments and unchanging, firm resistance to sin and the devil. If it were not for Your salvation, Lord, if it were not for Your goodness, then we would have burned in our own cave of passions, Satan would have completely corrupted us, tormented us - and we would not have seen any joy in life. If the Lord were not in us, no one against us would be able to overcome the enemy's battle: those who overcome are lifted up from here 12. But now Thy mercy, Thy grace, which Thou hast acquired for us through Thy suffering, Thy blood, and Thy death for us, comforts us. Glory to Thee for this, O Lover of Mankind! But what will happen to those Christians who do not want to know You, Your commandments, Your teaching? Woe to them. What if You, Lord my God, Jesus Christ, would shine the light of Your Divinity from Your Most Pure Mysteries, when they rest on St. the throne - on the paten during the Liturgy, or in the tabernacle, or monstrance, when Your priest carries them on his chest, going to or from the sick! from this light, everyone who met them or looked at them from their homes would have fallen to the ground in fear, for the Angels are also covered from the fear of Your unapproachable glory! And yet how indifferently others treat these heavenly Mysteries! How others indifferently perform the terrible sacred rite of St. Tyne! I must always remember my relationship to God, as a creature to the Creator, as a work of art to an artist, as a meager vessel to a meager vessel - on the one hand; on the other hand, as an image to the Archetype, as a child to the Father, as one saved to the Savior, as one favored to the Benefactor, as a follower of the law to the Lawgiver, as one who has entered into a covenant with the Covenant, as a betrothed to the Bridegroom, or as a bride to the Groom, as a member, as a citizen of a mountain city to its Chief, as one looking forward to the future age to the Father of this age, as a defendant to the Judge. Please God in everything and at all times and think about saving your soul from sins and the devil and assimilating it to God. Get out of bed, cross yourself and say: “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” and also: Lord, grant us to be preserved without sin on this day and teach me to do Your will 13; When you wash at home or in the bathhouse, say: sprinkle me with hyssop, O Lord, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow (Ps. 50:9); when you put on underwear, think about the purity of your heart and ask the Lord for a pure heart: create a pure heart in me, O God; sewed a new one and put it on, think about the renewal of the spirit and say: the spirit is right, Lord, renew it in my womb (Ps. 50:12); you put aside old clothes with disdain for them; think about putting away with great disdain the old man, sinful, passionate, carnal; when you eat sweet bread, think about the true bread that gives eternal life to souls - the Body and Blood of Christ, and hunger for this bread, i.e. wish to receive communion more often; when you drink water or tea, or sweet honey, or another drink, think about the true drink that quenches souls consumed by passions, about the Most Pure and Life-Giving Blood of the Savior; when you rest during the day, think about the eternal peace prepared for those who labored here in the fight against sin, against the spirits of evil in high places, against human untruths or human ignorance and rudeness; Whether you go to bed at night, think about the sleep of death, which sooner or later will certainly come for all of us, and about that dark, eternal, terrible night into which all unrepentant sinners will be thrown; when you meet the day, think about the non-evening, eternal, bright - more than this sunny day - the day of the Kingdom of Heaven, on which all those who have pleased God, or who have repented from the bottom of their hearts to God in this temporary life, will rejoice; Whenever you go anywhere, think about the rightness of your spiritual walk before the face of God and say: direct my steps according to Your word, and let not all iniquity possess me (Ps. 119:133); Whenever you do anything, try to do this with the thought of God the Creator, who created everything with His infinite wisdom, His goodness, His omnipotence and created you in His image and likeness; whether you receive or have money, treasure, think that our inexhaustible treasure, from which all the treasures of the soul and body, the ever-flowing source of all good, is God, thank Him with all your soul and do not keep your treasures with yourself, so that you do not enter into your heart the priceless and living Treasure - God, but give from your fortune to the demanding, needy, poor brethren, who are placed in charge for this purpose. this life, so that you can prove to them your love, gratitude to God and receive a reward from God for this in eternity; Do you see a white silver shine, i.e. e. white silver, do not be seduced by it, but think that your soul should be white and shine with the virtues of Christ; If you see a golden shine, or gold, do not be seduced by it, but remember that the Lord wants to enlighten you, like the sun, in the eternal, bright kingdom of His Father, that you will see the unsetting Sun of Truth - God in Three Hypostases, the Most Holy Lady Theotokos and all the heavenly powers and holy people, filled with indescribable light and shining with light. God! What will I bring to You, how will I thank You for Your constant, greatest mercies to me and to the rest of Your people? For every moment I am enlivened by Your Holy Spirit, every moment I breathe the air You have diffused, light, pleasant, healthy, strengthening, I am enlightened by Your joyful and life-giving light - spiritual and material; I feed on sweet and life-giving spiritual food and the same drink, the holy Mysteries of Your Body and Blood and material sweet food and drink; You dress me with a bright, beautiful royal robe - with Yourself, according to the scripture: if you were baptized in Christ, put on Christ (Gal. 3:27) and with material clothes, you cleanse my sins, heal and cleanse my many and fierce sinful passions; You take away my spiritual corruption in the power of Your immeasurable goodness, wisdom and strength, and fill me with Your Holy Spirit - the Spirit of holiness, grace; give my soul truth, peace and joy, space, strength, boldness, courage, strength, and endow my body with precious health, teach my hand to fight and my fingers to fight (Ps. 143:1) with the invisible enemies of my salvation and bliss, with the enemies of the holiness and power of Your glory, with the spirits of malice in the heavens; You crown my deeds done in Your name with success... - For all this I thank, glorify and bless the all-good, fatherly, all-powerful power of Your God, Savior, our Benefactor. But be known by Your other people as You appeared to me, O Lover of Mankind, so that they may know You, the Father of all, Your goodness, Your providence, Your wisdom and power, and glorify You, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and to the ages of ages. Amen. The endless sweetness of those who behold Your face, the ineffable kindness 14. Earthly sweets are all transitory, both in themselves and due to the vicissitudes of human life. And the sweetness of heavenly bliss will have no end, endless. – Isn’t it worthwhile to despise all the sweets of this temporary world and even more fleeting life in order to love with all your heart the spiritual, indispensable sweets? Envy in a Christian is madness. – In Christ we have all received infinitely great blessings, we have all been deified, we have all become heirs of the ineffable and eternal blessings of the Kingdom of Heaven; Yes, and in earthly blessings we are promised contentment under the condition of seeking the righteousness of God and the Kingdom of God: seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness: and all these things will be added to you (Matthew 6:33); we are commanded to be content with what we have, and not to be lovers of money: we are not lovers of money in disposition, but be content with what we have, and it is added: For that (the Lord) said: The imam will not leave you, but the imam will depart from you (Heb. 13:5). Isn’t it crazy after this to envy your neighbor in anything, for example: his honors, his wealth, a luxurious table, magnificent clothes, a wonderful home, etc.? Isn’t all this dust in comparison with what is given to us in the image and likeness of God, in whom we are created, in the redemption of us by the Son of God from sin, curse and death, in the granting to us again of the blessing of the Heavenly Father and the eternal joys in heaven connected with it? So, let us acquire mutual love, goodwill and contentment with our condition, friendship, hospitality, love of poverty, love of hobbies and the height of virtues: humility, kindness, meekness, holiness. Let us respect in each other the image of God, the members of Christ God, His Body, the sonship of God, citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, cohabitants and fellow angels. May we all be one (John 17:22), just as our God, worshiped in the Trinity, is One, and created our hearts in oneness (in unity), that is, simple, united. All the present is only one shadow of the future: light is the shadow of the future ineffable light; earthly sweets are a faint shadow of future, ineffable, endless sweets; fire is a faint shadow of the future fire of Gehenna, which will scorch sinners forever and ever; pure earthly joy is a shadow of future unspeakable joys; the adorned royal palaces are an insignificant shadow of the bright heavenly abodes prepared for those who love God and those who fulfill His commandments; the glorious garments of the men and daughters of men cannot be compared with the garment of glory in which the elect will be clothed, for they will put on Christ and shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father (Matthew 13:43), according to the false promise of the Savior. As for a child, it doesn’t matter what kind of clothes he wears; so a Christian - a child in Christ - should be indifferent to the variety, richness and splendor of earthly clothes, considering Christ God to be his best and incorruptible robe, for an addiction to expensive, beautiful clothes is characteristic of the people of this age, or the pagans, as the Lord says: the pagans seek all of these, that is, food, exquisite clothing (Matthew 6:31-32): for clothing is the idol of the people of this age. – Oh, how vain we are, we who are called to communion with God, who are promised an inheritance of incorruptible and eternal blessings! How unclear are our concepts about perishable things and incorruptible goods! How unreasonable we are, attaching value to insignificant things and not valuing incorruptible blessings - our eternal soul, peace, joy, boldness before God, holiness, obedience, patience, in general, all the properties of a true Christian. Those who were baptized into Christ, put on Christ (Gal.3:27). - So, we must value spiritual blessings and virtues, and despise material ones, as perishable, insignificant. There is the sin of absent-mindedness, to which we are all greatly susceptible; You shouldn’t forget it, but repent of it; We indulge in absent-mindedness not only at home, but also in church. Simone, Simone, behold, Satan asks you to sow like wheat: I have prayed for you, so that your faith will not fail (Luke 22:31-32). The culprit of absent-mindedness is the devil and our many different passions for everyday, earthly things; its cause is lack of faith, the remedy against it is fervent prayer. Apart from the Lord Jesus Christ with His Father and the Holy Spirit, there is no good for me on earth. He is my only bliss on earth. After God, there is nothing more precious to me on earth (as it should be) than the human soul - it is more precious than anything else. Man is a precious creature; God Himself came down to earth to save him. He gives man the most pure Body and Blood (of all of Himself) as food and drink, so long as he is blessed and not perished. He gave all the fruits of the earth, the treasures of all three kingdoms of the earth, to the power, benefit and pleasure of man. With all these generosities, exceeding all measure, the Lord showed and constantly shows that He infinitely loves the human race and each person individually. Let us also imitate the love and generosity of God; Let us, if possible, be merciful and generous, just as our heavenly Father is merciful (Luke 6:36). Wherever I look with the eyes of my heart—whether inside myself, at myself, or outside myself—everywhere I see a strong reason for thanksgiving and glorification of the Lord. Especially when I look only inside myself, then I see the strongest reason for petition, thanksgiving and praise. All the strength of my heart, all the light of the eyes of my heart is from God, all bodily strength, everything that serves to support bodily life is from God. Everywhere I see glory, the sole glory of my God, and I see nothing in myself that I could boast of as mine. Glory to him who gives me strength! Glory to him who works by me and in me! Since I have nothing of my own, but have everything from God, to the slightest good movement of the heart, to a holy and bright thought, and without God I am nothingness, worse - all evil, then I have a strong reason to resort to asking God for everything. I especially have a strong reason to thank my God for His most pure and life-giving Mysteries - Body and Blood - They are everything to me. Prayers for communion are an example of petition, thanksgiving and glorification - here there is petition, thanksgiving, and glorification together. I warmly praise God and the Lord Jesus Christ for His inexpressible love for us mortals, revealed in the Holy Mysteries. What an immeasurably great honor for humanity that it can open its mouth before God, enter into conversation with Him, ask Him for its needs, thank Him for His good deeds, glorify Him for His ineffable magnificence, and be confident that this sacrifice of thanksgiving and glorification is pleasing to God, that the best, spiritual requests related to the salvation of our souls are always fulfilled. Just as in this respect, man is immeasurably exalted above all sensible and animate creatures. Not a single creature has received such honor from God, although they also have their own language, expressing the needs of their nature, for it is said that even the chicks of ravens call on the Lord (Ps. 147:9). Let us use this high honor in order to earn even greater honors from the Lord - a heavenly title. There in heaven is our full glory, but here are only the beginnings of it, revealed to faithful Christians. According to our physicality and spirituality, the Lord unites His grace with everything visible and material, even all of Himself, and acts through everything: thus, He makes bread and wine His Body and Blood or His visible tabernacle; the church is His home; on the throne in the church He, like a King, sits invisibly; on the cross He Himself appears as if by the very body with which He was crucified, and works miracles through the cross, revealing His life-giving power through it; He is in the universe as in a church, and, moreover, all over, in every place, not limited by any space, being always above all space and time. You are amazed that He can unite Himself or His power, saving grace, with any substance. Marvel, first of all, at how He united His divine image in man with matter, with earth, with dust, how this dust can think, and speak, and spread around itself the fragrance of meekness, truth, truth, love, and do so many wonderful, truly wonderful things in the community! Marvel at how the dust contains diverse dumb souls, gifted with a certain kind of meaning, a thirst for life and joy, a sense of self-preservation, the ability to get food for themselves, to build everything they need for a safe life and for the birth of their children, and who know how to skillfully defend themselves! Marvel at how invisible, intangible forces are connected to all almost inanimate bodies, which either move their huge masses (like celestial bodies) or form them into beautiful, always identical, unchanging forms (like plants)! Marvel that so many different powers were created by God, but all powers come from one power, and through every power the Almighty Himself acts. Truly, with God the Creator, as the God of miracles, everything is wonderful, and in faith everything is wonderful, although invisible, but true and valid! Those who are pure in heart... will see God (Matthew 5:8). God is the all-seeing Eye, like an intelligent Sun, standing above the world, penetrating with his intelligent eyes into the thoughts and hearts of people, illuminating every creature. Our soul is an eye from an Eye, sight from Sight, light from Light. But now, after the Fall, on our eye - soul - illnesses - sins. Take off the thorn and you will see the mental Sun, the infinite Eye, which is even more dark than the material sun. Just as in life it often happens that a person has something else in his heart and another on his lips, and at the same time appears to be two-faced, so in prayer, before the face of God Himself, who knows the secrets of the heart, a person often appears to be two-faced: he says something else, but has something else in his thoughts and in his heart; if, as happens more often, although he understands prayer and thinks about it, he does not sympathize in his heart with what he is saying, being dead, and thus throws words into thin air, deceiving himself and thinking that with such a prayer one can please God. Strange sinful duality! This is bitter fruit and evidence of our fall! Our heart somehow usually lies. Every man is a lie (Ps. 115:2). In prayer and in dealing with people. This is a pillar of lies. A Christian must use all measures to uproot every lie from his heart and plant pure truth in it. We must begin with prayer, as with such a matter in which, first of all, the truth of the heart is necessary, according to the word of the Lord: in spirit and in truth it is worthy to worship (John 4:24). Speak the truth in your heart. Having learned to speak the truth in our hearts during prayer, we will not allow ourselves to lie in life: sincere or true prayer, having cleansed our heart of lies, will protect it from it in dealing with people in everyday affairs. How can we learn to speak the truth in our hearts in prayer? We need to bring each word of prayer to the heart, put it on the heart, feel its truth with our hearts, realize the whole need for us of what we ask God for in prayer, or the need for heartfelt thanksgiving for His great and countless benefits to us and the need for whole-hearted praise for His great, wise deeds in His creation. Everything that makes up me, a human being (soul), lives solely by God and only in union with Him, and having been separated from Him, it is in extreme poverty. But the life of my soul constitutes the world of my spiritual powers, and this world exclusively comes from God. There is, it is true, a world of the flesh, but it is a deceptive world - the forerunner of a spiritual storm; The Lord speaks about such a world: when they say (to people): peace and confirmation, then all of a sudden destruction will attack them (1 Thess. 5:3); but the spiritual world, which comes from the Spirit of God, differs as heaven from earth, from that carnal world. He is heavenly, blessed. Peace be with you, the Lord often said to His disciples, teaching them His peace, and the Apostles also taught the believers the peace of God and wished them, as the first good, the peace of God, precisely because it constitutes the life of our soul and testifies to the union of our soul with God. The absence of peace in the soul, indignation - which distinguishes all passionate states of our soul - is spiritual death and a sign of the action in our hearts of the enemy of our salvation. Faith is the key to God's treasury. She lives in a simple, kind, loving heart. Even if you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes (Mark 9:23). Faith is spiritual lips; the more freely they open, the greater the flow of divine sources entering into them; Let these lips open freely, like bodily lips, and not be constricted by doubt and unbelief: you will close them with doubt and unbelief, and a treasury of God’s blessings will be closed for you. The more openly you believe in God’s omnipotence, the more generously God’s heart will open to you. Whenever you ask in prayer, believe as you receive, and it will be done for you (Mark 11:24). All people are the breath and creation of the one God, they came from God and return to God as to their beginning: the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it (Eccl. 12:7). Let us be partakers of the Divine nature, having fled the lustful aphids that are in the world (2 Pet. 1:4). As the breath of one God and as having come from one person, people should naturally live in mutual love and mutual preservation and should not be separated from each other by self-love, pride, malice, envy, stinginess, unsociability of character, so that they all may be one (John 17:22). Look at the ants, how friendly they are; look at the bees, how friendly they are; look at the flocks of pigeons, jackdaws, crows, geese, ducks, swans, sparrows, how friendly they are; look at the herd of sheep and cattle in general, how friendly they are. Thoughts about the countless herds of certain fish in the seas and rivers, who love to walk in herds, how friendly they are. Think how even they zealously guard each other, help each other, love each other - and be ashamed of the dumb ones, you who do not live in love, who run away from bearing the burdens of others (Gal. 6:2). God is long-suffering and merciful to you: you experience this many times every day. Be patient and merciful to your brethren, fulfilling the words of the Apostle, who speaks of love first of all like this: love is patient and merciful (1 Cor. 13:4). You want the Lord to delight you with His love; please also delight the hearts of others with tender love and affectionate treatment. God is Love, a most generous, wise and omnipotent Being. Therefore, let those who pray believe that the Lord will give everything that is needed, as Love and as the Generous - generously, as the Wise - wisely, as the Almighty will give there and then, where and when they did not expect. During the Divine Service, during the performance of all the Sacraments and prayers, be as trusting as a child in relation to your parents. Remember what great fathers, what luminaries of the universe, illuminated by the Holy Spirit, guide you! Like a child, be simple, trusting, and not doubtful in the work of God. Cast all your sorrow on the Lord, and be completely carefree. Do not worry about how or what you say, or what you say: for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you (Matthew 10:19-20). Long ago the Lord took away this concern, this sadness from us, teaching our God-bearing fathers by His Spirit what to say to the Lord during Divine services, the celebration of the Sacraments, and in various cases and circumstances of human life that require prayer, bringing down the blessing from above. “It should be easy for us to pray.” Only now the enemy is getting cold. But what is his constriction, if our heart is established in the Lord! The trouble is if we are not in God, if we do not have firm faith, if we have bound ourselves with worldly passions, if our mind is proud and arrogant, then in the holiest, most immaculate work of Divine service, celebration and communion of the Holy. Mystery the devil will kick us hard. Be as meek, humble, and simple in your dealings with everyone as possible, considering yourself, without hypocrisy, to be lower than everyone else in your mental state, that is, more sinful and weaker than everyone else. I am the first of sinners, speak up. From pride comes pompousness, cold treatment without any sincerity towards those who are lower than us or from whom we do not hope to benefit ourselves. How quick we are to do evil and slow to do good! So I want to be kind to the enemy and express my kindness in practice, but before I have time to become kind in my heart, I am already angry, already a fiery arrow of anger is scorching my insides; I want to be patient, but before I establish my heart in patience, I become irritable and impatient; I want to be humble, but satanic pride has already found a spacious corner in me; I want to be affectionate, but when I need to show affection, I turn out to be rude; I want to be not money-loving and generous, but love of money and stinginess at the slightest provocation, like hungry and roaring lions, already demand food for themselves; I want to be simple, trusting, but deceit and doubt are already gnawing at my heart; I want to be sedate, focused and reverent in serving the Almighty, but frivolity and heartfelt inattention have already preceded me; I want to be impartial, abstinent in food and drink, but when I see pleasant food and drink and sit down at the table, I, like a slave, am carried away by my belly into a pleasant captivity, easily allowing myself to eat and drink more than my nature requires: greed and intemperance again precede and overcome my desire to be indifferent to food and drink. I am like that paralytic who lay on his bed for thirty-eight years and no matter how many times he came to the sheep font, which healed everyone who was the first to immerse himself in it after the water was disturbed by an angel, but first he got down (John 5:7). And when I am weakened by my sins, gather my efforts and come to myself - with the intention of immersing myself in God and changing for the better - and before me, sin crawls into my heart, the devil forestalls me in my own home, in my own heartfelt font, does not allow me to reach the Source of living waters - the Lord, does not allow me to immerse myself in the cleansing font of faith, humility, heartfelt contrition and tears. Who is healing me? - One Jesus Christ. When He sees my sincere and firm desire for healing from spiritual relaxation, my warm prayer for this, then He will say to me: take up your bed and walk (John 5:8), - and I will get up from the bed of heartfelt relaxation and walk, that is: conveniently - by His grace - I will conquer all passions and perform every virtue. Prayer requires intentional, deliberate, extreme humility. We must remember who is speaking and what they are saying, this is especially necessary when reading the Lord’s Prayer: Our Father. Humility destroys all the machinations of the enemy. Oh! how much secret pride we have. This, we say, I know; I don’t need it; it's not for me; this is unnecessary; I am not guilty of this. - How much wisdom! Sin, passion, the devil instantly change a person’s face - from light to dark, from good to evil. Notice here too the educational power of the soul. They say about the actress that she extremely quickly changes the features of her face, makes unusually rapid transitions in feelings, expressing them on her face itself. What's so tricky? What is the human soul incapable of? It follows from this that if the human soul can so quickly give a different appearance to its face, change it so greatly, then will not the Creator of all create what He pleases from every substance, as He is everywhere and alone? When you pray, say in your heart against various enemy thoughts and incitements: The Lord is everything to me. So throughout your life, when attacked by passions and under all sorts of enemy taxes, in illnesses, in sorrows, in troubles and misfortunes, say: everything is for me, the Lord; I myself cannot do anything, endure anything, overcome, defeat anything - He is my strength. Whoever will be ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, and the Son of Man will be ashamed of him (Mark 8:38). Oh, despicable shame! oh, devilish shame! Oh, the satanic stench emanating from the well of the abyss! How many people are sick of you! How many do not know your charm and servile you to the destruction of their souls! Here is a secular writer, a journalist-feuilletonist. They write, write, write... what won’t they write in the continuation of their literary or fictional activities? And about God, and about the Savior Jesus Christ, and about the Church, about Divine services, about Christian holidays, about the resurrection of our flesh, about judgment, about the afterlife - at least they remembered. It’s not our area, they say, it’s not our business. We are of the world and say: and therefore the world listens to us; but if you start talking about God, perhaps they won’t even read us. Thus, secular literature is completely alien to the Christian spirit, it is even ashamed of the spirit of Christ. The devil, with cunning, encourages us - instead of being irritated with himself - instills in us to notice the sins of our neighbor in order to embitter us, irritate us against a person, arouse contempt for him, and thus keeps us at enmity with our neighbors and with the Lord God Himself. Therefore, one must despise the sins themselves, the mistakes, and not the neighbor who commits them at the instigation of the devil, out of weakness, habit; to pity your neighbor, with meekness, with love, to admonish him, as if he were forgetting or as sick, as a captive, a slave of his sin. But our malice and contempt for our neighbor who sins only increases his illness, oblivion, his spiritual captivity, and does not reduce it, and it makes us seem insane, sick, captives of our own passions and the devil - their culprit. Every sin from the spirit and malice, who is in sin is a slave of sin, tormented by sin, therefore, do not treat the sinner too harshly and without malice, knowing the common weakness. Pity the one who sins, as if he were sick, or as lost, walking in darkness, or as bound by iron shackles, or as mentally damaged, for all these qualities can be attributed to the one who sins or is under the influence of passion. We must protect a person in every possible way so that the fire of sin does not burn him, does not darken him, does not bind him, does not plunge him into illness, does not destroy him. We are accustomed to the works of God and value them little; Even man, the greatest work and miracle of the wisdom and goodness of God, is far from being valued as much as we should. Look at every person, whether he is at home or a stranger, as constant news in the world of God, as the greatest miracle of God’s wisdom and goodness, and let your habit of him not serve as a reason for you to neglect him. Honor and love him as yourself, constantly, unchangeably. In nature, sometimes a warm, beneficial wind blows, pleasantly and easily penetrating the body and touching it - and there is light in the sky; and sometimes a cold wind blows, somehow heavy, feverishly, piercing to the very bones and touching the body unfriendly - both in heaven and on earth it becomes gloomy; or sometimes the dissolution of the atmosphere is warm, warming, and sometimes the dissolution is cold, numbing. So it is in spiritual life: sometimes our soul is surrounded and penetrated by a light, pleasant, warming, revitalizing breath - you feel light, calm; and sometimes a heavy, murderous breath touches the heart, accompanied by complete spiritual darkness. The first is from the Spirit of God, the second is from the devil. You need to get used to everything: just as in the first case not to become arrogant, so in the last case not to lose heart, not to fall into despair, but to diligently resort to God. If people had not been created in the image of God, then God would not have become incarnate from the Most Pure Virgin - Oh, how exalted is our nature - both in creation and in redemption! Through the incarnation of the Son of God from the Blessed Virgin Mary, God sincerely united with people. Oh, you, who by your glorious birth united God as a man and united the rejected nature of our race with the heavenly one, 15 glory to you worthy of glory from all intelligent creation, for you found such purity and grace from God that you were able, by the good will of God the Father, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, to incarnate the Son of God! But, O Lady, vouchsafe us also to achieve purity of spirit and body through communion of the divine Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Your Son! Through His incarnation the Lord came into close relationship with man. Marvelous! God Himself is united in one person with man, God became flesh - the Word became flesh (John 1:14). God Himself ate our fleshly food and drank our drink, reclined in the manger, and dwelt in the house. Uncontained by the heavens, I walked with my feet on the earth, on the water, in the air (I am going, they say, to heaven (Acts 1:10); I was nailed to a tree, hanging the earth from nothing by His command 16). All earth, water and air - everything is sanctified by the Son of God made man; That is why the earth is dear to Him - this is the temporary dwelling of man, this hotel of the human race, this is His dwelling place among people. But especially dear to Him are the people themselves, whose soul and body He accepted into the unity of His Person, and especially true Christians. He is in them - and they are in Him. What is most desirable for a person? Avoidance of sin, remission and forgiveness of sins and acquisition of holiness. Why? Because sins, such as: proud, evil behavior towards others, evil suspiciousness, covetousness, stinginess, envy, etc. separate us from God, the Source of life, remove us from communication with people and plunge us into spiritual death, and meek, humble, kindly treatment of everyone, even our enemies, simple-heartedness, non-covetousness, contentment with the small and necessary, generosity towards everyone, goodwill and other virtuous deeds unite us with God, the Source of life, and make us amiable to people. Grant then, Lord, to completely avoid sin and to become accustomed to every virtue, by Thy grace. To her, Master, Lord, without You we cannot do anything good, evil exists (Matthew 12:34). Those who are embittered towards us or envious of us, those who are proud of us, should not be mutually embittered, angry, proud, as is usually the case with our corrupted nature, but pity them, as those possessed by hellish fire and spiritual death, pray for them in the depths of the heart, that the Lord will kindle the darkness of their souls and enlighten their hearts with the light of His grace. We are darkened by our passions and do not see the absurdity, the ugliness of them and our own actions, but when the Lord enlightens us with the light of His grace, then we awaken as if from a dream, we clearly see the ugliness, the madness of our thoughts, feelings, words, actions; our heart, previously hardened, softens, anger passes and in its place is kindness, affection, and condescension. Therefore, according to the word of our Savior, we must love our enemies, bless those who curse us, and do good to those who hate us (Matthew 5:44; Luke 6:27–28), for they too are our brethren who are blind and erring. Real life is exile: the Lord God expelled him, it is said, from the Paradise of Sweetness (Gen. 3:23), and we must all strenuously strive through repentance and deeds worthy of repentance to our homeland. Master, grant me the longed-for fatherland, creating paradise for me again as an inhabitant 17. Real life is a narrow path, a path of sorrows, hardships, and illnesses. The narrower this path, the more convincing, the more certain that we are on the true path; the wider, the more certain that we are close to destruction. Real life is a daily, cruel, bitter war with the enemies of our salvation, especially with the invisible spirits of evil in high places, who do not leave us alone for a single day, but are constantly treacherous over us and kindle various passions in us and with their stings wound us in the most sensitive way. Therefore, remember that a continuous war is being waged against us; that it is not the time to rest, have fun and have fun in this life, given to prepare for the future, neither when we are tempted by disasters, nor even when it seems to us that we are completely calm and happy, when, for example, we indulge in pleasures in the theater, at evenings, when we show off in smart clothes and decorations, when we indulge in the pleasures of the womb, whirl in merry dances, ride around in magnificent carriages, etc. Among all your worldly pleasures, the greatest misfortune weighs upon you, man: you are a sinner, you are an enemy of God, you are in great danger of losing eternal life, especially if you live carelessly and do not do deeds worthy of repentance. The wrath of your God weighs upon you, especially if you do not appease the God who has offended you with your prayer, repentance, and correction. So, there is no time for you to enjoy, but rather to tears; pleasures should be rare, and then primarily those pleasures that faith presents to you in spiritual festivals. God is the omnipotent power of all material worlds, and moreover, the most wonderful, all-merciful, all-just power of the spiritual world - Angels and men. In His hand are all spirits, their peace and bliss, like the languor and torment of evil spirits and evil people. Just as we sometimes blaspheme the Divine with the unclean, gloomy and evil state of our soul - we blaspheme the Father, the Word and the All-Holy Spirit, the Comforter Spirit, so on the contrary, a person with a good mood of his soul, capable of comforting everyone with a word, glorifies the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit-Comforter. For it is possible for us to comfort those who are in any sorrow, with the consolation with which we ourselves are comforted from God (2 Cor. 1:4). Lord Almighty. His omnipotence embraces all creation: above and below, intelligent and sensual, Angels and men, heaven and everything on it, earth and everything on it, the sea and everything in it - His omnipotence embraces absolutely everything and all parts of creatures. Thus it embraces a person’s heart and his thoughts; That is why it is said that the heart is a king in the hand of God (Prov. 21:1), which is why the apostles say: We do not think that we are content as if from ourselves, but our contentment is from God (2 Cor. 3:5). If the grace of God leaves my heart and my mind, I become like dust carried by the wind, without any moral firmness, with an inclination towards all kinds of evil; my mind and heart become empty, petty, gloomy, powerless. The Virgin Mary is the most merciful Lady of all sons and daughters of men, as the Daughter of God the Father, Who is love; The Mother of God the Word is our love’s chosen Bride of the All-Holy Spirit, Who is love consubstantial with the Father and the Word. How not to resort to such a Lady and not expect all spiritual benefits from Her! Place in your soul a firm intention to strongly hate every sin - thoughts, words and deeds, and when there is a temptation to sin, resist it courageously and with a feeling of hatred towards it; just beware that your hatred does not turn on the face of your brother, who gives rise to sin; Hate sin with all your heart, and feel sorry for your brother; admonish him and pray for him before the Most High, who sees us all and tests our hearts and insides. It is not for shelter that you struggle against sin (Heb. 12:4). Without hatred of sin established in the heart, it is impossible not to fall into it often. Self-love must be uprooted: every sin comes from self-love; sin always pretends to be our well-wisher, promising us contentment and peace. The tree is good for food and is pleasing to the eye and is red to eat (Gen. 3:6). This is how sin always seems to us. If the Guardian Angels had not protected us from the machinations of evil demons, oh, how often would we then have fallen from sin to sin, how would we have been tormented by demons who delight in tormenting people, which is what happens when the Lord allows the Guardian Angel to retreat from us for a while and to play tricks on us with the demons. Yes, the Angels of the world, faithful mentors, guardians of our souls and bodies are always with us, if we do not voluntarily drive them away from ourselves with the abomination of carnality, pride, doubt, and unbelief. It’s as if you feel that they are covering you with the wings of their immaterial glory, and you just don’t see them. Good thoughts, dispositions, words and deeds come from them. The enemy often wounds our souls with his malice and scorches us. This wounding spreads like an Antonov fire in the heart, unless you stop it with a sincere prayer of faith. And God, with His love, wounds our souls, but this wounding is light, sweet, not scorching, but warming and revitalizing. About repentance. Repentance must be sincere and completely free, and in no way forced by time and custom or by the person confessing. Otherwise it will not be repentance. Repent, it is said, for the Kingdom of Heaven is drawing near (Matthew 4:17), drawing near, that is, it has come on its own, you don’t need to look for it for long, it is looking for you, your free disposition, that is: repent yourself with heartfelt contrition. Being baptized (said of those baptized by John), confessing their sins (Matthew 3:6), that is: they themselves confessed their sins. And since our prayer is primarily repentance and a petition for the forgiveness of sins, it must always be sincere and completely free, and not involuntary, forced by custom and habit. Prayer should be the same when it involves thanksgiving and praise. Gratitude presupposes in the soul of the recipient the fullness of a free, living feeling, freely flowing through the lips: out of the abundance of the heart the lips speak (Matthew 12:34). Doxology presupposes the delight of surprise in a person contemplating the deeds of the infinite goodness, wisdom, and omnipotence of God in the moral and material world, and therefore also naturally should be a completely free and reasonable matter. In general, prayer should be a free and completely conscious outpouring of a person’s soul before God. I pour out my soul before the Lord 18 (1 Samuel 1:15). To purify and ignite our prayer, the Lord allows the devil to painfully inflame our insides, so that we, feeling an alien fire within ourselves and suffering from it, try to bring into our hearts through humble prayer the fire of God, the fire of the Holy Spirit, which revives our hearts. The Lord allows us the temptations of the enemy to test us, to strengthen our spiritual strength in the fight against the enemy, and so that we ourselves can see more of what our heart is inclined towards: patience, faith, hope and love and generally virtue, or irritability, lack of faith, murmuring, blasphemy, anger and despair. Therefore, we must not be despondent, but complacently and patiently endure the darkness of the heart that comes upon our soul, the fire that weakens us and leads us to impatience and anger, sorrow and oppression, knowing that this is necessary in the order of our spiritual life, that with this the Lord is testing us, whether we will blaspheme the true path, the path of the Holy One. faith and virtue and whether we deign to follow the path of the evil one. We are free, and we ourselves must strengthen ourselves in every possible way, with all our might, in faith and virtue, to the point of “setting our souls” for the path of righteousness, but how will this happen if there are no temptations with us? The devil strikes the hearts of priests with laziness, dryness and sterility, so that they do not preach the truths of the Gospel to the people of God, do not tell them the whole will of God; During prayer, he sometimes acts in the heart and strikes with insensibility, so that the prayer is not sincere, but only habitual; he does not allow his heart to contemplate in prayer the greatness of all the perfections of God, the greatness of the Mother of God, St. Angels and St. God's people. The devil is such an evil spoke that at all times and everywhere climbs into the eyes of your heart, overshadowing and suppressing them, it is such a poisonous dust that constantly floats in our mental atmosphere and sits causticly on the heart, eating away and drilling it. He does the same with other teachers of the law, striking their hearts with dryness, sterility and crampedness, so that they cannot compassionately teach the young branches of the grapes of Christ the truths of God, infuse them with the life-giving streams of the Gospel. Here is a secular circle: they talk and talk, mostly pouring from empty to empty, and there is no talk about God - the common Father of all, about His love for us, about the future life, about reward - why? They are ashamed to talk about God. But what is most surprising is that even people who pretend to be pious, the lamps themselves, rarely talk about God, about Christ the Savior, about the preciousness of time, about abstinence, about the resurrection, about judgment, about future bliss and eternal torment in the circle of their families and in the circle of secular people, and often spend time in empty conversations, games and activities! Again, because they are ashamed to start such a conversation, they are afraid of getting bored, or they are afraid that they themselves will not be able to stand it and will not speak cordially about spiritual subjects. Oh, adulterous and sinful world! Woe to you on the day of judgment from the common, impartial Judge. He came to his own, but his own did not receive Him (John 1:11). Yes, the Lord and Creator of all is not accepted among us! It is not accepted in our homes, in our conversations. Or here is a man reading St. a book, or reads prayers out loud, but why sometimes does he read as if involuntarily, reluctantly, does his tongue stumble? Not because of the excess of his heart, but because of the tightness and emptiness of his lips that barely speak. What is this from? From the disdain for spiritual reading or prayer and false shame sown inside the heart by the devil. Oh, poor, poor people we are! What should be considered the greatest honor, we are ashamed of. Oh, ungrateful and malicious creatures! What kind of torment do we deserve with such behavior? When the enemy fails to trap a Christian on the path of salvation with sorrows and hardships, poverty and various other deprivations, illnesses and various misfortunes, he rushes to the other extreme: he fights him with health, peace, bliss, relaxation of the heart, mental insensibility of spiritual blessings or the richness of external and internal life. Oh, how dangerous is that last state! It is more dangerous than the first state, the state of sorrow and cramped conditions, the state of illness, etc. Here we easily forget God, we cease to feel His mercies, we doze and sleep spiritually. I’ll touch the groom, I’ll take a nap and fall asleep. At midnight there came a cry: Behold the bridegroom cometh, come ye out to meet Him (Matthew 25:5-6). And in sorrows, we involuntarily constantly turn to God for salvation, we constantly feel that God is the God of our salvation, the God of salvation, that He is our belly, our breath, our light, our strength. Thus, it is better for a Christian to live in some kind of sorrow. Prayer is spiritual breathing; when we pray we breathe the Holy Spirit; Praying with the Holy Spirit (Jude 1:20). So, all church prayers are the breath of the Holy Spirit, like spiritual air and together light, spiritual fire, spiritual food and spiritual clothing. Holy Soul, we are all Christians - Your breath, Your birth after baptism, and after the first creative breath in the person of the first man, we are all, all the tribes of the earth - Your breath, Your birth! Have mercy and build us all up, Holy Soul! With Your breath, drive away the stench of our sins and passions, eradicate the stench of all sinful inclinations! When praying, always firmly believe and remember that every thought of yours and every word of yours can, undoubtedly can be action. With God every word fails (Luke 1:37). But cleave unto the Lord; there is one spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17). This means that your word will not fail. All things are possible to the believer (Mark 9:23). Take care of your word: your word is precious. For every idle word people will give an answer on the day of judgment (Matthew 12:36). The word is the expression of truth, truth itself, being, deed. The Word precedes every being, every thing, as the wine of their existence - past, present or future. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, says the Lord. He who is and who is and who is to come, the Almighty (Rev. 1:8). This is what the creative Word of the Father says. In him, the Word, is the guilt of all creatures, present, past and future. Why do we honor the cross with such great reverence that in our prayers we mention its power after the intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos and the heavenly Powers, before all the saints, and sometimes even after the Mother of God, before the Heavenly Powers? Because after the suffering of the Savior, the cross became the sign of the Son of Man, i.e. the cross signifies the Son of God Himself who became incarnate and suffered for the sake of salvation. On the cross, Christ offered Himself as a sacrifice to God the Father for our sins, on it and with it He saved us from the work of the enemy; and that is why we honor him with such great reverence! That is why for believers he is always a great power that delivers from all evils, especially from the villainy of invisible enemies. Just as light, air and water are together and mutually penetrate each other and do not merge, but each remains what it is: light - light, air - air, water - water, completely retaining their individual properties, and the being is one substance, so, in a way, the Persons of the Divine Trinity are always together and are not separated from each other. The Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father, and the Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father, rests in the Son - but at the same time, each Person remains with His personal properties: God the Father is not born, not created, not emanating; A son is born; The Holy Spirit comes from the Father, and the three Persons have one being - the Divine, simple being; this similarity is based on the words of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, Who calls Himself the Light of the world, and speaks of the Holy Spirit, likening Him in the actions of the water element: believe in Me, as the Scripture says, rivers from His belly will flow out living waters. This is what those who believe in His name want to receive about Dus (John 7:38–39). He also likens it to air or wind: The Spirit breathes wherever it wants, and you hear His voice, but do not know where it comes from or where it goes (John 3:8). The Holy Church sings about the Holy Spirit: if anyone receives the Holy Spirit according to his inheritance, he will soon take it from those on earth 19 . For the Lord to give flesh to any other creature - be it an animal or a plant - is the same as for us to sew, to put on clothes: he took it, sewed it, and put it on. You clothed me with skin and flesh, and sewed me together with bones and sinews (Job 10:11). And what an infinite multitude and variety of substances the Lord has, from which He, the Creator, creates different clothes for different cuts for His creatures (animals, birds, fish, insects, reptiles)! And He will one day clothe us with light like the sun in His kingdom! The Queen appeared... in golden vestments (Ps. 44:10). The righteous will be enlightened like the sun (Matthew 13:43). And now we are dressed with earth, water, air, warmth - these are our clothes. And how wisely and conveniently all these elements are made and combined in our being! It is neither heavy nor beautiful. Oh, all-wise and all-powerful Artist! life-giving Artist! How wonderful, comfortable, and lively everything is with you! With You even the dust is revived, with You even the dust moves! In prayer, the main thing that you need to take care of first of all is a living, clairvoyant faith in the Lord; imagine Him vividly before you and within yourself, and then, if you want, ask for Christ Jesus in the Holy Spirit, and it will be done for you. Ask simply, without hesitation, and then your God will be everything for you, performing great and wonderful deeds in an instant, just as the sign of the cross accomplishes great powers. Ask not for yourself alone, but for all the faithful, for the entire body of the Church, spiritual and material blessings, not separating yourself from other believers, but being in spiritual unity with them, as a member of the one great body of the Church of Christ - and loving everyone as His children in Christ, the Heavenly Father will fill you with great peace and boldness. When praying, listen firmly to the words of the prayer, feel them with your heart. Do not distract your mind from them with any thoughts. When praying during Divine services, the celebration of the Sacraments and prayers on various occasions, firmly rely with your heart on the very words of church prayers, believing that not a single word is in vain, each has its own power, that in every word the Lord Himself is Trinitarian, present everywhere and fulfilling everything; Think: I am nothing, the Lord does everything. Think again: I speak – God the Word speaks in me. I have nothing to worry about; cast all your sorrow, it is said, upon Him, for He cares for you (cf. Ps. 54:23). You read a secular magazine or newspaper: it’s easy and pleasant to read, you can easily believe everything. But if you take up reading a spiritual magazine or book, especially a church book, or you start reading prayers, your heart will become heavy and doubt will torment you, and unbelief, and some kind of darkness and disgust. Many people admit this. Why does this happen? Not from the quality of the books themselves, of course, but from the quality of the readers, from the quality of their hearts, and - most importantly - from the devil, the enemy of man, the enemy of everything sacred. When we read secular works, we do not touch him, and he does not touch us. As soon as we take up the sacred books, we begin to think about our correction and salvation, then we go against him, irritate him, torment his anger, and so he attacks us and torments us mutually - what to do? Don’t give up on good deeds, soul-helping reading, prayer, but you must endure and in patience save your soul. Through your patience gain your souls, says the Lord (Luke 21:19). The same must be applied to theaters and churches, to the stage and to Divine services. Many people feel pleasant in the theater, but in church it is hard and boring - why? Because in the theater everything is perfectly arranged for a sensual person, and we do not touch the devil there, but amuse him, and he gives us pleasure, does not touch us: have fun, my friends, he thinks, just laugh and don’t remember God. In the church, everything is adapted to arouse faith and fear of God, pious feelings, the feeling of our sinfulness, corruption; and the devil instills doubts, despondency, melancholy, evil, nasty and blasphemous thoughts into our hearts - and now a person is not happy with himself and cannot stand, it is difficult to stand for an hour. And he quickly runs out. Theater and church are opposites. This is the church of the world, and this is the church of God; this is the church of the devil, and this is the church of the Lord. When you are asked to pray to save someone from bodily death, e.g. from drowning, from death due to illness, from fire or from any other disaster, praise the faith of those asking for this and say to yourself: blessed be your faith, according to your faith, may the Lord grant the fulfillment of my unworthy, little-faith prayer and may He add faith to me. You easily forgive yourself everything; if you sin against God or against people, you can easily forgive others. Love your neighbor as yourself, forgive him a lot. If my brother sins against me many times, will I forgive him up to seven times? I will not tell you up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven,” says the Lord (Matthew 18:21–22). This is where love is known. Even this is not enough for love: love loves its enemies, does good to those who hate it, blesses those who curse it and prays for those who offend it (Luke 6:27-28). The Lord, as the Knower of the Heart, knowing our stinginess and petty selfish prudence in the case when we have to show hospitality and mercy to people from whom we do not expect to receive an equal, promised to reward on the day of judgment not only for the fact that we fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, clothed the naked, visited the sick and those in prison, but promised a reward even for a cup of cold water given to a Christian or - in His name to an infidel. Whoever gives one of these little ones a cup of cold water to drink,... Amen, I say to you, he will not lose his reward (Matthew 10:42). Oh, the compassion of Christ! Who after this will not be ashamed of his cruelty of heart and shameful stinginess! The devil, as a spirit, as a simple being, can stumble and wound the soul with one instantaneous movement of thoughts of wickedness, doubt, blasphemy, impatience, irritation, anger, an instantaneous movement of the heart’s attachment to something earthly, the movement of contemplation, fornication and other passions - he can fan the spark of sin, with his characteristic cunning and malice, into a flame that rages with hellish force in the insides person. We must hold on and strengthen ourselves with all our might in the truth of God, rejecting the lies, dreams and malice of the devil at their very beginning. Here the whole person must be attentive, the whole eye, the whole adamant is indestructible, in all its parts hard and invulnerable. ABOUT! Glory, glory to Your victory, Lord! Thus may I conquer in the power of Your strength enemies invisible and visible, all the days of my life, until my last breath. Amen. O simplicity of faith! don't leave me. Do not have any partiality not only for food and drink, for clothing, for a spacious and well-decorated home, for rich household utensils, but also for your health, even for your life, do not have the slightest partiality, having surrendered your whole life to the will of the Lord, saying: for me to live, Christ, and to die, is gain (Phil. 1:21). Hate your soul in this world, but you will keep it in your eternal life (John 12:25). Addiction to temporary life, to health leads to many deviations from the commandments of God, to indulgence of the flesh, to breaking fasts, to evading the conscientious performance of service duties, to despondency, impatience, and irritability. Never sleep in the evening before the evening rule, lest your heart become white from untimely sleep, and lest the enemy stifle it with petrified insensibility in prayer. Be sober and watchful (1 Peter 5:8). Watch and pray, so that you do not fall into misfortune (Matthew 26:41). Watch out, for you do not know the hour of the day, before the Son of Man comes (Matthew 25:13). Be on the lookout, you don’t know when the Lord will come to your home, evening, or midnight, or at the sound of a loop, or in the morning: lest He come suddenly and find you sleeping. And as I say to you, I say to everyone: watch (Mark 13:35–37). Pray, my brothers, to the Mother of God, when a storm of hostility and malice arises in your house. She, all-good and all-powerful, can comfortably and comfortably pacify human hearts. Peace and love come from one God, as from their Source, and the Lady is in God one with God, and, like the Mother of Christ - the World, is jealous and prays for the peace of the whole world, and moreover - of all Christians, She has all-good powers - with Her mania, drive away from us the spirits of malice in heaven - these vigilant and zealous sowers between people of malice and enmity, and everyone who flows with faith and love in Her sovereign protection, she quickly, quickly gives peace and love. Be zealous for the preservation of faith and love in your hearts; if you do not take care of this yourself, then you will not be worthy of intercession for you before God - the Mother of God; Moreover, always be zealous and reverent worshipers of the Mother of the Lord Almighty; for it is worthy as to truly bless Her, the ever-blessed and immaculate Mother of God, the highest of all creation, the Intercessor of the human race. Try to cultivate a spirit of humility in yourself, for She Herself is humble, like no other mortal, and looks with love only on the humble. Look upon the humility of Her servant - She says to Elizabeth about God Her Savior (Luke 1:48). Do not allow the devil to plant anger and enmity towards your neighbor in your heart, do not allow it to nest in your heart in any way; otherwise your malice, although not expressed in words or in deeds, but expressed only in your gaze, can infect your brother through the sight and soul (for nothing is as contagious as malice, especially it conveniently infects those who have an excess of undormant malice in their hearts), fanning the spark of malice in him into a whole flame. Be careful: if you measure accordingly, it will be measured back to you (Matthew 7:2). There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed; something hidden that will not be known will be revealed (Luke 8:17). Have the Christian grace to bless those who curse you from the heart, so that you may please your Christ, who said: bless those who curse you. – Love your enemies sincerely, not paying attention to their enmity, but to the image of God, in which they were created, seeing yourself in them. Do good to those who hate you, as the son of the Heavenly Father, who is good to those without grace and evil, believing that with good you will overcome evil; because good is always stronger than evil. – Pray for those who create misfortune for you, and through prayer you will deliver them, if God is willing, from wickedness, malice and intrigues, and you will deliver yourself from misfortune. – Give to him who asks you, and do not take yours from him who takes yours (Luke 6:27–28, 30, 35), for everything is God’s and the Lord, if He pleases, can take everything away from you. Remember that you yourself came naked from your mother’s womb, and you will go away naked (Job 1:21), and you will take nothing with you. If you live like this, you will acquire for yourself the priceless treasure of peace and love and you will live long on earth: for the meek, it is said, will inherit the earth and will enjoy the abundance of peace (Ps. 37:11; Matt. 5:5). I look only at You, Master, with the eyes of my heart, I believe in You undoubtedly. You yourself know what and how to give to me. You are the treasure of every good, You are the goodness, wisdom, and omnipotence that overflows to all creatures. So I look to You, O Lady, intercede and have mercy on me. Do not be discouraged and do not weaken in spirit, seeing within yourself the constant struggle between evil and good, but as a good and courageous warrior of Jesus Christ, the Master of Art, courageously fight against evil, looking at the crown prepared by the Master for all those who overcome evil in this world and in their flesh: To him who overcomes I will give to sit with Me on My throne (Rev. 3:21). In order not to remember your neighbor’s malice against you, but to forgive him from the bottom of your heart, remember that you yourself are not a stranger to malice, as well as to all other passions. Recognize your neighbor's weaknesses and passions as your own: forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you (Eph. 4:32). Oh, how sinful I am, how my sins are disgusting to the eyes of God, to people, and even to myself! Who could be more disgusting to me than myself? Truly no one; Compared to me, everyone is righteous. I will be mercilessly angry with myself, and the forgiveness of the insults and mistakes of my neighbor against me will be considered indecent as special happiness, and the long-suffering, generous and merciful Lord will forgive me at least some sins. I must remember that this is the only way I earn the Lord’s mercy, otherwise I should not have lived long ago. Oh, how many misfortunes, many difficulties, how difficult earthly life is! From morning to evening, every day we must wage a difficult battle against the passions of the flesh, warring against the soul, against the principalities, rulers and rulers of the darkness of this world, the spirits of wickedness in high places (Eph. 6:12), whose wickedness and deceit are immeasurably wicked, infernally skillful, and never slumbering! - Oh, our Sweetest Savior, calling all those who labor and are burdened to Himself - for peace! Behold, You see: our heart and our womb are exhausted from daily struggle and sorrow, we are exhausted, weakened, we walk like shadows. Our evil enemies are constantly chilling our souls and are trying by all means to drag us into the abyss of despair. Stretch, O Lord, Your high arm and deliver us from the machinations of the ancient dragon, the murderer. If anyone wants to come after Me, You said, deny yourself, take up your cross every day, and follow Me (Luke 9:23). But who is the daily culprit of our cross, our sorrows and hardships? Our carnal, old man and the devil with his continuous wiles. Looking to the Lord, when struggling with some passion or after committing some sin and repenting, pacifies our restless heart and wonderfully brightens our face. Thou hast given joy in my heart; The light of Your countenance is shining upon us, O Lord (Ps. 4:7–8). Oh, how bright our face becomes when we look with the intensity of faith, with the eyes of our hearts, to the God of our hearts! Truly then the Lord is with us, having said: call on Me in the day of your sorrow, and I will destroy you (Ps. 49:15). I am with him in sorrow, I will destroy him and glorify him (Ps. 90:15). O Thou, most generous and long-suffering God, ready seventy-fold daily to forgive sins and transgressions to us who repent sincerely and ask for forgiveness from You - have mercy on us, who sin many times against You at every hour. Amen. What infinite insignificance food and drink represent on the one hand, and what infinite greatness the person fed by them represents on the other! Isn’t it the greatest madness, isn’t it godlessness, to spare for man, for this image of God, for this partaker of the divine nature, for whom God will be everything - God will be all in all (1 Cor. 15:28), to spare food, drink, clothing, housing and anything earthly! Let dust be dust - let the immortal image of the immortal God always be exalted and preferred over everything earthly, corruptible, and soon to perish! Therefore, let us spare nothing for our neighbor! Oh, what a great honor it is to nourish, clothe, and give rest to the image of God! God, Most Gracious and Most Generous! Fill our hearts with goodness and generosity! God's holy people had enlightened eyes of the heart (Eph. 1:18) and with these eyes they clearly contemplated the needs of our nature, corrupted by sin, clearly saw what we need to pray for, what to ask for, what to give thanks for, how to glorify the Lord, and they left us the most excellent examples of prayers of all kinds. – Oh, how good these prayers are! We sometimes do not feel and do not know their price, while we know perfectly well the price of food and drink, the price of fashionable clothes, a well-furnished apartment, the price of theaters, the price of music, the price of secular literature, namely the price of novels, this eloquent, empty verbosity - and alas! We trample the precious beads of prayer under our feet; and - then, as everything secular finds a spacious shelter in the hearts of the majority, prayer - alas! - doesn’t even find a tight corner in them, doesn’t fit in them. And when she asks to come to us and comes up with even one foot, she is immediately pushed out as a beggar, as a person who does not have a wedding robe. Rejoice at every opportunity to show kindness to your neighbor, like a true Christian, striving to acquire as many good deeds as possible, especially the treasures of love. Do not rejoice when they show you affection and love, considering yourself justly unworthy of it; but rejoice when you have an opportunity to show love. Show love simply, without any deviation into thoughts of wickedness, without petty worldly selfish calculations, remembering that love is God Himself, a simple Being. Remember that He watches all your ways, sees all the thoughts and movements of your heart. Do not miss opportunities to pray for a person at his request or at the request of his relatives, friends, admirers or acquaintances. The Lord looks with favor upon the prayer of our love and our boldness before Him. In addition, prayer for others is very useful for the person praying for others; it cleanses the heart, affirms faith and hope in God, and kindles love for God and neighbor. When praying say: Lord! It is possible for You to do this and that to Your servant; do this to him, for Your name is the good Lover of Mankind and the Almighty. If we, the wicked being, know how to give gifts of good, not only to our children, but also to strangers, how much more do You give all kinds of good things to those who ask you (Matthew 7:11). Glory to Thee, Lord, Our Father, the all-wise Tester of my love for You and for my neighbor! Do not leave me without temptations, if Your wisdom and truth pleases and is beneficial, not a single day of my life; may it be planted, may it be established, may my love for You and my neighbor be purified and exalted, and may I not appear at Thy judgment empty before Thy Face. If I, being a weak person, when I want to do something within the limits of my ability, then I will do it; for example, I want to write an essay - and I will write it, I want to cure a disease - and I will, I want to do a thing - and I will do it, for example, build a house, a church - and I will build it; or, for example, I’ll say to one: come and he will come, go away and he will go away, do this and he will do it; then will not God, the Almighty, do everything he pleases? Our God has created in heaven and on earth whatever He pleases (Ps. 113:11). If a person sometimes only says two words: so that this and that happens, and it happens, although not suddenly, but after a while; then will not everything suddenly be done that is called by the word of the Creator? Is it not from His one word that everything He desires will suddenly be done? That speech, and then; He commanded it, and it was created (Ps. 149:5). “We are not the creators of people, but they do so much at our word; We are not the creators of things, but things, at our desire and action, take on thousands of forms and serve countless needs and pleasures. We are not creators of things, but we create great and small objects from matter. Will not the Creator Himself, who is everywhere and fulfills everything, by whose word everything came from non-existence into being, by whose thought, will and word all the infinite variety of things were created and exist, create whatever He pleases? If a human doctor sometimes revives a half-dead person because of his knowledge of his work and skillful, precise influence on the cause of the disease, then does not the Creator of doctors and healing heal every disease with one will and a word? Will not the Creator raise up the dead with one word? Let us give glory to Him, we of little faith, and tell Him from our hearts: everything is possible for You, Master, but nothing is impossible for You. Amen. O Thou, Almighty Master, Whose mania alone all obey, the whole world, visible and invisible, grant me to glorify Thee unceasingly by the simplicity of my faith in Thy infinite power. Grant me unashamed faith, firm hope, unfeigned love for You and for my neighbor! He (God) is before all, and all things are found in Him (Col. 1:17). – These words contain a great, immeasurable meaning! They explain the name Sy, which the Lord was pleased to call Himself to Moses. For He means the One who exists first of all, by whom all things exist. These words show the omnipotence, the infinite goodness, and the immeasurable wisdom of our Lord God. Great is our Lord, and great is His strength, and His understanding is without number (Ps. 147:5). If you, being in a meeting of people, call to you a person you know, and he comes up to you; if you ask people subservient to you or one person to do something for you that is within the range of his ability, and he fulfills your request, satisfying it according to your desire and even beyond your desire: then believe that in the same way in the Church of God - in this great house of God, divided into two halves - heavenly and earthly, any person of the heavenly Church you call upon will spiritually come to your aid, according to his inherent goodness and loving sociability; ask him to do anything for you, especially related to the Kingdom of God and the truth of God, and he will do what is pleasing for you through his close communication with God - the Source of goodness and strength. The saints of God hear you just as, for example, the whole congregation in church hears you when you pray or speak a word, for they are in the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit fills everything and everywhere. Our self-love and pride are revealed especially in impatience and irritability, when one of us does not tolerate the slightest trouble caused to us by others intentionally or even unintentionally, or an obstacle, legally or illegally, intentionally or unintentionally, opposed to us by people or objects around us. Our self-love and pride would like to put everything on our own, to surround ourselves with all the honors and comforts of temporary life, we would like all people to obey our beck silently and quickly, and even - how far does pride not extend! – all nature; whereas - oh woe! We ourselves are very indifferent to faith and to every good deed, to pleasing the One Ruler of all! Christian! you must certainly be humble, meek and long-suffering, remembering that you are clay, dust, insignificance, that you are unclean, that everything good in you is God’s, that God’s gifts are your life, breath, and everything; - that for the sin of disobedience and intemperance you must now atone for your future bliss in paradise with long-suffering, which is necessary in the world of imperfections and countless falls of fallen people who live with us together and make up numerous members of a single humanity, enfeebled by sins. Bear each other's burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ (Gal.6:2). He who is impatient and irritable does not know himself and humanity and is not worthy to be called a Christian! In saying this, I pronounce judgment on myself, for I am the first to suffer from impatience and irritability. Our life is a child’s game, only not innocent, but sinful, because with a strong mind and knowledge of the purpose of our life, we neglect this goal and engage in empty, aimless things. So, our life is a child’s unapologetic game: we amuse ourselves with food and drink, enjoying ourselves, instead of using it only for the necessary nutrition of the body and maintaining bodily life; we play with clothes - instead of decently covering our body with them to protect it from the harmful effects of the elements; we amuse ourselves with silver and gold, admiring it in treasuries or using it for luxury items and pleasures, instead of using it for needs and dividing the surplus to those in need; we amuse ourselves with our homes and the many different utensils in them, decorating them richly and exquisitely, instead of having only a strong and decent shelter that protects us from the harmful effects of the elements, and things necessary and decent for home use; we amuse ourselves with our spiritual gifts, the mind, the imagination, in a word, using them only to serve sin and the vanity of this world, only to serve the earthly and corruptible, instead of first of all and most of all using them to serve God, to know Him, the All-Wise Creator of every creature, to pray, supplicate, petition, give thanks and glorify Him and to show mutual love and respect and only partly to serve the world this which has no time to pass away completely; we amuse ourselves with our knowledge of worldly vanity and waste the most precious time given to prepare for eternity in acquiring it; We often amuse ourselves with our position, our duties, frivolously, carelessly, unrighteously, fulfilling them and using them for our own selfish earthly purposes; we amuse ourselves with good human faces or the fair and weaker sex and often use them to play with our passions; we amuse ourselves with time, which must be used wisely to redeem eternity, and not by using it for games and various pleasures; We finally amuse ourselves, making some kind of idols out of ourselves, before which we ourselves bow and for which we seek the worship of others. Who will sufficiently describe and mourn our wretchedness, our great, enormous vanity, our great disaster into which we voluntarily plunge ourselves? What answer will we give to the immortal King - Christ our God, who comes in the glory of His Father to judge the living and the dead, to declare the advice of our hearts and to accept an answer from us about every word and deed! Oh woe! woe, woe to us, who bear the name of Christ, but do not have the Spirit of Christ in us! bearing the name of Christ, and not following the teachings of the Gospel! Woe to us who neglect the great salvation (Heb. 2:3). Woe to us who do not have Christian faith, hope and Christian love! Woe to us, who have loved the present age, feigned, temporary, and careless about the improvement of that age, which follows the death of our corruptible body, behind this carnal veil! One of the weaknesses of the human spirit is inertia in faith and laziness in the knowledge of the truth, especially the truths of faith and piety. What is it that young men and even adults and elders learn most inertly and lazily! The truths of faith and piety. Countless experiments testify to this. In order for people to honor and love each other, not to be proud, not to be arrogant in front of each other, the all-wise Lord gave different people his various natural and grace-filled advantages so that they had need of each other. Thus, each of us must involuntarily admit to one or another weakness and humble ourselves before God and people. Lord, You Yourself have spoken with Your most pure lips: Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect (Matthew 5:48). I want to be perfect. Be thou therefore all perfection unto me, for thou art the saying: without Me ye can do nothing (John 15:5). All prayers presuppose the great poverty and wretchedness of our fallen nature; they also assume that the Lord is the ever-flowing Source of all perfection, all good, that He is our inexhaustible Treasure. We must have poverty of spirit in our prayers and at all times. Blessed are the poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3). Judge by yourself how great a person is: God abides in him and in God (1 John 4:16), so that in a pious Christian it is as if it were not man who lives, but Christ Himself: it is not one who lives, but Christ lives in me (Gal. 2:20), because the whole soul becomes Christ’s, just as iron in burning coals, everything becomes fiery, as if it were a burning coal: all is fire, all is light, all is warmth. Maintain a meek and peaceful disposition towards your brother even when he insidiously or cunningly, or somehow unintentionally deprives you of your last ruble. This is where you show that you love the image of God in your neighbor more than anything earthly and perishable, that your love never falls away (1 Cor. 13:8). From him who takes yours, do not torture (Luke 6:30); If anyone wants to sue you and take your robe, let him have the swearing as well (Matthew 5:40). May the enemy not put you to shame by relying on the dust of the earth, such as money and bread, more than on God, but may he himself be put to shame by your strong trust in God and His holy word. For man will not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes out of the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4). Note: about any verb. For every word of the Lord Creator can support your life, just as every word can create and transform thousands of creatures. For He spoke, and it was done; commanded, and the creature appeared (Ps. 32:9). Thus, with a word, He brought from non-existence into existence myriads of heavenly, immortal armies and, sanctifying them with the Holy Spirit, strengthens and supports them in existence. Do not foolishly degrade the dignity of your immortal spirit to the vain hope of the dust of the earth. Say: God is my hope, or: my hope is the Father, my refuge is the Son, my protection is the Holy Spirit - the Holy Trinity. And how many of us get irritated and lose our temper when they are deprived not of their last ruble, but only of some small part of their far from last property! How much indignation, anger, bile, bitter reproaches, grumbling, and sometimes curses! - Oh, righteous God! and this dust, called money, or these food and drinks can create such a storm in our Christian souls! - in us, when we know the word of our sweetest Savior: Do not worry about your soul, what you eat, or what you drink, nor about your body, what you put on... Look at the birds of the air, for they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feeds them... Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you ( Matthew 6:25–26, 33). Or: a person’s life does not depend on the abundance of his possessions (Luke 12:15)! My God! what have we come to? How are we better than the pagans given our way of life! Where is our faith, trust in God, love for our neighbor? Oh, satanic corruption! Oh, our shame! - Heavenly Father! You, the leader of what we demand, and the giver of our petitions (Matthew 6:8), have mercy on us unfaithful, ungrateful and malicious! We hear Your merciful word, Master: the imam will not depart from you, the imam will leave you below (Heb. 13:5); but, being seduced daily by earthly blessings, we disobey him and violate Your will. Don’t be afraid of physical deprivation, be afraid of mental deprivation. Do not be afraid, do not be faint-hearted, do not be irritated when you are deprived of money, food, drink, sweets, clothing, housing, even your body itself; Be afraid when the enemy deprives your soul of faith, hope, love for God and neighbor, when he plants hatred, enmity, addiction to earthly things, pride and other sins in your heart. Fear not those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul (Matthew 10:28). You are the same (Ps. 101:28), which speaks of the immutability of God. Oh, if you, man, were always the same today, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, and so on, and did not change in thousands of ways, like a kaleidoscope! Oh, if only you were always equally peaceful, kind, simple, kind, patient, hardworking, benevolent, generous! But you can be like this if you unite with the Unchangeable with your heartfelt faith and love. I am the Lord your God, and I do not change (Mal.3:6). I keep My servants adamant to the worst: for I am the source of goodness, doing good to those who serve Me worthily 20 . Peace is wholeness, health of the soul; the loss of peace is the loss of mental health. Reverence with all the powers of your soul before all the Sacraments and speak within yourself about each Sacrament before performing or partaking of it: this is the Mystery of God. I am only an unworthy leader or participant in it. – Otherwise, our proud mind wants to explore the Mystery of God, and if it cannot explore it, then it rejects it as not fitting the insignificant standard of its mind. If one royal word is the cause of great deeds in his kingdom: he will say, and the deed will begin and be accomplished; will not the word of the King of every creature, material and spiritual, visible and invisible, the Almighty and Wise King, accomplish everything that He pleases? He speaks, and will he not do it? He speaks, and will he not abide? O almighty Power, capable of accomplishing everything in one instant, do not forsake us for our sins, especially for our lack of faith and despair, to torment us with our own weaknesses, so that we may not be crushed like meager vessels. Grant us to believe with all our hearts in Your almighty power! Let us not doubt the fulfillment of every good request of ours. All visible nature, all its parts, great, small and tiniest, tell us every minute that everything came from the Lord and by Him exists and moves, that by Him everything stands or comes into being and every moment everything obeys Him. Oh, our nature, deeply fallen by poison! Oh, most damned Satan, who through poison plunged us and is now plunging us into thousands of evils! O poison, O food and drink, which seduces us so much now! How long will we be enticed by you and place our life in you? How long until we deeply imprint on our hearts the words of the Savior: man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4), and carry them into our lives and activities? How long will greed, delicacy, satiety and drunkenness last? How long is vile stinginess? How long is the love of money? How long will there be pride, enmity and anger towards one’s neighbor because of money, because of clothing, housing, food and drink? Thousands of Satan’s deceptions through food, drink, clothing, money are revealed before our heartfelt eyes, and we all continue to be carried away by his charms as something real, useful for us, and we are jealous of nothing more or less than a destructive dream and our own extreme mental and physical harm. Do not believe, brethren, the enemy even for a moment when it comes to food and drink, no matter how plausible it may seem. Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you (Matthew 6:33). Do not pay attention to the bread, but beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matthew 16:11; Luke 12:1), which is hypocrisy in matters of faith and piety. Pay your greatest attention to faith and piety; Do not do the evil that perishes, but do the good that remains in the eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you (John 6:27). Give the latter too, if need requires it, remembering the words of the Savior: to the one who wants to sue you and take your robe, let him also have the swearing (Matthew 5:40), i.e. and give the last of what you have. According to their own lusts they will choose for themselves teachers with scratchy ears (2 Tim. 4:3). Isn’t this what secular people and even many spiritual people are doing today? Haven't they themselves chosen teachers who please their ears? They study not from the only Teacher - Christ, from His Gospel, and not from His Church, but from secular journalists, feuilletonists, novelists, poets, actors, and they say: ah! how entertaining it all is, how moralizing it all is! and if not in words, then in deeds they say: we do not need either the Gospel or the Church with its Divine services, Sacraments and preaching of the Word of God. We have such good, premoral teachers! Lord Jesus! what have we come to? They have turned back Your words. Do not be discouraged and do not fall into despair when you feel in your soul the murderous breath and ferment of malice and wickedness, impatience and blasphemy, or relaxation from unclean and nasty thoughts, but fight them relentlessly and endure courageously, wholeheartedly calling on the Lord Jesus, the Conqueror of Hell. Humble yourself deeply, deeply, recognizing yourself from the bottom of your heart as a major sinner, unworthy of human society, and the Lord, seeing your humility and your struggle, will help you. Call for help and the quick Intercessor, the Most Holy Virgin Mother of God, thus saying: heal, Most Pure One, my many ailing spiritual scabs, even in the soul, burn out the enemies who are constantly fighting with me 21. If you truly call God your Father, then trust in Him as the only Father, all-good, all-powerful, wise, unchangeable in His love and in all perfections. Trust in Him regarding the blessings of this present life, but especially regarding the gift of future blessings in Christ Jesus. Imprint deeply on your heart the words: God is my Father! Our Father! Like you are in heaven. - But since, through the love of the Heavenly Father for you, you yourself became a child of God, as having come from Him, as having reason and free will, then you must certainly use your efforts to achieve the blessed and eternal inheritance of heaven; you must know and always remember that you are a fallen being - and just as you fell, having reason and freedom - fell by your own will, then with the same reason, enlightened by the light of the Word of God and the insights of the Holy Spirit, with the same free will, supported by the grace of the Holy Spirit in Christ Jesus - rise from your fall and go unceasingly to the heavenly infinite Belly, despising everything earthly as corruptible and fleeting, especially without being attached to silver and gold, to food and drink, to this poison, because of which the entire human race has fallen into such depths of evil. Thank our most swift Intercessor, the Lady Theotokos, the Most Pure, Most Compassionate Virgin Mary, who, through the prayer of our hearts, saves us from the gnawing and oppression of the devil. Look at Her with the eyes of your heart in the Holy Spirit, who exists everywhere and fulfills everything and is simple - look as if she exists at your very heart and cry out to Her: Most swift Intercessor, Lady Theotokos Mary, save me from the harassing enemy! And immediately, in a minute, She will save you according to the faith of your heart, according to the hope of your heart in Her, and so the oppression, fire and heavy despondency will recede from your side. We only need to imagine and firmly believe that the Holy Spirit is everywhere, in every place, and is a simple Being, that in Him the whole heaven is close to us, at a glance, with all the Angels and saints, that we only need to call on the Lord or Lady Theotokos or a saint from the bottom of our hearts, with clairvoyant faith, with heartfelt repentance for the sins with which we are bound by the enemy or by which we ourselves are bound voluntarily - and salvation will immediately shine forth. The salvation of the Lady is wondrous, so it flows into your soul, like a healing balm or like aromatic life-giving air, or like restful water, just look at Her with the eyes of your heart with hope in Her goodness and benefits. But this is also difficult - to look to Her with heartfelt, clairvoyant faith, as well as to the Lord or to the saints; the enemy intensifies in every possible way to become a solid, high and gloomy wall between your soul and God or the Mother of God, the Angels and saints, the accursed one does not allow the heart’s eye to see the Lord or His saints, darkens the heart in every possible way, scatters faith, oppresses the insides, burns, darkens. All these actions must be considered a dream, a lie, and through this dreamy wall one must break through to the Lord or to the Mother of God and to the saints. As soon as you break through, you are immediately saved. Your faith will save you (Matthew 9:22). Speak in your heart with all your heart: the Lord is everything to me, I am nothing, I am powerlessness, weakness. Without Me you cannot do anything, says the Lord Himself (John 15:5): for, I may add, everything is for you. Be convinced of this from the bottom of your heart every minute of your life and run resolutely to the Lord in everything, hoping to receive from Him everything beneficial for your salvation and even for your temporary life. If the Lady Theotokos, through unity with God and through her unparalleled service to the Lord of all, quickly becomes everything for those who ask with faith and love for Her intercession, delivering them from all evils and giving them all the petitions for salvation, then isn’t the Lord Himself even more so? Just don’t be of little faith, don’t be cold in soul towards Him and insensitive as a stone, but kindle in yourself faith, gratitude for God’s blessings, a sincere feeling for your sins and great love for your Savior, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, who loved you with immeasurable love. When praying to the Lord, the Mother of God or the saints, always remember that the Lord gives according to your heart (the Lord will give you according to your heart (Ps. 19:5)), as is the heart, such is the gift; if you pray with faith, sincerely, with all your heart, unfeignedly, then in accordance with your faith, the degree of fervor of your heart, you will be given a gift from the Lord. And vice versa, the colder your heart, the more unfaithful and hypocritical it is, the more useless your prayer is; moreover, the more it angers the Lord, Who is the Spirit and seeks those who worship Him in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). Therefore, whether you call on the Lord, the Mother of God, Angels or saints, call with all your heart; whether you pray for someone living or dead, pray for them with all your heart, pronouncing their names with warmth of your heart; Whether you are praying for the granting of some spiritual good to yourself or another, or for the deliverance of yourself or your neighbor from some calamity or from sins and passions, bad habits - pray about this with all your heart, desiring with all your heart the requested good for yourself or another, having the firm intention to leave behind, or desiring for others to be freed from sins, passions and sinful habits, and you will be given from the Lord a gift according to your heart. If you want it, ask, and it will be done for you (John 15:7). You see, you must definitely want what you ask for, then only you will get it. Pray for one another so that you may be healed (James 5:16). Be obedient in heart, word and deed at all times to serve others, without the slightest annoyance or irritability, remembering the words of the Savior: whatever He will to be in you, let him be your servant (Matthew 20:26). Believe firmly that at all times the Lord is everything to you. During prayer, He is for you the power and fulfillment in the Holy Spirit of every word you say, during pious conversation He is your living water, the fiery stream of your words, at all times He is every good thing for you. Be at ease with your Lord. He has enclosed you in Himself from all sides, penetrates you completely and knows all your thoughts, all your needs and dispositions, and if you stand in Him by faith and love, then no evil will come to you. The Lord is near: worry about nothing (Phil.4:5-6). God, as one, omnipresent, simple, can create and transform everything in one instant, as was the case with the miracles of Egypt. The simple does simply, the omnipotent does everything. Out of masterly or, better yet, monetary pride and incomprehensible malice, we often do not want to honor the speech of those who feed from us, we treat them with hostility, instead of us being more humble before them, as their servants, according to the word of the Lord: whoever wills to be in you, let him be your servant (Matthew 20:26), in order to thereby aggravate the reward of the Master through sincere, unfeigned service to Him in the person of His lesser brothers! Oh, meek and humble-hearted Creator, Life-Giver, Redeemer, Nourisher and Guardian, our Lord Jesus! Teach us love, meekness and humility by Your Holy Spirit and strengthen us in these virtues most dear to You, so that our hearts are not puffed up by Your rich gifts, so that we do not imagine that we feed, satisfy and support anyone, You are the Common Breadwinner of all, you feed, satisfy and preserve; everyone is content and at peace under the wings of Your goodness, generosity and love for mankind, and not under ours, for we ourselves need to take refuge in the shadow of Your wings every moment of our lives. Our eyes are directed to You, our God, like the eyes of a slave in the hand of the Lord, like the eyes of a slave in the hand of her mistress, until You have graciously given us. (Ps. 123:2). Amen. Believe firmly in the feasibility of every word, especially uttered during prayer, remembering that the Author of the word is God the Word, that our God Himself, worshiped in the Trinity, is expressed in three words or names: Father, Word and Holy Spirit; that every word corresponds to being, or every word can be being and deed. Treat your word reverently and treasure it. Remember that just as the Hypostatic Word of God - the Son of God - is always united with the Father and the Holy Spirit, so in the word of Holy Scripture, or in prayer, or in the writings of the God-wise, the Father participates in His omnipresence, the Father, as the Supreme Reason, His creative Word and the Perfector of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, no word is idle, but has or should have its own power; and woe to those who talk idle, for they will give an answer for their idle talk. For God does not fail every verb (Luke 1:37), this is generally the property of the word - its power and perfection. This is how it should be in a person's mouth. The Holy Spirit performs all powers and miracles. The same Spirit gives to another the powers, to the other the actions of the powers. Just speak with faith, the perfection of the word is not your concern, but the Holy Spirit's. Believe firmly that you think, feel, speak, move and act always in God, so to speak, in His very bosom: in Me abides and I in him (John 6:56). On all sides He has enclosed you within Himself; penetrates you and knows you. Behind and in front, says St. prophet and king David, “You have imprisoned me and placed Your hand on me (Ps. 139:5). In God is the Mother of God, all the holy Angels and all the saints. What's closer? Who could be more in tune with Christian believers than the holy Angels and men? Call with faith, hope and love, both the Lord Himself of all, and His saints, asking for their intercession for yourself before God; just as you ask the living for something for yourself, standing face to face with them, so ask the Angels and saints to pray to God for you, firmly believing that they are face to face to your heart. Always think that you are damned, poor, poor, blind and spiritually naked without God, that God is everything to you: He is your truth, sanctification, wealth, clothing, your life, your breath - everything. The Body and Blood of Christ are primarily body and blood, because in every smallest particle of the Body and Blood the whole Christ God rests, fulfilling all parts. This is not the case in the human body. In the Body and Blood of Christ, every particle, drop is the whole Christ, never divided, one and the same. What is mercy? Mercy is to love our enemies, bless those who curse, do good to those who hate us, those who harm us, those who drive us out, protect the persecuted, etc. God is the most movable and accessible Being in His bounties for His creatures, especially rational ones. If air and light, by their subtlety, are easily movable and communicable to everything that is capable of receiving them into themselves, then the Lord of all, the Omnipresent, All-Good, Infinite, Almighty Spirit, is not it more movable and communicable into infinity than these inanimate, unreasonable, material creations? ABOUT! How helpful is the Lord to those who believe and seek Him! The Spirit breathes wherever it wants, and you hear His voice, but do not consider where it comes from or where it goes (John 3:8). If human nature is intelligible, then how much more so than God's? If father and mother give what is necessary for their children, they are evil people by nature, how much more will your Heavenly Father give good things to those who ask Him (Matthew 7:11). Don’t forget about charity and communication. Have fellowship with one another (Heb. 13:16; 1 John 1:7). If Christ is in you through frequent communion of the Holy Mysteries, then be all like Christ: meek, humble, long-suffering, loving, impartial to earthly things, wise on heaven, obedient, reasonable; certainly have His Spirit within you; do not be proud, impatient, partial to earthly things, stingy and money-loving. See God firmly with the eyes of your heart and, while contemplating Him, ask what you want in the name of Jesus Christ, and it will be done for you. God will be everything to you in an instant, for He is a simple Being, above all time and space, and in moments of your faith, your heartfelt unity with Him, He will do for you everything that you need to save you and your neighbor, and at this time you will be involved in the deity through sincere communication with Him: Az reh: you are God (Ps. 82:6). Just as there will be no gap between God and you this time, so there will be no gap between your word and the fulfillment itself; you will say - and immediately it will be accomplished, just like God: it spoke, and it came, it commanded, and it was created (Ps. 33:9; 149:6). This applies both to the Sacraments and to spiritual prayer in general. However, in the Sacraments everything is accomplished for the sake of the grace of the priesthood, with which the priest is invested, for the sake of the Supreme High Priest Himself - Christ, whose image the priest bears on himself - therefore, although he bears the dignity unworthily, although there are weaknesses in him, although he is suspicious, unfaithful or distrustful, nevertheless the Mystery of God is accomplished soon, in the blink of an eye. God the Father, acting in our mind and heart through His Hypostatic Word (in our word expressed by the Holy Spirit, in the Hypostatic Word resting) and through our word of faith, hope, meekness, love, emanating from our mouths, in an instant, once and for all from the foundation of the world, the predetermined miraculous works of our rebirth, sanctification, strengthening, spiritual nutrition and healing in Christ, although preparatory rituals for these actions are very long, for God is a simple omnipotent Being. For example, the transformation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ occurs immediately upon the utterance of the words: create therefore this bread the honorable Body of Thy Christ; and in this cup - the precious Blood of Thy Christ, transposed by Thy Holy Spirit 22 - after these last words and blessing, crosswise with the hand, in an instant the bread and wine are transferred into the Body and Blood of Christ, but not before, for divine omnipotence awaits the word of the priest assisting Him, for God is an assistant (1 Cor. 3:9). In this case, the blessing of the cross in the name of the Lord means that the Mystery is performed by the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus Christ and for the sake of Jesus Christ, for the sake of His intercession, with the favor of God the Father. When performing Divine Services and the Sacraments, a servant of God must be firmly convinced that as soon as he thinks and says something, it will be done. It is so convenient and easy for the Lord to fulfill our requests, to create or implement something according to our word. Let this conviction be as easy and natural in you as your breathing with air, as seeing with your eyes, as listening with your ears. You yourself have experienced a thousand times that this is exactly so; I myself experienced that between the words: speech and bysha; commanded, and was created (Ps. 33:9), there is no interval, that they are true in all their power. Let this conviction be absorbed into you with your food and drink, with your breath. The Liturgy is the supper, the meal of God’s love for the human race. Around the Lamb of God everyone gathers on the paten - the living and the dead, saints and sinners, the Church triumphant and militant. For a believer, nothing is impossible; living, unshakable faith can instantly perform great miracles. However, even without our sincere and firm faith, miracles are performed, such are the miracles of the Sacraments, for the Mystery of God is always accomplished, even if we were of little faith when performing it, or unfaithful; our unbelief will not abolish God’s faith (Rom. 3:3), and our malice will not overcome the unspeakable divine goodness and mercy, our stupidity will not overcome God’s wisdom, our weakness will not overcome God’s omnipotence. The Church is eternal truth, because it is united with the Truth - Christ and is animated by the Spirit of Truth: I am with you all the days (Matthew 28:20). The Church is His Body, says the Apostle (Col. 1:24). You, filled with all unrighteousness, thirst to endure all unrighteousness from people, so that the judgments of God's righteousness may appear on you in this life (Rom. 2:3). You give the least measure to your Lord and to your neighbor, so that it may also be measured to you (Matthew 7:2). Always keep in mind the example of the greatest Righteous Jesus Christ the Son of God, Who, with His righteousness, suffered all the unrighteousness of people against Him, was lifted up on the cross and killed in the most shameful death. Do not be faint-hearted, do not be discouraged when people hate you for rebuking their ways, but rejoice even more, remembering the words of the Savior: blessed will you be when men hate you (Luke 6:22). A man makes a house for himself and lives in it; the animal is a lair and lives in it; a bird is a nest and raises its chicks in it; a bee is a hive with honeycombs and lives in it, preparing honey for itself; The spider weaves webs and lives in them and catches food for itself with them. Will not the Creator build for Himself a House not made by hands - His Body, just as He built it in the womb of the Virgin Mary, just as He now creates for Himself churches of His Body in the life-giving Mysteries; Is it the Creator Who has built physical houses for all sensory or sensory-spiritual creatures and is constantly creating them? The priesthood, or saints in general, are sacred reservoirs from which blessed water is communicated to other believers. Rivers from his belly will flow out as living waters (John 7:38). What pure, spiritual lips a priest must have, so often pronouncing the all-holy Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Even more so, how spiritually and purely must the heart be in order to contain and feel the sweetness of this most honorable, magnificent and venerable name! Oh, how a priest must distance himself from carnal pleasures, lest he become flesh in which the Spirit of God does not dwell! Is it a matter of carnal pleasures for a priest, when he must irrevocably enjoy the one and only Lord, may He grant him the petitions of his heart? Is there any time for carnal pleasures when he has so many spiritual children presenting to him their various spiritual or physical infirmities, in which he needs to sympathize with them spiritually, give sincere and sound advice, when every day he faces a feat with all his heart and with tears to pray for them before the Lord, so that the mental wolf does not run upon them and plunder them, may the Lord give them success in life and faith and spiritual reason! Is it possible for a priest to enjoy carnal pleasures when he often has to perform services in church and stand before the throne of the Lord, when he so often has to perform the divine, wonderful liturgy and be a performer and communicant of the heavenly, immortal and life-giving Mysteries, when in general he so often has to perform other Sacraments and prayers! A heart that loves carnal pleasures is not faithful to the Lord. You cannot work for God and mammon (Matthew 6:24). By their fruit you will know them (Matthew 7:16). From the fruit of the liturgy - sweet, blessed, life-giving - the most pure Mysteries of the Body and Blood of the Lord, you know that it is from God, that it is the inspiration of the Divine Spirit, and this Most Holy Life-giving Spirit breathes in all its prayers and sacred rites. What a wonderful living tree this liturgy is! What leaves! What a fruit! Even the leaves of the tree are used to heal tongues, not just the fruit. For who has not received great spiritual benefit, peace and sweetness in the soul from one reverent presence at the Divine Liturgy! And whatever produces good fruit must itself be good; This is the creative law. One of the most powerful deceits of the devil is relaxation through laziness of the heart, and with it all spiritual and physical strength; Faith, hope and love dry up in your heart, you become faithless, sad, insensitive to God and to people - overwhelmed by salt. Just feel sincerely the need for what you pray for, and sincerely believe that every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from God, and not from people, not from chance, not from circumstances, not from fate - that the Master sees and hears your every need, every movement of your heart and your thoughts, that He is all-good, all-powerful, all-wise - and everything is convenient in an instant, with a single movement of His thought, through the Son in His Holy Spirit can do what you need, and you will receive everything. For although many things are impossible with man, they are not with God; All things are possible with God (Mark 10:27; Luke 18:27). The hope in prayer is to pronounce petitions, thanksgivings and doxologies with faith in the presence and hearing of God, with the fear of God, and not to doubt or worry about their acceptance and fulfillment in the least, in full confidence that the Lord listened to them and accepted them into His heavenly and mental altar, and according to the desire of our mother - the Church (if we pray on behalf of the Church), as well as our hearts, as the all-good, wise and The Almighty will give what we ask for and even in excess of what we ask or understand. But a heart addicted to food and drink, greedy for them, pampered by them, does not have this hope, just like a heart in which lies hatred, enmity - bound by stinginess, love of money, envy - until it leaves its ailments and improves. Depicting the sign of the cross on ourselves, we fold the upper end of the cross with three fingers - on the forehead in the image of the Father, Who is the uncreated Mind; the lower one - on the womb - in the image of the Son, born before all ages from the womb of the Father, and the transverse part on the shoulders or muscles - in the image of the Holy Spirit, which is the muscle or power of the Lord, or the hand of the Lord, as it is said: the arm of the Lord opened itself to whom, (John 12:38; Isaiah 53:1) or: the hand of the Lord was on me (Ezek.3:22), i.e. Holy Spirit. Another image in man of the Holy Trinity: the thinking mind is the image of God the Father; the heart in which the mind resides and portrays itself is the image of the Son of God, the hypostatic wisdom of God; the mouth, through which comes out what is in the thoughts and heart, is the image of the Holy Spirit. Duna and said to them: Receive the Holy Spirit... (John 20:22). When evil thoughts come from the heart,...adultery, fornication, blasphemy (Matt. 15:19), then this comes from the evil spirit nesting in the heart of a person... And when a good person brings forth good things from the good treasure of his heart (Matt. 12:35; Luke 6:45), then this is an image of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father through the Son. Great man! It is not in vain that it is said: Az rekh: you are gods, and you are all sons of the Most High (Ps. 82:6). If the gods speak, the word of God comes to them, and the Scripture cannot be destroyed (i.e., what is said is said truly, immutably), Whose Father is holy and sent to the world, you say, as if you were speaking blasphemy, you have already said: I am the Son of God (John 10:35-36). Oh, dignity! Oh, human greatness! Look at a person in no other way, especially a Christian, as a son of God and accept him as a son of God, talk to him, treat him as a son of God by grace in Christ Jesus our Lord. Someone who was mortally ill with inflammation of the stomach for nine days and did not receive the slightest relief from medical benefits, as soon as he received communion of the life-giving Mysteries on the ninth day in the morning, by the evening he became healthy and rose from his sick bed. He took communion with firm faith. I prayed to the Lord for him, so that He would heal him. God! - I said, - heal Your servant from his illness. He is worthy, this is to him, he loves Your priests and sends his gifts to them. – I also prayed in church at the throne of the Lord during the liturgy, during prayer: “who has given us prayers that are common and concordant…” and before the Mysteries themselves. By the way, I prayed like this: Lord! Our belly! Just as it is easy for me to think about healing, so it is easy for you to heal every disease; Just as it is easy for me to think about the resurrection from the dead, so it is easy for You to raise every dead person. Heal Thy servant Vasily from his cruel illness and do not allow him to die, so that his wife and children do not give in to weeping - and the benevolent Master has mercy. And then he was on the verge of death. Glory to Thy omnipotence, goodness and good obedience, Lord! The heart can change in one minute, several times for good or bad, to faith or to unbelief, to simplicity and wickedness, to love and hatred, to goodwill and envy, to generosity and stinginess, chastity and fornication. Oh, what impermanence! Oh, so many dangers! Oh, what sobriety and attention to yourself is needed! Do not rejoice when your face blooms from pleasant food and drink, because then the inner face of your soul is ugly and deathly, and this time the words of the Savior Christ come to you: as you are like melted tombs, which appear red outside, but inside are filled with the bones of the dead, i.e. hypocrisy and lawlessness (Matthew 23:27–28). How many times, O Master Lord Jesus, have You renewed my nature, frivolously corrupted by my sins! There is no limit to this! How many times have You taken me out of the cave that was burning inside me, from the cave of many different passions, from the abyss of despondency and despair! How many times by Thy name alone, called upon by me with faith, have You renewed the corruption of my heart! How many times have I done this through the life-giving Mysteries? Oh, Master! Your mercies towards me, a sinner, truly have no number or measure. What will I bring to You or what will I repay You for Your immeasurable benefits to me, Jesus, my life and my lightness! May I be prudent in my ways according to Your grace, for You are pleased with all those who are prudent on the way, as You, through Your Spirit, through the mouth of our father, David, declared (Ps. 119:2; Ps. 17:21, etc.); I will try to be faithful to You, humble, meek, not irritable, kind, long-suffering, hardworking, merciful, generous, non-covetous, obedient. Almsgiving is good and saving when it is combined with the correction of the heart from pride, malice, envy, idleness, laziness, gluttony, fornication, lies and deception and other sins. And if a person does not care about correcting his heart, relying on his alms, then he will receive little benefit from it, for what he creates with one hand, he destroys with the other. The infants Pavel and Olga, through the infinite mercy of the Lord and through the prayer of my obscenity, were healed from the spirit of infirmity that possessed them. Little Pavel's weakness was resolved by sleep, little Olga received peace of mind, and her dark face became clear. Nine times I went to pray with bold hope, hoping that my hope would not be disgraced, that it would be revealed to the interpreter, that at least for my persistence the Lord would give me what I asked for; that if the unjust judge finally satisfied the woman who was troubling him, then how much more will the Judge of all, the most righteous, satisfy my sinful prayer for innocent children, that He will look at my work, at my walking, at my prayer words and my kneeling, at my boldness, at my hope. This is what the Lord did: he did not disgrace me, a sinner. I come for the tenth time - the babies are healthy. He thanked the Lord and the most swift Intercessor. That you may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us (John 17:21). What separates us from God and from each other? Money, food and drink - this dust, this decay, pus. - Why? Because there is no living Christian hope in God. We do not know or forget that the true life of a person is love for God and neighbor. By laying down our lives in the dust and relying on it, we do not give the Heavenly Father the appropriate glory by placing all our trust and all our sorrow in Him, as should His faithful children in Christ. If I am the Father, where is My glory (Mal.1:6)? Where is your hope in Me? Where is your love for Me? Where is the impartiality towards the earthly, perishable and the all-soul desire for the heavenly, spiritual, eternal? When I am alive, then the flesh is mine, because my spirit lives in it; but when I die, it is no longer mine, but the property of God and the earth: the Lord’s earth and its fulfillment (Ps. 23:1); You are earth and you will go to earth (Gen. 3:19). Eat My Flesh and drink My Blood (John 6:54) - these words also mean that I myself am entirely in these two types of communion - in flesh and blood, they are mine in close communication with me, like the flesh and blood of a person with the soul of a person living in them, for the soul penetrates the whole body and all the blood. How many times has death entered my heart, imparting its first fruits to my body (there is no number), and the Lord delivered me from all mortal cases, had mercy on me with unspeakable mercy, and revived me. Oh, how grateful my heart should be to the Lord! If the Lord had not helped me, my soul would have entered hell (Ps. 93:17). Our flesh becomes sad and hangs its head when it is exposed to infirmities; and when she is healthy and tastes carnal pleasures, then she admires, jumps and loses her temper. One should not pay attention to the deceptive feelings of the flesh and in general should neglect all carnal play, carnal delight; one must graciously endure the sorrows and illnesses of the flesh, be courageous in spirit and place one’s trust in God. Why is impatience in a small, insignificant matter, one simple movement of the heart towards impatience, already a sin and is punished internally immediately? Equally, why is every instantaneous movement of the heart towards sin considered a sin and punished immediately? Because impatience in small things is a precondition for impatience in many things, it leads to impatience in great things, for the human soul is a simple being, and one instant movement of the heart towards sin is already sin. So, since every small sin leads to a big one, it is always punished at the very beginning and must be crushed. You have been faithful for a few things; I will make you ruler over many; enter into the joy of your Lord (Matthew 25:21). How big is this? Eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and the heart of man has not sighed, what God has prepared for those who love Him (1 Cor. 2:9). When praying, try in every possible way to feel in your heart the truth or power of the words of prayer, feed on them like incorruptible food, water your heart with them like dew, warm yourself like blessed fire. The Lord is everything to me: He is the strength of my heart and the light of my mind; He moves my heart to every good; He strengthens it; He also gives me good thoughts; He is my peace and joy; He is my faith, hope and love; He is my food, my drink, my clothing, my habitation. Just as a mother is everything to a baby—mind, will, sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, food, drink, clothing, hands, and feet—so the Lord is everything to me when I completely surrender to Him. But - alas for me! - when I fall away from the Lord, then the devil takes possession of me, and if I had not turned the eyes of my heart to the Lord, if in the oppression of the enemy I had not cried out to the Lord for help, then the devil would have been, as sometimes happens, all kinds of evil for me: anger, and despondency, and relaxation perfect for all good, and despair, and hatred, and envy, and stinginess, and blasphemous, crafty and nasty thoughts, contempt for everyone; in a word - it is my mind, my will, sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, hands and feet. So, trust in the Lord: He is present and infinite in holiness, power, goodness, mercy, bounty, wisdom. When your flesh suffers from illnesses, remember that the first enemy of your salvation suffers, who is weakened by illness, and generously endure your illness in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, who endured the cross and death for us; Also remember that all our illnesses are God’s punishment for sins; they cleanse, reconcile us with God and introduce us again into His love: Your peace, it is said, and grant us Your love: for You have given us everything. Remember that in illness the Lord is with you: I am with him in sorrow (Ps. 90:15), that it came from the beck of the Master, fatherly punishing us. Believing in prosperous times, be careful not to fall away in times of adversity, but, like a martyr, be constant in faith, hope and love. God is a simple, most perfect Being, i.e. the purest shrine, the purest good and truth; in order to be in unity with God, in order to be one spirit with Him (for we are from Him), we must, by His grace, acquire in ourselves the perfect simplicity of goodness or holiness and love. All the saints who are in heaven have been cleansed by the blood of the Son of God and the Holy Spirit and do not have a shadow of sin in themselves. For this reason they themselves labored in this life, for this they suffered in the flesh, in order to cleanse themselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit and to create holiness in the fear of God, in order to unite forever with that all-blessed Being, whose being is holy. For this reason, the Holy Church with all its institutions now stands in the world; For this purpose, Divine services, Sacraments, rituals; fasting is for the purpose of purifying and sanctifying the children of God, for the sake of union with His all-blessed Being, glorified in the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. You ask the Lord that you may love Him with a love like mighty death, or unto death. Listen, the Lord is sending you a severe internal illness, bringing you closer to death. Do not murmur against the Lord, but endure it courageously, with thanksgiving to the Lord for this fatherly visit of Him; and this will mean what you call the love of God as strong death. And in the event of strong blows or writhing illnesses, trust that God is able to deliver you not only from illness, but also from death itself if He pleases; do not spare, do not love your corruptible body for Him, but give it voluntarily and completely to the Lord, like Abraham his son Isaac for a burnt offering, to the will of the Lord who punishes you, without losing faith in the goodness of God, without losing heart, without giving your lips madness to God, who allegedly unrighteously punishes you so much - and you will make a great sacrifice to God, like Abraham or like a martyr. Whatever calms me in my thoughts and in my heart, let it be written down as a memory for me and for the constant peace of my heart among the worries and vanities of life. What is this? This is a Christian saying, full of living hope and wonderful restful power: the Lord is everything for me. What a priceless treasure! Here is a jewel with which you can be calm in any condition, with which you can be rich in poverty, and when possessing wealth, generous and kind to people; with whom, even by sin, one cannot lose hope. Everything is Lord for me. He is my faith, my hope, my love, my strength, my strength, my peace, my joy, my wealth, my food, my drink, my clothing, my life - in a word - everything that is mine. So, man, everything is the Lord for you, and you be everything for the Lord. And since all your treasure lies in your heart and in your will, and God demands your heart from you, saying: give Me, son, your heart (Prov. 23:26), then in order to fulfill the will of God, good and perfect, refuse to fulfill your corrupt, passionate, charming will; do not know your own will, know only the will of God; say: not my will, but Yours be done (Luke 22:42). There is absolutely nothing to be proud of for a Christian who does works of righteousness, for he is both saved and constantly saved from all evil only through faith alone, just as he does works of righteousness by the same faith. For salvation comes by grace through faith, and this (and faith itself) is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God: not by works, so that no one may boast (Eph. 2:8-9), so that no one will be proud of anything. As long as we stand in fervent prayer, our souls remain calm, warm, light, and light; because then we are with God and in God; and as soon as prayer left, temptations and various embarrassments came. O blessed time of prayer! Love for God then begins to manifest itself and act in us when we begin to love our neighbor as ourselves, and not spare either ourselves or anything of our own for him, as the image of God; when we try to serve him for salvation with all we can; when we refuse, for the sake of pleasing God, from pleasing our belly, our carnal sight, from pleasing our carnal mind, which does not submit to the mind of God. If you do not love your brother, who you see, God, who you do not see, how can you love (1 John 4:20)? Those who are Christ's are the flesh crucified with passions and lusts (Gal.5:24). Ask what you want from the Lord, - God the Father only has to desire: the Creator-Son and the Perfecter-Holy Spirit are always with Him and in Him, as He is in Them - They are always ready to fulfill the will of the Almighty, All-Good Father; for Sami is one with Him in goodness and omnipotence. The gifts of the Lord should not be kept to oneself, but poured out on others; the example is nature: the sun does not hold light in itself alone, but pours it out onto the earth and the moon. Especially shepherds should not keep their light, or, better, God’s, to themselves, but abundantly shed the light of their mind and knowledge on others. What are our hearts doing? God, who searches hearts and bellies (Ps. 7:10), sees what happens in all of us in our hearts; what it is attached to during most of its life; and if the Lord gave us to see the whole depth of human hearts, then our eyes would turn away with horror from this accumulation of all uncleanness: adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, blasphemy, pride, etc. What abomination we would not see in him: the abomination of ingratitude to God, oblivion of God, unbelief, lack of faith, various attachments to earthly things, often the most absurd, carelessness about heavenly things, about one’s fate beyond the grave, inattention and disregard for the Church, its Divine services, rituals and statutes, disdain for sacred persons, representatives of the faith and the Church, and you never know what kind of abomination we would not see would! The cross cannot be thought or imagined without love; where the cross is, there is love; in church you see crosses everywhere and on everything so that everything reminds you that you are in the church of the God of love, in the church of Love crucified for us. They say: if you don’t want to, don’t pray, that’s carnal wisdom; If you don’t start praying, you will completely fall behind prayer; that's what the flesh wants. The Kingdom of Heaven is in need (Matthew 11:12); Without self-compulsion to goodness you will not be saved. In education, it is extremely harmful to develop only the reason and mind, leaving the heart unattended - the heart needs to be paid attention to most of all; the heart is life, but life spoiled by sin; you need to cleanse this source of life, you need to light a pure flame of life in it so that it burns and does not go out, and gives direction to all the thoughts, desires and aspirations of a person, his entire life. Society is corrupted precisely because of the lack of Christian education. It's time for Christians to understand the Lord, what He wants from us; namely, He wants a pure heart: blessedness is the pure in heart (Matthew 5:8). Listen to His sweetest voice in the Gospel. And the true life of our heart is Christ (Christ lives in me (Gal.2:20)). Learn all the wisdom of the Apostle - this is our common task: to instill faith in Christ in your heart. These hands, loving to take gifts, will fold on their chests and take nothing; these legs, which love to commit evil and do not love to stand in prayer, will be spread out forever and will not go anywhere else; these eyes, which loved to look with envy at the well-being of their neighbor, will close, their fire will darken forever, and nothing will deceive them; the ear, which was often opened with pleasure to hear slander and slander, will become dead, and no thunder will be heard for it: it will hear one trumpet, raising the dead, and then our incorruptible body will arise either in the resurrection of the belly or in the resurrection of judgment (John 5:29). What will live in us even after death and what should be the subject of all our concerns during life? What we now call the heart, i.e. our inner man, our soul; she must be the subject of our care. Purify your heart throughout your life, so that it, or your soul, will then be able to see God; take care of the body and its needs as much as is necessary to maintain its health, strength, and decency. Everything will die, the earth will take everything with it. Try to improve what loves and what hates in you, what is calm and what is restless, what rejoices or grieves, that is, your heart, or the inner person (what thinks, reasons through your mind). Throughout their entire earthly life, people seek everything except Christ the Giver of Life - that is why they do not have spiritual life, and that is why they are given over to all sorts of passions: unbelief, lack of faith, greed, envy, hatred, ambition, the pleasures of food and drink. Only at the end of their entire life do they seek Christ - in communion, and then out of blatant necessity, and then as if according to a custom accepted by others. Oh, Christ God, our Life and Resurrection! How fussy we have become, how blind we have become! What would happen to us if we were looking for You, if we had You in our hearts? The tongue cannot express the bliss that those who have You in their hearts taste. For them you are strong food, and inexhaustible drink, and bright clothing, and sun, and peace, surpassing all understanding (Phil. 4:7), and joy unspeakable, and everything, and everything. With You all earthly dust and decay. The Spirit is the one who gives life (John 6:63). To the Spirit of the Lord in creatures belongs the revival of them from the time of their creation, and to the Son of God - creation, bringing them from non-existence into being. Therefore, both the Body and Blood of Christ are added by the Holy Spirit from bread and wine, just as in the womb of the Most Pure Virgin it was created by the Holy Spirit from Her blood; The Holy Spirit creates us in our mother's womb; Our spiritual goods belong to the Spirit of God. The kingdom of life and the kingdom of death go side by side; I say - they go because they are spiritual. The head of the first, i.e. the kingdom of life is Jesus Christ, and whoever is with Christ is undoubtedly in the realm of life; the boss of the second, i.e. the kingdom of death, there is the prince of the power of the air - the devil with the spirits of evil subordinate to him, of which there are so many that it far exceeds the number of all people living on earth. These children of death - subjects of the prince of the air - are in constant stubborn war with the sons of life, i.e. with faithful Christians, and with all measures of cunning, they try to win them over to their side through the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, because sin, crime is their element, and through sins, if we do not repent of them, we go over to their side; those for whom sins are a daily necessity, who drink iniquity like water, are not bothered by them, because they are their property as long as they live carelessly about their souls; but if they only turn to God, acknowledge their sins, voluntary and involuntary, oh! the war will flare up, the hordes of Satan will rise and wage a continuous war. From here you see how necessary it is to seek Christ as the Author of life, the Conqueror of hell and death. All sorrow and distress come from a lack of faith or from some passion hidden inside, or from some other impurity visible to the All-Seeing One, and, therefore, from the fact that the devil is in the heart, but Christ is not in the heart. Christ is peace, freedom of the soul and inexpressible light. The air, the breath of the wind, the breath of creatures in the material world correspond to the spirits in the spiritual world and the most uncreated, all-life-giving Spirit of God. That is why the Spirit appeared, by the way, in a stormy breath (Acts 2:2); That’s why the Savior likens the breath of the wind to the breath of the souls who believe in the Spirit of God (cf. John 3:8). In the material world there is much that corresponds to the spiritual world, because the material world is the creation of the Spirit; But can the Creator Spirit not show in part His image and kinship in the creatures He created? Man is only the highest possible image of God among creatures, those involved in matter and the purely material. The kissing of the lips corresponds to the kissing of the soul; and we, kissing the shrine, must kiss with our lips, soul and heart. Marvelously and powerfully, the Lord rules the material worlds through His wisdom, through His word. Just as particles of an animal’s body, wood, grass, stone are held together by cohesion, so all worlds are held together by the forces and laws invested in them. Just as the soul carries the body and animates it, so God bears the world, enlivening it with His Spirit; It is not for nothing that man is called a small world. What an insignificant web is the world for God! What an insignificant web my body is! And all wisdom, at every point of matter, and everything is held together by wisdom, by the eternal laws of wisdom. O wisdom, wisdom! We all owe our existence to you - your good Culprit! My death, my decay or destruction clearly proves how insignificant I am in Your web. Glory to Thee, Life-Father, Life-Son, Life-Soul, Holy - Simple Being - God, who ever delivers us from spiritual death, caused by passions to our souls; Glory to You, Trinitarian Master, for from one invocation of Your name you have illuminated the dark face of our soul and body and bestowed Your peace, which surpasses all earthly and sensual good and all understanding. Pray unceasingly, calling on the name of the Life-Giving Trinity, so that your soul is not suddenly struck down by any passion, pride or envy, or malice and hatred, or stinginess, or love of money, or gluttony, or anger and irritability, or condemnation and contempt, or lies and slander and the like; for we all walk among the nets every hour, every minute of our lives. Let your heart's eyes be on guard every hour, every minute; Let your heart be awake not only during the day, but also at night, according to the scripture: I sleep, but my heart watches (Song. 5:2). We must love our neighbor even more when he sins against God or against us, for he is then sick, then he is in spiritual trouble, in danger, then we must have mercy and pray for him and apply a healing plaster to his heart - a word of affection, admonition, reproof, consolation, forgiveness, love. Forgiving one another, as God in Christ also forgave you (Eph. 4:32). All sins and passions, fights and quarrels are truly mental illnesses - that’s how you need to look at them. Or all passions - a fire of the soul, a great fire raging inside, a fire emerging from the hellish abyss. It must be extinguished with the water of love, which is powerful to extinguish every hellish flame of anger and other passions. But woe and misfortune for us, for our pride, when we increase this flame with a new hellish flame, with our own malice and irritability, and thus become assistants to the spirits of malice, who are intensifying at all times to produce all sorts of spiritual inflammation in people through various passions. We ourselves incur the fire of hell, and if we do not repent and continue to be wise in good and simple in evil, then we will be condemned along with the devil and his angels to torment in the lake of fire. So let us not allow ourselves to be overcome by evil, but let us overcome evil with good. We are damned people! How have we not yet learned to consider every sin a great misfortune of our soul and not to have spiritual, sincere, and loving compassion for those who fall into such misfortune! Why don’t we run from it, like from poison, like from a snake; Why are we stuck in it? Why do we not feel sorry for ourselves when we are exposed to any sin? Why don’t we cry before the Lord who created us? The Lord allows us to be overwhelmed by various passions in this life, so that we would hate these same passions with all our hearts and consider everything earthly as nothing, no matter how precious and pleasant it may be, and so that with all our hearts we would desire the one God - the Source of silence and life, and cleave to Him alone, value His One above all, His holy will, His peace and joy. Everywhere on earth is crowded for you, everything betrays you: relatives, friends, acquaintances, wealth, sensual pleasures; your body, all the elements change: earth, water, fire, air, light - cling to the one God, with whom there is no change or shadow of change (James 1:17), Who alone is love. It is remarkable that irritable people, after the agony of strong and prolonged anger and after experiencing all its torment, become, as they say, silken, meek and meek. What has been said about anger and irritability should also be said about other passions. The Lord Himself indicated the punishment for them in themselves, in their extreme agony. This is how pride, envy, hatred, stinginess, and love of money are punished. Each passion is its own teacher and at the same time the executioner of every person possessed by it. Have peace and holiness with everyone, for they will see the Lord except no one (Heb. 12:14). Do not disturb the peace because of the corruptible and transitory, because of your sinful pride. Love the world above all else, as the Lord Himself. May nothing be more valuable than peace and mutual love. Let us love peace, peace, peace! The human soul is a free force, for it can become either a good or an evil force, depending on the direction you yourself give it. Lord, Almighty Power! strengthen my weak soul in all virtue! Strengthen my heart, weak for all good, on the immovable stone of Your commandments! God! and I daily experience that without You I am nothing; that without You I cannot do any good; Without You there is only evil in me in its various forms; Without You I am a perishing son. Oh, indescribable Grace! Fill my heart with Your goodness! Most of all, I pray: grant me to love You with all my heart and my neighbor as I love myself. May I not be angry, proud, disdainful, restless, but may I be gentle, humble, respectful, tender and obedient. Amen. Oh, how carefully the devil and the world sow with their tares the field of Christ, which is the Church of God. Instead of the word of God, the word of the world, the word of vanity, is diligently sown. Instead of churches, the world invented its own churches - churches of the vanity of the world: theaters, circuses, meetings; instead of St. icons, which peace lovers do not accept; in the world there are paintings and photographic portraits, illustrations and various other types; Instead of God and saints, the world reveres its celebrities to the point of adoration - writers, actors, singers, painters, who hold public trust and respect to the point of reverence. Poor Christians! They have completely fallen away from Christ! Instead of spiritual attire, all the attention in the world is paid to perishable clothing, fashionable dresses and various exquisite jewelry that resonates with brilliance and high cost. In illness and in physical weakness in general, as well as in sorrow, a person at first cannot burn for God with faith and love, because in sorrow and illness the heart hurts, but faith and love require a healthy heart, a calm heart; therefore, there is no need to grieve greatly over the fact that in illness and sorrow we cannot, as we should, believe in God, love Him and fervently pray to Him. Time for everything. Sometimes it’s not a good time to pray. Treat your neighbor with a perfect heart, i.e. truly and with the love that you have for yourself, so that your neighbor will love you, and if he does not love you, then at least he will honor your virtue in your face and be imbued with respect for it, and he himself will be jealous of it. Will a beggar who feeds on grains from his master's table be proud that he feeds on his grains? What should he be proud of? Is it because of your poverty? The beggar is me; lord is the Lord; grains from His meal are all gifts of grace and nature. What is the sign that a Christian person is close to Christ? A person close to Christ often turns to Christ with faith and love, often pronounces His sweetest name, often calls on Him for help, often turns his eyes to Him, filling his thoughts and heart; Christ the God is naturally revealed both on his tongue and in his eyes, because without Christ he is powerless and joyless. A person who is far from Christ rarely, rarely turns his thoughts to Christ, and then not with heartfelt faith and love, but only out of some necessity, and then as to a person who is little familiar to his heart, who does not please and does not delight his heart, does not have all the attractiveness for him. That is why we see that people close to Christ do not let Christ out of their thoughts and hearts, they live by Him; He is their breath, food, drink, home - everything; Because of the sweetness of the Name and the gracious touch of Jesus Christ on them, they, so to speak, cleave to Him with their whole being (my soul cleaves to You (Ps. 62:9)), and in this cleavage they find for themselves an indescribable bliss that the world does not know. These are the signs by which you can know who has found Christ and who has not yet found Him. Those who have not found Christ live in this life without heartfelt faith, they think and care more about everyday things: how to have fun, drink and eat sweetly, how to dress more elegantly, how to satisfy their lusts, how to kill time, which they do not know what to do with, although time is looking for them and, not finding them, quickly rushes in their eyes, days after days fly by, nights after nights, months after months, years after years, until, finally, the last, terrible hour will strike, and they will be told: stop, your course has come to an end, your time is lost, your sins, your iniquities have all come before you and with all their strength are falling upon you and with their weight will forever suppress you. What does it mean to seek entertainment? It means wanting to fill with something the inner painful emptiness of the soul, created for activity and cannot tolerate being idle. May all knowledge related to faith always be as if new for you, i.e. always having the same importance, holiness and entertainment. The Lord is the perfect Possessor and Master of all creation; and we know that all creation listens to His commands, His will: angels and people with a meaningful heart, heaven, earth and everything that is on them, even hell and everything that is in it. He commands the Angels - and they quickly move to do His will; commands us to be the guardians of reborn people - and they guard their entire lives and do not transgress His commandments in anything; commands the sky - and it either gives rain and dew, or snow and hail, or withholds them; He commands the winds and water - and they obey Him; commands the fire - and it obeys Him; commands the sun - and it eclipses or shines on the entire sunflower, warming and illuminating it; commands the earth - and it vegetates with all kinds of plants; prohibits growing - and stops; commands the waters to pour uncontrollably onto the earth - and they pour like a global flood; He commands the winds - and they blow, rage and are destructive for our sins; commands the sea whale to devour the prophet Jonah - and he is ready to catch; He commands the fish to fill the net of His disciples and it runs, runs obedient to the command of the Creator; commands the dead man to rise, to come to life - and death flees from the person, and life appears; commands the disease to leave the patient - and the disease runs away, and the patient gets up, vigorous and healthy; commands the demons - and they obey unquestioningly. Great is the name of the Lord, praiseworthy is the name of the Lord, glorified is the name of the Lord! He can transform His creatures as He pleases: for example. water into blood, water into wine, a staff into a living serpent, or again: a staff into a living plant; a person - into a pillar, like Lot’s wife; a snake into gold, and again gold into a snake, as the Lord created through the prayer of His saint Spyridon of Trimifuntsky. But especially the power, the power of the Lord is manifested in the fact that He transforms a sinner into a holy and chosen vessel, restores one who has fallen through a terrible fall, resurrects and renews a corrupted person, revives a person who is dead in soul and body, and brings one who has fallen into eternal death into eternal life. This is a miracle of miracles; this reveals the infinite goodness, wisdom and omnipotence of the Lord of creation; or else that He Himself, being the Lord of creation, without beginning, incontainable, deigned and was able to become our Man for the sake of salvation, and the Word, in Whom all things were, became flesh, and dwelt in us (John 1:14) having lived with men and in everything being like man, except for sin. Heaven and earth were horrified at this and were completely surprised, for God, having appeared as a man in the flesh, talked with us, did good to us, performed countless miracles, suffered (oh a miracle!), died (oh a terrible miracle!) and rose again, and resurrected us who died in Adam with Himself! I glorify Your all-good, holy, all-powerful, all-wise power, Lord! Reveal upon me, O Lord, Thy wondrous power and, in the image of destinies, save me, Thy unworthy servant, despising my voluntary and involuntary sins, known and unknown sins, always instructing me on Thy path and strengthening me on this path with Thy grace, through me and others, for whom You have made me a lamp, a shepherd, a teacher and clergyman. When you eat immortal food and drink - the Body and Blood of the Lord, ascend with a grateful heart to the Lord and say: I thank You, Lord, the Bread of life and the Source of immortality, who has given us Your Body and Blood for food and drink, so that those who are purified and sanctified here will enter into Your eternal kingdom - to enjoy Your sight forever and Your blessed life. Lord, do not allow me to worry only about bodily bread and drink; do not allow me to become addicted to them, but let me cleave to You alone. When you taste perishable sweets, thank the Lord, saying: I thank You, eternal sweetness, incomparable, innumerably surpassing all earthly, carnal and rough sweets, incorruptible sweetness, life-giving, holy, quiet, light, premium, most joyful, inexhaustible; I thank You, for You have given me these perishable sweets for tasting and pleasure, and, although in part, I know how sweet You are, that You are all sweetness, all desire. Shining with the material light, say: glory to Thee, the everlasting Light, sweet and all-joyful, as with this corruptible, but beautiful light - the image of Thy unapproachable divine light, we are illuminated, and from this material light we continually flow in thought to You, the eternal, everlasting Light, and let us strive through the purity of life to achieve Thy all-blessed contemplation. Breathing through your lungs with air - this life-giving and cooling element, which is incessantly necessary for us to maintain perishable life, again ascend in thought to the Life-Giving Lord, the Holy Spirit, with the Father and the Son, by Whom we live, move and exist, thanking Him for the incessant breathing and know that just as a body without air, so a soul without the Holy Spirit cannot live a true life and a pure abstinent life for a minute; try to constantly be in communion with God: for without Him the soul dies; so from every creature ascend unceasingly to the Creator, thank Him for everything and do not cleave to any creature, do not serve any creature more than the Creator: for the service or slavery of a creature, addiction to earthly things is idolatry. Sacrifice your heart to God, give it entirely to the Almighty, deny yourself, all sinful movements: malice, hatred, pride, disobedience and self-will, envy, ill will, gloating, stinginess, love of money, gluttony, fornication, theft, deception, laziness, etc., and constantly forcing yourself to goodness when we embittered, insulted, to prayer for enemies, meekness, humility, kindness, sincere goodwill, generosity, non-covetousness, abstinence, chastity, almsgiving, truth and righteousness, hard work, obedience, etc. It is difficult to overcome the passions that have become, as it were, our natural members (put to death your evils that are on the earth (Col. 3:5)), but with unceasing attention to yourself and with diligent, unceasing prayer with abstinence, with the help of God it is possible to overcome and eradicate them. Where there are two or three congregations in My name, I am in the midst of them (Matthew 18:20). I reverence even two or three praying together: for according to the promise of the Lord, He Himself is among them; I am even more in awe of the large gathering. A prosperous, fruitful congregational prayer is successful if it is friendly and unanimous (gather in My name). The diligent prayer of the church for the Apostle Peter immediately penetrated the throne of God, and the Lord sent His angel to miraculously free Peter from prison, whom Herod wanted to kill. The united prayer of the apostles Paul and Silas brought down to them heavenly miraculous help from the Holy Spirit (Acts 12:5–11, 16:24–26). What darkness, what madness, what weakness and what terrible, deadly violence - sin! We commit adultery internally, looking at faces, because faces are beautiful; we hate a person because he is not according to our disposition, not according to our passions, not according to our mood of spirit, which is often very sinless, passionate, vicious. Is facial beauty the reason for fornication and sin? Is this not the reason for surprise at the Creator, who created man so beautifully? Is the reason for hating our neighbor because he is not according to our disposition or willfulness, does not indulge our pride, passions in general, that he is not according to our mood of spirit? Doesn’t everyone have free will, their own character, their own temperament, their own habits, their own passions, their own habits? Shouldn't everyone be condescending, shouldn't everyone respect the personal freedom of every person, a freedom that the Lord Himself never violates? It is unpleasant for a proud person when they demand humility from him before others; to the envious - when they demand goodwill to enemies; vengeful - when they demand forgiveness and reconciliation; for a money lover - when they remind him about paying his debts; to a glutton - when they tell him about fasting and the salvation of his soul. But they must conquer their feelings, their passions, and joyfully do what the Gospel requires or requires of them: otherwise, indulging unrepentantly, incorrigibly to their passions, they will perish forever. Glory to the power of Your grace, Lord, it is nothing, no violence of sin can withstand those who call on it with faith. So, raped by the enemy of all good - the devil and carried away by passions, I depicted the sign of the cross on myself and said internally: nothing can resist the power of Your grace - and the violence stopped, confusion and oppression passed away, silence and calm took their place. Glory to Your power, Lord! But I am an absolute witness, and I testify before Him all, as I speak 23. The priests at the Last Judgment will be witnesses before the Savior about repentant sinners, that they repented or did not repent of certain sins, and those who repented will be forgiven. But why do God need witnesses when He Himself knows everything, as it is said: He does not demand, but who bears witness about men: for He Himself knows what is in men (John 2:25)? God doesn't need them, but we need them; we will be pleased to see how the priests will testify about us before angels and people that we repented of our sins, condemned ourselves, expressed disgust for sin, and made a firm intention not to sin. Let us remember the words of the Savior to the apostles: you will be led to kings and rulers as a testimony to them (Mark 13:9), or: the Gospel will be preached in every tongue as a testimony to them (Matthew 24:14). Give me, Lord, the grace to deny myself - this devil, which I became by succession from Adam. New Adam, Lord Jesus, transform me, make me a new man, clothe me in Thee. Every wilderness and valley will be fulfilled, and every mountain and hill will be humbled; And all flesh will see the salvation of God (Luke 3:5–6). The wilds and the valley are humble hearts, the mountain and the hill will humble themselves, i.e. proud people who dream highly of themselves and despise the low and humble. And so it happens, the Lord constantly acts in the spirit of truth and goodness in human hearts, humbling the proud by various everyday circumstances, illnesses, losses, humiliation from people, and exalting the humble. Flatterers are our great enemies: they blind our eyes, do not allow us to see our great shortcomings, and therefore block our path to perfection, especially if we are proud and short-sighted. Therefore, we must always stop the flatterers who speak flattering speeches to us, or avoid them. Woe to him who is surrounded by flatterers; good - who is surrounded by simpletons who do not hide the truth, although unpleasant, for example, exposing our weaknesses, errors, passions, mistakes. He who cleaves to God certainly and as if naturally loves his neighbor, because the neighbor is the image of God, and if he is a Christian, then he is also His child, a member of Jesus Christ, the God-man, and His own member: we are pleased with one another (Eph. 4:25); You shall know His body, of His flesh and of His bones (Eph. 5:30). But to everything earthly - to food and drink and sweets, to earthly beauty, to clothing, to glory - the lover of God is indifferent: for he cannot serve two masters; for his heart clings to the Lord, is absorbed by Him, by love for Him, and in the Lord everything earthly, all worldly charms seem to disappear for him, even his own heart disappears, old, sinful, passionate, merging with God into one spirit: my heart has disappeared; cleave to the Lord, there is one spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17), because in God he is enlightened and sees the true value of all things, earthly and heavenly, especially sees the vanity, the vanity of everything earthly, the truth, the immeasurable superiority, the eternity of spiritual goods; he finds in God both the cleansing of sins and the holiness, peace, lightness, true freedom, joy inherent in our spirit, but lost, in the Holy Spirit; he finds in God his own spiritual food and drink, spiritual sweetness and spiritual clothing, bright, embellished, white as snow, and ineffable beauty, which he will forever admire, and an unapproachable light, with which he will forever shine, and a dwelling appropriate to the soul, just as he himself will be the dwelling of the monastery of the Holy Trinity. God! may my heart cleave to You alone and not cleave to anything earthly: for in cleaving to the earthly there is sorrow, oppression, torment; Let nothing earthly be dear to the heart, but let me value the one Lord above all else, everything heavenly and, created in His image, the immortal soul, rational, verbal, free, the breath of the mouth of God. Let there be no earthly idols for the heart: money, food, clothes, ranks and insignia, etc. You need to eat the simplest, most unpalatable food so as not to attract the heart, eat a little - only for reinforcement. The Lord was crucified on the cross for us - that is why he has such power, as well as the sign of the cross - that is why he is life-giving; that is why even in the Old Testament its prototype had great power: the tree on which the serpent was lifted healed the bite of snakes; the cross drawn by the rod of Moses divided the waters; the hands raised by Moses in prayer and depicting the cross defeated Amalek and so on. Just as quickly the enjoyment of food and drink of those sitting at a meal, for example at dinner, passes, so quickly the present life with all its pleasures, joys, sorrows, and illnesses passes and will pass. She is like morning dew, disappearing from the sun. Therefore, a Christian, called to the heavenly fatherland, a wanderer and an earthly sojourner, should not attach his heart to anything earthly, but cleave to the one God, the Source of life, our resurrection and the infinite Life. One should not look with surprise and malice at various sins, weaknesses, and passions of men, because this is an old charm, the weakness of the entire human race, and people themselves cannot get rid of it in any way, and a Savior of men was needed, not an intercessor, not an angel, but the Lord Himself in the flesh - may He save all mankind. Therefore, human passions, even those directed at us, for example: envy, malice, pride, stinginess, covetousness, we must despise and not become embittered towards those subject to them, but treat them meekly, act on them with word, conviction, secret prayer, as the Lord, as His holy saints treated their enemies. This is the worldly wisdom of a Christian. Try by all means in your life to constantly console the Heavenly Father, i.e. with his meekness, humility, kindness, obedience, abstinence, prudence, peacefulness, patience, mercy, sincere friendship with worthy people, affection towards everyone, cordial hospitality, goodwill towards everyone, correctness in business, simplicity of heart and disposition, purity of all thoughts of the heart. Make us wise and establish us, O God, to live according to Your will! For You are our Father, and we are Your children in Christ Jesus our Lord. Well, what do you need, man, in the thorns of sins and passions? Will they be pleasant to you, will they be good, will the consequences from them be pleasant? Oh, how fiercely they sting! oh, how bitter are the consequences from them! And at first, how flattering they are sometimes! Everyone must remember that every person, in addition to his animal nature, also has a spiritual nature - that the animal has its own requirements, and the spiritual has its own. Requirements of animal nature: drink, eat, sleep, breathe, light, dress, keep warm; spiritual nature - to think, feel, speak, have communication with God through prayer, Divine services, the Sacraments, teaching in the Word of God, and with neighbors - through mutual conversation, charitable assistance, mutual teaching, edification. We must also remember that animal nature is temporary, transitory, perishable; the spiritual is eternal, imperishable, indestructible; that the flesh must be despised as transitory, but diligent about the soul, an immortal thing, about its salvation, its enlightenment, cleansing from sins, addictions, vices, about adornment with virtues - meekness, humility, kindness, courage, patience, submission and obedience to God and people, purity and abstinence. Make it wise, Lord, for every person to always remember this. God! may not Your gifts, spiritual and material, be idle in us and with us; give them movement that is salutary and useful. Do this in everyone. May your talents be multiplied, Lord, by the own activities of each of us. Look at an angry, proud, arrogant person like the wind and do not be offended by his anger, pride, arrogance, but be at peace within yourself. The enemy deliberately irritates you, inflaming human passions, or arousing in your heart various suspicions of an evil nature and dreams of the imagination. Is this how the holy and chosen flock live, i.e. Orthodox Christians, how do we live? Do we walk by faith, do we live holy, do we live abstinently, do we hope for the second coming of Christ and the Last Judgment? Do we tremble with eternal torment? Do we long for eternal bliss? Are you not attached to temporary life? O royal sacredness, the tongue is holy (1 Peter 2:9)! Update people! listen to yourself abundantly. You will be charged a lot. Is this how those who have hope in the resurrection and the life of the next century live? Is this how they live who have received notification and firm confirmation from the Leader of their faith that is not false, true in truth and the certainty of future eternal torment? How insignificant is the earth and earthly life in comparison with heaven, with the eternal kingdom of Christ. And we are so attached to the earth and so careless about the salvation of the soul, about eternal life! Pay attention not to the word of one who is proud, but to strength. Often a word, apparently rude, is said not at all out of rudeness of the heart, but out of habit. What if all people paid strict critical attention to our words, without Christian love, condescending, covering, meek, patient? We should have died a long time ago. Sweets and money are worse than ordinary dust, rubbish, because they clog the soul, while ordinary rubbish only litters the body and the room. Oh, how one must despise sweets and money, and even clothes. Our life is simple: because our life is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the most simple, eternal, beginningless Being. God has given us eternal life to eat, and this life is in His Son (1 John 5:11). Why do we look for life in people and in sweets, and in money, and in honors, and in clothes, etc.? There is no life of the heart there, but there is sorrow, oppression, spiritual death. Why do we leave the Source of living waters - the Lord - and dig up broken treasures that cannot contain water (Jer. 2:13)? Why are we fussing and fussing? Why are we greedy of sweets, money, honors, clothes and various things? All this is dead, perishable, temporary. The devil, who has the power of death, is also simple, and simply catches us and wounds us to death, therefore we must keep our ears sharp and not cling to anything, so as not to be wounded by him. Run such a way of life that you live only by animal impulses and desires, to sleep, eat, dress, walk, then drink, eat and walk again. This way of life finally kills the completely spiritual life of a person, making him an earthly and earthly creature; while a Christian must be heavenly even on earth. Repent, for fear the Kingdom of Heaven will draw near (Matthew 3:2). Our Father, who art in heaven! We need to read the Word of God more, pray at home and in church, and in every place, more, of course, internally than externally; think about God, about creation, about the purpose and predestination of man, about providence, about redemption, about the inexpressible love of God for the human race, about the life and deeds of holy men of God who pleased God with various virtues, etc., also fast, examine your conscience, repent sincerely and deeply of your sins, etc. The wisdom, goodness and omnipotence of God are especially seen in the fact that the Lord places each of us in a place where we can, if we want, bring God the fruits of good deeds and save ourselves and others, and that from the greatest sinners He makes righteous people who obey His grace, drawing us to salvation, and miraculously saves us from all circumstances, snatching us away from destruction itself. Do you want others to quickly correct themselves from their shortcomings, but are you quickly correcting yourself, are you not suffering from the same things as others? Is it not from you, from your malfunction, that others will become stuck in sins and passions? Do everything opposite to what the enemy inspires: he inspires to hate those who offend us - you love them; Bless those who scold and do not torture those who take what is yours, and give it back willingly; when you want to laugh, cry; when you feel despondent, try to cheer up; when there is envy, rejoice in the well-being of others; when there is contradiction and disobedience, immediately submit and agree; when you have lustful thoughts, be jealous of the purity of your heart, imagine the high dignity of a Christian, deified in Christ Jesus, that our members are members of Christ; when there is pride, humble yourself; when there is anger, be especially kind; when irritability, stay calm; when stinginess, be generous; when you are absent-minded, immediately shut your senses away from everything external and think about the only thing you need; when there is doubt, lack of faith, unbelief - call on especially strong faith for help, remember examples of faith, or believers of the Old and New Testaments and miracles performed by faith, and so on. Do this and do not give in to the enemy, the dreamer: for all passions, addictions, whims are his dream. You will spend the holiday well, for the glory of God and for the salvation of the soul, if you abolish passions: the malice of pride, covetousness, envy, stinginess, intemperance, laziness and absent-mindedness, carelessness about the soul, about pleasing God, and you practice the opposite virtues to these sins and other good deeds. You will celebrate not for God, but for Satan, if you are carried away by your passions and vices during the holiday. You will have a good Sunday if you rise in soul to God, leaving behind lawless deeds, if you are reborn and renewed with grace. But you will spend Sunday poorly and fruitlessly if you yourself do not rise spiritually, if you do not take away from your heart malice, your covetousness, your addiction to earthly things, and if you are not wounded in your soul by heavenly love, the love of God, the love of the mountainous fatherland and that ageless life that Sunday represents - the day of the Sun of Truth. The poor persecute you every day: this means that the mercy of God constantly pursues you. Blessed be the mercy, for there will be mercy (Matthew 5:7). Who will run away from the mercy of God? God's holy men appreciated better than all of us the greatest work of God's redemption of the human race, the descent from heaven of the Son of God, teaching, also suffering, death, burial, resurrection and ascension into heaven: for all their lives they did the work of saving themselves and others sincerely, firmly, unwaveringly, with all their hearts; to save themselves and others, they denied themselves, fasted, prayed, kept watch, and struggled in every possible way; They worked in deed and word, mind and pen. But we do not know how to appreciate this greatest thing; we are cold, absent-minded, frivolous. The visible world occupies us more, and its blessings, which are smoke. I commend my entire life and everything by which a person lives, my spiritual and physical needs, to Christ God, Provider, Manager and Savior: for everything is in His hands. And let me fulfill His commandments diligently. Lord, do not allow me even for a moment to do the will of Your enemy and mine - the devil, but that I should constantly do Your only will, my God and King: You are the only one, my true King, by Whom kings reign, grant me to obey You, to revere You always sincerely and firmly. Come, let us worship our King God, let us work for Him with fear and rejoice in Him with trembling (Ps. 94:6, 2:11). How to look at the gifts of mind, feeling and freedom? We must know God with our minds from the works of His creation, revelation, providence, and from human destinies. To feel with your heart the love of God, His heavenly peace, the sweetness of His love, to love your neighbor, to sympathize with him in joy and in sorrow, in health and in sickness, in poverty and in wealth, in nobility and in low life (humiliation); freedom to use as a means, as an instrument, to do as much good as possible and to improve oneself in every virtue, in order to bring a hundredfold fruit to God. One body, one spirit (Eph. 4:4) are all the saints in heaven and all true Christians on earth, because how conveniently and quickly and faithfully the prayer of the faithful is heard by the saints in heaven, and how trustworthy it is to always pray to the saints; but in order for our prayers to always be conveniently and quickly heard by the saints, we must have with them the same spirit of faith and love for God and neighbor, the spirit of meekness, humility, abstinence, purity and chastity, a vigorous, courageous spirit, thirsty for righteousness, a spirit of mercy, a heavenly spirit, and not an earthly one. Consider yourself worse, weaker than everyone else in spiritual terms, and despise yourself, hate yourself for your sins - this is pious and fair - and be lenient towards others, respect and love others, despite their sins, for the sake of God, who commanded everyone to be respected and loved, and for the sake of the fact that they are in His image, although they bear the wounds of sins, and are members of Jesus Christ. The Lord sometimes suddenly sends generous material gifts, for example: a few rubles of money for the easiest thing, and rewards spending made for neighbors and generally gives us generous gifts of His goodness, so that we do not regret His gifts to those whom He sends to us or allows someone to take our property, given by God, so that they do not quarrel with each other, but live in love and harmony; Yes, even if our neighbors robbed us, then we should not worry, but should with meekly endure the unceremoniousness of our neighbors, entrusting the Lord with retribution for the offense. You know that the Lord allowed Himself to take off even His clothes with meekness and tear His flesh to pieces on the cross - for you, so that He might teach you meekness and kindness in all misadventures and insults. God is good and all-good, and you, His image, be good; He is generous to everyone: be generous, and avoid stinginess, pity for your neighbor, material, perishable things, as the greatest misfortune and madness. Who or what are our idols? These are some persons, then temporary life; this is a multi-passionate and mortal body and that which is for the body: food, drink, clothing, jewelry, distinctions, money, housing, its decoration, etc. When the tempter combats you with addiction to visible things, with hope in visible things, bread, money, etc., then firmly lift the eyes of your heart to the invisible and eternal: first, to the invisible and eternal God - the Source of our life; secondly, to the invisible, endless life, to the eternal bliss of the righteous - after temporary life; when it inspires you to seek life in the perishable, you strive with effort to seek life in the incorruptible; when your eyes are riveted on human flesh, in addition to his immortal soul, you especially turn your mental eyes to the human soul, created in the image and likeness of God, redeemed by the sufferings on the cross and the death of the Son of God, made the heir of eternal blessings, adopted by God, the temple of the Holy Spirit, the Bride of the Holy Spirit. Avoid duality of heart, that is, do not allow it to become double between attachment to God and attachment to earthly things; you cannot work for God and mammon (Matthew 6:24); Cling to the one God, place your hope in Him alone: ​​for the devil, inspiring duality, seeks to take possession of our heart, which is one and indivisible. And remember that clinging to God is always good, blessed, but clinging to the world and its blessings is evil, painful, sorrowful, oppressed: for clinging to the world is delusion and the spirit of the devil. The end of everything on earth - my body, sweets, clothes, and all treasures - is destruction, decay, disappearance. But the spirit lives forever. May my soul remember this and not be saddened by the loss of the temporary, perishable, but be jealous of the eternal, incorruptible: about God, about the fulfillment of His commandments, about the union of love, about the peaceful state, about patience, abstinence, chastity, non-covetousness (about the only acquisition - the Lord in the heart), self-sacrifice, the cooling of the heart to all the beauties and sweets of the earth, about the search for the only thing needed; about the lack of jealousy of the wicked and the lack of envy of those who create lawlessness. Let them take your rubbish - don’t be jealous, don’t be irritated. The Lord has appropriated us to Himself (oh greatest honor and dignity!), and we are alienated by sins from our Master, who gave birth to us by water and Spirit. The Lord most sincerely communes with us through His Flesh and Blood, united with His soul and divinity, and through passions and vices we commune closely with the enemy of God and ours. Praying with people, we must sometimes break through with our prayer, as it were, the hardest wall - the human soul, petrified by worldly addictions - to go through the darkness of Egypt, the darkness of passions and addictions. This is why it is sometimes difficult to pray. The more simple people you pray with, the easier it is. If God had not been on earth in the flesh, had not deified us, had not personally taught us how to live, what to hope for, what to expect, if He had not shown us another, perfect and eternal life, if He had not suffered, died, and having died had not been resurrected, we would still have some reason to live the way we all live - the most carnal earthly life. But now we must philosophize on things above and put earthly things into mind; for everything earthly is nothing compared to what is heavenly. Meanwhile, the devil, the father of lies, contrary to the teachings of the Savior and His spirit, teaches us to cleave to earthly goods and forcibly nails a voluptuous heart to them. The heart naturally seeks bliss, but the devil gives the wrong direction to this desire and seduces it with earthly bliss - wealth, honors, the splendor of clothes, furniture, dishes, carriages, gardens, and various amusements. Completely rely on the providence of God, on the will of the Lord, and do not be sad if you lose anything from things, from anything visible; do not rejoice at what you have acquired, but may there be for you the everlasting and only joy, the everlasting and only acquisition, the Lord. Rely on Him completely: He knows how to lead you comfortably through this life and bring you to Himself - into His eternal kingdom. From a lack of trust in God's providence, many and great sorrows arise: despondency, grumbling, envy, stinginess, love of money or a passion for accumulating money and property in general, so that there is a lot of it for the summer, to eat, drink, rest, have fun; from the lack of trust in God's providence, particular grief occurs, for example: on the occasion of the loss of any income from our oversight, the loss of things that are especially valuable and necessary; equally immoderate joy when finding some things or when receiving a large income or winnings, or a lucrative position. We, as Christians, as dreams of God and cohabitants with the saints (Eph. 2:19), will surrender our entire life to Christ our God, with all sorrows, illnesses, sorrows, joys, poverty and contentment. Create power with Your arm: scatter the proud thoughts of their hearts (Luke 1:51). Create power with Your arm - that is, the Lord, through the Incarnation, reigned over the enemies of our salvation and, having defeated them sovereignly and made His Mother the sovereign Queen of heaven and earth, squandered the proud thought of their hearts - that is, the devil and his hasty power, the spirits of evil, defeated them on the cross, scattering their hordes. Destroy the mighty from the throne, that is, the Lucifer and Satan, who reigned over the human race; and lifted up the humble, that is: the Mother of God and all humble Christians; Fill those who hunger with goods - for example, the same Most Pure, gracious Lady and other saints - and those who are rich, let go of their vanities (Luke 1:52-53) - that is, the demons who enriched the depths of hell with captives - human souls, who were brought to the light of the kingdom of Christ by the Savior who descended into hell. We only call the Lord God, but in reality we have our own gods, because we do not do the will of God, but the will of our flesh and thoughts, the will of our hearts, our passions; our gods are our flesh, sweets, clothes, money, etc. In view of the highest, most important objects of faith, in view of the greatest holiness, what vanity, what stupid dreams very often occupy many of us. Here a man stands before the icons of the Lord, the Mother of God, an Angel, an Archangel, a saint or a whole face, at home or in a Church, and sometimes instead of prayer, instead of putting aside all everyday concerns for this time, in this place, he settles his accounts and calculations, expenses and income, enjoys the profit, is upset by the loss of profit or failure in enterprises (there is, of course, no mention of mental profit or loss), or he thinks evil about his neighbor, exaggerating his weaknesses, passions, suspecting him, envying him, condemning him, or, if it is in church, peering into the faces of those standing near him, also at who is dressed, who is good and who is not, or making plans on how to spend the day, where to go, in what pleasure or in what fuss to spend the day, etc. And this often happens when the highest, most heavenly Sacrament of the Eucharist, that is, the most pure Body and Blood of the Lord, is performed; when we must be wholly in God, wholly occupied with thinking about the Mystery of redemption from sin, certain damnation and death, which is taking place for us, and about the mystery of our deification in the Lord Jesus Christ. How we crushed, how fussed we were, and why is it all? From inattention and negligence about your salvation, from addiction to the temporary, from weak faith or disbelief in eternity. Why does all nature and everything in nature revolve wisely and in amazing order? Because the Creator Himself disposes and controls it. Why is there so much disorder in human nature—the crown of creation? Why is there so much disorder and disgrace in his life? Because he himself decided to dispose of himself, apart from the will and mind of his Creator. Man is a sinner! surrender all of yourself, all your life to the Lord your God, and your whole life will revolve in a wise, beautiful, majestic and life-giving order, and all of it will be beautiful, like the saints of God, who have given themselves entirely to Christ God and whom the church offers us daily as an example to follow. Highly value and always preserve Christian meekness and gentleness, peace and mutual love, suppressing in every possible way impulses of self-love, anger and irritability and embarrassment. Do not be embarrassed or embittered when someone tells you a lie to your face or expresses some unfair claim, or speaks offensive words, or boldly exposes some weakness or passion in you, the injustice of which you do not notice out of pride. Always think ahead and calmly think about what your opponent says to you, and about your own words and actions; and if, with all the impartial judgment about your words and actions, you find them fair, then calm down in your conscience and impute nothing to the words of your opponent, keeping silent before him or calmly, meekly, in kindness of heart, showing him his untruth; and if you find yourself guilty of what your opponent accuses you of, then, putting aside self-love and pride, ask for an apology for your guilt and try to improve in the future. We often become embittered at people who are straightforward and open because they directly expose our falsehoods. We must value such people and forgive them if they tear down our pride with bold speech. These are doctors, in the moral sense, who with a sharp word cut off the rottenness of the heart and, through the awakening of our pride, produce in the soul, deadened by sin, a consciousness of sin and a vital reaction. The Kingdom of Heaven is taken by force, and the powerful seekers take it away (Matthew 11:12). If we do not make daily efforts to conquer the passions that fight us and to acquire the Kingdom of God in our hearts, then the passions will tyrannically and forcibly take possession of us, invading our soul like thieves; addiction to earthly things will proportionally increase, and faith in heavenly blessings and love for them will weaken more and more, love for God and neighbor too; peace of heart, peace of conscience will be less and less frequent; one must strive for the salvation of the soul, of which there is nothing more precious in the world; consider everything earthly as rubbish or a ghost, a dream, and everything heavenly, especially the Lord Himself, as truth itself, eternal, most blessed, unchangeable. We all love life, we are concerned about a happy life, but our own lives are smoldering in passions. Why? Because we are looking for life in the wrong place. Boys and all adults! remember that the moral law of God is constantly operating in the world, according to which all good is rewarded internally, and all evil is punished: evil is accompanied by sorrow and tightness in the heart, and good is accompanied by peace, joy and space in the heart. This law is unchangeable: it is the law of the unchangeable, all-holy, righteous, wise and eternal God. Those who do good or do this moral or evangelical law (it is also a moral law, only the most perfect) will certainly be rewarded with eternal life, and violators and those who have not repented of their violation will be punished with eternal torment. God is Sy (Existing). In Him all holy, rational and free beings are one. As You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us (John 17:21). I am nothing: everything is God in me and God in everyone, and everything is God for everyone. - Our Father, Who art in heaven! When you call on the Lord God in three Persons in prayer, remember that you are calling on the Beginningless Father of all creation, Angels and men, that you, the caller, are surprised by all the powers of heaven and look at you with love because you, with faith and love and appropriate reverence, call on their common and our Father, the Creator Almighty and Lord, Whom they love immensely, before Whom they deeply revere. Oh, what high happiness and bliss, what greatness, what dignity to call on the Eternal Father! Treasure constantly and invariably this highest happiness, this bliss that the infinite goodness of your God has provided you with, and do not forget yourself during your prayer. God listens to you, Angels and holy men of God listen to you. – Feb. 26th 1864. I shed tears while writing these lines. In all things and in all (in the Holy Angels, in the Holy men and in the Christians living or zealous to live holy on earth) Christ (Col. 3:11). He has given Him the Head above all the Church, which is His Body (Eph. 1:22–23). So the Church - the saints of God, the Mother of God, Angels, saints, martyrs, saints, righteous and all saints - is the body of the Savior, and He Himself is their Head. The Lady Theotokos is the Head of mental creation, i.e. The Lady and all the saints are one spirit with the Lord: they are so pure, holy, and they have such a relationship with Him, such a connection with Him as members of the body have with the head, and one Spirit in them, the Spirit of God, like a soul in one body, and one God and Father in Them. The Lady Theotokos, the most beautifully adorned church of the Holy Trinity, is after God the treasure of all blessings, purity, holiness, all true wisdom, the source of spiritual strength and strength. We are one body of Love. Food, drink, money, clothing, housing, all earthly belongings are nothing, but man is everything; everything is nothing before man. Man is immortal in his soul, and everything material is perishable and ephemeral; everything material is like dust. Everything is God’s, nothing is ours. Human! Treasure the dignity of man as the image of God, and in times of need do not spare him material assistance. Everything is a dream, except true love. The brother treated him coldly, impolitely, impudently, viciously, say: this is the dream of the devil; a feeling of enmity disturbs you because of your brother’s coldness and insolence, say: this is my dream; but here is the truth: I love my brother, no matter what; I don’t want to see evil in him, which is a demonic dream in him, and which is also in me; I tolerate his shortcomings, for they are also in me: we have the same sinful nature. - You say there are sins in your brother, and great shortcomings? You have it too. Don’t love him, you say, for such and such shortcomings. Do not love yourself either: for the same shortcomings that are in him are also in you. But remember that there is a Lamb of God who took upon himself the sins of the whole world. Who are you, condemning your neighbor for sins, for shortcomings, for vices? Everyone stands or falls according to his Lord (Rom. 14:4). But you, out of Christian love, must in every possible way be condescending to the shortcomings of your neighbor, you must heal his evil, his weakness of heart (all coldness, every passion is weakness) with love, affection, meekness, humility, as you wish for yourself from others when you are in weakness similar to his. For who does not suffer from all sorts of infirmities? Who will the all-evil enemy spare? - God! Destroy all the machinations of the enemy in us. Remember who a person is? Image of God, child of God, Christian, heir of the kingdom, member of Christ. Therefore, every person must be honored, even though he bears the wounds of sins on his soul; plagues upon plagues: they are torn by the devil and sin, but the image is all the image of God. We must regret his ulcers, feel sick, and pray as if they were our own: after all, we are all one body, we are all of one blood (Acts 17:26), we all partake of one bread (1 Cor. 10:17). Do not pay attention to demonic confusion, division and enmity. Firmly everything is one. We say: one. Consider everything as rubbish and pus—every sweet thing; do not love anything earthly and do not spare anything earthly for a person, and do not harbor enmity towards him for anything. Love strives to please the beloved and does not value anything for him. God! let me see my sins, so that I do not despise sinners like me, and do not harbor evil in my heart for them for their sins, and I would despise myself according to my dignity, as the first sinner; I would always harbor irreconcilable anger towards myself - towards my carnal man. Unless someone hates... his own soul, he cannot be My disciple, says the Lord (Luke 14:26). God is the Creator and Ruler of the whole world, and everything in it is His work, the fruit of His power and wisdom. One should not ask anyone whether it is necessary to spread the Glory of God with a squeaking hand, or verbally, or with good deeds. We must do this to the best of our ability and ability. Talents must be put to use. If you think about this simple matter, then the devil will probably inspire you with the absurdity that you only need to do internal work. The nature of real, temporary life is a delight. What's sweeter than love? And yet we have little love! Why? We love our flesh very much, and with the flesh everything is carnal, material, worldly! Let us therefore despise the flesh and walk in the Spirit, and in the Spirit put to death the deeds of the flesh. Stinginess produces devastation of love and instills hatred towards those who take or steal our property; and spiritual generosity produces love for those whom we spare; however, involuntary generosity produces hostility. Stinginess is from the devil, generosity is from God: He is the Father of generosity. Any attachment to material things is the devil; neglect, contempt for material things, indifference to them, for the sake of love for God, is from God. Amen. My yoke is easy and My burden is light (Matthew 11:30). So the commandments of the Lord are good and easy. But the yoke of the devil is evil, and his burden is heavy. So what? We break the Lord's commandments, and fulfill the will of the devil! We are damned! Always remember that your neighbor, no matter who the Christian he is, is a member of Christ, even if he is sick, and you yourself are sick, and always receive him with respect and love, talk to him from the heart and treat him and do not spare anything for him: no food, no drink, no clothes, no books, no money, if he needs them. The Lord will reward you for it. We are all His children, and He is everything to us. We are all sinners, and the examples of sin are adversity, misfortune, sorrow, illness and death (Rom. 6:23). To get rid of sins, you need to pray; and in order to pray, you must have faith and hope. So for us sinners, prayer, faith and hope are necessary. A sinner should not leave his mental lips or even his outer lips. During your prayers at home and in public against the wickedness of the devil and distraction of thoughts, remind yourself of the simplicity of the truth and tell yourself: simply, i.e. I believe in everything I ask in the simplicity of my heart, and I ask for everything simply; and yours, my enemy, your wickedness, your blasphemies, abominations, dreams, I reject. – Let the beginning and foundation and source of all your thinking, your words and your activity be humility, the consciousness of your insignificance and the fullness of the Divine, who created and fills everything and acts in everyone (1 Cor. 12:6). He who is infected with pride is inclined to show contempt for everything, even for holy and divine objects: pride mentally destroys or defiles every good thought, word, deed, every creation of God. This is the deadening breath of Satan. What turns you away from fulfilling the commandments of Christ? Flesh and the world, namely pleasant food and drink that a person loves, with which he enjoys mentally and in practice, coarsening and petrifying the heart; addiction to exquisite clothes or decorations of awards: if the clothes or decoration are made of very good, colored, delicate material, then there is care and pity, so as not to get dirty, stain, smoke, dust, get wet, and the concern about how to please God with thoughts, words, deeds disappears, and the heart, so to speak, lives on clothes and decoration and everything is chained to it, but not about God radiates and does not cleave to Him; if he is a priest, then he does not care about prayer for the people, and becomes not a lover of souls, but a lover of money, an ambitious person, seeking not people, but human things, i.e. their money, food, drink, their affection, good opinion and reviews and flattering them. So fight against all worldly charms, against the charms of matter that turn you away from fulfilling the commandments of Christ, and love God with all your heart, care with all your might for the salvation of your soul and for the salvation of human souls, and be a lover of souls. Remember that the world that arose from nothingness is a real nothingness and will turn into nothingness, for heaven and earth will pass away, and the human soul is God’s breath, the image of the immortal King-God and is itself immortal. Remember all this and turn away from addiction to everything earthly. In addition to the corruptible creation, constantly turn your eyes to the Creator, Who exists in all creation and is constantly looking at you, constantly testing your heart and your thoughts. Do not cleave your heart to any thing and do not make it the god of your heart: there is only one God of our heart, the Lord God who created it: for it is His breath. Do not attach your heart to any person, i.e. not to any flesh: for there is one God of our hearts, the Lord God, and to Him alone we must cleave. Clinging to a thing or to the flesh is a lie, demonic deception and the will of the devil. Amen. Clinging to the insignificant, temporary, what do we leave behind, what benefits do we lose and have to lose? – My soul, the Lord told you that the whole visible world is nothing in comparison with you. Consider it as nothing and see what the Creator created you with and what he wants to make of you. Remember the descent of the Son of God to earth, His walk on earth with the gospel of heavenly truth, His voluntary poverty, His miracles and prophecies. His Last Supper, His dishonor, His suffering, death, resurrection and ascension into heaven, and strive for heavenly bliss. True love willingly endures hardships, worries and labors, endures insults, humiliations, shortcomings, errors and malfunctions, if there is no harm from them to others; patiently and with meekness endures the baseness and malice of others, leaving judgment to the all-seeing God, the righteous Judge, and praying that God will enlighten those darkened by irrational passions. During prayer and when reading the Word of God, one must have reverence for every thought, for every word, as for the Spirit of God Himself, the Spirit of truth. Doubt and contempt for the word, like the poison of the spirit of lies, must be cut off; and since doubt and contempt are the fruit of conceit and pride, then pride must be cut off by the roots and be like a baby babbling in simplicity before God - a baby who knows and says only what he has been taught from his parents; he doesn’t listen to and doesn’t know, and doesn’t want to listen to or know, any extraneous suggestions that are contrary to his parents’. For the Holy Spirit taught holy men, like simple and gentle children, to ask, thank and glorify God with those prayers that the Church puts into our mouths. – Remember that we are all children of the Heavenly Father, and in the simplicity of your soul, look at everyone as the children of the eternal Father, holy, all-good, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, wise, righteous, unchangeable, who provides for everyone, who covers everyone with the roof of His goodness, and live in love with everyone, defeating with good all evil in people. What a high dignity, honor, happiness - to pray for people, for this precious acquisition and property of God! With what joy, cheerfulness, zeal, and love we must pray to God, the Father of men, for His people, purchased by Him with the blood of His Son! These are the purchase of... God and the Lamb (Rev. 14:4). Listen, O priest of God! you often have to argue with God according to ready-made prayer models, but do not flatter your tongue, saying one thing with your lips but having another in your heart, or speaking and not empathizing with what you are saying; If you pray for anyone, let there not be in you the devil’s guile and double-mindedness, but with your heart and lips pray to Almighty God, who searches hearts and wombs (Ps. 7:10). And in order for you to always sincerely pray to the Lord God, despise everything earthly, be impartial to all the blessings and pleasures of this lovely, corruptible and fleeting world: food, drink, various sweets, money, clothes and various decorations or distinctions, the convenience of a temporary home, consider everything as rubbish, decay, and water; be abstinent; love God with all your heart, completely, and not just superficially and somehow, love with all your thought and all your strength, and not lightly, so that nothing can tear you away from the love of God: neither sorrow, nor hardship, nor persecution and troubles, nor death, nor belly, nor everything else; and love your neighbor as yourself, generously enduring his mistakes, weaknesses, delusions, and passions. Look, remember: it is a great thing to talk with God, who constantly looks at us, constantly listens to us and constantly tests our hearts and wombs. Let him not lie, let your heart not be cold towards God and your neighbor while praying for your neighbors. Remember: God will judge you for everything, for every idle or flattering word. Meanwhile, the primordial enemy, the father of lies, the devil, does not sleep and in every way is trying to petrify and make your passionate heart insensitive, deceitful and deceitful, is trying to drive out from your heart faith and trust in God with love for Him and love and compassion for your neighbor - and to occupy you with only worldly, temporary interests. Listen, pay attention to yourself, to your thoughts of the heart, O priest of God, and do not be bound by worldly lusts and pleasures! May your sweetness be one God and the human soul, be a lover of souls, and not a lover of money or a sensualist. – Lord Himself, arrange all this: without You we cannot do anything (John 15:5). Wake up! Wake up! Everything is for everyone and for me, the accursed Lord, the most merciful and generous; everything is God’s, but nothing is mine (renunciation of all property). I must reverently thank God for everything: for streams of air, light, water, for sips of food, for clothes. Everything – and our very bodies – are truly earth and water. Amen. We are all one, and we must love each other as ourselves. Selfish pity for something for others and confusion, the impulse to pity is from the devil. Any attachment to earthly things is the dream of the devil and the dream of our pride. What St. Does the Church instill in us when, both at home prayer and in church, it puts prayers into our mouths on behalf of everyone, and not from one person? Instills in us unceasing mutual love, so that we always and in everything in prayer and in everyday life love each other as ourselves, so that we, imitating God in the three Persons who make up the highest Unity, ourselves be one, made up of many. That they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us (John 17:21). Common prayer on behalf of everyone in life teaches us to share everyday needs with others, so that in life we ​​have everything in common and, as it were, one, so that mutual love is visible in everything, also so that everyone uses their abilities for the benefit of others, whoever they can, and does not hide their talent in the ground, would not be selfish and lazy. You are wise, give advice to the unwise; educated, teach the ignorant; if you are strong, help the powerless; rich, help the poor. When you pray alone and your spirit becomes depressed, and you become bored and burdened by loneliness, remember then, as always, that the Trinitarian God, all the Holy Ones, looks at you with brighter eyes than the sun. Angels, your Guardian Angel and holy men of God. Truly! for they are all one in God, and where God is, there they are also. Where the sun is, all its rays are directed there. Understand what is being said. Always pray with a burning heart, and to do this, never overeat or get drunk. Remember Who you are talking to. People often forget with whom they talk during prayer, who are the witnesses to their prayer. They forget that they are talking with the Vigorous and All-Seeing One, that all the heavenly and holy Powers are listening to their conversation with God. God's men. If enemies surround you and you are in spiritual trouble, immediately call on our Most Holy Lady: that is why She is the Lady, to rule with Her sovereign power over the forces resisting us and to sovereignly save us, for we are Her heritage. We are all one, and for everyone everything is the Lord, as for the Angels, for the saints, for all the material worlds and every smallest part of them. Look at the birds of the air... Look at the trees of the village... even if it is hay... God clothes him in such a way, how much more than you, you of little faith... Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness (mutual love), and all these things will be added to you (from God) (Matthew 6:26, 28, 30, 33). Here is the most necessary truth for you! Follow her! Rely on God for everything. Cast all your sorrow upon Nan, for He cares for you (1 Peter 5:7). Indeed, how can one live the way we live: for we live as if there is no Guardian God. We think to arrange everything ourselves, we think to provide for ourselves, putting aside the thought of a common Trustee for all. Not only about sweets or beautiful things, but also about one’s sinful flesh; for the slightest addiction to all this makes God angry. We do not see things that are visible, but things that are invisible: what is visible is temporary, but what is invisible is eternal (2 Cor. 4:18). You see: you don’t need to pay attention to the visible, as if it did not exist, but to the invisible: for this is temporary, and this is eternal. Moreover, when you seek the invisible, then God will take care of the visible for you, just as he has been concerned with before. What greatness is a Christian and especially a Christian priest: he is one with Christ and the Savior God (through the Holy Mysteries)! Taking Holy Communion Mystery, O priest, say in your heart: come to me, O Life-Giver, to snatch me from the jaws of the hellish serpent, to cleanse me from the filth of passions, to pacify my restless heart, to revive my mortified soul, to cheer my sorrowful and despondent spirit; You are coming to feed me, languishing in the hunger of sin, to clothe me, naked of all virtue, to strengthen the weak me, to honor the dishonest me, to exalt the base me, to ennoble me the despised, to enlighten the dark me. You grant me every good deed: I thank You, Most Merciful! Our heart is like a dark earth; The Gospel is like the sun, enlightening and reviving our hearts. Shine in our hearts the true sun of Thy truth, O Lord! As I look more closely at other beggars and talk a little with them, I see how kind, meek, humble, simple-hearted, sincerely benevolent they are, poor physically, but rich spiritually; they shame me, rude, proud, evil, contemptuous and irritable, crafty, cold towards God and people, envious and stingy. These are the true friends of God! And the enemy, who knows their spiritual treasures, arouses contempt and anger towards them in his slaves, the proud rich, and is ready to wipe them off the face of the earth, as if they do not rightfully live on it and walk on it! O friends of my God, my poor brothers! you are truly rich in spirit, and I am truly poor, accursed and needy. You deserve true respect from us, who have an abundance of the blessings of this world, but are poor and meager in the deeds of virtue: abstinence, meekness, humility, gentleness, sincerity and ardor for God and neighbor. God! teach me to despise the external and turn all the eyes of my mind inward and appreciate the internal, despising the external. Let me observe the same in relation to the rich and powerful of this world. A miser values ​​things, but does not value a person who needs things; He regrets things, but does not spare a person, although a person is a priceless creature. You don’t feel sorry for yourself, but feel sorry for others; loves himself, but not the other. But everything is just rubbish and water. Everything for everyone - the inexhaustible Lord, who has put everything under man’s feet like dust and hay, the whole world. Love is patient (1 Cor. 13:4), i.e. does not suddenly punish the sinner, but patiently endures his failures, admonishing and punishing him, while the property of anger is to suddenly strike the enemy or make him unhappy, plunging him into extremes. It's amazing how angry and impatient we are! Our brother sinned, and we do not regret that he sins, we do not cry out of brotherly love about his free madness, about his passion, but we are angry with him, we despise him for his sins, while we ourselves, perhaps, were guilty of the same thing, and we were condescendingly forgiven for our sins, and only thanks to the condescension of our superiors we finally somehow recovered from our falls or addictions and vices and became good for something; if even now we are guilty of the same thing, only not as grossly as our sinning brother, then we too are subject to responsibility. But when punishing others for sins and crimes, we must also remember our weaknesses, our vices and passions, past or existing, and, lovingly, pityingly and patiently, punish our subordinates, and not with bitterness, mercilessly and impatiently, hastily. With meekness I punish those who oppose, so that God will give them repentance into the mind of truth, and they will arise from the devil’s snare, and live snatched from him according to his own will (2 Tim. 2:25–26). It is not in vain that the Apostle made long-suffering and mercy the first sign of our love for our neighbor: love is long-suffering and kind (1 Cor. 13:4): for every person is weak, weak, rash, and prone to every sin, but even with all this he can easily come to his senses, rebel, and repent under favorable conditions; and therefore we must be patient with his weaknesses and shortcomings, just as we ourselves wish that others would be lenient with our weaknesses, and seeing as if they did not see them and did not notice them. However, where sin has a harmful effect on others, or where it is combined with omission of service duties, or where it assumes large proportions, immediate severity is required to curb and stop it, or to remove the harmful person from among well-intentioned people. Take away the evil from you, samekh (1 Cor. 5:13). God did not spare His Only Begotten Son for man; after this, what will we spare for our neighbor: food, drink, clothing for his apparel, money for his various needs? The Lord gives a lot to some, and little to others, so that we can provide for each other. The Lord has arranged it so that if we willingly share the generous gifts of His goodness with others, then they serve for the benefit of the soul and body, opening our hearts to love our neighbors, and by using them in moderation, they also serve for the benefit of the body, which is not satiated and not burdened with them. And if we selfishly, stingily and greedily use only ourselves, and spare them for others, then they turn to the detriment of the soul and body, to ourselves: to the detriment of the soul, because greed and stinginess close the heart to love for God and neighbor and make us disgusting self-lovers, intensifying all passions in us, and because greed produces satiety in us and prematurely upsets our health. It is necessary to confess sins more often in order to amaze and scourge sins by openly admitting them and in order to feel more disgust for them. Think, man, into what trouble daring sin has plunged us, and what the Master Christ, the Son of God, has done for our salvation; remember His incarnation, voluntary self-exhaustion, His treatment of people, His speeches, His miracles, ridicule of Him, cursing, spitting, beating, strangling, finally the most blasphemous crucifixion, death and burial and resurrection from the dead. Remember what He did for us to deliver us from eternal torment, and what He demands from you for this: that you surrender all of yourself to Him; He lived not for himself, but for Him, fulfilling His commandments. Avoid what plunges us into sin: carnal lust, lust of desire and worldly pride; crucify the flesh with its passions and lusts; save your soul with patience; love God and your neighbor as yourself. What has the Lord of our belly done for us, worthless, ungrateful and malicious? He came down from heaven, took on our flesh, performed many different miracles, suffered, shed all his blood, died, descended into hell, bound Satan, destroyed hell, released the prisoners of hell bound and raised them to heaven, rose from the dead, so that he may raise us with Him. Let us fulfill His dying will: let us love each other, let us be diligent in fulfilling His other commandments, and let us not offend Him with self-will and rebellion. Lord help me! We must be one spirit with the Lord - the spirit of holiness, the spirit of love, goodness, meekness, long-suffering, mercy. He who does not have this spirit in himself is not God's. So, I must be love, one love, count everyone as one. May they all be one (John 17:21). Wake up! Lord help me! What will happen to us in that age, when everything that flattered us in this world: wealth, and honor, food and drink, and clothes, and beautifully decorated homes, and all attractive things - what will happen, I say, when all this leaves us, when all this turns out to be a dream for us, and when deeds of faith and virtue, deeds of abstinence, purity, meekness, humility, mercy, patience, obedience and etc.? We must have the most living, spiritual connection with the inhabitants of heaven: all the saints, apostles, prophets, martyrs, prelates, reverends and righteous ones - for they are members of one body - the Church of Christ, to which we sinners belong, and of which the living Head is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. That is why we call them in prayers, talk with them, thank them, glorify them. All Christians urgently need to be in touch with them if they desire Christian success: for the saints are friends, our guides to salvation, our prayer books and intercessors. Tread on the flesh, i.e. her passions. We must put it and everything carnal on an equal footing with dirt, and not worry about it. - Lord, Your strength: help! When we consider everything carnal and sinful to be nothing, then the Lord will be everything to us; on the ruins in the heart of earthliness the Lord will reign. Through our addiction to the flesh, its lusts, or through the excessive value of the flesh and everything carnal, the devil reigns in our hearts, fulfilling his ungodly will and expelling the Kingdom of God from our hearts and destroying the work of Jesus Christ: raising us to heaven. - Truly! – For the flesh must be despised: it passes away 24. But in the present age, among the people of this age, all the price is for the flesh and the carnal, and no price for the spirit and the spiritual: faith and virtue. The Lord does not live in the heart in which greed reigns, addiction to earthly goods: earthly sweets, money, etc. Experience has proven and is learned daily. In that heart lives hard-heartedness, pride, arrogance, contempt, malice, revenge, envy, stinginess, vanity and vanity, theft, deception, hypocrisy and pretense, cunning, caresses and groveling, fornication, foul language, violence, treason, perjury. We are all one in unanimity and love and spiritual rebirth, and for all of us everything is the Heavenly Father: Our Father, who art in heaven. We are one brotherhood with one spirit, and if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His (Rom. 8:9). Let's understand this. We are the Church of Christ, whose Head is Christ Himself, meek and humble, inexhaustible in blessings for us, if only we live in love. We are the flock, He is the Shepherd. We are the members, He is the Head. How can the members be proud of anything when everything is from the Head? If we have a living, active connection with the members of Christ here, we love them in deed and in truth, then all the holy people of God will have a living union with us, and whatever we ask them for, they will intercede for us from Christ God, for whom they sacrificed everything that was dear to them. We, who have received life from the Life of all - God, in order to offer Him the fruits of life, do we offer Him as a gift our life, the fruits of our life, like the forefathers, prophets, apostles, martyrs, saints, saints, righteous and all saints? Do we even think about it every day? Are we not just living for ourselves? Do we live according to the commandments and statutes of the Giver of Life? If not, what is stopping you? Self-love, self-love? – Let us sacrifice love for ourselves as a sacrifice for love for the Lord, for what are we in ourselves? - Sin, corruption. Every day they ask you for alms, and give every day willingly, without bitterness, rudeness and murmuring: you give not your own, but God’s to God’s children of the cross, who barely have anywhere to bow their heads; you are the steward of God’s property, you are the daily servant of the lesser brethren of Christ, do your work with meekness and humility, do not bore them. You serve Christ the Judge and the Giver of Retribution: great honor, high dignity! Do good deeds with joy. Simply, without much effort, money comes to you; just don't think too much and give them away. Your efforts are generously rewarded; be generous to others yourself. They are not rewarded according to their merits; give not according to their merits and to others, but for the sake of their needs. Just as a passionate person is one spirit with the devil - and this I and many others feel and feel - so a virtuous person is and remains one spirit with the Lord, and he feels and senses this, saying: it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me (Gal. 2:20), or as the Lord Himself says: he who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood abides in Me and I in him (John 6:56); or the Apostle: Do you not know that Christ is in you (2 Cor. 13:5), so the holy men of God are one spirit with the Lord; so are all those who live piously on earth. Great mystery and great honor to the earthly! But what dishonor and what destruction to the vain and rebellious! They are one spirit with the devil, from whom deliver us all, O Christ our God! If the truth of something is revealed in the divine word, explored and explained by the divinely enlightened mind of the saint. men glorified by God, and is known by the heart in its light and life-giving, then to doubt it, to be perplexed about it is a grave sin, there is a devilish arrogance of the mind and heart. I myself am a moment-to-moment debtor to the Lord spiritually and physically: spiritually - through sins and physically - through receiving material gifts from Him: food, drink, money, clothing, air, warmth, light, in general, the many different satisfactions of life. How can I not have the pleasure of forgiving my neighbor’s debts, spiritual and material, when the Lord forgives me countless of them? How can I not give God’s gifts freely, when the Lord endlessly gives me all the spiritual and material blessings: light to the mind and heart, peace and joy to the heart, diverse knowledge, to the point of a puff of air? Yes, that would be ugly: we are one body and members of each other and certainly owe something to each other; Likewise, in the social body it is impossible to get by without others owing money to us, or without us owing money to others. And we cannot help but forgive each other’s debts: just as in a body, naturally, some members often live at the expense of others; for example, the stomach at the expense of the head or at the expense of the arms and legs, and in society. And most importantly, we must remember that we all have tune from God and we ourselves owe Him an infinite amount, and He forgives us with love our debts, as long as we leave our debtors. Let us willingly and diligently forgive our neighbors their debts to us; Let us begin to offer this sacrifice to God daily and live in love. Let us reject self-will and disorderly passions and submit entirely to the will of God. We are the image of God, and God is love (1 John 4:8, 16). Let us live in love, let us be jealous of it with all our might. Lord help me! But we will consider everything earthly, all food, clothing, money, as rubbish and we will not anger the Lord because of rubbish, biting each other, being at enmity with each other. Will we sell the gentlemen for food, for money? Something is one: either God or flesh. You cannot recognize two gods, you cannot serve two. And the flesh prescribes its laws to us, completely contrary to God: gluttony, intemperance, reliance on food, drink, money, stinginess or sparing of God's gifts to one's neighbor, anger at one's neighbor because of food and drink, contempt for him because of the same, envy because of the same, hard-heartedness in his misfortune, and so on. What can you do to serve the Lord without hypocrisy? Crucify the flesh with passions and lusts and consider it as nothing, and everything that it values ​​very much, loves very much: sweets, money, clothes, houses, carriages - consider it as nothing, as rubbish, pus, earth, as indeed all this is so; but consider love as the most precious thing in life and sacrifice everything for it, conquer everything for it, neglect everything for it. Everyone needs to know and believe that there is a spiritual, deadly serpent, called the devil and Satan, condemned by the Creator to eternal torment, who can drag unbelievers, lawless and unrepentant people into eternal torment. Everyone also needs to know and believe that the Savior was sent into the world from God to save people from the deadly sting of this serpent - sin and eternal death, and that this Savior gives everyone His saving medicine against the remorse of this serpent: faith, prayer, repentance and St. The Secrets of Your Body and Blood. There are many raindrops, but all from one cloud; there are many rays, but all from one sun; there are many leaves on a tree, but all from one tree; there is a lot of sand on the ground, but it all comes from one earth. So, there are many people, but all are from one Adam and first of all from God. Why does the Lord add day to day, year to year of our existence? So that we gradually wean away, throw away wickedness from our souls, each in his own way, and internalize blissful simplicity, so that for example. We became like gentle lambs, like simple babies, so that we would learn not to have the slightest attachment to earthly things, but like loving and simple children, we would cleave with all our hearts to one God and love Him with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength and with all our thoughts, and our neighbor as ourselves. Let us hasten with heartfelt and tearful prayer to ask the Lord for simplicity of heart and jealousy, let us take care by all means to cast away the wiles of our souls, for example: evil suspicion, malice, gloating, malice, pride, arrogance, self-praise, contempt, impatience, despondency, despair, resentment and irritability, timidity and cowardice, envy, stinginess, gluttony and satiety, mental and heartfelt fornication and actual fornication, love of money and in general the passion for acquisition, laziness, disobedience and the whole dark horde of sins. God! We cannot do anything without You. Having blessed us for this work, You Himself grant victory over our enemies and our passions. - Wake up! Let us take away our spiritual myopia and stop paying all our attention only to the temporary, earthly, we will despise with our intelligent eyes the future, endless life and lift our hearts to our heavenly homeland. Indeed, it is amazing shortsightedness for an immortal soul to look only at the present, visible, generally subject to the senses and caressing our carnal senses, and not to look at the life of the next century, at the blessings that the eye has not seen, the ear has not heard and the heart has not breathed into the heart of man, which, however, the all-good and all-wise God has prepared for those who love Him (1 Cor. 2:9). What are we depriving ourselves of because of our voluntary myopia? Like flies, we have clung to earthly sweets, and we don’t want to perk up or tear ourselves away from them. Blessed is he who despises the pleasures of this world: there will be no end to his bliss. Just as in worldly life there are poor and rich, so in the spiritual world, in the spiritual order there are poor and rich. The poor ask from the rich and sufficient and cannot live without them, so in the spiritual order the poor must resort to the assistance of the spiritually rich. We are spiritually poor, beggars, but saints are spiritually rich, or in this life still shining with faith and piety. It is to them that we, the poor, must resort. We must ask for their prayers, so that they can help us become simple, like babies, so that they teach us spiritual wisdom, how to overcome sins, how to love God and our neighbor. So, pray for me, St. Men of God: prophets, apostles, saints, martyrs, saints, righteous people and all saints, may I be like you. When you pray to the Lord, imagine vividly who you are praying to. You pray to the beginningless and endless King of every creature, the all-holy, all-good, all-powerful, all-wise, omnipresent, all-righteous, before whom millions of millions of Angels of various orders revere, Whom the armies of martyrs, the class of prophets and apostles, the councils of saints, saints and righteous ones sing. When you pray to the Lady, also imagine Her unparalleled holiness, greatness, goodness, wisdom, all-goodness, servile worship of angelic and human councils. The mystery of Christ's redemption, His suffering, death on the cross and His resurrection, and ascension, the second coming must be constantly remembered and corresponded to all this; to honor the shrine of the Mother of God, as an animated ark and church of the Divine, as deified, to honor above all others and ask Her after the Lord for purification and shrines, and strength in faith and love. Avoid flattery, insolence and arbitrariness. Our soul has a passion for this, when others do something not according to us, or do not do what we would like. Be patient; Think about what would happen if others took revenge on you immediately because you did something not according to their will, or did not do something that you could have done and should do? Man is duty personified. Here we must remember that our heart is extremely capricious, evil and stupid: we don’t like another person very much for no reason at all, as they say, and we harbor malice towards him in our hearts and would be ready to insult him for nothing. We must despise the natural and causeless malice of the heart and pray to God to drive out this stench of the hellish abyss from the heart. Let us remember what we are commanded: this commandment I give you, that you love one another (John 15:17). The life of the heart is love, its death is anger and enmity towards the brother. The Lord keeps us on earth for this reason, so that love for God and neighbor will completely penetrate our hearts: this is what He expects from everyone. This is the purpose of peace. My daily, greatest misfortune is the sins that sting and gnaw at my heart. But against this misfortune there is a daily, greatest Deliverer and Savior Jesus Christ. He does me good every day, invisibly and kindly. Poor sinners, know this Savior, as I know Him by His grace, by His gift. You become embittered at your neighbor, at your brother, and say: he is this and that, a miser, angry, proud, or he did this and that, and so on. What do you care about that? He sins against God, not you; God is his Judge, not you; He will answer to God for himself, not you. Know yourself, how sinful you are, what a log you have in your own eye; how hard it is for you to cope with your sins and overcome them; how you yourself suffer from them, like a pregnant woman, - how they haunt you, - how you want the indulgence of others in their infirmities. And your brother is a man just like you; have mercy towards him as to a sinful person, similar to you in everything, just as weak as you; love him as yourself, hearing the Lord say: I command you this, that you love one another (John 15:17), - and just as you pray for yourself, so that the Lord will help you eradicate your fierce and intractable passions, so pray for your brother, so that the Lord will free him from flattery and the corruption of passions, from their darkness and oppression. We must remember that we are one sinful body, more or less infected in our members with the breath of a common enemy - the devil, and on our own, without the grace of God, we are powerless to get rid of this deadening and darkening breath; only the Holy Spirit with His breath can disperse the demonic darkness of passions due to the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross, and that means we must humbly pray to the Lord in the spirit of brotherly love for all our brothers and for all people, so that they may escape the darkness of passions and their great charm, which they enjoy, not knowing their destruction; eg: a rich man enjoys his wealth; ambitious - differences; glutton - food and drink, and delicacies; malicious - malice; the envious person is the suffering victim of his envy, etc. Like every word of the prayer: have mercy on me, O God (Ps. 50:1), the Master hears and fulfills every word (experience), if only they speak from the heart; so are all the words of other prayers, even our own, sincere prayers. O benevolent Master! Glory to You! Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, press and it will be opened to you. Whatever you ask is accepted... (Matthew 7:7-8). Only in simplicity of heart, pray without doubt. By infecting our physical makeup with disease, the Lord crushes the old, sinful, carnal man in order to give strength to the new man, whom we have weakened with carnal deeds: gluttony, idleness, entertainment, and various passions. Whenever I am weak, then I am strong (2 Cor. 12:10). We must accept illness with gratitude. The saints of God are great in their spiritual disposition, in their faith, in their firm trust in God and ardent love for God, for whom they despised all earthly things. Oh, how insignificant we are before them, how unlike them! They are great in their feats of abstinence, vigil, fasting, unceasing prayer, exercise in the word of God, in the thought of God. Oh, how different we are from them! How we should at least honor them! How to ask for their prayers for yourself with reverence! But in no case should you treat them frivolously or irreverently, remembering their deification and unity with the Divine. I thank You, Lord, my Master and Judge, for teaching me to simply pray to You, and hearing me cry out to You, and saving me from my sins and my sorrows, and putting a burden on me in the vastness. Behold, I cried out to You in the sin of my wickedness with the words of church prayer: Lord our God, who has granted repentance to men... and as soon as I finished it, peace and lightness settled in my soul. June 29, 1864 Do not listen to the enemy’s slander against your neighbor, his abominations and various evils and his pride. Look at every person simply, with respect, as the image of God, and do not think anything bad about him without reason. When you pray only internally or together and externally, be firmly convinced that the Lord is here, with you and in you and hears every word, even if it’s to yourself, even if you only speak mentally; speak from the bottom of your heart, sincerely, condemn yourself also sincerely, without the slightest justification for yourself, have faith that the Lord will have mercy on you - and you will not remain unmercied. Right. Taken from experience. You are angry with your neighbor, you despise him, you don’t want to talk to him peacefully and lovingly because he has something rude, abrupt, careless, unpleasant to you in his character, in his speech, in his manners - because he is aware of his dignity, perhaps more than proper, or that he is somewhat proud and disrespectful; but you are more guilty than he, doctor and teacher of your neighbor: doctor, heal yourself (Luke 4:23); teacher, learn for yourself. Your malice is the worst evil of all evil; Is it possible to correct evil with anger? Having a log, is it possible to take a knitting needle from someone else? Evil and shortcomings are corrected with goodness, love, affection, meekness, humility, and patience. Recognize yourself as the first of the sinners who seem to you to be sinners, or who are actually sinners, consider yourself worse and lower than everyone else; purge all pride and anger towards your neighbor, impatience and rage, and then heal others. Otherwise, cover the sins of others with condescending love. If you see all the iniquities in your neighbor, what will happen? Eternal enmity and disorder, for who is without sin? For this reason we are commanded to leave debts to our debtors; For if the Lord sees our iniquities, which of us will stand before His righteousness? If you forgive a person their sins, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you (Matthew 6:14). At the meal of love we are with Love Himself embodied, but we have no love for each other. Strange thing! and there is no concern about this. But love itself, without our zeal and effort and activity, will not come. O Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who loves mankind, I thank you with all my heart, because you heard my prayer for love of neighbor and contempt for earthly things and poured out peaceful, reasonable and sweet love into my heart. Confirm, O God, this in me through the prayers of our Most Pure Lady Theotokos, and may I be Your child, O Lord, and Her truest child. July 26, 1864 11 pm. Oh, the most beautiful, most precious creature - man! Oh, a certain graceful and magnificent palm tree - man! Oh, God's best creation is man! O most honest creation of God, which must be untouchable by anything unclean, as the image of God Himself, the venerable church of God Himself! May all nasty, evil and blasphemous thoughts and thoughts of doubt flee from us. We are God's children; we are holy in Christ; let us hold, let us keep our hearts sacred; We, as God’s animated arks, our thoughts and hearts, but in no way will the hand of bad and evil spirits touch us! Become human for our sake, the Word of God and God! keep us in Your sanctuary! Our Holy Head! Do not give our hearts and our bodies to the foul Belial, lest he defile them with thoughts, but abide everlastingly with us and keep us pure and blameless. Grant us, Lord, to always have with You, our Divine Head, a living connection, like members of Your body - a connection in the thoughts of the heart, in prayer and in deeds. The falling away of our hearts from You is darkness and death, Lord, there is sorrow and oppression, shame and humiliation and spiritual abomination, but with You we have light, life, peace, joy, spaciousness in the heart, boldness, and greatness, and holiness. You know that you are promised eternal life in God, that you must earn it by obedience to God and His Church in this short-term life, by enduring illnesses, sorrows, hardships and various hardships - and you do not want to obey the Creator, you live in carelessness and carelessness about your soul, in carelessness about virtue, in constant sins. What can you expect after this, you ungrateful, ill-tempered and disobedient creatures? My soul, think and turn your entire earthly life to the glory of God and the good of your neighbors. Do not please flesh and blood, but your Lord; flesh and blood are perishable, like everything earthly. Why suspiciousness where it should not be, for example. in faith, when reading and hearing God’s word, church readings and singing, in prayer, etc.? God is truth, that is enough; the devil is a lie, a slanderer, an adversary - that's enough. Know God alone and His truth; be alien to the devil and his lies, his dreams, absurdities. The life-giving cross, even its signs, are trembled by demons because the Son of God was nailed to the wood of the cross and sanctified it by His suffering on it; How do the demons of the Lady Theotokos and Her All-Holy Name tremble? Like a bright star, the Lady, She is all in the radiance of Light - God, like a hot coal in a great fire, All bright and fiery. Just as it is easy to think that He, God, is Light and Holiness, so She is eternal Light and eternal Holiness. Amen. Jesus Christ yesterday and today, The same and forever (Heb. 13:8), so the truth of God, everything that is read in the Gospel, in church prayers, canons, akathists, psalms is the same forever; she is still the same as you found her for the first time, or when you prayed with a diligent heart, felt all the truth, sweetness, peace and life-giving of her. You change and become in different relationships with her, but she is one and the same - the eternal sun, enlightening, warming, revitalizing. How long will St. The mysteries we receive will remind us that we are one body of many (1 Cor. 10:17), and how long will we not have mutual heartfelt unity among ourselves as members of the one body of Christ? How long will we be self-legislative in life, quarrel with each other, envy each other, bite each other, sadden and devour each other, condemn and scold each other? How long will there not be in us the Spirit of Christ, the spirit of meekness, humility, kindness, unfeigned love, self-sacrifice, patience, chastity, abstinence, simplicity and sincerity, contempt for the worldly, complete striving for heavenly things? Master Lord Jesus Christ! Enlighten the eyes of our hearts and may Your good Spirit guide us all to rightness on earth (Ps. 142:10). Give us Your Spirit! The Lord is everything for all of us, and we can do nothing for ourselves on our own. He is the Giver of strength, blessings and everything necessary for the establishment of our well-being. Let us place all our sorrow, all our care, all our care on the Lord. During prayer, be like a babbling child, merging into one spirit with the spirit of the spoken prayer. Consider yourself as nothing, accept prayers as a great gift of God. Completely abandon your carnal mind and do not listen to it, for the carnal mind boasts (1 Cor. 8:1), doubts, dreams, and blasphemes. If, during or outside of prayer, the enemy stuns your soul with any blasphemies and abominations, do not be discouraged by them, but say with firmness in your heart: for cleansing from these and similar sins, our Lord Jesus Christ came to earth; It is in these and similar weaknesses of spirit that the Most Merciful One came to help us; and when you say these words with faith, your heart will immediately calm down, for the Lord will cleanse your heart. In general, one should not lose heart from any sin, like from a dream, but trust in the Savior. O immeasurable mercy of God! Oh, the greatest service of the God-man to us sinners! And to this day He serves us philanthropically, cleansing and saving us. So, let the enemy's power be put to shame! If you glorify your pious neighbor, you glorify God; If you do good to your neighbor, you do good to yourself, for we are one body; If you do good to your neighbor, you make God a debtor to yourself, for the neighbor is the image of God, and God is all in all. When you do good to a Christian, you make Christ, the Son of God, a debtor to yourself, for Christians are His body, His members. If you lend to a Christian, you borrow the Holy Spirit, for Christians are temples of the Holy Spirit. Do you not know that you are the church of God, and the Spirit of God lives in you (1 Cor. 3:16)? God created man in His own image and likeness—an infinitely great gift; and man, a rationally free being, became ungrateful before his Creator, insulted Him with his treachery and infidelity, and pride before Him; wanted to become equal to his Creator and went against Him. Every sin is a war against God. But, oh the endless gift of God’s love for people! When we fell so deeply, having sinned against the Creator, when we fell from life to death, rushing from God, our Life, and corrupted ourselves with sins, when we were threatened with eternal death, God sent to earth the Redeemer of the world, His only begotten Son in the likeness of our flesh, to enlighten us, to suffer for our sins and thus cleanse us from sins through repentance and faith in Him and bring us again to the Father Ours, from whom we have fallen. Let us appreciate this greatest good deed of God towards us, and let us not be careless about the great salvation (Heb. 2:3)! Let us constantly remember our sinful corruption and be renewed by the grace-filled means offered by the Church. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). Are we new, or are we the same old, with the same sins? The Mother of God is one flesh and blood, one spirit with the Savior, as His Mother. What an immeasurable merit is Her by the grace of God that She became the Mother of God Himself, giving His most pure and all-sanctified flesh, feeding Him with milk, carrying Him in her arms, dressing Him, preserving His youth in every possible way, kissing Him many times, caressing Him. God! who will describe the greatness of the Virgin Mary? Every tongue is perplexed to praise according to property; Amazes the mind and the most peaceful song of Thee, Mother of God!... 25. Call on Her with a single thought and a simple movement of the heart... She is one with God, just like the saints. Know and remember that the matter of your salvation is always close to the heart of the Lady Theotokos, for for this purpose the Son of God chose Her from all generations and was incarnated from Her, the Most Pure One, by the favor of the Father and the assistance of the Holy Spirit, in order to save the human race from sin, curse and eternal death or eternal torment. Just as the Savior is close to the work of our salvation, so is it to Her. Turn to Her with complete faith and hope and love. Christ, the Son of God, the most holy God, is not ashamed of the brethren to call us sinners (Heb. 2:11), and do not be ashamed to call brothers and sisters, at least the poor and humble, simple people, relatives according to the flesh or non-relatives, and do not be proud before them, do not despise them, do not be ashamed of them, for we are all truly brothers in Christ, we were all born of water and the Spirit in the font of baptism and became children God's; We are all called Christians, we all feed on the flesh and blood of the Son of God, the Savior of the world, other Church Sacraments are performed on all of us, we all pray in the Lord’s Prayer: Our Father... and equally we all call God our Father. We do not know any other kinship except the spiritual, all-highest, eternal kinship, which was given to us by the Lord of life, the Creator and Renewer of our nature, Jesus Christ, for this one kinship is true, holy, abiding, while earthly kinship is untrue, changeable, impermanent; temporary, perishable, just as our flesh and blood are perishable. So, simply treat your fellow humans as equals with equals, and do not be proud of anyone, but rather humble yourself, for everyone who exalts himself will humble himself, and he who humbles himself will be exalted (Luke 18:14). Don’t say: I am educated, but he or she is not, he or she is a simple, uneducated man or peasant; Do not turn the gift of God given to you, unworthy, into a reason for pride, but for humility, for to whom much is given, much will be demanded of him, and to whom little is given, little will be asked (cf. Luke 12:48). Do not say: I am noble, and he is of low birth - earthly nobility without the nobility of faith and virtue is an empty name. What is my nobility when I am a sinner like others, or worse? And one must love one’s neighbor not in one’s own way, but in God’s way, i.e. not by your own will, but by God’s. Our will is to love only those who love us, and to despise, hate, and persecute enemies or people who are unpleasant to us for some reason. But God wants us to love them all the more as if we were sick; so that we ourselves, as sick with pride, pride, contempt and malice, heal ourselves with love and humility, applying this all-healing plaster to their heart wounds. When correcting the spiritual illnesses of others, there is no need to be arrogant, there is no need to become embittered or angry and lose your temper, think not about the benefit of your neighbor, but about yourself, and serve your pride and your passions in general. Love is not irritated by the frivolous or proud and arrogant actions of one's neighbor; she is long-suffering, merciful, not proud, does not think evil (1 Cor. 13:4-5), does not put every word in line, but covers everything. Yes, that’s okay: for whatever you cover with leniency often conveniently goes away by itself. So, one who heals others must be healthy himself, so that those being healed do not say: doctor, heal yourself (Luke 4:23). If the person being healed notices that you yourself are angry and angry and do not love him, then he will internally despise and hate you, and you will not have any effect on him, for evil is not corrected by evil, but by good. Conquer evil with good (Rom. 12:21), eradicate in advance in yourself what you want to eradicate in others. Concerns about everyday things, like darkness, cover the mental horizon of the soul, darken the eyes of the heart and bind the soul. But do not worry about anything, but cast all your sorrow and care on the Lord, according to the instructions of the spirit-bearing apostle. Not for the sake of spending on others; it is a pre-betrothal of new and greater bounties of the Lord to you. It is as if another prays to the Lord, but he himself works for the devil, who nests in the heart, because he prays only with his lips, but his heart is cold, does not feel and does not desire what his lips ask and what they say, and is far away (Is. 29:13) from the Lord. There are also many communicants who partake of the body and blood of Christ not sincerely, not with great love, but only with their lips and belly, with little faith, coldness, with a heart partial to food and drink, to money, or prone to pride, malice, envy, laziness, and their hearts are far from Him who is all love, holiness, perfection, wisdom and ineffable kindness. Such people need to go deeper into themselves, repent more deeply and reflect more deeply on what prayer is and what communion is. Coldness of heart towards God and prayer is from the devil; he is the coldness of tartar, and we, as children of God, will love the Lord with the ardent love. Grant, Lord, for without You we can do nothing (John 15:5). After all, You are everything to us, and we are nothing. You brought us from non-existence into existence and provided us with everything. To repent means to feel in your heart the lie, madness, and guilt of your sins; it means to realize that you have offended your Creator, Lord, Father and Benefactor, who is infinitely holy and infinitely abhors sin; with all your soul you want to correct and atone for them. To a Christian who sins willingly or unwillingly, remind him more often of his dignity, that he is deified and that our nature is seated on the throne with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. On occasion, tell a Jew, a Mohammedan, or a pagan what they are losing through their inertia in unbelief, tell them how our nature is exalted by the Son of God, how it is ennobled, blessed; exhort Christians to leave their sins for the sake of such nobility of their nature, attract non-believers to the faith of Christ. Great Litany. According to it, we are all one; the litany lists all members of the Church - the bodies of Christ, first earthly, then heavenly. This is the nature of all divine services: Vespers, Matins, Liturgy. With what spirit, with what loftiness of thoughts, with what love should a priest pray to God for everyone and everything 26. In the prayers and chants of the church, throughout their entire space, the Spirit of Truth moves. Everything that from there 27 comes into the mind of someone who contradicts and blasphemes is from the devil, the father of lies, the slanderer; prayers and chants are the breath of the Holy Spirit. He who prays to the Lord, the Mother of God, the Angels and the saints must first of all take care of correcting his heart and his life, and then imitate them, as written: be merciful, as your heavenly Father is merciful (Luke 6:36); Be holy, for I am holy (1 Pet.1:16; Lev.19:2). Those who pray to the Mother of God must imitate Her humility, unimaginable purity, devotion to the will of God (for example, when you see injustice) and patience; those praying to the Angels should think about the heavenly life and try for spirituality, gradually putting aside carnality and carnal passions, also about fiery love for God and neighbor; Let those who pray to the saints imitate their love for God and contempt for the world or its vain blessings, their prayer, abstinence, non-covetousness, patience with illnesses, sorrows and misfortunes, their love for their neighbor. Otherwise, prayer will be a beating of air. The one who prays, like a hungry person, must hunger and strongly desire those benefits, especially spiritual ones, forgiveness of sins, cleansing, sanctification, confirmation in virtue, which he asks for in prayer. Otherwise, it’s a waste of words. Also understand about giving thanks and glorifying the Lord: hunger to thank and glorify the Lord unceasingly, for everything is from Him, everything is gifts of His goodness and mercy. The Lord is my being; The Lord is deliverance from eternal death; The Lord is my eternal belly; The Lord is my cleansing and deliverance from many sins and my sanctification; The Lord is strength in my help, space in my cramped conditions, hope in my cowardice and despondency; The Lord is the life-giving fire in my coldness; The Lord is light in my darkness, peace in my confusion; The Lord is an intercessor in my temptations. He is my thinking, my desire, my activity; He is the light of soul and body, food, drink, my robe, my shield, my weapon. Everything is Lord for me. My soul, love and thank the Lord unceasingly! Bless, my soul, the Lord and all my inner being, His holy name; bless the Lord, my soul, and do not forget all His rewards, who cleanses all your iniquities, heals all your ailments, crowns you with mercy and generosity, fulfills your good desires (Ps. 103:1-5). You are all brethren (Matthew 23:8). Love one another (John 15:17). The Church is God’s, as it were, a great, holy family, in which God is the Father, the Most Holy Theotokos, the Mother of the Lord Jesus Christ - our Mother, Angels and holy men are elder brothers, and we are all half-brothers, born by the Church in the same font of baptism in the Holy Spirit. The younger ones naturally owe respect to the elders, are naturally subordinate to them, as imperfect ones, they ask the elders for prayers for themselves from God, since they are friends of God, whose intercession the Lord accepts with favor. The children of the Heavenly Father have a prayer initiated by His Son: Our Father. God! You came to save us by faith in You, and I believe that You are my Savior, save me! You have come to renew my nature, corrupted by sin; renew me, who has corrupted myself with passions and lusts, renew both mentally and physically, so that I may be pure in heart and strong in body for the glory of Your name. You have come to deliver us from the work of the enemy - deliver me from the work of the all-evil, unclean, nasty and disgusting enemy, who is at war in my members and inclining me, drawing me by violence to sin. You have come to enlighten us, enlighten my heart darkened by passions. You have come to gather up what has been squandered; gather up my thoughts, squandered by the enemy. You came to strengthen us in our weakness and said: My power is made perfect in weakness, and Your Apostle says: Sweetly, I will boast all the more in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me (2 Cor. 12:9); Behold, I am extremely weak and cannot do anything good without You; Without You I can neither think, nor feel good, nor desire good, nor speak, nor do; I am decidedly weak for any good without You; Give me grace, give me light and strength to think and feel good and comfortably do it, say and do what pleases You. Behold, I commend my whole life to You, Christ God, my Savior, my Renewer; cleanse, sanctify and save me. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a right spirit in my womb (Ps. 50:12)! Help me: without You my destruction is near and swift at every hour. In their malice towards us, in their treachery against us and in the insults inflicted on us in various ways, people are worthy of special pity and our love, as the sick and perishing, who have become the instrument of our all-evil enemy, the devil, who teaches us all kinds of evil, who seeks through those like us to cause us some grief and misfortune. But these sorrows and troubles are very, very useful for us, revealing to us our heart ulcers, which we did not see or feel. When embarrassment and some kind of powerlessness of the heart prevent you from pronouncing the words of prayers during the Divine Service, then consider this embarrassment and powerlessness to be an enemy’s (demonic) dream, throw away despondency, cowardice and timidity, and speak slowly about the name of the Lord, calmly and deliberately louder, and you will overcome embarrassment and powerlessness and receive vigor and strength. To him who believes and trusts, all things are possible. We must fight and win. Love your neighbor as yourself; for, loving your neighbor, you love yourself, and hating your neighbor, first of all you harm yourself, first of all you hate your soul. You know this from experience. Oh, wise, constructive and life-giving laws of the Lord! How good it is to fulfill them, although sinful flattery makes it difficult to fulfill them. How good is the yoke of the Lord for the soul and how light is His burden, i.e. His commands! If you have Christian love for your neighbors, then all heaven will love you; if you have unity of spirit with your neighbors, then you will have unity with God and with all the inhabitants of heaven; You will be merciful to your neighbors, and God will be merciful to you, as will all the Angels and saints; You will pray for others, and all heaven will intercede for you. Holy is the Lord our God, and so be you. You, earthly beings who do not have purity, rejoice in the fact that the purity of soul and body, unattainable for you, has been completely and abundantly achieved by the Most Holy Virgin Mary, the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ; rejoice and pray to Her, that She may teach you and your children to lead a clean life in this pernicious age full of temptations. For Her purity, humility and all the virtues and for the fact that she was honored to be the Mother of God the Word, we bring gratitude to the Heavenly Father, making a bloodless sacrifice, and we say: a lot about the Most Holy... Mother of God... 28, i.e. We offer You verbal service, glory, thanksgiving. How damaged I am by sin! something bad, evil, unclean is immediately thought and felt in the heart, but good, good, pure, holy is often only thought and said, and not felt. Alas for me! Evil is even closer to my heart than good. In addition, I just thought or felt evil, and I am immediately ready to do it, and I will do it quickly and conveniently, but the good that I want is within my power, but I do not find the strength to do it (Rom. 7:18), and the planned good deed is often put off for a long, long time. When praying for people, pray for them as for yourself, for we are one, as children of the Heavenly Father. In petitionary prayer, the main thing is faith in God and a sincere, firm desire for the blessings for which we ask and future reluctance or aversion from those sins of which we repent. Otherwise, we wish with our tongue and thought, but our heart remains insensitive, or we seem to turn away with our tongue, but not with our heart, we become stuck in those very sins for which we pray daily for deliverance. And the prophecy of Isaiah comes true for us: these people draw near to Me with their lips... but their heart is far from Me (Is. 29:13). When your heart is touched by a prodigal, nasty, evil or blasphemous thought, a thought of malice, envy, stinginess, covetousness, gluttony, and darkens, wounds and oppresses you, then tell yourself with the firm conviction of your heart that this is the dream of the devil and suddenly the thought or thoughts will disappear. Blessed are you who speak the truth in your heart (Ps. 14:2). The torment of the one who dreams or thinks in his heart is evil and sinful! Tribulation and distress upon every soul of man who does evil (Rom. 2:9). Despise the carnal pleasure of sin, for it is the irritation of the transitory flesh. When a thought of doubt about the truth comes, say that this thought is a dream, and the truth is the eternal truth. Who am I? – On the one hand, sin, the abyss of sin, all opposition to God, the All-Creator and All-Knower, worthy of all condemnation and torment; on the other hand, complete poverty of every virtue and weakness for every virtue. So I fell deeply, became corrupted, and became exhausted. I cannot do anything without my Savior, according to His word and my countless experiences. He created my soul and body, He grew me, He formed my abilities, He creates everything good in me, if I do something good, but mine is only evil. But, my Creator and my Deliverer! You created me, I am Your creation, Your slave. You control me, You do Your will through me, give me the grace to completely subdue my will to Your will, for I cannot do this without Your grace. You, my Shepherd, feed me. You, my Savior, save me, You, my Light, enlighten me. You, my Strength, strengthen me. What fellowship has light with darkness,... righteousness with iniquity (2 Cor. 6:14)? Not the slightest: one unrighteous thought is an abomination to the Lord (Proverbs 15:26), and the Lord withdraws from the heart where this thought nests: we ourselves feel this ourselves. So, in order for the Lord to unite with someone, it is necessary that that person be completely clean from the filth of sin and adorned with virtues, or that he believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, who takes away the sins of the whole world, recognizes his sins, sincerely condemns them, considers them foolish, absurd and with all his soul asks for forgiveness for them, firmly intending not to sin in the future. Thus, all the saints were united with the Lord and became saints. How holy is the Lady Theotokos, with Whom God the Word Himself, the ever-present Light, the true Light, enlightening every person coming into the world (John 1:9), sincerely united with Whom the Holy Spirit descended and on Whom the power of the Most High overshadowed (Luke 1:35)? How holy and all-holy is the Lady Theotokos, Who became the church of the Divinity not made by hands and was completely imbued, in all thoughts, feelings, words and deeds, with the Holy Spirit, and from whose blood the Creator Himself made flesh for Himself? Truly all-holy, firm, unshakable, unchangeable throughout all eternity in Her highest, divine holiness, for the all-perfect God, who became Her son according to humanity, made Her all-perfect for Her greatest humility, love for purity and for the source of purity, God, for Her perfect renunciation of the world and clinging with all her thoughts to the heavenly kingdom, and - especially for the fact that She became His Mother, carried Him in the womb, then in Her most pure hands, with pure milk she nourished the one who nourishes all creation, kept Him, caressed Him, was sick and grieved for Him, shed tears for Him, lived all her life for Him, only for Him Alone, she was all immersed in His Spirit and was one heart, one soul with Him, one shrine with Him! Oh, the highest unity of love and shrine of the Most Pure Virgin Mary and Her divine Son, the Lord Jesus Christ! The holy people of God are marvelous in their complete love for the Lord, in their streams of blood or sweat shed out of love for the Lord. Oh, infinitely great Benefactor, my Savior! When I imagine the endless corruption of my nature by sins and manifold passions, and at the same time my spirit falls and becomes despondent, then only I will remember You that You came to renew my nature corrupted by sin, and to bestow upon my dishonor, my shame, angelic nobility, even higher than angelic, the nobility of the son of God, for the sake of faith in You, for the sake of rebirth by water and the Spirit and for the sake of the Holy Communion. Your mysteries, my spirit will instantly rise from despondency, shake off the dishonor of passions and be completely filled with gratitude to You. Glory to Thee, infinite Grace and Power, Son of God! Do not be discouraged, sinners like me, not only believe in the Son of God. Respect each other, sinners, and do not despise any sinner, for we are all sinners, and the Son of God came to save, cleanse and lift everyone to heaven. We leave our debtor 29 This means not to have bitterness, enmity and bitterness towards a neighbor who has committed a crime against us (intentionally, stubbornly, or unintentionally), but to forgive him his guilt in the simplicity of his heart, vividly imagining his weaknesses and sins and preserving for the guilty neighbor the same love and the same feelings of affection that we had for him before the guilt. What if the Lord saw our iniquities as we see the guilt of our neighbors? Who could resist? But just as the Lord is long-suffering and merciful, so be long-suffering and merciful (not demanding to the point of severity, compassionate). Love is patient and merciful (1 Cor. 13:4). Do not impute your neighbor’s mistakes, consider them, as if they did not exist, for nothing! We are one body, and this body is sinful. What is more common and easier in us if not sins? We breathe them like air. But the Lord, the Head of the body of the Church, is their purification. Leave everything to the Head, who acts all in all; and you hold on to love alone, for it alone is infallible in our lives (pure love). With the spirit of enmity, malice, hatred - do not serve the devil and do not multiply evil with evil, do not spread the kingdom of the enemy in the kingdom of Christ. Overcome evil with good (Rom. 12:21). But you cannot defeat evil with evil, just as you cannot destroy fire with fire, but with water. Anger is always the dream of the devil. Love is always the truth of God and a child of God. Addiction to earthly and carnal things to the point of oblivion of God, the soul, is from the devil, who makes our heart, through addiction to earthly things, a carnal, earthly, shameful vessel of passions, while it should philosophize on heaven, be spiritual and the temple of the Holy Spirit. You cannot work for God and mammon (Matthew 6:24), God and wealth, God and flesh, God and the world, God and sweets; therefore, to control your flesh and your heart is the science of sciences, the art of arts. I am flesh and spirit. O impermanence! Oh, ingratitude! Oh laziness! Oh, God's patience! But how long will I change like the moon or like a kaleidoscope? Establish me on the rock of Your commandments, O Lord! The crucified flesh makes friends with the spirit and with God, but the caressed, nourished generously and sweetly, strongly fights against our spirit and against God and everything becomes an abomination of sin: it does not want to pray, and in general rebels against God, for example, with blasphemy, and moves away from Him. Experience. Therefore, those who are Christ's are crucified in the flesh with passions and lusts (Gal.5:24). Christ has come to earth and will lead us to heaven 30. Are we striving to achieve the goal of our beloved Savior’s coming to earth? Are we being wise? Are we striving for the kingdom on high? We will answer this more often. Do we value the teachings and sermons of the Savior, His suffering and death? Do we not trample upon His entire economy by clinging to earthly things instead of things above? Hey, Lord! You alone know the cares, labors and sweats of Your saints, for their purification, for pleasing You, the Father of all, You weigh Your saints. Teach us to imitate them in our lives, so that we too may be united with everyone in love. Why do the sons of this age mock at what is truth, light, peace, sweetness, our life, I mean church services, church readings and hymns, or at Your saints, glorified by You? Even if they do not see, they blaspheme (Jude 1:10). Father! let them go, for they know not what they are doing (Luke 23:34), and enlighten them. Love without thinking: love is simple. Love can never go wrong. Also, without thinking, believe and trust: for faith and trust are also simple; or better: God, in Whom we believe and in Whom we trust, is a simple Being, just as He is simple love. Amen. Why do we read akathists to Jesus Christ and the Mother of God? In order to enter into the spirit of the Lord and His Most Pure Mother; in order to know the greatness of the gift revealed in the incarnation of the Savior and the redemption of us, and in the gift to us of His Body and Blood in the Holy Mysteries, and in order to accept this gift with dignity. The Lord is so holy, so simple in His holiness that one evil or unclean thought deprives us of Him, sweet and most sweet, pure and pure peace and light of our souls. From here all the saints are light, all one fragrance, like the light of the sun, like the purest air. Lord, give me this simple shrine! Before His incarnation, the Lord allowed humanity to experience all the bitterness of sin, all its powerlessness to eradicate it, and when everyone desired the Deliverer, then He appeared, the all-wise, all-powerful Doctor and Helper. As they began to hunger and thirst for truth when it became scarce, then the eternal Truth came. All the many different machinations of the enemy have one name - the devil; Be convinced of this, my heart, and do not be faint-hearted, do not lose heart in hostile circumstances, in hostile storms. Your power 31, i.e. You contain everyone and everything in Your power and strength - including evil spirits; Thine is the kingdom: Thou art the King over all and over evil spirits; Your strength: You uphold everyone with Your strength - and glory: for You created everything for Your glory. Just as every good thing for us is God, so every evil, every abomination of sin is the devil. A simple heart, taught by God, knows how to unite with God and have no communication with the devil. Another prayer book about himself or about people, in order to awaken his dormant heart and conscience, should be asked the following question: do you need what you apparently ask for, and do you want to receive it? Do you, for example, sincerely desire correction and a holy life? There is one God of my heart, my Lord and my God, and He is everything to me, as everything is to the visible and invisible world, which He created out of nothing. Therefore, I must not cleave to anything other than my God, and I must part with everything I have without regret, like the dust that is under my feet, and have one love in my heart for God and for my neighbor, accepted in Christ into the unity of the divine nature. Let us be partakers of the Divine nature, having fled the lustful aphids that are in the world (2 Pet. 1:4). Now we are children of God (1 John 3:2). Let malice, like a child of the devil, not touch our heart for a single moment; pride, conceit, envy, too. A remarkable phenomenon in nature: when you plant a plant in a large, wide pot or tub, the plant grows strongly at the root: it grows thick, produces many branches, and the tree grows poorly upward, producing few and small leaves and flowers. And when planted in a small pot, then the root is small, and the plant quickly grows upward, produces good leaves and flowers (if the plant produces flowers). Isn't that what happens to a person? When he grows in his belly and does not grow upward in spirit, does not bear fruit - good deeds, and when he lives in cramped conditions, in poverty, in illness, in misfortunes, in sorrows, in a word, when the animal side of him is suppressed, then he grows spiritually, grows flowers of virtues, ripens and bears rich fruits. That is why the path of those who love God is hard. We all, without distinction of status, poor and rich, noble and ignorant, educated and uneducated, are one body and should love each other as ourselves. We are many in one body (1 Cor. 10:17). Love one another, the Lord commanded (John 15:17). Your heart, which strongly resists these words in action, in everyday life, in everyday clashes with your neighbors, a proud, proud, contemptuous, evil, gloomy, dead, confused, multi-passionate heart must be crucified, despised, and cut off your will and follow the will of God in everything. Our multi-passionate heart loves pleasure and tranquility, does not tolerate bitterness and sorrow, and does not love if someone bothers us with something, for example, asks us to do something for him. But the Lord ordered us to reject this sinful rest of the flesh and to be a servant of all, and He Himself set an example, for He knew no peace on earth while serving His salvation for us. The apostles are also an example, especially the Apostle Paul. Our heart often sleeps in prayer; The outer man prays, but the inner man does not. Often we flatter only with our tongue in prayer. Having put on Christ with faith and communion, St. Tyne, I can be verbal and hard as a rock. Christ is the fullness of all good things for me, and most importantly, a sweet, delicious belly and peace, surpassing all understanding (Phil. 4:7). The flesh blooms, but the soul withers; the flesh is spacious, but the soul is cramped; the flesh is satiated, and the soul is hungry; the flesh is decorated, but the soul is ugly; the flesh smells fragrant, but the soul stinks; the flesh bursts into laughter, and the soul is in trouble all around; the flesh is in the light, but the soul is in darkness, in hellish darkness. Modern false enlightenment removes us from the true Light, which enlightens every person coming into the world (John 1:9), and does not bring us closer to Him. And without Christ all education is in vain. Our old man with the old works of the devil is constantly with us and acts in us mortally. That’s why we deal with this old man and his affairs in the church pulpit, so that all who listen to us can know themselves and the charm of the passions and kill the old man within themselves, with the help of God’s grace, and do not deal with the news of this world, for it is not our business. This is how we teach everyone to know God, to love Him with all our hearts and our neighbor as ourselves. And since self-love is incompatible with love for God and one’s neighbor, we teach, according to the Savior’s instructions, to deny oneself and crucify the flesh with passions and lusts. Here is an old speech, and perhaps a new one, depending on who will lead it, whether pointing to modern human passions and lusts, or speaking generally, without indicating, about the need to crucify the old man. Blasphemy against sacred things or thoughts of carnal impurity are the devil. When this stench from the hellish abyss bothers and suffocates you, then just make sure, just believe from your heart, that this is the work of the devil, and this filth will leave you. May the Lord enlighten and confirm. The history of the election and rejection of the Jews shows the truth that God will exalt and magnify those who are faithful to Him, and will humiliate and reject the unfaithful and ungrateful; also the truth that He is faithful in His promises and threats. He who adorned the sky with stars, could not have adorned his mental Heaven - the Most Holy Virgin Theotokos - more than the sky? He who adorned the earth with many different flowers, doused it with fragrances, could not have decorated His earthly Mother with many different colors of virtues and fragrant with all spiritual aromas? Truly. And the Lady appeared to Heaven and the church of the Divine, adorned with all the beauty and fragrant more than all the aromas of the earth. Oh, if divine goodness would beautify even the ugly me through the prayers of Her Most Pure Mother, if only the unclean me would be fragrant! Everything is possible with God. Even though your sins are like scarlet, they will be like snow (Isa. 1:18). Adam became so proud that he wanted to be god, and died for his pride; The Son of God humbled himself to the point of death and revived the fallen one. Oh, the abyss of humility! Adam and Eve destroyed themselves through gluttony, but the Lord fasted for them and died to revive them. They disobeyed; Christ obeyed. Having seen a strange Christmas, let us withdraw from the vain world and place our minds on the Divine. God has descended from heaven and will lead us to heaven, 32 but the devil and the flesh are dragging us to the earth. Christ calls and attracts to the eternal life, but the devil deceives with a temporary life and cleaves to the temporary, hiding the eternal in darkness, or leading a person to disbelief in eternal life. Notice his machinations and do not be deceived by your earthly belly. In the present state, a person is completely imbued with pride, deceit, lack of faith, doubt, unbelief, disobedience, frivolity, malice, envy, covetousness, stinginess, laziness, sometimes cowardice, despondency, theft, lies, blasphemy. What a great work lies ahead for every person, a Christian - to cleanse himself of filth and the corruption of passions! The devil usually enters us through one false thought or false thought and then acts in us and disturbs us: he is so simple. Isn’t it more likely that the Lord God of spirits dwells in us through one true and holy thought and happens to us, acts in us, and becomes everything to us? So, pray without doubt, simply, i.e. in simplicity of heart; without a doubt: just as it is easy to think, so it should be easy to pray. Leave all human untruths to the Lord, for God is the Judge, but love everyone diligently from a pure heart, and remember that you yourself are a great sinner and need God’s mercy. And in order to earn God’s mercy, we must have mercy on others in every possible way. Wake up! wake up! The Lord is everything for everyone: the Judge, and the generous Giver of gifts, and mercy, and the cleansing of sins, and light, and peace, and joy, and strength of heart. Grant me, Lord, to love every neighbor of mine as myself, always, and not to become embittered because of him or to work for the devil. Grant me to crucify my self-love, pride, covetousness, lack of faith and other passions. Let our name be: mutual love; Let us believe and trust that the Lord is everything to all of us; let us not worry, let us not worry about anything; may You, our God, be the only God of our hearts and there is nothing besides You. Let us be in the unity of love among ourselves, as it should be, and let everything that separates us from each other and separates us from love be in contempt for us, like dust trampled underfoot. Wake up! wake up! If God has given Himself to us, if He abides in us, and we in Him, according to His true word, then what will He not give me, what will He spare me, what will He deprive me of, what will He forsake me? The Lord shepherds me and deprives me of nothing (Ps. 22:1). With Him, why is not everything given to us (Rom. 8:32)? So, be very calm, my soul, and know nothing but love. This commandment I command you, that you love one another (John 15:17). Canon of the Most Holy Theotokos before the Hodegetria icon, Song 5, Art.1. Easter Canon, Song 4, Art. 3, 1 Chronicles 13:8. Degree of the 4th tone, antiphon of the 1st “glory”. Akathist to the Most Holy Theotokos, Kontakion 9. Canon of prayer to the Most Holy Theotokos. On Holy Tuesday at Morning Kontakion, Tone 2. From the song “We Praise You God.” To the priest: Morning prayers, Troparion. Troparion sung on “Immaculate” on Saturday. Morning prayer 9, which is prayed by the priest during the Six Psalms. From “Glory to God in the highest,” at Matins. Prayers of Thanksgiving After Holy Communion, Prayer 1 From a prayer to the Most Holy Theotokos at Compline. Troparion sung on “Immaculate” on Saturday.. Prayer of Hannah, mother of Samuel. Funeral rite for priests, degrees. "Glory". Canon Archang., Canto 5, trope. 3 Canon to the Guardian Angel, Song 3, “And Now.” Prayer from the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. Words from a confessor to a spiritual child. “From another place” - approx. ed. "ABCs of Faith". Akathist to the Sweetest Jesus, Kontakion 8.