Complete works of Archpriest Ioann Ilyich Sergiev. Volume 5

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 All things are for Your pleasure, both in thought and in action. (Prayer before the Gospel at the liturgy). This is the eternal life, that they may know the one true God, and whom Jesus Christ sent (John 17:3) May the living water of the Holy Spirit fill my heart and may rivers of living water flow from my heart to the glory of God and to the salvation of God’s people For the glory of the triune God. Amen Having learned the charm and destruction of sweets, food and drink for the soul and body, I despise them, not wanting to be seduced by anyone and to please my blind, transitory belly, but to enjoy them in time, in moderation, for the glory of God, cordially sharing God's gifts with others. Oh, that our sweet food and drinks would always be an expression of our sweet love for each other, so that our hearts would be so delighted by mutual love, as our food delights us! Oh, how sweet is Your love, Lord, manifested in so many and varied gifts and earthly fragrances, and most of all in the sweetness of Your words and in the sweetness of Your divine Mysteries, Your Body and Blood! What will be the sweetness of the next century? - God! enlighten our hearts. My heart must cleave to the one God: it is good for me to cleave to God (Ps. 72:28), but what kind of blindness and perversion is that! - clings to the sweets of this age: to food, drink, carnal pleasures, to money, to this dust, to clothes, to this decay, to disappearing flowers, to patterns, to cuts that seduce the eye, to luxuriously decorated chambers, etc. Strange thing! I, a Christian, a heavenly person, am occupied with everything earthly and little with heavenly things. In Christ I have been transferred to heaven, and yet with all my heart I cleave tightly to the earth and, apparently, I would never want to be in heaven, but it is better to always remain on earth, although earthly things, with their delight, burden and torment me, although I see that everything earthly is unreliable, perishable, will soon pass, although I know and feel that nothing earthly can satiate my spirit, pacify and delight my heart, constantly troubled and saddened by earthly vanity. How long will I, a heavenly man, be earthly? As long as I am flesh, a child of God, born not of blood nor of carnal lust, but of God (John 1:13) in the Holy Spirit. baptism, until I rush all the way to God? God! draw my heart to You by Your Holy Spirit. God! turn my heart away from earthly vanities. God! I can’t do anything without You. We love everything shiny on earth: gold, silver, precious stones, crystal, shiny clothes. Why don’t we love the future glory to which the Lord calls us? Why don’t we strive for enlightenment like the sun? The righteous, it is said, will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father (Matthew 13:43). Because by sin they perverted the nature of their soul and, instead of heaven, clung to the earth, instead of incorruption to corruption, they fell in love with earthly splendor, temporary, corruptible and charming. But why do we have such a strong love for glitter? Because our soul was created for the heavenly light and in the beginning there was all light, all radiance; she has an innate light, an innate feeling and desire for light. Direct this desire to seek heavenly light! When you see a beautiful maiden or woman, or a beautiful young man, immediately ascend to the supreme, most holy Beauty, the culprit of all earthly and heavenly beauty, that is, to God; glorify Him for making such beauty out of the earth; marvel in man at the beauty of the image of God, shining even in our damaged state; imagine what our image will be like in the state of our glorification, if we are awarded it; Imagine the beauty of the saints of God, the holy Angels, the Mother of God, adorned with divine glory; imagine the indescribable kindness of the face of God, which we will see, and do not be seduced by earthly beauty, this flesh and blood. Lust is sweet, but sinful, corrupting and disgusting to God. Do not cleave with your heart to maiden or female beauty, but to the one Lord God, who created all beauty for His own sake, and say: it is good for me to cleave to God, the only God (Ps. 72:28), and not to fleeting carnal beauty. The despondency that happens to us from failure in any matter, especially the priestly work that we do for others, and the shame on our face, comes from our disembodied enemy, who seeks everywhere to devour us, like a roaring lion, and forces us to every failure, to every sin. Therefore, in order to be without stumbling in a matter, one must first prepare for it by intelligently studying it, combined with abstinence and prayer; We must strive for perfection in everything and not give room to the devil. If you fail in business, you should not succumb to despondency, but admit your sin and your weakness before God, humble yourself before Him, reject your pride and, without shame, confess your sin and your imprudence, laziness or weakness, and plunge your sin into the abyss of God’s mercy, asking for His mercy and help in the future for the good and successful completion of your work. In prayer and in every activity of your life, avoid suspiciousness and doubt and devilish daydreaming. Let your spiritual eye be simple, so that the whole body of your prayer, your deeds and your life is bright. During public prayer, let your whole heart be in God and not at all cleave to anything earthly for a moment; also have fiery love for human souls, love for God’s sake and zeal for their salvation; pray for them as if they were in great trouble. All of us, it is said, are in trouble, subject to the deception of the evil one (Ps. 13:3). When you're hungry, don't go too heavy on food—you'll burden both your heart and body. Without greed, eat quietly with meditation for the glory of God, remembering God the Nourisher, especially His incorruptible food, His Body and Blood, how He, for love’s sake, gave us Himself for food and drink, and about St. the word of the gospel. Everything that worries and, as it were, undermines the heart at its foundation, torments it, comes from the devil, for he is eternal restlessness and languor. The Lord is the peace of the heart. Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28). Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you (John 14:27). So many passions, so much anxiety and languor; so many addictions, so many sharp arrows piercing the heart, and so much obscurity. A person spends most of his life in spiritual darkness. The thought of self-praise and self-pleasure has come, say: nothing more than seven; everything good in me is done by the grace of God. What imash, he also received (1 Cor. 4:7). Without Me you cannot do anything (John 15:5); if the thought of oppression comes to any member of your neighbor or your own, say: the whole person is the wonderful work of God’s hands; everything in him is arranged well. This is all good (Gen. 1:31). What is your duty, partaker of the divine Mysteries? You must philosophize on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God (Col. 3:1-2), and not philosophize about earthly things, for for this reason Christ came down to earth, so that he may lead us to heaven 1 . In My Father's house there are many abodes. I go to prepare a place for you (John 14:2). Our life is in heaven (Phil. 3:20). Blessed are the poor in spirit, for to them is the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:3). Unless your righteousness comes out, any more than the scribe and the Pharisee, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:20). Leave the children to come to Me, for of such is the kingdom of God (Luke 18:16). Do you see what is the final purpose for which Christ came down from heaven to earth, for which He teaches us His Divine Mysteries - Body and Blood? This goal is to give us the kingdom of heaven. Strive for it. Pride is a demon; anger is the same demon; envy is the same demon; the abomination of the prodigal is the same demon; violent blasphemy is the same demon; violent doubt in the truth is a demon; despondency is a demon; passions are different, but one Satan acts in all; different passions, and together - satanic barking in different ways, and a person becomes one, one spirit with Satan. Being subjected to the evil and furious violence of various passions and the gnawing of the devil while performing various works of God, accept these sufferings as suffering for the name of Christ and rejoice in your sufferings, thanking God; for the devil is preparing for you, without knowing it, the most brilliant crowns from the Lord! Amen. Resist the devil urgently. Do not be upset at people who express their pride and arrogance, or anger, effeminacy and impatience towards you or others, but remembering that you yourself are subject to the same and greater sins and passions, pray for them and deal with them meekly. Even if a person falls into some sin, you, spiritually, correct such a person with a spirit of meekness, taking care that you, too, are not tempted. Bear each other's burdens (if someone insulted you, if it is hard for you, bear it), and thus fulfill the law of Christ (Gal. 6:1-2). Do you pay enough attention to the state of your soul: is it healthy and, since it is alive, is its life strong, and if this temporary life here is prosperous, then is eternal life, eternal well-being secured in any way, for example, by faith? Is there in your soul a living faith in God, in the Savior, in the Church - through good deeds, meekness, humility, kindness, love of truth and honesty, abstinence, chastity, mercy, patience, humility, hard work, etc.? Otherwise, all your work is vain: the soul does a lot, perhaps worthy of wonder, but it itself will perish. What good is it to a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul? (Matthew 16:26). God! I am a miracle of Your goodness, wisdom, omnipotence, since I was brought by You from non-existence into being, since I am preserved by You hitherto in being, since I have, by the goodness, generosity and love of Thy only begotten Son, to inherit eternal life, if I remain faithful to You, since by the terrible sacred act of sacrificing Myself as a sacrifice by Your Son, I am raised from a terrible fall, redeemed from eternal destruction. I praise Your goodness, Your infinite power, Your wisdom! But perform miracles of Your goodness, omnipotence and wisdom over me, the accursed one, and weigh my destinies with them, save me, Your unworthy servant, and bring me into Your eternal kingdom, making me worthy of an ageless life, an unevening day. The day is a symbol of the transience of earthly life: morning comes, then day, then evening, and with the onset of night the whole day has passed. This is how life will pass. First infancy, like early morning, then adolescence and courage, like full dawn and noon, and then old age, like evening, God willing, and then inevitably death. A person goes wherever he goes, but then he always returns home. So a Christian, no matter who he is, noble or simple, rich or poor, learned or ignorant, wherever he is, whatever position he holds in society, whatever he does, must remember that he is not at home, but on a journey, on a journey, and must return home - to his father, to his mother, to his older brothers and sisters; and this house is heaven, father is God, mother is the Most Pure Mother of God, older brothers and sisters are Angels and St. God's men; that all earthly duties and affairs are tasks, and the real work is the salvation of the soul, the fulfillment of the commandments of Christ, the purification of the heart. How to love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, with all your mind? With all my heart, that is, undividedly, not divided between love for God and love for the world, and for creation in general; if, for example, you pray, do not pray with a split heart, do not be distracted by vain thoughts, worldly passions, be wholly in God, in His love with all your soul, that is, not with just any strength of the soul, not with just the mind, without the participation of the heart and will, but with all your strength, and not half-heartedly or lightly; when you have to fulfill any commandment, fulfill it diligently, to the point of sweat and blood and life, if necessary, and not lazily and sluggishly or reluctantly. How distorted this light is! There is fun, music, - here are funeral prayers, singing, crying for the deceased; here is wealth, luxury, splendor - here is bare poverty, lack of everything, decent and sufficiently warm clothing, cramped conditions, disgusting dirt, dampness. Here is blooming health, an abundance of strength, - here is illness, decrepitude, exhaustion; here there is enlightenment, much knowledge, here there is ignorance, darkness; or: here with secular education there is high spiritual enlightenment and piety, and in this combination there is a beautiful and pleasant harmony, spiritual beauty; here is secular enlightenment and with it unbelief, immorality - this is spiritual ugliness, disharmony, dissonance, tearing apart the soul; here there is success in all enterprises, here there is failure; here everything is easy to get: money and weight in society, honors, distinctions - here - fight with all your might and you will achieve nothing, or only with enormous efforts you will achieve little. Who will resolve this apparent contradiction? One God. We can only guess. Those who are insolent towards man are also insolent towards God, as many of us are. Respect the majestic, priceless image of God in man and be patient with the mistakes and errors of fallen man, so that the Lord will be patient with yours too - because the enemy of God and the human race, unable to pour out his anger on God, intensifies to pour it out on His image - on man, as well as all his impurities, his darkness, his pride, envy, etc. place it on it. Respect the person, save him; Take care of yourself, don’t get irritated, don’t be embittered, don’t envy, don’t offend, don’t lie, don’t commit fornication, don’t steal, etc. Our soul is simple as thought, and quick as thought and like lightning. In an instant she can be wounded by sin, clinging to perishable things; In an instant, we can fall away from the love of God and our neighbor, from a single unrighteous thought, from a single passionate desire, from a hostile thought, and therefore we must constantly be on guard of our heart, so that it does not deviate into the words or thoughts of wickedness, but may it always remain in the simplicity and purity of God, in the love of God and our neighbor. The best moments on earth are those in which we philosophize on heaven, in general when we recognize or defend the truth, this heavenly inhabitant, citizen. Then only we truly live. This means that significant spiritual benefits require that we most often ascend above the earth, to the mountain, to heaven - where is our true life, our true fatherland, there will be no end to it. Looking at the many different entertainments of people, at the exceptional care for the flesh, you think: do people have a soul? And if there is, then why don’t they care, don’t think about her salvation, for she is betrayed to countless sins, which constitute her death, and eternal death? Is there eternal torment and eternal bliss? And if there is, then why do they try so little, or no effort at all, to avoid eternal torment and inherit eternal bliss? That's what surprises me. And one more thing: why are people not afraid of the terrible hour of death? After all, we will not live on earth forever. Someday our turn will come, and they will say to us: turn you, sons of men, to the dust from which you were created. Oh, our absent-mindedness, our pride, our addiction, our nailing to the ground! Sinners, do you think that God has nothing to punish you with? Oh, there is something, there is something! This is fiery Gehenna, the lake of fire, terrible Tartarus, which even Satan himself trembles at, the worm that never dies and the gnashing of teeth. But why am I speaking only to you! I must say the same to myself, too: for I am the first of the sinners for whom the torments of hell were prepared, but from which Christ, in whom is all my hope, saved me. And you, my brothers, do you all have faith in Christ, in His Gospel? Where is your evangelical life? How many of you even read the Gospel daily, this greatest gift of God and the law of life? All who have turned aside, have become indecent and do not do goodness, not even one (Rom. 3:12; Ps. 13:1-3). Young people who have studied and who have not yet studied rarely go to church and do not conduct their spiritual education at all, considering it as unnecessary and giving themselves up to the vanity of life. We need to pay attention to this. This is the fruit of pride and spiritual underdevelopment. They consider visiting the church and Divine services a public matter for the common people and women, forgetting that in the church with fear Angels serve together with people and consider this to be the greatest bliss. Is it not because the coldness towards public worship occurs because some do not understand it, and others, although they have taught the science of worship, it was taught to them dryly, without examples, by reason alone, while worship, being a high contemplation of the mind, is at the same time, and predominantly, peace, sweetness and bliss for the heart? The priest, as a doctor of souls, must himself be free from mental illnesses, that is, from passions, in order to heal others; as a shepherd, he must himself be shepherded in green pastures, evangelical and patristic, in order to know where to feed the verbal sheep; he himself must be skilled in fighting mental wolves in order to be able to drive them away from the flock of Christ; must be skilled and strong in prayer and abstinence; should not be bound by worldly lusts and pleasures, especially covetousness, love of fame, pride; in a word, he must himself be light in order to enlighten others, spiritual salt in order to protect others from spiritual corruption, and he himself must be free from the corruption of passions. Otherwise, every spiritually sick person can say to him: doctor, heal yourself (Luke 4:23) first, and then I will let you heal yourself. O hypocrite, first remove the wood from your hair, and then see clearly and take away the wood from your hair (Matthew 7:5). The heart is subtle, light, spiritual, heavenly in nature - take care of it; do not burden him, do not earth him, be extremely abstinent in food and drink and in general in bodily pleasures. The heart is the church of God. Whoever corrupts the church of God will be corrupted by God (1 Cor. 3:17). Be a Christian in your heart, that is, be always sincere in prayer, in dealing with your neighbors, always believing, trusting, meek, kind, kind to everyone, fair, non-covetous, compassionate, merciful, self-controlled, chaste, patient, submissive, courageous. Oh, how dearly our Lord Jesus Christ valued our soul and its salvation, coming down from heaven for us, taking upon ourselves our soul and body, suffering terribly and dying for us! How do I value my soul, its eternal salvation? Oh, I do not know how to appreciate and have not yet learned to correspond to the love of my Savior, completely clinging to the earth, completely surrendering to laziness and various passions. How can the love of God, the kingdom of God, be in you, when earthly love reigns in your heart - lust, greed and pride? It is impossible until you crucify your flesh with its passions and lusts (Gal. 5:24): for no one can work for two masters (Matthew 6:24) and the love of this world is enmity to God (James 4:4). Do not love, it is said, the world, nor anyone else in the world: for everything in the world is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life... And the world passes away, and its lust, but he who does the will of God abides forever (1 John 2:15-17). The Lord our God, for our persistent request from Him for His mercies, approves of us, seeing in our persistence our faith and hope in Him; and we sinners are embittered at those poor who daily and relentlessly ask us for alms - even at children, whose trust in people is especially great, their faith in the kindness of others has no limits, because they themselves are still simple and kind, not malicious. Being money-loving, voluptuous, proud, we often look at them with contempt, we raise a cry at them - gentle sheep - and lose our temper, not wanting to understand that they are forced to persistently ask us for alms by hunger, lack of clothes, shoes, the urgent demand of the landlady or the owner of money for the corner they borrow from them. Are they not the ones who cry out to the Lord in the prophet David: we are filled with much humiliation; Most of all, is our soul filled with the reproach of the gobblers and the humiliation of the proud (Ps. 123:3-4)? And, of course, sooner or later their plaintive cry will reach the sky. What am I saying? It has long since reached the ears of the Lord of hosts, and His wrath and righteous vengeance will stir up His anger against us. Hitherto I have not lacked in anything, having mercy on others, and I will not fail to the end, for the Lord is the same yesterday and today (Heb. 13:8). It is not in vain that it is said: the hand of the giver will not fail. Until now, the Lord has increased temporary blessings for me, and has not taken them away. I glorify the bounty of the Lord, His rich providence. You are the representative of the faith and the Church, O priest, you are the representative of Christ the Lord Himself; you must be an example of meekness, purity, courage, firmness, patience, and sublime spirit. You are doing God’s work, and you should not lose heart before anyone, you should not flatter or servile anyone, and you should not consider your work above all human affairs. Whoever gets used to giving an account of his life in confession here will not be afraid to give an answer at the Last Judgment of Christ. Yes, for this reason a meek court of repentance was established here, so that we, purified and corrected through local repentance, could give a non-shameful answer at the terrible judgment of Christ. This is the first impulse to sincere repentance and, moreover, certainly annually. The longer we do not repent, the worse it is for ourselves, the more confusing the bonds of sin become, the more difficult it is, therefore, to give an account. The second impulse is peace: the calmer your soul will be the more sincere you confess. Sins are secret snakes that gnaw at a person’s heart and his entire being; they give him no rest, constantly sucking his heart; sins are thorny thorns that constantly gore the soul; sins are sinful darkness. Those who repent must bear the fruits of repentance. Repentance is helped by consciousness, memory, imagination, feeling, will. Just as we sin with all the strength of our soul, so repentance must be all-soul. Repentance only in words, without the intention of correction and without a feeling of contrition, is called hypocritical. The consciousness of sins is obscured; it must be clarified; the feeling is muffled, dulled, it must be awakened; the will grows dull, weakened to correct it, it must be forced; The kingdom of heaven is taken by force (Matthew 11:12). Confession must be heartfelt, deep, complete. Ah, my brothers! won't we all soon disappear from the face of the earth, and we will be as if we had never existed? Where are the works of love? Where is the fulfillment of the Creative commandments? Where is the spirit of Christ in us? Where is kindness, where is humility, where is love for souls, where is impartiality towards the temporary? Where is the zeal for spiritual benefits? We are vain, stupid people! We have distorted the image of our souls, we have distorted our lives, we have turned them around, we have turned them upside down. Instead of Christ, we please the devil. This quiet, beautiful sky, dotted with stars, will present itself as a once terrible sight, before the appearance of the Lord from heaven. Oh, sinners, learn daily from the spectacle of heaven, when you can learn. The sun will darken, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven (Matthew 24:29). There is, Christian brothers, true, real life, and there is imaginary, false life. To live in order to drink, eat, dress, walk, get rich, generally live for earthly pleasures or worries, as well as to initiate intrigues, intrigues, judge and dress up about others, is an imaginary life; to live in order to please God and others, to pray for the salvation of their souls and to help their salvation in every possible way means to truly live. The first life is an unceasing spiritual death, the second is an unceasing life of the spirit. The Lord said about His Church: I will build My Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it (Matthew 16:18). This is said both about the shepherds of the Church, or the church hierarchy and about all true believers, and about all the sacraments, about all the dogmas, commandments of St. Orthodox faith, and about all the rites of the sacraments, for example. liturgy, priesthood, marriage, baptism, confirmation, unction, which are established for all centuries and have passed for many centuries and millennia unchanged. This is how strong the Church founded by the Lord is! Remember these words of the Lord and do not hesitate at all when performing any sacrament. Be as strong as adamant. I love to pray in the church of God, especially in St. the altar, at the throne or at the altar of God, for I am miraculously changed in the church by the grace of God; in the prayer of repentance and tenderness, thorns and bonds of passions fall from my soul, and it becomes so easy for me; all the charm, all the charm of passions disappear, it’s as if I’m dying for the world, and the world is for me with all its benefits; I come to life in God and for God, for the one God, and I am completely imbued with Him and am one spirit with Him; I become like a child comforted on its mother's lap; My heart is then full of heavenly, sweet peace; the soul is enlightened by heavenly light; you see everything brightly, you look at everything correctly, you feel friendship and love for everyone, even for your enemies themselves, and you willingly forgive and forgive them. Oh, how blessed is the soul with God! The Church is truly an earthly paradise. What is the most terrible thing for a person? Death? Yes, death. Each of us cannot imagine without horror how he will have to die and take his last breath. And how are parents tormented when their dear children die, when they lie lifeless before their eyes? But do not be afraid and do not grieve too much, brothers. Jesus Christ, our Savior, with His death conquered our death and with His resurrection laid the foundation for our resurrection, and every week, every Sunday day we triumph in the risen Christ, our common future resurrection, and we begin eternal life, to which the present temporary life is a short, although cramped and regrettable path; the death of a true Christian is nothing more than a dream until the day of resurrection, or like birth into a new life. So, celebrating every week the resurrection of Christ and your resurrection from the dead, learn to continually die to sin and rise in souls from dead deeds, enrich yourself with virtue and do not grieve inconsolably for the dead; learn to face death without horror, as the definition of the Heavenly Father, which, with the resurrection of Christ from the dead, lost its formidability. Sin is absurd and disastrous. For example, a drunkard from excessive consumption of wine drinks is sick and does various indecent and shameful things, which he himself is ashamed to think and remember, and yet continues to drink; greedy for food, a glutton, after overeating he feels heaviness, an eclipse of his abilities, a tie of the tongue, and he himself finds that he becomes like an animal or bestial, because he often breathes malice and hatred towards those living with him and eating with him or asking him for daily alms - he is subjected to cramped conditions and sorrow, deprived of peace and tranquility, becomes incapable of heavenly wisdom or being a true Christian, to live for the highest purpose of existence and yet continues to feast and overeat; the adulterer sees that through adultery he defiles and dishonors his nature, soul and body, exposes them to illness, perverts the order of life established by the Creator, is exposed to shame, but continues to commit adultery; The lover of money sees that wealth weighs him down, deprives him of spiritual freedom and makes him his slave, turns him away from God and from love for his neighbor, takes him away from true life and brings death into the soul, takes away peace of mind and body, imposes heavy worries, however, he continues to collect great wealth and adds greater burden to himself until, exhausted by worries, he gets sick and dies, having lost his soul through the acquisition of wealth. This is every sin - pride, malice, envy, etc. One must kill in oneself earthly love, love-passion for earthly carnal beauty, for sweets, for self-interest, for one’s flesh, for honor, and revive love for heaven - the true fatherland, for the soul - a heavenly citizen, for virtue - to hate everything that the flesh loves, to love what it despises, what it fears (for example, thinking about death, about judgment), or poverty, sick, suffering. Let them laugh at you, resist you when you are under the influence of any passion; Do not be at all offended by those who laugh and resist, for they do you good; crucify your pride and recognize the wrongness and delusion of your heart. But bitterly regret those who laugh at the words and deeds of faith and piety, truth, those who oppose the good that you do and which you want to implant in others. May God keep you from being angry with them, for they are pitiful and worthy of tears. - Glory to Thee, God, my Savior, who delivered me from the tyranny of passions, through my prayer. When you are in church, remember that you are in the living presence of the Lord God, standing before His face, before His eyes, in the living presence of the Mother of God, St. Angels and the church of the firstborn, i.e. all saints: forefathers, prophets, apostles, hierarchs, martyrs, saints and righteous and all saints. Always remember and be aware of this when you are in church, and stand with reverence, willingly participating in the Divine service with your heart. I am a moral nonentity: without the Lord I have no truly true thought, no good feeling, and no direct good deed; Without Him I cannot drive away from myself sinful thoughts, passionate feelings, for example. malice, envy, fornication, pride, etc. The Lord is the fulfillment of all the good that I think, feel, do. Oh, how infinitely wide is the acting grace of the Lord in me! Everything is Lord for me, and so clearly, constantly. Mine is only sinfulness, mine is only weaknesses. Oh, how we must love the Lord, who deigned to call us from non-existence to being, to honor us with His image and likeness, to settle in a paradise of sweets, to conquer the whole earth, and when we did not keep His commandments, we were carried away by the deception of the devil and immeasurably offended our Creator with our ingratitude, and took into ourselves the qualities of the tempter: pride, malice, envy, ingratitude and all his evil arts, which he began to teach us as his captives - He did not reject us forever, but deigned to redeem us from sin, curse and death, to which we fell through sin, and Himself at the end of the ages appeared on earth, took on our nature; He himself became my Teacher, Healer, Miracle Worker, Savior; He himself accepted execution for us, died for us so that we would not perish forever, rose again in order to resurrect us after death, ascended to heaven in order to raise us there too, who had fallen through sin, and became everything for us: food, drink, light, cleansing, shrine, health, intervening power, saving, preserving and merciful. I am nothing, but by the grace of the priesthood, through the teaching of the divine Body and Blood, I become a secondary or tertiary culprit in the healing of diseases; through me, the grace of the Spirit revives infants and adults into existence, celebrates the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist, unites the faithful with the Divine; through me he solves and binds human sins, closes and opens heaven, gives soul-saving advice, rules, etc. Oh, how we honor the priesthood! Brethren, do you see how many good deeds the Creator and Savior pours out on you through the priests! Very often, the darkness of the spirit of malice surrounds our heart and does not allow us to speak peacefully with our neighbors who have offended us once or several times or expressed their ill will towards us. We must earnestly pray to the Lord that He Himself will disperse this darkness of malice and fill our hearts with goodness and love even towards our enemies, for in the blindness of passions - pride, envy, covetousness, malice - sometimes they themselves do not know what they are doing, just as the enemies of the Lord Jesus Christ did not know, who persecuted Him all their lives and finally put Him to death with a blasphemous death. We must remember that this is what the Christian faith consists of: loving our enemies: for if we love only those who love us, why do we do unnecessary things, and don’t the pagans do the same? (Matthew 5:46–47). Seek, first, the kingdom of God and His righteousness: and all this will be added to you (Matthew 6:33). How to seek, firstly, the kingdom of God? In the following way: suppose you want to walk or drive, sail somewhere for some everyday, temporary need, first pray to the Lord so that He will correct the paths of your heart, and then the upcoming bodily path, or to direct the path of your life according to His commandments, and desire this with all your heart, and often renew your prayer about this. The Lord, seeing your sincere desire and effort to walk according to His commandments, will correct all your ways little by little. Further, for example, if you want to create clean air in your room, or if you go for a walk in the fresh air, remember about a pure and unclean heart. Many of us are eager to freshen the room air (and this is wonderful) or to walk in the fresh air and do not think about the need for purity of spirit or heart (spiritual, so to speak, air, the breath of life) and living in the fresh air, we allow ourselves unclean thoughts, unclean movements of the heart, or even foul language and the most filthy acts of the flesh. If you are looking for material light, remember the spiritual light, which is necessary for the soul and without which it remains in the darkness of passions, in the darkness of spiritual death. I have come into the world, says the Lord, that whoever believes in Me will not remain in darkness (John 12:46). If you see the ferocity and hear the howling of a storm or read about shipwrecks, remember the storm of human passions that raise a daily howl and confusion in human hearts and wreck the spiritual ship of the soul, or the ship of human society, and pray earnestly to the Lord that He will tame the storm of sins, as He once tamed the storm at sea with a word, and may He eradicate our passions from our hearts and restore silence everlasting. If you feel a feeling of hunger or thirst and want to eat or drink, remember the hunger or thirst of the soul (it thirsts for righteousness, justification in Jesus Christ, sanctification), which if you do not satisfy, your soul may die of hunger, suppressed by passions, exhausted, exhausted, and while satisfying your bodily hunger, do not forget to quench your spiritual hunger, even more so first, by conversation with God, sincere repentance of sins, by reading gospel history and gospel moral teachings, especially the communion of the divine Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ. If you like to show off your dress, or when you put on clothes, remember the incorruptible robe of righteousness, in which our soul must be clothed, or about Christ Jesus, who is our spiritual robe, as it is said: if you were baptized into Christ, you put on Christ (Gal. 3:27). The passion for panache very often completely displaces from the heart the very thought of the incorruptible garment of the soul and turns the whole life into a vain concern for grace in clothing. If you are a student, a student of any educational institution, or an official of any department, an officer of any military unit, or a technologist, a painter, a sculptor, a manufacturer, a craftsman of any workshop, remember that the first science of each of you is to be a true Christian, to sincerely believe in the Trinitarian God, to talk with God every day in prayer, to participate in Divine services, to observe the statutes and decrees of the Church, both before and after business, and after the deed, bear the name of Jesus in your heart, for He is light, strength, our shrine, our help. It’s an amazing thing: no matter how much we worry about our health, no matter how much we take care of ourselves, no matter how healthy and enjoyable foods we eat, no matter how healthy drinks we drink, no matter how much we walk in the fresh air, what ultimately ends up happening is that we are exposed to disease and decay. The saints, who despised the flesh, mortified it by incessant abstinence and fasting, lying on the bare ground, vigil, labor, and unceasing prayer, immortalized both their soul and their flesh; our bodies, much nourished and sweetly nourished, emit a stench after death, and sometimes during life, and their bodies are fragrant and bloom, both during life and after death. It’s an amazing thing: while we create, we destroy our body, while they, while destroying, created; We douse it with fragrances and do not avoid its stench, but they, not caring about the fragrance of the body, but about the soul being a fragrance for God, scented their bodies. My brothers! Understand the task, the purpose of your life. We must mortify the multi-passionate body or carnal passions through abstinence, work, prayer, and not revive it and its passions through delicacy, satiety, laziness. It is good in all respects to give to the poor: in addition to pardon at the Last Judgment, and here on earth, alms-givers often receive great mercies from their neighbors, and what others get for a lot of money is given to them for free. In fact, the most loving, righteous and generous Heavenly Father, whose children have mercy on the merciful, will he not reward them here too, to encourage them to greater deeds, or at least to continue the same works of mercy and to correct the unmerciful, who laugh at the merciful? He will reward you with dignity and righteousness. How many empty and incessant pretexts does the hater of the human race present for hating our neighbors, so that, even if you are constantly angry with people, even if you are constantly angry, live according to the hellish, all-destructive will of the demon. Do not chase after his ghosts, leave all enmity, and love everyone, for love is from God. Lord, You are constantly conquering hell in me, through my prayer, and if I am not yet in hell, this is Your mercy, hell to the Conqueror, Lord! Glory to You, our Benefactor, our Savior! What would happen to us without You? We would be true beasts and would destroy each other. What would happen to individuals would also happen to nations. If individuals and nations lived according to Your Gospel, then there would be no enmity, civil strife, or wars. When do we fully realize the need for our temporal and eternal good to live according to the Gospel? And now how few people read the Gospel! God! I confess before You that life and health and strength of spiritual and physical strength are not in the countryside, not in the forest, but in Your church, especially in the liturgy and in Your life-giving Mysteries! Oh, the greatest blessedness of St. Secrets! Oh, life-giving saints. Secrets! Oh, unspoken love, divine Mysteries! Oh, the wondrous and unceasing providence of the Lord God for our salvation and deification, the Divine Mysteries! Oh, the transformation of eternal life, the divine Mysteries! My Lady, Most Holy Theotokos! I prayed to you before the liturgy, asking me for the grace to perform it with great power, for the glory of God, for the salvation of the world and my own! You arranged everything for the good. Thank you, All-merciful Helper, Quick to Hear, unshameful hope! How many blessings the faith of Christ has brought me so far! Not to mention countless other benefits, I will say one thing: how many emotional disturbances and passions she drove away and pacified me! How many crooked aspirations of the heart have been corrected! How many times have sins been cleansed and the soul saved from spiritual death! And how close our Lord is to the believer! He is like air, like the breath of our lips, the breath of our heart, our soul. Lord, I thank You with all my heart for the gracious influences of Your Holy Spirit during public and domestic Divine services, for the cleansing of sins, for peace, tenderness and tears, for fatherly consolation, for boldness, for strength. As a priest, pray especially for the purification, enlightenment, sanctification and renewal of the people of God and for your own renewal, for although you often drink the Blood of the New Testament and taste the life-giving Flesh of the Lamb of God, who can soon regenerate and renew you, however, due to your negligence, you have not yet been reborn and not renewed, being devoted in the depths of your heart to the same passions that were in you before. Bring to God a fiery prayer for the renewal of yourself and His people. This is a sacrifice most pleasing to God. Bring it with faith, strong hope, and unfeigned love: for to Him who came from an old robe to make a new one, and pour new wine into old wineskins, the prayer for renewal is fragrant incense and assistance to the Master’s intentions for the revival of the human race, worn out by sin. For one who performs obedience without complaint, there is great fruit for the soul: which we see, both from the example of the Lord Jesus Christ, Who for obedience is exalted among humanity, above all principality and power and dominion, - from the example of all the saints of God, who, for obedience to the Son of God, His Gospel, were awarded incorruptible heavenly crowns and eternal life with God and with His holy Angels. In addition, to the one who performs obedience, there is rich fruit for the body: for what the lazy lose, the industrious and diligent, who bear obedience, gain. Therefore, obedience is fruitful for the soul and for the body, and if it is unfruitful for the body, then it is certainly for the soul. Therefore, everyone be obedient for good, but not for evil. To be humble means to consider oneself worthy for the sins of any humiliation, insult, persecution, beatings; and to be meek means, in a gentle heart, to endure untruths about us, curses, etc., and to pray for our enemies. The edge of sorrow, which you thrust innocently into someone else’s heart, will also enter your heart, according to the strict law of retribution: you measure with the least measure, it will be measured back to you (Matthew 7:2). If you don’t want grief, don’t do it to someone else. If people work for so long in the bustle of life and often force us to wait in vain for them to finish it, then shouldn’t we, the servants of God, work slowly, with order, with meaning and feeling, with great reverence and zeal for the Lord God, reading our prayers clearly, separately? Let them wait for us better than we wait for them. May this be done, Lord, during every sacred service, during every celebration of the sacraments. Give me all this: for without You we can do nothing (John 15:5). A true Christian never forgets that he is a captive of the devil in this world and sighs incessantly for the spiritual freedom given by the Son of God to all who believe in Him and make the effort to free themselves from slavery to sins; a true Christian lives carefully, using all earthly things in moderation, does not spend time in idle talk and idle games, does not covet, does not envy, constantly prays, and repents of his sins. They say: it’s not important to eat meat during Lent, it’s not about food during Lent; It’s not an important thing to wear expensive, beautiful clothes, go to the theater, to parties, to masquerades, to have magnificent expensive dishes, furniture, an expensive carriage, dashing horses, to collect and save money, etc.; but - because of what does our heart turn away from God, the Source of life, because of what do we lose eternal life? Is it not because of gluttony, is it not because of precious clothes, like the evangelical rich man, is it not because of theaters and masquerades? Why do we become hard-hearted towards the poor and even towards our relatives - is it not because of our addiction to sweets, to the belly in general, to clothing, to expensive dishes, furniture, carriages, to money, etc.? is it possible for God and mammon to work (Matthew 6:24); to be a friend of the world and a friend of God, to work for Christ and Belial? Impossible. Why did Adam and Eve lose paradise and fall into sin and death? Is it not because of the food alone? Take a good look at why we are careless about the salvation of our souls, which cost the Son of God so dearly; Because of this, we add sins to sins, we constantly fall into resistance to God, into a vain life. Is it not because of an addiction to earthly things, and especially to earthly sweets? What makes our heart hard? because of which we become flesh and not spirit, perverting our moral nature, is it not because of addiction to food, drink, etc. earthly goods? How can we then say that eating meat during Lent is not important? This very thing that we say so is pride, vanity, disobedience, disobedience to God and moving away from Him. From what deep ulcer, from what mortal wound, from what murderous breath of sin did the heavenly Physician, the Lord Jesus Christ, come to save us! Who will fully comprehend this? Nobody. Only partially, from our own experience, some of us see the depth of the abyss into which we have fallen through sin - all our powerlessness for good, all the strength and abyss of evil or sin nesting in our heart. But even this allows us to see the grace of God, enlightening our darkened hearts. A person does not see this with his natural mind, and therefore cannot see and feel the need for correction and have the strength for this correction and renewal. I thank the Lord, strong in goodness and good in His strength, for the speedy and great mercy, for the healing of deep heart wounds caused by sin. What prolonged prayer at home could not do, one touch on the life-giving, glorious and terrible throne of God in the church of the holy chief apostles Peter and Paul did: the ulcer of the heart, confusion, sorrow and tightness suddenly disappeared, as if a great mountain had fallen from my heart, and I became peaceful, there was lightness, spaciousness and boldness in my heart. Wonderful are Your works, O Lord! Marvelous are You, who sits on the throne of Your glory in Christian churches, O Lord, the most righteous Judge and the most merciful Savior and Almighty! Glory to Your invincible goodness, glory to Your innumerable power, King of the ages. Brethren! Among the creatures created by God, there are temporary, transitory ones, such as all unreasonable animate and inanimate creatures, organic and inorganic, and even the world itself, which is about to pass away: for the image of this world passes away (1 Cor. 7:31), - and there are eternal, imperishable ones, such as: Angels and human souls, the demons themselves with their Satan. For a person, earthly life, life in the body, serves only as preparation for eternal life, which begins after the death of the body. Therefore, we must urgently use this life to prepare for another, and work more on weekdays for earthly life, on Sundays and holidays, work entirely to the Lord God, devoting them to Divine services, reading the Word of God, contemplation of God, soul-saving conversations, good deeds, especially mercy. He sins gravely who neglects the matter of his spiritual education for eternal life in the heavenly world. How can you forget your last appointment! How can one be so ungrateful before the Creator, who created us in His image and likeness into incorruption and for union with Himself, and who redeemed us with His cross and opened the gates of the kingdom of heaven for us! How can many of us be considered unthinking cattle and become like them (Ps. 49:13, 21)! Woe are our hearts! 2 The body, as the temporary clothing of the soul, is perishable and does not constitute the direct life of a person; true life is spiritual life. Tear and destroy a person's clothes, he himself will remain alive; So after murder, after death, after the decay of the body, the soul remains alive. Yes, we take the greatest care for the soul, for its salvation! Oh, holy church! how good and sweet it is to pray in you! For where is fiery prayer if not within your walls, before the throne of God and before the face of Him who sits on it! Truly, the soul melts from the tenderness of prayer, and tears flow down the cheeks like water. It is sweet to pray for everyone. I marvel at the greatness and life-giving nature of the Divine Mysteries: an old woman who was coughing up blood and completely exhausted, not eating anything - from the Holy Communion. The secrets I taught her, she began to get better that same day. The girl, completely dying, after receiving Holy Communion. Tine, on the same day, began to recover, eat, drink and speak, while she was almost unconscious, tossed about violently and did not eat or drink anything. Glory to Your life-giving and terrible Mysteries, Lord! Be faithful to God always and in everything: whether you say the Lord’s Prayer, say every word sincerely, with reverence, focusing your mind and heart on one God, not paying attention to anyone; Whether you read another prayer, read it again with all your heart, without double hearts, without paying undue attention to anyone or anything. The enemy of our salvation especially tries to distract our heart and mind from God when we begin to serve Him, and tries to adulterously tie our heart and mind to something extraneous. Always, at every moment, be with God, especially when you offer Him prayer: at this especially time, be faithful and unchanging to Him. If you change, you will fall away from life, you will plunge yourself into sorrow and distress. Don’t rush to food and drink, but rather hurry to the work of God, and while doing God’s work, do not think about food and drink. Remember firmly before Whom you stand, with Whom you talk, Whom you sing; be entirely in God, belong entirely to Him alone, pray with all your heart, sing with all your heart, serve for your neighbors as you would for yourself, cordially, wholeheartedly, without double hearts and thoughts. God! help: without You I can do nothing (John 15:5). The heart is pure, so the whole person is pure; the heart is not pure - and the whole person is not pure: from the heart come evil thoughts, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, blasphemy... (Matthew 15:19). But the saints, through fasting, vigil, prayer, contemplation of God, reading the word of God, martyrdom, labor and sweat, acquired a pure heart, and the Holy Spirit dwelt in them, cleansed them from all defilement and sanctified them with eternal sanctification. Try above all to cleanse your heart. Create in me a pure heart, O God (Ps. 50:12). Do not value the gifts of God at the price of silver and gold. Tune accepted, Tune be ready to give. Leave the reward for your labors to the will of those who receive the sacrament; for those who have offered or are offering the least payment for your spiritual labor, work with the same desire with which you work for those who offer a large reward. During the work of God, do not think about money, do not offend the Spirit of God and do not sell the gifts of God, so that your money will not perish with you. Ah, many actually sell, while others buy or think of buying the gifts of the Holy Spirit with silver, like Simon the Magus. Food and drink should be consumed only to strengthen one’s strength, and not for delicacy, and not to be eaten when nature does not require it. Many of us (and I am the first), if we do not repent and correct ourselves, will be condemned for eating and drinking at the wrong time, and thus, with reason, we lived like unreasonable animals and darkened our unreasonable heart. You amused yourself with food and drink and often ate and drank when you should not have eaten and drunk: woe to you, who are now full, for you will hunger (Luke 6:25). Enjoy yourselves on earth, satisfy your hearts like on the day of slaughter (James 5:5). Pay the strictest and most active attention to this daily action of yours, to eating and drinking, because your spiritual, social and family activity depends very much on food and drink, on their quality and quantity. Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be burdened with gluttony and drunkenness (Luke 21:34); and tea and coffee also belong to drunkenness if they are consumed untimely and in excess. Oh, woe to us who are now saturated and often look at the gifts of God with disdain! The devil acts on us through our flesh and through materiality in general to our detriment. So through wine, tea, coffee, through delicacies, in general through money, clothes, etc. it inflames our passions. Therefore, you must be very careful not to drink a lot of wine, tea or coffee, or eat delicacies, especially without other substantial, strong and healthy food. These delicacies should be consumed after everything, in the most moderate quantities. Behold, Satan asks you to sow like wheat (Luke 22:31). This is who so greatly scatters our thoughts in church during Divine services, at home during prayer; This is who distracts our thoughts from God, from our souls and human souls, from the heavenly and eternal; This is who occupies us with earthly trifles or earthly vanity, earthly insignificance, earthly delights: food, drink, clothes, dwellings, etc. and so on. We need to pray for each other, so that our faith does not fail, as the Savior prayed for Peter. By eating extensively, you become a carnal man, not having a spirit, or soulless flesh; and by fasting, you attract the Holy Spirit to yourself and become spiritual. Take cotton paper not moistened with water, it is light and, in small quantities, floats in the air, but moisten it with water, it becomes heavy and immediately falls to the floor. So it is with the soul. Oh, how one must protect the soul through fasting! Is involuntary, outward prayer beneficial? No; she is disgusting to God. Think the same about teaching. Involuntary, literal teaching does not bring any benefit. Just as an involuntary prayer book only goes through the words, but often does not understand or feel their power, and does not enlighten, does not warm, but enlivens his heart with them, so does the involuntary student. We must teach people to study voluntarily, we must teach them to think about what they say. By what name are you called by faith? Christian. What does it mean? It means that I am a member of the great body of Christ, which is called the Church of Christ, that I am Christ’s servant and obedient. What does the name Christian oblige you to? To ensure that I always have Christ in my thoughts and heart, always have His spirit in all my life, imitating His life, fulfilling His holy commandments and philosophizing on high, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God (Col. 3:1-2), despising those below. What is holiness? Freedom from all sin and completeness of all virtue. Only a zealous few achieve this freedom from sin and a virtuous life, and not suddenly, but gradually, through prolonged and many sorrows, illnesses and labors, fasting, vigil, prayer, and then not by their own strength, but by the grace of Christ. Only the Lady Theotokos was sanctified from her earliest youth from her mother’s womb, and then the Lord sanctified Her into the Holy of Holies with perfect sanctification through Her unceasing prayer, reading the Word of God and meditation on it, through the instructions of heavenly, pure, ethereal Powers, especially through His inner illumination. Shrine corresponds in nature to the light of the sun and the whiteness of snow, and sin corresponds to darkness, alien to light, and dirt or rust. Looking at the icon of the Mother of God with the Eternal Child, marvel at how sincerely the Divinity united with humanity, glorify the goodness and omnipotence of God and, having recognized your human dignity, live worthy of the high title to which you are called in Christ, that is, the title of a child of God and heir to eternal bliss. Why does the Lord give man a continuation of days on earth? So that a person has time to repent and be cleansed of sins and passions, and so that truth and love completely penetrate the heart through teaching his feelings regarding good and evil. What are human souls? This is one and the same soul or the same breath of God, which God breathed into Adam, which from Adam has spread to the entire human race to this day. All people are therefore the same as one person or one great tree of humanity. Hence the most natural commandment, based on the unity of our nature: thou shalt love the Lord thy God (thy archetype, thy Father) with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy thought, and with all thy strength, and with thy neighbor (for who is closest to me like me, a man of the same blood to me), as thyself (Mark 12:30–31; fn. Matt. 22:37–39 ; Luke 10:27 ). There is a natural need to fulfill these two commandments. Receive every person who comes to you, especially with a spiritual purpose, with a kind and cheerful appearance, even if he is a beggar or a beggar, and inwardly humble yourself before everyone, considering yourself lower than him, for you were appointed by Christ Himself to be the servant of all, and everyone is His members, although, like you, they bear the wounds of sins. The truth of the Gospel and church readings should not be doubted. Everything in the Gospel and in the Church is the breath of the Spirit of truth, silver kindled, tempted by the earth, purified by the sevenfold (Ps. 11:7), life, peace and spiritual sweetness. Woe to the doubter: the spirit of lies will darken, oppress and plunge him into despondency and sorrow. Experience. The Lord, as the most loving Father of children, is pleased when we sincerely pray for people - His children, and just as parents, at the request of their good and well-behaved children, have mercy on the unkind, capricious and malicious, so the heavenly Father, through the prayer of His beings (2 Tim. 2:19) or through the prayer of His priests, endowed with grace, has mercy on the people. unworthy, as he had mercy and mercy on the rebellious and murmuring Jewish people in the desert for the prayers of Moses. But what a fiery prayer it was! To the glory of the most holy name of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Lady Theotokos. “I felt a thousand times in my heart that after the Holy Communion. The Mysteries, or after fervent prayer at home, ordinary or on the occasion of some sin, passion and sorrow and crampedness, the Lord, through the prayers of the Lady, or the Lady Herself, through the goodness of the Lord, gave me, as it were, a new nature of the spirit, pure, good, majestic, bright, wise, gracious, instead of the unclean, dull and lethargic, cowardly, gloomy, dull, evil. I have undergone many wonderful, great changes, to the surprise of myself and often of others. Glory to Your power, Lord! Glory to Your goodness, Lord! Glory to Your mercies, O Lord, which You have shown to me, a sinner! Our life is love, yes, love. And where there is love, there is God, and where God is, there is all goodness. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you (Matthew 6:33). So, feed and delight everyone with joy, please everyone with joy, and rely in everything on the Heavenly Father, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. Sacrifice what is dear to you to love your neighbor. Bring your Isaac, your many-passionate heart, as a sacrifice to God, temper him with your will, crucify the flesh with passions and lusts. You have received everything from God, be ready to give everything to God, so that, having been faithful to your Lord in little things, you will later be placed over many things. For a little while you were faithful, I will set you over many (Matthew 25:23). Consider all passions as a dream, as you have learned this a thousand times. Amen. Oh, how wise a Christian should be in life! He must be like the many-eyed Cherub - be all eye, all mind and unceasing meditation, except in cases in which unthinking faith is required. Christian! remember and always carry in your thoughts and in your heart the great words of the Lord's Prayer: Our Father, who art in heaven (remember who is our Father, God our Father, our Love; who are we? We are His children, and among ourselves brothers; in what kind of love should the children of such a Father live among themselves? If they were children of Abraham, they would quickly do the works of Abraham (John 8:39); what kind of works should they do? us?). Hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done. Give us our daily bread today (our bread (everything is common), and not your own; self-love must be expelled from the hearts of the children of God: we are one), and forgive us our debts (if you want and love God to forgive you your sins, consider it common practice to forgive the sins of people who sin against you, knowing that love is long-suffering and merciful). Do not lead us into temptation (and do not give in to temptation yourself; do not let your feet fall into confusion; you will fall asleep, keep you. The Lord is your protection on your right hand (Ps. 120:3, 5). But deliver us from the evil one (do not give yourself over to him willingly, and the Lord will not give you over to him). For Yours is the kingdom (recognize the one King God and work for Him alone) and strength (trust in His almighty power) and glory (jealous for His glory with all your might and throughout your life) forever (He is the eternal King, and the kingdom of Satan will soon pass away as a predatory, false one). Amen. All this is true. Remember this prayer most of all and read it in your mind more often and think about it, what every word, expression and petition means in it. Brothers and sisters! you were born again (after birth from your parents) by water and the Spirit, you then became children of God - tell me, do you live worthy of such a high title? Are you living as the children of God should live? Is it clear from your actions that you are living in heaven (Phil. 3:20)? Is it clear that you are waiting again for your Lord from heaven, as He promised us this in His St. Word? Do you despise life above, do you strive with all your heart for what is above? Do you not love an adulterous and sinful world? If anyone loves the world, there is no Father’s love in it. The love of this world is enmity against God. For all that is in the world is carnal lust, the lust of desire and the pride of life (1 John 2:15–16; fn. James 4:4). This world crucified and is still crucifying the Son of God. Brothers and sisters! look after yourself, are you living according to the Gospel? Isn't he disgusted? Read more often the first chapters of the Gospel of Matthew. Save us, Thy family, O Lady! Save us, Your half-blooded ones! Save us, Mother of the Belly and Mother of us all, although we are not worthy to call You our Mother! Cleanse, sanctify, strengthen and save us through Your prayers! Why do I need an estate? In order for them to exist for me and my family and my relatives, to give to the poor; and not in order to accumulate it. Measure generously, so that God may generously measure to you according to your giving. Moreover, all possessions or means of life are God’s, not ours, and God is the Head of life: He takes care of maintaining our life through ourselves or through others or directly. Let us commit ourselves and each other and our whole life to Christ our God 3 . We say: we need to live, but our life is God: this means that God will and will continue to give us all the means of life. In many secular magazines and newspapers, the number of which has multiplied to the extreme, the spirit of the earth, often opposed to God, breathes, while a Christian (in hope) is a citizen not only of the earth, but also of heaven, and must philosophize about heavenly things. Pagan ancient writing was often, it seems, better and purer (Cicero), more sublime in its origin and motivation than other writings of Christian peoples. The hypostatic Word of the Father, our Lord Jesus Christ, is constantly and strongly insulted by the Christian peoples, who should be primarily verbal, that is, God-like beings, in oral and printed word, which is wasted in abundance and even to the temptation of Christians, who are distracted by secular writing from reading the Word of God and the writings of St. fathers. By multiplying flattering words, editors and publishers of magazines and newspapers catch and deceive the verbal flock of Christ. Oh, the Word of God! What answer will we give at Your terrible judgment! Where is now the reading in homes of the divinely inspired Psalter, which inspires such great faith in God, such strong trust in God in adversity, in illness, in troubles and sorrows, and such ardent love for God? Where is the reading of inspired psalms, which was the favorite reading of our ancestors, not only ordinary ones, but the boyars and the princes themselves? It is not there: but in many there is no faith, Christian hope and love for God and neighbor, but there is unbelief, despair, hatred. There is no fiery prayer, no purity of morals, no spirit of contrition for sins and tenderness, no truth, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Most Christians are imbued with the spirit of the world, the spirit of magazines, newspapers and secular writers in general, who themselves are in turn imbued with a pagan spirit, not a Christian spirit, the spirit of denying the inspiration of Holy Scripture and exalting themselves, their proud and pompous mind, the spirit of everyday vanity. Everything that the Church puts into our mouths and ears is the truth, the breath or teaching of the Holy Spirit. Reverence every thought, every word of the Church. Remember that the area of ​​thought and words is God’s property, like the whole world, visible and invisible. You have nothing of your own, not even a thought, not a word. All is our Father, all is God. Merge into the general order, as gold merges into certain forms, or as nature is folded into one harmonious whole. Don’t live a selfish, separate life. The opening of seas and rivers is an image of the release of our soul from our body. The waters, having freed themselves from the ice, come face to face with the air, which begins to sway them, and with the sun, which begins to bathe in their waters: thus pure souls, having been freed from the body, come face to face with Christ, are cooled by Him and illuminated by Him. The waters, while there is an icy shell on them, are, as it were, in prison, in chains, and do not have direct communication with the air and with the light of the sun: so our souls, while they live in a bodily shell, do not have direct communication with God and with the saints, but only through their shell, in part, and when the bodily shell falls off, then we will see our Lord face to face, just as the waters, after opening from the ice, are directly turned to the sun and come into direct contact with the air. Our heart is simple, singular, and therefore cannot work for two masters: God or mammon (Matthew 6:24), that is, wealth; This means that you cannot sincerely serve the Lord and at the same time have an addiction to earthly things, for all this relates to mammon. And it is unworthy for man to work for wealth, for it is earth and dust. All earthly things, if we become attached to them with our hearts, weaken our hearts, earth them, and from God, and from the Mother of God, and all the saints, from everything spiritual, heavenly and eternal, they turn us away and tie us to the earthly, corruptible, temporary, and also turn us away from love for our neighbor. To complete all that has been said, it must also be said that the spirit of attachment to earthly things, sparing and pitying earthly things, is the spirit of the devil, and the devil himself inhabits a person through his attachment to earthly things; it often enters our heart like an insolent conqueror, through an instant attachment to earthly things, not immediately rejected, darkening, suppressing, killing our spirit and making it incapable of any work of God, infecting it with pride, blasphemy, murmuring, contempt of the sacred and the neighbor, resistance, despondency, despair, malice. For our sake, the Lord became incarnate, suffered, was crucified, died and rose again. For our sake, He adorned His Mother, the Most Pure Virgin Mary, with all the virtues and provided all the divine powers, so that She, most merciful and all-perfect, would be after Him everything for us. So let the grace of God, with which our Lady is filled, not be in vain for us. May we all flow with boldness and hope to the wonderful, all-powerful and most pure protection of the Virgin. Whether our sins oppress us, let us pray to Her, so that She, with the hyssop of Her prayers, will cleanse us from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. Blasphemy and contempt for the spiritual word come from what? From the pride of our hearts, from the arrogance, satiety of our minds. You constantly notice that God does not tolerate the slightest momentary impurity in you, and you, immediately upon the admission of any unclean thought in your heart, are abandoned by the world and together by God Himself, and you become the receptacle of the devil if you do not immediately reject sin, so that about every sinful thought, especially a sinful word and deed, you must say: this is the devil; and about every holy and good thought, as well as word and deed, we must say that it is God or it is from God. Imagine now, what an adorned, pure and unshakable chamber of the Almighty is the most holy soul and the most pure body of the Mother of God, into whose womb God the Word dwelt and dwelt in Her as a deity, soul and body most pure? Imagine what an eternal, endless, unchangeable shrine She is! Imagine what reverence and glorification She deserves! Imagine who we are – reeds shaken by the devil’s wind (Matthew 11:7); The devil breathed his blasphemy into our hearts, and now we are shaken by his blasphemy, we are embarrassed, we are despondent, whereas we should despise all blasphemies or not pay attention to them as dreams. Just as in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are inseparable, so in prayer and in our life thought, word and deed must be just as inseparable. If you ask God for anything, believe that what will happen will be done according to your request, as God pleases; If you read the Word of God, believe that everything that is said in it was, is and will be, or has been done, is being done and will be done. Believe so, speak so, read so, pray so. Great thing is the word. The great thing is the soul, thinking, speaking and acting, the image and likeness of the Almighty Trinity. Human! know yourself, who you are, and behave according to your dignity. Good Lady! Reveal and manifest Your dominion over me and Your people, God-fearing and well-behaved, by delivering us, through our prayer, from nasty, evil and blasphemous thoughts, from all sins and passions and from all the snares of demons, like the good Mother of God. Lady Theotokos, St. Pray to the angels and all the saints as to the Holy Spirit Himself, and even more so to the Holy Trinity, which sanctifies them and rests in them. These will be one in us (John 17:21). You are holy, our God, and you rest among the saints 4. Amen. We all live in some kind of charming eclipse of heart and mind, but the Lord Jesus Christ is our enlightenment. The saints always see us by the grace of God, because they are in God and God is in them; they are one spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17), and the Lord sees everything and hears everything. Therefore, looking at churches for example. on the faces of God’s saints, believe that they see you, especially your heart. No matter what passions your enemies fight you with, endure without despondency, without bitterness, with meekness and humility, and do not allow impatience, anger, murmuring and blasphemy to move in your heart. All creation testifies to the infinite goodness and truth of the Creator; Satan himself and his angels, with their shameful existence and all-evil machinations over people, prove the immeasurable goodness and truth of the Creator; for who was Satan and his angels before: - what lights, what treasuries of so many blessings and what did they lose through their absolutely arbitrary ingratitude, pride, malice and envy against the Lord? Didn’t they fall completely deliberately, intentionally, with the goal of eternally fighting against the Creator and His creatures, rational-verbal people? Judging by the evil actions of Satan in the world, by their multitude and strength, can we guess what a great powerful spirit Satan, the former Lucifer, was? Judging by the multitude of darkness and his charms in people scattered throughout the world (flatter the whole universe (Rev. 12:9)), one can guess how bright and full of truth he was before! You were in the sweetness of God's paradise, you were adorned with every precious stone (Ezek. 28:13). Judging by the all-evil carnal and unclean lusts induced from him, one can conclude how desirable and amiable he was in his goodness, which he received from the Creator! Judging by his cunning and evil machinations, one can guess how smart he was and how much good he could bring, how much he could serve His Creator in His providence for lower spirits or people? Judging by this evil, huge colossus, Satan, what great, good, embellished, bright, powerful, intelligent creature was Satan before? How much he contained within himself the gifts of the Creator’s goodness and what he lost due to his evil and deliberate madness! Judge by his malice in people how much good he was before; judge out of envy his former benevolence; by his boundless greed and stinginess in people, judge his generosity; according to his pride - about his greatness received from God; according to his despondency in people, boredom, sometimes unbearable melancholy - about his former bliss! For he was as good before as he is now evil! It is an eternal lesson of humility and obedience for all heavenly Angels and for all right-thinking people: for no matter how perfect the Angels are or no matter how smart people are and in general no matter how perfect they are in anything, they have all this from the sole goodness of the Creator, and not from themselves, and must thank the Creator for everything and pray for everything with undoubted faith in His goodness and omnipotence, with hope receive everything from Him. Evil spirits fell through pride and malice: this is a lesson for all people - to humble themselves before the Creator, to consider themselves as nothing and to attribute everything to the Creator and to live solely by the Creator and by fulfilling His will, and, wondrous are Your deeds, Lord! what the Lucifer, with all her wisdom, could not and did not want to acquire, was acquired by the Virgin from a race that was both mortal and spiritually immortal; The Most Holy Virgin Mary acquired unparalleled humility for Herself, acquired the highest shrine. Rejoice, full of grace, the Lord is with you (Luke 1:28). The Lord has regard for the humility of His Servant (Luke 1:48). Likewise, all of us, as being small in ourselves, as all who have from God except sin, must constantly and deeply humble ourselves before the Creator, resorting to His mercy in everything. You cannot overcome a single passion or a single sin without grace-filled help; always ask for help from Christ your Savior. This is why He came into the world, this is why He suffered, died and rose again, to help us in everything, to save us from sin and from the violence of passions, to cleanse our sins, to give us in the Holy Spirit strength to do good deeds, to enlighten us, strengthen us, and pacify us. You say: how can you be saved when there is sin at every step and you sin at every moment? The answer to this is simple: at every step, at every minute, call on the Savior, remember the Savior and you will be saved and you will save others. Use My gifts not especially as self-lovers, but as the children of Mon, who should have everything in common, not sparing to offer others the fruits of My hands, the works of My hands, remembering that I give them to you freely, according to My fatherly goodness and generosity of philanthropy. This happens in families. When a father or mother or brother brings gifts, the father gives them to all his children, or the brother to his brothers, and if the children, brothers and sisters, all live in mutual love, then they do not consider themselves contented and happy if the father or brother surrounded any of them with gifts and did not give even to one of them what he gave to the others. Why? Because, out of mutual love, they feel like one body, because they are all, as it were, one, one person. So do each of you. And I know how to reward you for the love that is so pleasing to Me. If I have mercy on those who do not keep My commandments (a certain rich man was pleased with the field (Luke 12:16)), then will I not have mercy on My true children, for whom I have actually intended all My bounties? Hey, I'll spoil it. I will spare him, and if I will spare him (Rom. 9:15; Exod. 33:19). Even if you fall, rise up and be saved. You are a sinner, you constantly fall, learn to rise; take care to gain this wisdom. This wisdom consists of this: learn by heart the psalm Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your great mercy (Ps. 50:3), inspired by the Holy Spirit to the king and prophet David, and read it with sincere faith and hope, with a contrite and humble heart; after your sincere repentance, expressed in the words of King David, forgiveness of sins will immediately shine from the Lord, and you will feel peace of mind. The main thing in life is to be jealous of mutual love and not to judge anyone. Everyone will give an answer to God for themselves, but look within yourself. Beware of malice. Orthodox Christians are like a family, the children of Jesus Christ, and in a good family the mother is always held in high esteem (the Mother of God), just as the older brothers are respected and respected by the younger ones, and these latter imitate the former. Lutherans and Anglicans! why don't you have this? Why doesn’t the Mother of God enjoy due reverence and solemn veneration and worship among you? Why do the holy Angels and holy men of God not enjoy solemn reverence and bows? Why don't you want to imitate them? Or do you honor God alone, do you worship Him alone? But you must remember that the Mother of the Lord Jesus Christ, St. Angels and St. men are pure images of God, friends of God, just as Abraham is called a friend of God. How can one not worship the living images of God, the children and friends of God? The world is home. The builder and owner of this house, the Creator and Father of the Christian people living in it is God. The mother in this house is the Blessed Virgin Mary. Walk always in the presence of your Father in love and obedience to Him; equally in the presence of our common Mother, the Most Holy Theotokos, - in holy love, reverence and obedience to Her. In your spiritual and physical needs, in sorrows, misfortunes and illnesses, turn to Her with faith, hope and love. Be holy, as holy is the Lord God, your Creator and Father, as holy is the Lady, the Mother of God and our Mother after the Savior. Wife! behold Your Son; Behold your Mother (John 19:26–27). So that we do not doubt the exalted Mother of the Most High God, our most holy, most pure, most blessed, glorious Lady, to call Her our Matter, Her pre-eternal, Divine Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, resolved our doubt, directly allowed us or those of us who are zealous for the sacred to call Her our Matter. Se Mati is yours. For in the person of St. John the Theologian says this to us Christians as well. Yes, She really is the most tender, providential, all-holy and guides our Mother to the holiness of us, Her children. You see very clearly that it is extremely difficult for you, and without the grace of God and fervent prayer and abstinence, it is impossible to change for the better; You feel in yourself the action of many passions: pride, and anger, and envy, and greed, and love of money, and despondency, and laziness, and adultery, and impatience, and disobedience, and you remain with them, and are often bound by them, and the long-suffering Master tolerates you, waiting for your conversion and correction and endows you with all the gifts of His goodness. Be lenient, patient and loving towards the many-passionate people living with you, defeating all evil with good, and most importantly, pray to God for them, may he correct them, may he turn their hearts to Himself, the source of holiness. Do not help the devil in expanding his kingdom. Hallow with your deeds the name of the Heavenly Father, assist Him in spreading His kingdom on earth: for we are God's helpers (1 Cor. 3:9), be zealous for the fulfillment of His will on earth as in heaven... leave debts to your debtors with joy, as a good son rejoices at having the opportunity to fulfill the will of his beloved father. How pleasant it is for you, how fun it is when you find some lost, necessary and valuable thing! You are ready to jump for joy. Imagine how pleasing it is to the Heavenly Father at the sight of His lost child - a sinner man, but found, at the sight of his lost and revived sheep, at the sight of his lost and found drachma, that is, this living image of God - man? It is impossible to describe this joy. The Heavenly Father’s joy over His lost and found prodigal son is so great that the entire loving and benevolent heaven strives for joy: for there is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents (Luke 15:7, 10). Perishing brothers and sisters! return from the path of destruction to the Heavenly Father. Repent, the Kingdom of Heaven is drawing near (Matthew 3:2). Every person should know and remember the simplicity of his soul, which is God’s breath: God is simple, and the soul is simple. And since the soul is simple, it cannot possibly love two opposite objects - God and something worldly, man and something material, very pleasant for our carnal man. To love God with all your heart, you must certainly consider everything earthly as rubbish and not be deceived by anything; In order to love your neighbor as yourself, you must neglect money, not be seduced by delicacies, outfits, distinctions, ranks, praises. or human opinion. The simplicity of the soul must be protected especially during public and domestic prayer, while reading the Word of God and the writings of St. fathers and in general on any important matter. No one can work for two masters (Matthew 6:24). A Christian must love God and His image, his neighbor, so ardently and firmly that he can always say: who will separate us from the love of God and our neighbor? sorrow, or distress, or nakedness, or trouble, or the sword (Rom. 8:35), or money, or the sweets of food and drink, or a rich home, or care for clothing, or various worldly pleasures? But I consider all these earthly things as rubbish, the pleasures of life as a dream. I attribute the faults of my neighbors to the corruption of nature, the action or machinations of evil spirits, insufficient or bad upbringing, unfavorable life circumstances, the properties of parents and educators... Knowing my own sinfulness, my passions, my malice, greed, impurity, my weakness, I cannot hate people like me, who have the same weaknesses and vices: for I must love my neighbor as myself, and I love myself, although I know my countless sins; Finally, I must love because we are one body. Pay attention: for cleansing your heart from sins, you will receive an endless reward - you will see God, your all-good Creator, your Provider. The feat of purifying the heart is difficult, because it is associated with great hardships and sorrows, but the reward is great. Blessed are those who are pure in heart, for they will see God (Matthew 5:8). They say: God is merciful; He will have mercy on us. Of course, God has an infinite amount of mercy. But if God is infinitely merciful to us and generous, then why do we arbitrarily offend Him with our iniquities? The more we are blessed by Him, the more we should love Him, be grateful to Him and obey His holy commandments or commands. Where is this love, this gratitude, this obedience? An angry and proud person is ready to see only pride and malice in others and is glad if others say bad things about any of his acquaintances, especially those who live happily, richly, but are not close to him spiritually, and the worse it is, the more he is glad that others are bad, and he is perfection in front of them, and is ready to see in them only one evil and compare them with demons. Oh, malice! Oh, pride! Oh, lack of love! No, you find something good in an evil person and rejoice in this goodness and speak with joy about his good qualities. There is no person who does not have at least some goodness in him; Cover the evil that is in it with love and pray to God for it, so that the evil God will create good things with His goodness. Don't be an evil abyss yourself. Christian! after all, the Head of your faith, Christ, was crucified and left you the cross. How do you live in luxury, in space, in bliss, in idleness? He suffered dishonor and commanded you, in His name, not to shun dishonor, but you seek honor. Look often at the Crucified One and learn your duties. Those who are like Christ, the flesh was crucified with its passions and lusts (Gal. 5:24). And the hair of your head will not perish, that is, the holy thought of your mind will not perish, not only for God, but also for people. For we see that the holy thoughts and feelings of the saints of God before us were preserved intact, having been written down on the charter. Who is the cause of everything visible and invisible? In God. And God is invisible. Reverence the invisible God, strive for the invisible God. God is the Spirit, eternal, all-holy, all-good, all-knowing, all-righteous, all-powerful, omnipresent, unchangeable, all-satisfied and all-blessed. And you are the image of God; be spiritual, despising the flesh's temporary home; be holy, good, knowledgeable, just, cheerful and courageous, unchanging in goodness and satisfied with everything. Whoever built a house for himself should, by all rights, live in it. We are the houses of our Creator; He created us for Himself: for He did everything for His own sake; He must live in us, and not the devil, this murderer, thief, predator, this deceiver. God! come and dwell in us 5. Let us come to Him and make our abode with Him (John 14:23). Do you not know that you are the church of God, and the Spirit of God lives in you (1 Cor. 3:16)? Reverence before every word, before every thought of the Word of God, the writings of St. fathers, including various prayers and hymns that we hear in church or say at home, because all of this is the breath and words of the Holy Spirit: this, so to speak, is the Holy Spirit Himself, interceding for us and through us with groanings that cannot be uttered (Rom. 8:26). The Great Litany, pronounced daily in church, is a wise litany, a litany of love; in it Christians, living and deceased and saints, are represented as one great joint of the body of Jesus Christ. It ends beautifully with the last exclamation: Having remembered our most holy, most pure, most blessed, glorious Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary with all the saints, let us commend ourselves and each other and our whole life to Christ our God 6 . The special litany is also beautiful. The dead are also remembered there. The petitioner is also wonderful. We are accustomed to them, but let us imagine that we are hearing them for the first time, and put ourselves in the place of foreigners. When praying to God, one must always imagine His infinite greatness, the worship of Him by thousands and thousands of heavenly angels and saints, also His omnipresence and omniscience, His infinite goodness, truth and holiness. When in prayer you call the Most Holy Virgin Theotokos most holy, most pure, most immaculate, most good, then imagine that Her very being is eternal holiness, unshakable, unchangeable, unimaginable, inconceivable, and of angelic eyes 7 . Think the same about all the Angels and saints, that is, that their essence is holiness and goodness through the grace of Jesus Christ. Always consider it a great happiness to converse in prayer with the Lord or with the Most Pure Lady Theotokos, or with Angels, or with holy people, and always pray to them with joy and trembling reverence, remembering Whom you are conversing with, unclean and insignificant worm. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, and not ours. We ourselves would like to reign with our passions, that is, to put everything on our own: we would rely on our own strength, and not Yours, we would seek our own glory, and not Yours; but this desire in us is demonic. We must submit everything to Your will, seek Your power in all we do, and do everything for Your glory. Do everything for the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31). With the cross, just as in the sign of the cross, the Lord Jesus Christ, as living and life-giving, is always with us and always works with various forces for our salvation, by faith in Him, our God and Savior. Glory to our Lord for this, who is always with us. I am with you all the time, until the end of the age. Amen (Matthew 28:20). Participants of the Divine Mysteries! know how you truly commune with the Lord if you commune worthily. What boldness you have towards the Lord and the Mother of God! What purity they must have! What meekness, humility, gentleness! What dispassion for earthly things! What an ardent desire for heavenly, purest, eternal pleasures! When depicting the sign of the cross, believe and constantly remember that your sins are nailed to the cross. When you fall into sin, immediately condemn yourself sincerely and make the sign of the cross on yourself, saying: Lord! You nailed our sins to the cross, nail my real sin to Your cross and have mercy on me according to Your great mercy (Ps. 50:3): and your sin will be cleansed. Amen. All kinds of sins and passions are ready to break into the soul and are intensifying to break into it every minute. But courageously and vigilantly fight them until your last breath, considering them a dream of the imagination, a dream of the spirits of evil. Be so sure of the Lord’s closeness to you that you feel that when you pray to God, you are touching Him not only with your thought and heart, but also with your lips and tongue. The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart (Rom. 10:8), that is, God. May the following conviction always be inherent in your heart: we are all people - one (brothers), and for all of us everything is God, the all-good, all-powerful, inexhaustible Source; but the devil, the enemy of the human race, can and does act in everyone, whose evil produced in people must be overcome with goodness, patience, meekness, and condescension. Do not confuse man - this image of God - with the evil that is in him, because evil is only his accidental misfortune, illness, demonic dream, but his being - the image of God - still remains in him. If you sin in any way before God (and we sin a lot every day), immediately speak in your heart, with faith in the Lord, who listens to the cry of your heart, with a humble consciousness and feeling of your sins, the psalm Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your great mercy, and read the whole psalm heartily; If it didn’t work once, try another trick, just read it even more heartily, even more sensitively, and then salvation and peace to your soul will immediately shine from the Lord. So always lament: this is a sure, proven remedy against sins. If you do not get relief, blame yourself; It means you prayed without contrition, without humility of heart, without a firm desire to receive forgiveness of sins from God, which means sin has slightly hurt you. Have I sinned - the Lord is my cleansing; whether I am sad, gloomy after sin, from the insults of the enemy - the Lord destroys my despondency and revives my boldness. Everything is Lord for me. Oh, truly this Lord, glory to You! (Sy, i.e. Existing). The Holy Spirit, like air, fills everything and penetrates everything: He is everywhere and fills everything 8. He who prays earnestly attracts the Holy Spirit into himself and prays with the Holy Spirit. Where there are two or three gathered in My name, I am in the midst of them (Matthew 18:20). Why is the co-presence of God promised primarily to two or three? Because where two or three have gathered in the name of Christ, there is the Church, the unity of faith and love, there is mutual love. Everyone understands this, because you are my disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:35). The soul of truth, that is, everything conceivable is true. All true thoughts are the breath of the Holy Spirit. Truth is so simple, easy and convenient and life-giving for a person, like thought, like breathing. Believe and trust that just as it is easy for you to breathe the air and live with it, or eat and drink, so it is even easier for your faith to receive all spiritual gifts from the Lord. Prayer is the breath of the soul, prayer is spiritual food and drink. The Lord has given you, the shepherd of people, to see how fierce the mental wolf is, so that, among other things, you yourself might strive to save yourself from its claws and jaws and save the sheep entrusted to you by God. From now on, begin to teach them with special force, in the likeness of how the Lord taught, and show them how this mental wolf constantly catches them and how he catches them, how he flatters our sensuality, so that the more conveniently and willingly we sin, how many do not understand his flattery, how willingly they serve him, for example. in gluttony, gluttony, drunkenness, fornication and adultery, in love of money, pride, vanity, malice, envy, in blasphemy, laziness, foul language, idle talk, laughter, passion for clothes, for dancing, passion for the theater, for cards, etc. We are always fussing about smart, clean bodily clothing, trying to dress ourselves up with taste and grace, but who thinks about incorruptible clothing, which is all defiled by sins and in which it is appropriate for everyone to appear before the Judge-God? Who washes it with tears of repentance, deeds of mercy, adorns it with fasting, prayer, vigil, and contemplation of God? All our days we rejoiced and rejoiced for the days... in the nyaz we saw evil (Ps. 89:15). The merciful Lord, having punished us, then has mercy on us with temporary and eternal mercy. For a long time, another patient suffers from illness, as if from an evil tyrant, but in this illness the soul is purified like gold, and that person receives the freedom of the children of God and is awarded eternal peace and bliss. Without temptation, ordinary iron appears to be steel, and brass and tinplate appear to be silver, or mixed silver appears to be pure silver, and bronze appears to be gold, or a mixture of gold and earth appears to be pure gold, and ordinary glass appears to be diamond, but testing shows their true worth. This is what happens to people. In appearance, many seem meek and humble, merciful, kind, simple, chaste, believers, etc., but testing often shows that they are evil, proud, hard-hearted, unclean, stingy, greedy, envious, vindictive, lazy, and so on. Temptations come through hardships and losses, sorrows, illnesses, dishonor, and he who withstands the temptation is reliable for the kingdom of God, but he who cannot withstand it is unreliable, because a large admixture of evil remains in him. Live (and you live) as members of one body, as children of God, in love and harmony, in peace and silence, respecting each other, condescending to each other, as the Lord condescends to us. Do not be proud, do not envy, do not be hostile, curb carnal lusts, be chaste, abstain from all excesses, be unslothful in prayer, always begin everyday affairs with a short prayer, begin and end the day with fervent prayer to God, the Queen of Heaven and the Guardian Angel; Pray for everyone as for yourself, wish good for everyone as for yourself, and do not wish or do evil to anyone. When in your eyes people fall into various sins against you, against the Lord, against your neighbors and against themselves, do not be angry with them, for even without you there is a lot of evil in the world, but pity them from the heart and forgive them when they offend you, saying to yourself: Lord! let them go, for they are confused by sin, they do not know what they are doing (Luke 23:34). Everything earthly, material, when the heart clings to it, is confusion, sorrow, oppression, death for our soul; and in itself and in itself there is decay and dust and smoke - our very body. There is only one thing our soul needs - truth, holiness, truth, love, mercy, meekness, gentleness, peace, spiritual freedom or the grace of God in the heart. These treasures are life-giving for our entire being, eternal. We will try with all our might to find them and, having found them, keep them within ourselves, multiply and strengthen them, for due to our sinfulness, everything good soon seems to evaporate. God! always give me a meek heart, a clear, direct, meek gaze. Wake up! - Glory, Lord, to the change made in me by Your right hand, I thank You, for You have taken from Me the thorns that burn my passions and my oppression, and my shame, and my weakness, and have granted me peace, silence, freedom, strength, boldness. Confirm what you have done in me. Glory to the power of faith, the power of prayer: everything I ask of you in prayer as a believer, I accept according to your word (Mark 11:24). I thank You, Lord, for you have raised me from the dead many times over (2 Cor. 1:9), and destroyed the mortal, sinful kingdom in me. A Christian must philosophize on high, where Christ is, and not cleave to the corruptible goods of the world: this is the work of the pagans. Meanwhile, we are passionate about all earthly pleasures and things. We have distorted our lives, moving away from the example of the Lord, the apostles, martyrs, saints, unmercenaries and all the saints; they were not of this world, but we are of this world, we lead some kind of peculiar, not Christian life. Envy, pride, condemnation, enmity, hatred, malice, untruth, and carnal uncleanliness are not expelled from our hearts, but coexist firmly and widely in them. Do not for one moment fulfill your own will, but the will of God, which is love for everyone, and for enemies, and our holiness. Our will is manifold sin (and not love of God), self-love, malice, hatred, pride, envy, greed, lust, gluttony, drunkenness, theft, love of money, fornication, wickedness, laziness, hard-heartedness and insensitivity to the suffering of our neighbor, gloating about his ill-being, rancor, grumbling, blasphemy, blasphemy. These words are great: grant us with one mouth and one heart to glorify and glorify Your Most Honorable and Magnificent Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit 9 . Oh, if only it were always like this and that our hearts would not be apart, not to mention with people, but also with ourselves! If I despise or hate someone, it means that I exalt myself lawlessly, I love myself lawlessly, that is, according to the flesh. Our hearts constantly flatter us, secretly elevating us and humiliating our neighbors. But one must constantly contemplate one’s countless sins in order to condemn oneself, to mourn oneself as a spiritual dead person. Then we will not have time to notice the mistakes of others and condemn our neighbors for them or despise them, then we will respect them, for we will find that they are incomparably better than us in many ways. Truly the church is the earthly heaven, for where the throne of God is, where terrible Mysteries are performed, where Angels serve with people, where the constant praise of the Almighty is, there truly is heaven and the heaven of heavens. So, let us enter the church of God, especially the Holy of Holies, with the fear of God, with a pure heart, putting aside passions and all worldly cares, and let us stand in it with faith, reverence, rationally, attentively, with love and peace in our hearts, let us leave renewed, as if heavenly, let us live in the shrine proper to heaven, not being bound by worldly lusts and pleasures. Fasting is a good teacher: 1) it quickly makes it clear to everyone who fasts that every person needs very little food and drink, and that in general we are greedy and eat and drink much more than what is proper, that is, what our nature requires; 2) fasting helps or reveals all the infirmities of our soul, all its weaknesses, shortcomings, sins and passions, just as muddy, stagnant water that begins to clear itself reveals what reptiles are found in it or the quality of rubbish; 3) he shows us the necessity of running to God with all our hearts and seeking His mercy, help, and salvation; 4) fasting shows all the cunning, deceit, all the malice of the disembodied spirits with whom we previously, unknowingly, worked, whose cunning, when we are now illuminated by the light of God’s grace, is clearly revealed, and who now viciously persecute us for leaving their ways. All bodies of nature gravitate towards the center of the earth, and all human souls naturally strive towards their spiritual center or prototype - God: only sin has perverted and perverts this natural direction. Fire and smoke gravitate toward elements akin to them. Your soul is looking for true life, food akin to itself, food for the mind - truth, for the heart - peace and bliss, for the will - normal direction or legality. Go to church: it will give you all this in abundance; she possesses all this in abundance. She is the pillar and foundation of truth (1 Tim. 3:15), because in her is the Word of God, the quenching beginning of all things, the beginning of the human race, the creation of man in the image and likeness of God, his fall, his restoration through the Savior of men, the means to salvation, faith, hope and love. She brings us peace and bliss through her Divine services and especially the sacraments, she calls out: come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28); it teaches us the true path, which our will must unswervingly follow and which will lead us to eternal life: this is the path of God’s commandments. The Lord gave me the greatest, inalienable wealth - His image and likeness, He gave me Himself, as it is said: You have given wealth to those who fear You, Lord 10! What earthly wealth do I need after this? What honor? There is no greater honor than to be a Christian and a member of Christ, a child of God in Christ. There is no one richer than the person who always carries Christ and His grace in his heart. What do I have in heaven, and what do I desire on earth from You? My heart and my flesh are gone, O God of my heart, and my portion, O God for ever (Ps. 73:25–26). And we are greedy, we collect, we skimp, we are proud, we envy. What delusion, thoughtlessness! Human! Be rich in God: everything comes to you from God. Seeing burning candles and lamps in the church, ascend in thought from the material fire to the immaterial fire of the Holy Spirit; Our God is a consuming fire (Heb. 12:29); Seeing and smelling fragrant incense, your thoughts flow to the spiritual fragrance of the Holy Spirit, the fragrance of God (2 Cor. 2:15), and equally, in contrast, to the spiritual stench, which is sin, and try to be filled with the fire of the Holy Spirit and drive away the coldness of the heart, which comes from the devil, from the flesh and from the world, and smell before God the fragrance of virtues: meekness, kindness, humility, obedience, abstinence, chastity, patience, etc. Get away from the stench of passions, malice, envy, pride, disobedience, intemperance, fornication, etc. The voice of church readings, songs, prayers and prayers is the voice of our souls, poured out from the consciousness and feeling of our spiritual needs and needs; this is the voice of all humanity, aware and feeling its poverty, its wretchedness, its sinfulness, the need for a Savior, the need for thanksgiving and glorification for the countless blessings and endless perfections of God. These prayers and songs are wonderful; they are the breath of the Holy Spirit! The sign of the cross by a priest or bishop is an expression of God’s blessing or favor to man in Christ and for Christ’s sake. What a joyful, significant, precious ceremony! Blessed are all who receive this blessing with faith! How attentive priests should be when giving blessings to the faithful! Place My name on the children of Israel: and I, the Lord, will bless (them) (Numbers 6:27). Is it in vain that we read the Trisagion, the “Our Father” and other morning and evening prayers several times every day? Through them, aren’t we cleansed from our sins, our defilements, aren’t we delivered from temptations, troubles and circumstances? Is the image of the sign of the cross in vain? Oh, no: it constantly has a beneficial effect on us and on those on whom with faith we depict this, especially the priestly, blessing. So let us unceasingly glorify the mercy and power of our Lord Jesus Christ, who listens to us and saves us unworthy by His mercy, for the sake of His holy name. All the words of church prayers and praises are great words; but these words: for You are the resurrection and the life and the rest... and so on, which serve as such a great consolation for our mortal race and constitute the hope of Christians, are especially great. Therefore, it is necessary to pronounce them with special force, with special emphasis. Oh, holy faith! With what words, with what songs will I glorify you for the countless benefits for my soul and body that you have given me, for all the powers that you have accomplished and are performing in me, for the blessings of peace and the removal of confusion, for the blessings of freedom with the removal of bitter oppression, for the blessings of spiritual light and the driving away of the darkness of passions, for the blessings of boldness with the withdrawal of cowardice and fear, for the blessings of spiritual power and spiritual greatness with the removal of sinful slavery and baseness of spirit, for the good of the holy with the removal of sinful impurity, for the removal of malice, envy, self-will and stubbornness, covetousness, fornication and all sinful corruption? Glory to Thee, God, my Benefactor, forever and ever! Be known, O Lord, in Your faith, to all Your people and to all the tribes of the earth, so that everyone may glorify You with one mouth and one heart from the east of the sun to the west. Wake up, wake up! Many practicing doctors who receive a lot of money from their patients must give generous alms for their souls if they believe that they have an immortal soul; rich priests, receiving generous rewards for their prayerful labors, should also give rich alms, so that they will not be condemned with Judas the traitor, who sold the Lord of glory for silver; merchants who receive large profits must certainly practice almsgiving and decorating and supplying the churches of God; officials who receive large salaries should also not consider generous remuneration for their feasible labors their exclusive asset, and also remember their poor brethren, may they receive a reward from the Lord and may they purify their souls. Everyone must stock up on the oil of alms and good deeds, lest they appear naked before the Judge on the day of the terrible trial, lest they appear naked in that world-wide disgrace. I thank my all-holy, all-good and wise mother - the Church of God, who guides me savingly in this temporary life and educates me for heavenly citizenship; I thank her for all the orders of prayer, Divine services, sacraments and rituals; I thank her for the fasts, which are so beneficial for me spiritually and physically (for through them I am healthy in spirit and body, calm, cheerful, light. Without fasting, it would be extremely difficult for me, as was experienced not during fasting); I thank my immaculate mother, the Church of God, who delights me with her heavenly service, who delights me with my heavenly spirit, who enlightens my mind with heavenly truth, who shows me the path of eternal life, who delivers me from violence and the dishonor of passions, who makes my life blessed. The whole world, heaven and earth and everything in them, the sea and everything in it, is an outpouring of the infinite goodness of God, His mind and infinite strength and power, goodness to the creatures whom He created for joy and bliss, especially goodness to the human race. The world is a mirror of the goodness, reason, wisdom and power of God. So, we must cleave not to the world, but to God. What do I have in heaven, and what do I desire on earth from You? My heart and my flesh are gone, O God of my heart, and my portion, O God for ever (Ps. 73:25–26). It is necessary for a Christian to fast in order to clarify the mind and arouse and develop feelings, and motivate the will to good activity. We overshadow and suppress these three human abilities most of all through gluttony, drunkenness and the worries of life (Luke 21:34), and through this we fall away from the source of life - God and fall into corruption and vanity, perverting and desecrating the image of God in ourselves. Gluttony and voluptuousness nail us to the ground and cut off, so to speak, the wings of the soul. And look how high all the fasters and abstinents were! They soared in the skies like eagles; They, earthly beings, lived with their minds and hearts in heaven and heard inexpressible verbs there, and there they learned divine wisdom. And how a person humiliates himself with gluttony, gluttony and drunkenness! He perverts his nature, created in the image of God, and becomes like dumb cattle and even becomes worse than him. Oh, woe to us from our addictions, from our lawless habits! They prevent us from loving God and our neighbors and fulfilling God’s commandments; they root in us criminal carnal selfishness, the end of which is eternal destruction. So a drunkard, for the pleasure of the flesh and stupefaction of himself, does not spare a lot of money, but spares pennies for the poor; a tobacco smoker throws tens and hundreds of rubles into the wind, and begrudges the beggars the pennies that could save his soul; those who love to dress luxuriously or are hunters of fashionable furniture and utensils spend huge amounts of money on clothes and furniture with utensils, and pass by beggars with coldness and contempt; those who love to eat well do not spare tens and hundreds of rubles for dinners, but they spare pennies for the poor. It is necessary for a Christian to fast because with the incarnation of the Son of God, human nature is spiritualized, deified, and we hasten to the heavenly kingdom, which contains food and drink, but truth, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17); meat to the belly and food to the belly: God will bring to naught both this and this (1 Cor. 6:13). Eat and drink, i.e. to have an addiction to sensual pleasures is characteristic only of paganism, which, not knowing spiritual, heavenly pleasures, spends its entire life in the pleasure of the belly, in heavy eating and heavy drinking. That is why the Lord often denounces this destructive passion in the Gospel. And is it reasonable for a person to constantly live in gastric fumes, in gastric fumes rising inside from the incessant cooking of food and its fermentation? Is man just a walking kitchen or a self-propelled chimney, to which all those who smoke incessantly can rightly be likened? What pleasure is it to live in constant fumes, evaporation and smoke? What will our homes be like? Why would we contaminate the air with stench and breathe it, and most of all, darken and suppress the soul, kill its last spiritual strength? Students of educational institutions have learned a lot, but they often do not know the only thing they need - God and themselves, their sins, their spiritual weakness, their insignificance without God and before God. Remember the prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian: Lord! grant me to see my sins. Seeing your sins in their multitude and in all their vileness is truly a gift from God, bestowed as a result of fervent prayer. What has been said above should apply to many, many scientists and the rich and noble: they know a lot, have a lot, but they do not know and often do not have what is essential. You hid this from the wise and prudent, and you revealed it to babes. Yes, Father, for such was your good pleasure (Matthew 11:25–26). Wonderful things! Apparently, the grace of God and the blessings of this world are not the same thing, and addiction to them is not combined with God’s grace. Great is Thy love, Lord: Thou hast exhausted Thyself entirely for the sake of love for me. I look at the cross and marvel at Your love for me and for the world, for the cross is a clear imprint of Your love for us. Greater love has no one to sow, but whoever lays down his life for his friends (John 15:13). Your life-giving Mysteries, Lord, serve as an ever-present loud proof of Your love for us sinners, for this divine Body of Yours was broken for me, for all of us; this Blood was shed for me, for all of us. God! I praise the miracles of St. Thy mysteries over Thy faithful ones, to whom I taught them; I glorify the countless healings that I have witnessed; I glorify their all-saving action in me; I glorify Your mercy towards me, which is shown to me in them and through them, Your life-giving power, which acts in them. God! for Your great love for me, grant me to love You with all my heart, and my neighbor as myself, to love my enemies, not only those who love me. God! teach and strengthen in mutual love by Your Holy Spirit; tame the impulses of passions that stir the heavenly, evangelical love, and make our hearts dead for earthly pleasures. Grant me, Lord, to always prefer Thy grace, Thy peace, Thy truth and holiness to all earthly blessings, and to always abide in it, all the days of my life, until my last breath! Lack of education, lack of development, lack of softening and lack of correction of the heart is a thousand times more guilty than lack of education of the mind: for an uneducated person in mind is a dark person, worthy of condescension and pity, while an educated person is devoted to the passions and vices of anger, pride, contempt, envy, gluttony, gluttony, drunkenness, covetousness, fornication and other passions, with many of his knowledge, as well as knowledge of the will of God, there is a person who is hard-hearted, dead to God, because he does not apply the learned rules to business, does not fulfill the will of God, and violates it with even greater fearlessness and audacity than the uneducated. In an uneducated person, simplicity of heart, meekness, kindness, humility, silence, patience are more valuable before God than all our knowledge, all external polish, all memorized expressions, all cloying politeness, all long prayers, all intricately woven speeches; even the most sins, like sins of ignorance, are more excusable. Therefore, respect simple uneducatedness and learn from it what the supposedly educated do not, i.e., simplicity, kindness, patience, etc. The uneducated are babes in Christ, to whom the Lord sometimes reveals His secrets. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world (John 17:16) - the words of the Lord Jesus Christ about the apostles. This is great praise for them. What is it? The fact is that the apostles, living in the world, were strangers to it, strangers to passion for it, did not seek in it for themselves either glory, wealth, sweets, or peace, but were, as it were, beings of another world, heavenly; they thought and cared about heavenly things, they sought heavenly, incorruptible glory, heavenly, incorruptible wealth, heavenly sweets and heavenly peace in God and union with Him. We are sinners of this world, because we are looking for the glory of this world, material wealth, health, longevity on earth, the enjoyment of the blessings here, the peace here, the joys here. But because of our addiction to the world and its blessings, all our troubles, passions, temptations, all failures in the Christian life. Why is it necessary to pray at home and go to church for Divine services? Why do you eat and drink and walk in the fresh air every day, or work every day? To keep the body alive and strengthen it. And you absolutely need to pray in order to support and stimulate the life of the soul, to strengthen the soul that is sick with sins, to cleanse it, just as you use other food and drink to cleanse yourself from harmful phlegm or impurities. If, therefore, you do not pray, then you act very unreasonably and recklessly, supporting the body in every possible way, delighting, strengthening, and leaving the soul in disdain. After all, every person is twofold, for he consists of soul and body. It is better not to convey reproachful words sent to us from someone, but to remain silent about them, or convey, albeit falsely, words of love and goodwill, then our spirit will remain calm. And conveying words of enmity and envy is very harmful; They often produce a mental storm in the impatient and proud people they relate to, arouse extinguished enmity and create discord. One must have Christian patience and serpentine wisdom. Why does it happen that one evil word, a word of slander, makes the most unpleasant impression on us, shakes us to the core, while, on the contrary, sometimes thousands of good words, for example. about God and His affairs in the world, do not reach the heart at all and disappear in the air? The devil comes and takes away the word sown in the hearts of people, and he, on the other hand, sows and grows the seeds of malice in our hearts and does not miss the slightest opportunity to plant enmity and envy of our neighbor in us. One glance from our neighbor at us, often innocent, but seemingly suspicious, is enough to sow in us a feeling of enmity against him. So, let us not take to heart any evil inflicted on us by our neighbors, intentionally or unintentionally, knowing the culprit and the fact that the whole world has been in evil (1 John 5:19) from its beginning, but let us be complacent with every insult inflicted, praying for those who insult us as for benefactors, for even in their very insult we often hear words of goodwill, although not coming from a good heart. May the Lord admonish them and not put this sin on them, and we will be more careful, so as not to give room to the devil. In this age we sin constantly, and yet we are so proud that we do not want to endure any reproach, especially in front of others; but in the next century our sins will be exposed before the whole world. Remembering this terrible judgment, may we endure the reproofs here in humility and kindness, and may we be corrected from all our shortcomings and sins; especially, may we endure reproof from leaders, and may the Lord admonish them not to reprove out of malice, but with love and a spirit of meekness. Love the reproofs of righteous and unjust people from people, so that you can correct yourself here and not be convicted at the Last Judgment, before the whole world, before all Angels and people. Oh, the unbearable fear and shame of Your terrible judgment seat, Lord! We must feel sorry for every evil person, and not be angry with him and not please Satan; just look at every enemy as a creation of God, as one created in the image of God and as a member of one’s own, and not breathe malice at him, that is, not be a devil, for a person who is angry is a devil at the time when he is angry. One must always be meek, kind, kind, patient, as if not noticing malice in others; one must overcome evil (Rom. 12:21) or evil people with kindness, kindness, and beneficence. God forbid from evil suspicion, in which everything about your neighbor is turned for the worse: movement, gesture, glance, voice, step, every word. I thank You, Lord, for you have granted me new life every time I perform the Divine Liturgy with tears of repentance and gratitude and partake of Your most pure and life-giving Mysteries. To Your holy Mysteries I owe hitherto the continuation of my existence, the integrity of my ways and good glory among Your people. May Thy great name be hallowed more and more in me and in all Thy people, and upon them Thy holy name is called, and throughout Thy whole world; may Your kingdom come, the kingdom of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, into all our hearts, as You have said: I will dwell in them and will walk in them and be their Father, and they will be My sons and daughters (2 Cor. 6–16,18 (Lev. 26:12; Jer. 3:19)), and may Your holy and wise will be done, all-good, all-perfect, all-blessed, as in heaven and on earth in all Your people, and in me, a sinner, for our own will is erroneous, short-sighted, sinful, disastrous, unloving, evil, envious, proud, lazy, luxurious, money-loving, stingy. And the need of the poor is persistent in its demands, sometimes impudent, and our passions are also persistent and persistent, impudent and impudent, for example. stinginess, covetousness, fornication, malice, envy, pride, theft, heresy, schism, superstition, idolatry. But let us prudently yield to the persistent requests of the needy, poor and suffering; this will serve to our salvation and eternal bliss. Just as the poor and suffering force us to compassion, so let us mutually force ourselves to give alms; Let us force ourselves to do good while there is time, just as sin constantly forces us to continually sin and anger God, and for ourselves to multiply the food of the fire of Gehenna, which begins here little by little to kindle in our hearts and shows us an eternal flame, in which there is eternal weeping and gnashing of teeth. The kingdom of heaven is taken by force, and powerful seekers take it away (Matthew 11:12). And the enemy also wants to forcefully seize and drag into Gehenna all the careless, unbelieving and unrepentant, and partial to the blessings here. Why is a day of rest celebrated every six days? In order for us to constantly remember that after the labors of this life there will come a day of eternal rest; for the Sabbath was also left, according to the apostle, for the people of God (Heb. 4:9). And Sunday Day points to the day of general resurrection, after which there will come a day of rest for all who have worked hard for good in this life, in Christ Jesus. All sacrifices and alms to the poor will not replace love for one’s neighbor if it is not in the heart; therefore, when giving alms, you should always make sure that it is given with love, from a sincere heart, willingly, and not with annoyance and grief towards them. The very word alms shows that it should be a deed and a sacrifice of the heart, and given with tenderness or regret for the poor state of the beggar, and with tenderness or contrition for one’s sins, for the cleansing of which alms is given; for alms, according to Scripture, cleanses all sin (Tob. 12:9). He who gives alms reluctantly and with annoyance, stingily, has not known his sins, has not known himself. Alms are a benefit primarily to the one who gives them. Do not be overcome by the evil of your neighbors, but overcome evil with good (Rom. 12:21), most importantly, by prayer for those who do evil. Let us surrender ourselves, each other and our whole life, with all our shortcomings and mutual insults, to Christ our God. Let us not take revenge on anyone ourselves, not even with a single evil thought or intention, but let us leave it to God to take revenge for ourselves. Vengeance is mine. I will repay (Rom.12:19 (Deut.32:35)), says God. We must also love our enemies: after all, the devil teaches and incites them to be hostile. Theater lulls Christian life, destroys it, giving the life of Christians the character of pagan life. I all took a nap and slept (Matthew 25:5); By the way, theater also produces this disastrous dream in people. And then what? Sciences taught in a pagan spirit, worldly concerns intensified to the utmost, covetousness, ambition, voluptuousness. Theater is the school of this world and the prince of this world - the devil; and sometimes he transforms himself into an angel of light, in order to more conveniently seduce the short-sighted, sometimes he will, apparently, turn in a moral play, so that they repeat and trumpet about the theater that it is a very educational thing, and it is worth visiting it no less than the church, and perhaps even more: because in the church it is the same thing, but in the theater there is a variety of plays, and scenery, and costumes, and characters. In order for you to test yourself whether you love your neighbor according to the Gospel, pay attention to yourself at a time when people offend you, scold you, laugh at you, or do not pay due respect, accepted in the community, or when subordinates sin against the service and are faulty. If you are calm at this time, are not filled with the spirit of enmity, hatred, impatience, if you continue to love these people the same way as before, before they were offended, then you love your neighbor according to the Gospel, and if you are irritated, angry, embarrassed, then you do not love. If you only love your friends, what grace do you have? (cf. Matt. 5:47; Luke 6:32). Since we are strangers and strangers and travelers to the heavenly kingdom, we do not need to burden ourselves with worries about everyday things, to become addicted to earthly goods, wealth, sweets, distinctions, so that these worries and addictions do not stumble us at the hour of death and do not make it shameful. A Christian, while still here on earth, must get used to living a life above: in fasting, non-covetousness, prayer, love, meekness, kindness, patience, courage, mercy. How difficult it is at the hour of death for a person who in this life had as his idol money or food and drink, or earthly honors! Now all this will serve him nothing, and yet his heart is tightly attached to them, and does not have the true treasure that gives him life, that is, virtue. So, in order to make it easier to die—and everyone must die—one should not love anything in the world. Having food and clothing, we will be content with these (1 Tim. 6:8). In church I am truly like in heaven on earth; here I see the faces of the Lord, the Most Pure Mother of God, St. Angels; here is the throne of God, here is the life-giving cross, here is the eternal gospel, this word of God, by which all things were created; here are the faces of saints; I feel in the obvious presence of God, His Mother, the heavenly powers and all the saints. This is true earthly heaven: here you recognize and feel like a real member of the body of Christ and His Church, especially during the heavenly liturgy and the communion of the holy Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ. Oh, how I must live, think, feel, speak in order to be worthy of being in this earthly heaven! I must live worthy of such a great calling to which I am called by the grace of the most generous God. How should I live, with what meekness, kindness, humility, purity, self-control, in order to worthily call the Most Holy Theotokos my Lady, my Lord the Lord of Glory! Lord, grant me such a life! I want to live worthy of the title of Christian, but I don’t find the strength in myself to do so; sin constantly flatters and wrestles with my soul. Call undoubtedly, in the simplicity of your heart, the Lord God, also the Angels and saints, who, by the grace of God, and by communion or unity with God and the simplicity of their being, extremely quickly, like lightning, hear and fulfill, according to the will of God, our prayers. To love God with all your heart means to have no attachment to anything in the world and to give your whole heart to the Lord God, doing His will in everything, and not your own; with all your soul, that is, always have your whole mind in God, affirm your whole heart in Him and surrender all your will to His will in all circumstances of life, sorrowful and sorrowful; with all our strength, that is, to love so that no opposing force could tear us away from the love of God, no circumstances of life: neither sorrow, nor oppression, nor persecution, nor height and depth, nor sword (Rom. 8:35, 38, 39); with all your thoughts, that is, always think about God, about His goodness, long-suffering, holiness, wisdom, omnipotence, about His deeds and in every possible way avoid vain thoughts and evil memories. To love God means to love truth with all your soul and hate lawlessness, as it is said: you loved righteousness and hated lawlessness (Ps. 45:8); to love God means to hate yourself, that is, your old man: if anyone wants to walk after Me and does not hate his own soul, he cannot be My disciple (Matthew 16:24; Luke 14:26). In us, in our thoughts, in our heart and in our will there is an evil force, extremely tenacious and effective, which always, daily, every minute, is forced to remove us from God, instilling vain thoughts, desires, worries, intentions, enterprises, words, deeds, exciting passions and inciting them with force, namely, malice, envy, covetousness, pride and ambition, vanity, idleness, disobedience, stubbornness, deception, intemperance. To love God means to fulfill His commandments. If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word. If you do not love Me, you will not keep My words (John 14:23–24). What a wealth of light, air, water, earth, fire the Lord has - these five elements of matter from which our body is composed and with which it lives! What a wealth of products of earth and water, and all of this is primarily used by man, the king of creation! Thanks to You, our Creator! Glory to Thee, our Provider and Redeemer, who created us in His image and likeness and deigned to take upon Himself our nature! What is a person's true wealth? In the image and likeness of God, and not in property, not in lands, not in money, not in various kinds of earthly knowledge and arts, or in various kinds of property, not in a multitude of servants, not in a multitude of clothes, or earthly goods in general, for all this is perishable and temporary, but the soul - the image of God - is eternal, and its wealth is virtue, holiness, humility, kindness, abstinence in everything, faith, hope and love. When I look with meditation and faith at St. icons in the church and all its accessories, then I come to a wonderful contemplation: the whole church seems to me like sacred history in persons, a wonderful verb of the deeds of God in the human race. Here I see history in the faces of both our fall, and restoration by the wonderful economy of God, and our exaltation in the incarnation of God, our deification and ascension to heaven; Here I see Archangel Gabriel preaching about the incarnation of the Son of God from the Virgin; here I see the Nativity of the Infant God, the Virgin Mother, the Bethlehem manger; here is circumcision, there is baptism, then the meeting of the Infant God by Simeon in the church, there is the transfiguration and the light of Tabor, there is the entry into Jerusalem of the righteous, meek, saving King, there is the Last Supper and the establishment of the all-saving Sacrament of Communion, there is the all-saving suffering of the Lord of glory; I see, as it were, Golgotha ​​itself and the Lord crucified for the sins of the world; I see the descent into hell of the Conqueror of hell and the removal of the prisoners of hell, His resurrection, ascension to heaven, and all this for the sake of humanity and for my sake. I am in divine contemplation in the church, and I thank the Lord, who loved me so much, who honored me so much, who blessed me so much! But when I look inside myself - into my heart, my God, what do I see! An abyss of voluntary and involuntary sins, an abyss of infirmities, temptations, sorrows, cramped conditions, fears, the machinations of the enemy, impenetrable darkness, thousands of falls, thousands of destructions and deaths, sometimes I see in myself a real utter hell. The whole power and character and cunning of the devil’s temptations regarding people lies in the fact that he deceived and is seducing, incited and incites people to love the world and what is in the world: the vain wisdom of this world, wealth, glory, nobility, earthly sweets, and to turn away from God and the kingdom above, and bliss; to love vain earthly things, to care about their invention and acquisition as much as possible, and to despise the soul and its true needs; to love the flesh, its health, color, beauty, fatness, voluptuousness of the flesh, and to hate the soul, that is, virtue, to forget the immortality of the soul, its prototype - God, so that it does not even think about immortality and the path leading to immortality, about God and about union with Him. Blessed are the holy saints of God, who despised the world and loved God, despised the flesh and cared for the soul, the immortal thing; We are pitiful, we are damned, we who love the world and its vain goods, who cherish the flesh and despise the soul! If our Orthodox Christians sometimes cannot embrace our Orthodox faith and its sacraments, then this only shows that the minds and hearts of people are unclean and passionate and cannot endure its purity and light, just as those with eyesight cannot endure the light of the sun. Only people who detach their minds and feelings from worldly addictions can contain this heavenly treasure in their hearts. If all the pastors or clergy and flocks prayed to God sincerely and unanimously, unanimously with those prayers that the Church pronounces aloud to us or secretly performs, then what would we not beg God for? What good would we not have, what sins and passions, what evils, troubles and misfortunes would we not get rid of? These prayers are the wisest, most expedient, most pleasing to God, the most powerful, capable of inclining the Lord to all mercy. May the Lord grant us all to pray to Him with one accord, sincerely, strongly, and without distraction! Those who attend the Divine services of the Orthodox Church and study the science of Divine services must remember that service here on earth is a preparation for the most joyful service of God in heaven; that while serving God with the body, one must all the more serve God with the spirit and a pure heart; that while listening to the Divine service, we must learn to serve God as the saints served, about whose lives and deeds we hear during the Divine service, about their faith, hope and love; that one should serve God most especially with deeds and truth, and not with words and tongue alone. By our very being we are called to serve God: for this we have received a straight stance, to look unceasingly to God, to thank and glorify Him; for this we have been given a mind, a heart, a will, and for this we have all our feelings. God! allow me to extend to You prayers for the whole world and for all the fulfillment of the Church always with all-encompassing love, unfeignedly, for I, by Thy grace, am a prayer book for everyone and for my sins. Grant me, O Lord God the Father, to contemplate Your ineffable love for the world, which has given us Your beloved, only-begotten Son. Grant me, God, Son of God, to contemplate Your exhaustion in the world and on our cross for the sake of salvation; grant me, God, Holy Soul, to contemplate Your grace, abundantly poured out and poured out upon the world for the sake of the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ, which so often fulfills my accursed heart; Holy Trinity, grant me to glorify You unceasingly with my heart and lips, and even more so with my deeds. He who rejects fasting forgets what caused the fall of the first people (from intemperance) and what weapon against sin and the tempter the Savior showed us when he was tempted in the desert (fasting forty days and nights), he does not know or does not want to know that a person falls away from God most often through intemperance, as was the case with the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah and with the contemporaries of Noah - for from intemperance every sin occurs in people; whoever rejects fasting takes away from himself and from others weapons against his many-passionate flesh and against the devil, who are strong against us especially through our intemperance, he is not a warrior of Christ, for he throws down his weapon and surrenders voluntarily into captivity of his voluptuous and sin-loving flesh; he is finally blind and does not see the relationship between the causes and consequences of affairs. We must never forget that we are fallen beings, unclean, guilty before the God of righteousness, corrupt, and we must always deeply humble ourselves before Him and before each other. This is inspired in us by church prayers read daily: God, be merciful to me a sinner... Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God... To the Heavenly King... Holy God... Holy Trinity... Our Father... morning and evening prayers and almost all prayers. Therefore, let the emerging youth know and remember most of all that it came from a sinful root and is itself subject to all kinds of sins, and this knowledge is the basis of all other knowledge and, knowing a lot, let it not be arrogant, but try most of all to cleanse the flesh and spirit. Love the earthly fatherland and the Father of the fatherland: it raised you, enlightened you, distinguished you, honored you, and satisfies you with everything; but especially love the heavenly fatherland, the Father of the future century: that fatherland is incomparably more honorable and dearer than this, because it is holy and righteous, unshakable, endless, incorruptible, beautiful, blessed; because it has given and is giving you incomparably greater advantages and benefits than this earthly thing; because the Father of that fatherland is not a mortal and servile man, but the Eternal God, who created everything; it gave you the title of child of God, heir of God and joint heir of Christ; because the Heavenly Father will make you a participant in all the blessings of His kingdom, which no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no heart has dreamed of (1 Cor. 2:9). This fatherland is deserved to you by the priceless blood of the Son of God. But, in order to be a member of that fatherland, respect and love the laws of that fatherland, just as you are obliged to respect and respect the laws of the earthly fatherland, for without this you will not become a citizen of such an excellent fatherland; love this spiritual and educational school (church), which forms us into members and citizens of that fatherland. The disembodied enemy fights us hard during the Divine service, because at this time the rebirth of our souls takes place through our mediation by the grace of God; therefore, let us not lose heart from the slander of the enemy, but let us take courage and strengthen ourselves, looking with the eyes of our hearts at the Hero of Christ, who stands invisibly before us and secretly accomplishes rebirth in our souls. Holy people of God are beautiful, imperishable, fragrant flowers. Touch these flowers with lips that do not stink of sins, that is, pray to them with a pure heart and pure lips, not carelessly, not with an absentminded thought, but with reverence, unhurriedly. They are verbal heaven; They lived on earth heavenly, wonderfully, in great deeds, in great love, in great humility, kindness, patience, selflessness, loving God above all else. In the church are all our sweet hopes and aspirations, our peace, our joy, along with purification and sanctification. Here the truth of the future resurrection, the victory of death, is so often proclaimed. Who, who loves life, will not love the church with all his heart! Everything that is best, most sublime, most precious, holy, wise - all this lies only in the church. In the church is the ideal of humanity; the church is the earthly heaven. In church we are sobered up from worldly charm and the intoxication of the passions and lusts of this world, we are enlightened, sanctified, purified by our souls, we draw closer to God, we unite with God (who united God the Word with man through Your glorious birth 11). How venerable and worthy of love the church of God should be, how the holy men of God loved it! One should not be upset or irritated by anything, because through frequent upset and irritation a very harmful, morally and physically, habit of being irritated is formed, while through indifference to opposites a good and useful habit is formed of enduring everything calmly and patiently. Many cases may present themselves in this life of countless mutual imperfections of ours, and if we are upset in every case, then our life will not exist even for several months. Moreover, grief and irritation do not improve the matter, but on the contrary, it becomes more upset through our frustration. It is better to always be calm, even, always full of love and respect for morally sick humanity, or, more specifically, for our neighbors, our relatives and those subordinate to us. After all, man is not an angel, and besides, our life has already developed in such a way that we almost sin every day and involuntarily, even if we didn’t want to. I don’t want good, I do this, but I don’t want evil, I do this (Rom. 7:19). And the Lord taught us to look condescendingly at frequent human failures and failures, saying: forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors (Matthew 6:12). Whatever you will, let men do to you, so do you to them (Luke 6:31; cf. Matt. 7:12). And who among us does not want to be treated condescendingly and patiently in his needs, stumblings and falls, malfunctions, omissions? That is why the apostle teaches us long-suffering and forbearance. Love, says the Apostle Paul, is long-suffering, merciful, not irritated, does not think evil, covers all things, endures all things, and never fails (1 Cor. 13:4–8). Faith and Church, Divine services, sacraments, rituals - all this, say freethinkers and atheists, was invented by people in order to keep the people in fear, submission and maintain good morality, and, perhaps, to collect income from them. This is how God’s mercy and His wonderful economy of our salvation, the very incarnation, suffering and death for our sake of the Son of God are blasphemed by the ignorant and freethinkers who have lost the fear of God. But look at how their lives are. do they live and how long do they live? Having lost strength and health through debauchery and drunkenness, they prematurely become decrepit, become stupid, get sick and die. Christian love prefers to endure all the external inconveniences of life, crowded conditions, lack of clean air, losses, rather than, because of these and similar external inconveniences, to allow impatience, grief, irritation, anger, and murmuring at those who oppress us out of need or out of caprice of character, or out of a desire to live at someone else’s expense, at someone else’s peace of mind. Love endures everything and endures everything to the detriment of itself, for its material and bodily life: for where there is love, there is the grace of God and all goodness, there is peace, there is contentment. A Christian endures everything so as not to lose the grace of God, which for him is the greatest of blessings. What spiritual storms, hurricanes, terrible, fiery, impetuous whirlwinds often happen in human life, in the lives of those people who try to live a Christian life and serve God through prayer, interceding for themselves and for others before His ineffable mercy! It is only by the grace of God that the shuttle in which our soul travels across the sea of ​​life to the eternity awaiting it does not completely break up or perish! The priest must try in every possible way to maintain courage, courage, audacity in himself, in spite of the ethereal enemy, who constantly instills in him his dreamy fear, his absurd fear; otherwise he cannot be an exposer of human vices, nor a true minister of the sacraments. Boldness is a great gift from God and a great treasure of the soul! In earthly warfare or war, courage or bravery means a lot, for it simply works miracles; and even more so in spiritual warfare. The source of all true joy flows in the church, all true peace and pacification of conscience, cleansing, healing of soul and body, a source of strength and vigor of the soul, and theater and various home worldly consolations will never replace what a true Christian receives in church, in which God Himself comforts the souls of believers and those who turn their hearts to Him, just as a mother comforts a baby. From the church, our departed also receive joy and consolation, with the cleansing of sins and pardon. How ardently one must love the church, how to decorate it! And this is done by everyone who knows its value; and the Church prays for them, saying: let us pray for these who enter into it with faith, reverence and fear of God, and let us pray for those who bear fruit and do good in this holy and all-honorable church, or: sanctify those who love the splendor of Your house, You glorify them with Your divine power. The world is immeasurably great, there are immeasurably many creatures inhabiting it, but what order is there in the whole flow, in the whole life of the world (nature)! The world of premium minds, Angels, is immensely great, but what order in the angelic world, what strict fulfillment of the will of God! The human world is great, but how much outrage, self-will, ugliness and therefore disasters there are in it - disasters of disease, various deaths, war, hunger, drowning, fires, disasters from storms and bad weather, disasters from drunkenness, gluttony, love of money, lies, perjury, suicide, murder! No number! Woe to us! And what will happen there, beyond the grave, forever and ever? Man is a wonderful, majestic, wise, artistic work of the most perfect Artist-God; in the beginning it was undefiled, unblasphemous, incorruptible and pure, but sin, this ugly generation of the spirit of darkness, this foul, absurd, evil force, made it both foul and painful, unclean and corruptible, according to its dual nature, in soul and body. However, the all-wise and all-powerful, all-good Artist did not allow His and our enemy to completely destroy His art, His beautiful and majestic creation, and He Himself arranges for Himself a body servile to us and borrows a soul from the womb of the most pure Virgin Mother; By His incarnation, His teaching, miracles, suffering, death and resurrection, His wonderful and wise economy, He again restores the work of His hands to its former and even greater splendor and glory, bestows upon it again incorruptibility, holiness, wonderful divine beauty and elevates it to the first bliss, deifying human nature and seating it with Him on the throne of the Divine. Glory to Thee, all-good, wise and all-powerful Artist! Oh, my invisible Benefactor, by whom I constantly live! You, who listen to me, fulfill the good desires of my heart, save me from my sins, from the villainy of invisible enemies, You, who improve my destiny, my enlightenment, my help, my glory, my strength, my confirmation, when will I see You? When will I see my Benefactor and Creator face to face? But you, my enemy, the devil, constantly flooding my soul with sin, insidious, flattering, evil, constantly killing me, darkening me, weakening me, covering my face with shame and dishonor, when will I be completely delivered from you by the grace, generosity and love of my Lord, Jesus Christ? When will all opportunity be taken away from you to pour the poison of your malice into my heart? What do I need? I don’t need anything on earth except the bare necessities. What do I need? I need the Lord, I need His grace, His kingdom is in me. On earth, the place of my wandering, my temporary training, there is nothing that is mine, everything is God’s and everything is temporary, assigned to my temporary services; My excesses are the property of my poor neighbors. What do I need? I need true, Christian, tenacious, active love, I need a loving, pitying heart for my neighbors, I need joy about their contentment and well-being, sorrow about their sorrows and illnesses, about their sins, weaknesses, disorders, shortcomings, misfortunes, poverty; they need warm, sincere sympathy in all circumstances of their lives, joy with those who rejoice and weeping with those who cry. Give full room to pride, selfishness, try to live only for yourself, and attract everything only to yourself: wealth, and sweets, and the glory of this world, and not live, but die, not rejoice, but suffer, carrying the poison of self-love within yourself, for self-love is poison, constantly poured into our hearts by Belial. Oh, let me exclaim with the psalmist: what do we have in heaven, and what do we desire from You on earth? My heart and my flesh are gone, O God of my heart, and my portion, O God, forever (Ps. 73:25–26). Lord, witness of my heart, its movement and these lines! Give me this I ask of you! From me this is not possible, but everything is possible for you (Mark 10:27). Give me true life, dispel the darkness of passions, enliven their power with Your power! What is the relationship between word and deed? The Word of God called the visible and invisible world from non-existence into existence; the word in the mouth of God the Word was deed. Therefore, word and deed must be inseparable from each other, just as the soul and body are inseparable in their existence. He who keeps and does the word of Christ faithfully and constantly, whose word is action, even now does great and amazing things, and everything obeys his word: demons are obeyed, and illnesses are healed, and human morality is edified. The cross in Christ and Christ on the cross; the cross is the image of the crucified Christ, the Son of God, and therefore its sign and its single shadow are terrible for demons, like the sign of Christ, like the shadow of Him, the Crucified. Therefore, it is very important to immerse the cross in water and consecrate it; Because of this, it is healing and drives away demons. A Christian is God’s vessel, God’s church, God’s house. Oh, how venerable a true Christian is, how zealously he must shun all sin, how Christians must respect each other! The vile enemy strives to destroy love with love: love for God and neighbor - love for the world, its fleeting blessings and its corrupt, ungodly customs - carnal love, love of wealth, honors, pleasures, various games. Therefore, let us extinguish in every possible way our love for this world, and let us kindle our love for God and neighbor through self-sacrifice. All beauty in the world (beauty of the face) is a weak, insignificant shadow of uncreated beauty, the ineffable kindness of the face of God; every earthly pleasure is insignificant in comparison with future pleasure. I pray to the Lord, may the faith of Christ penetrate into the depths of my heart, may it act throughout my entire life, may the gospel of Christ penetrate into all my thoughts and feelings, words and deeds, into all my bones and brains - and not only into me, but also into all people, as universal truth, wisdom and eternal life. This is the eternal life, that they may know Thee the one true God, and Him whom Thou didst send, Jesus Christ (John 17:3). How fragrant the bones of saints are! What wonderful aromas of the power of the saints of God! What a great blessing it is to acquire the incorruptible, fragrant grace of the Holy Spirit and with it eternal life! Why are we chasing decay? That they loved the stench of sins and poisonous passions! God! We bring the saints to You in prayer for us, these spiritual incense, this myrrh of Your aromas! Accept their prayers, fragrant with love and purity, for us and deliver us from the stench of sin, for our hearts are unclean and our lips are unclean, and we are unworthy of the sweetest conversations with You. Everything in us is earthly, corruptible, nasty, evil, and they, Your saints, are the purest myrrh, - especially Your Most Pure Mother, Your animated, luminous chamber, the purest of the luminaries of the sun, the most fragrant of all aromas, for heaven and earth are full of the fragrance of Her holiness, Her divine virtues. Pronounce the name of God with extreme reverence, remembering that God brought everything from non-existence into existence, and everything that exists is contained in goodness solely by His goodness, by His omnipotent power and wisdom. With extreme reverence pronounce the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, by Him all things were and are governed; Who bears everything hitherto existing, with His mighty word brings about the seasons and changes of the year - summer, autumn, winter and spring - produces all the fruits of the earth; inhabits the earth with people, animals, the air with birds; seas, lakes and rivers - fish; - multiplies the human race and satisfies it with all the blessings, - saves from sins and evil spirits, and prepares abodes for those who love Him in the kingdom of heaven; Who hitherto brings out the luminaries to illuminate the earth or temper the darkness of the night, hitherto pours out such life-giving air for the breathing of all living creatures; – created such a wonderful property of fire, which warms, burns and shines; - an earth capable of rotating with the ease of an air bubble around such a huge luminary as the sun and around itself, - capable of growing, according to His word, countless genera of plants; - water, capable of being transformed into an innumerable variety of juices in an innumerable variety of fruits, trees, shrubs and herbs. Our God is the God of miracles, the all-good, all-powerful, wise God, the God of mercy, generosity and love for mankind. Who is God as great as our God? Pronounce with reverence the name of the Most Pure Mother of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Ever-Virgin Mary, who gave birth to Him for our salvation; through Her we have been granted countless blessings from the goodness of the Lord: forgiveness of sins, sanctification, enlightenment, renewal, deliverance from eternal death, elevation to heaven, adoption to God, deification and eternal life. Pronounce with reverence the names of the apostles of Christ, the witnesses and His servants, who carried His divine teaching throughout the world and planted and spread on earth the saving faith and church of Christ - the faith of renewal and salvation; the names of the martyrs who were born with their blood into eternal life; the saints, who through the exhaustion of their bodies exhausted sin and passion within themselves and achieved blessed renewal and eternal life; unmercenaries, who through their lack of covetousness have acquired the priceless treasure of the spirit and eternal life, and all the saints. This very flesh, which we cherish so much, give peace, delight, adorn, is the enemy of our soul, very insidious, dangerous; she constantly resists the love of God, the will of God, the commandments of God and strives to fulfill her will and fulfills it almost always, unless the Lord God opposes a strong obstacle in His good and wise providence for our salvation. This flesh must always be crucified with passions and lusts, and not cherished; it must be mortified by fasting, vigil, prayer, and labor, and the soul must be exercised in reading the word of God, in contemplating God, and in prayer. It is light and warm and calm for me when I turn my soul entirely to the mental sun, the Sun of truth, Christ my God. And the ice of my heart melts, uncleanness and aphids are taken away, darkness disappears, spiritual death runs away, heavenly life reigns, nothing earthly occupies me. Possess the sacrament of faith in a clear conscience (1 Tim. 3:9). The holy, divine, heavenly Christian faith requires a pure heart in order to have a beneficial effect on a person’s entire being, but it cannot dwell in an unclean heart and cannot produce beneficial changes in it if a person does not correct himself from his vices. This is why in Christianity there are many who are called, but few who are chosen. Many are called Christians, but not many are actually such, not many create the fruits of the kingdom of God; This is why in Christianity there are many atheists, freethinkers, superstitions, greed lovers, sensualists, fornicators, drunkards, thieves, and so on. It is not faith that is to blame that Christians are like this, but those who bear the name of Christ are to blame for their inattention to faith and its rules, for their impurity and for their addiction to earthly things, according to which they cannot contain in their unclean heart the purest heavenly treasure - the faith of Christ, and perish at the very source of salvation. Woe to us, the ungrateful, malicious, worldly, vain, voluptuous and lazy. Lord, what should we do? Conquer us with Your mercy, Your love, Your wisdom, abolish the wisdom of our flesh, defeat our malice with the power of Your goodness. Every person on earth is sick with sinful fever, sinful blindness, possessed by the rage of sin; and since sin primarily consists of anger and pride, then every person, as suffering from the disease of sin, must be treated with gentle love - an important truth that we often forget; We often, very often act contrary to it: we add anger to anger with our embitterment, and we rebuff pride with pride. This is how evil grows with us, and does not decrease; it does not heal, but becomes more infected. Lord, have mercy on us, have mercy on humanity! Because of eating the forbidden fruit in paradise, humanity received a severe illness of the soul, an addiction to this short-term life, to the blessings and pleasures here, this all-destructive duality of heart between God and the world, good and evil; and since earthly blessings do not satiate the soul, created for the enjoyment of spiritual, eternal, infinite blessings, and they are not distributed evenly to everyone, and due to partiality and blind attachment to them, some capture a lot, while others have very little of them, and some do not have them at all, then from here comes eternal sin, enmity and death due to possession; hence the envy and hostility of individuals and nations, hence the bloody wars, hence the luxury of some and the extreme poverty of others, the satiety of some and the starvation of others, the harassment of prominent, rich places by some and the pressure of others, hence thefts, robberies, all kinds of evil. This is what eating the forbidden fruit did: it caused so much evil that you couldn’t get rid of it. And if the Son of God had not incarnated and suffered and died for our salvation, then endless grief would have been for the entire human race, a joyless, indescribable grief, because everyone would have perished in sins and for endless centuries they would have begun to groan, gnash their teeth in hell, without any hope of deliverance, just as now unrepentant sinners are doomed to the same eternal torment. Busy with vanity and vain pleasures, you have neither the time nor the desire to delve into the spirit of the Christian faith, Christian worship, and know the church rules, the purpose of the holidays of the Orthodox Church, fasting, and in particular the meaning of each week of Lent or the historical memories associated with each week. You sometimes know by heart what play was played at the theater, how many actions or phenomena it consists of, what its general and particular content is, but you do not know the essence of the Christian sacraments, while they deliver eternal life and the ineffable benefits of eternal life to those who worthily receive them; you do not know the essence of the Divine service of the Holy Orthodox Church, your mother, who nourishes, warms, cleanses, sanctifies and strengthens you in her maternal holy bosom; you do not know the content and meaning of either the evening, morning, or lunch services and the ever-present hymns, readings and church rituals. They justify acting in the theater and call it useful and moralizing or harmless, or at least a lesser evil in comparison with drunkenness and debauchery, and for this purpose they try to introduce theatrical performances everywhere. It is an amazing thing that Christians have not found a better means for spending precious time, like theater, both in origin and in its meaning, which still retains a pagan, idolatrous character, a character of vanity, emptiness, generally showing in itself the complete reflection of all the passions and ugliness of this world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, and only rarely, rarely, the valor of the sons of the fatherland, and then, of course, the sons of the earthly fatherland, and not the heavenly. Everything heavenly, holy, bearing the stamp of Christianity is alien to the theater, and when it enters the stage, it is as an object of ridicule: the very name of God, terrible for all creation, is pronounced here only frivolously, sometimes with laughter, blasphemously; sacred titles, e.g. monastic - this angelic title - is ridiculed; respect for superiors, for parents, for sacred persons is undermined when some reprehensible actions of these persons are publicly ridiculed, in the face of the whole society, in the face of frivolous youth, even children, for whom the names of their parents and superiors should be sacred. Sometimes one disrespectful or obscene word about elders is enough to undermine due respect for them. Have Christians become so frivolous that they do not find a better way to spend their precious time other than the theater and because of it they leave the church of God, Divine services, and the precious holiday time, given by God for teaching in the word of God, in saving reflections and in deeds of virtue, is madly wasted on empty deeds, on laughter and stupid applause in theaters? No, whatever you want, the theater is a godless institution. Just delve into its spirit, and you will agree: this is a school of unbelief, mockery, daring ridicule of everything and debauchery. Woe to that society which has many theaters and which loves to go to theatres. Sometimes, however, theater is the lesser evil for those who love evil. Listen to the opinion of the people, to the opinion of those who have visited the theater many times: they do not hesitate to say that the theater leads to debauchery. Only the blind, in whom the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers (2 Cor. 4:4), say that theater is moralizing. No, Christians must absolutely study the law of God, read the Gospel more often, delve into Divine services, fulfill the commandments and statutes of the church, read the writings of St. fathers, spiritual magazines, in order to be imbued with the Christian spirit and live like a Christian. Here are your spectacles! Oh, how bitter were my sins for You, Christ my Savior, my God, when You were strangled, beaten, spat on, Your head was pierced with thorns and nailed to the cross - when You hung on the cross in unspeakable torment for my sake, delivering me from the bitterest, indescribable torments of hell! But I should remember this self-exhaustion of Yours, this torment of Yours more often, so as not to commit sins and diligently perform every virtue, to love You with all my heart, to fulfill Your saving commandments! Meanwhile, I often forget this terrible sacrifice made for me by the Son of the Heavenly Father, the only begotten, co-originating, co-essential. Grant me, Lord, a pure heart and unchanging repentance for salvation, grant me the rest of my life to please You. Have you often called upon Me sincerely in prayer? - God says to the sinner; How often have you thanked me with a sincere heart for My countless and mind-boggling benefits? How often have you offered Me a sincere sacrifice of praise, so that I could pour out My mercies on you more and more? And what should I do with your corruption, with your depravity, with your corrupted mind and heart, with your will that is constantly inclined towards evil and vice? I love him - I punish him, I beat every son, but I accept him (Heb. 12:6). So do not weaken, you who are reproved and punished by Me, but endure. Every punishment... does not seem to be a joy to be, but sorrow: but it brings forth the peaceful fruit of righteousness (Heb. 12:11). To celebrate the Divine Liturgy, an exalted soul or a person with an exalted soul is needed, not bound by any worldly passions, lusts and pleasures, whose entire heart would be engulfed in the flame of the Holy Spirit, fiery love for God and for humanity, for every human soul, especially the Christian soul, so that with a sincere heart one always ascends to God in prayers. Fire has come to burn on the earth, and what do I want, even if it is already on fire (Luke 12:49)? This fire was sent down on the apostles in the form of tongues of fire. This fire is also necessary for us, for our frozen hearts, in order to warm up, soften, melt and purify them always, in order to enlighten and renew them. Where can we find such a worthy priest who, like Seraphim, would burn in spirit, with love, with praise, with thanksgiving before the Lord for His miracles towards us and in us, goodness and wisdom? I am the first of sinners to perform this most heavenly sacrament unworthily, for I always have an unclean heart, bound by lusts and pleasures. Lord, You see the depths of our hearts; But sprinkle me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow (Ps. 50:9). Even if you have mercy on a pure person, nothing is marvelous, and even if you have righteous salvation, there is nothing great, but surprise me, a sinner, with Your mercy 12! God! I thank You with all my heart, for You have saved me countless times from dishonor, violence, the cruelty of passions and extinguished the arrows of the evil one that were liquefied in me and protected my soul with peace and cooled me with the dew of Your grace. Glory to You, most merciful and all-powerful, for until now by Your grace I remain safe and sound, despite the countless treacheries of invisible and all-evil enemies over me, seeking to devour me. We know, Lord, that you have delivered me from all their snares and slander and saved me, in the image of destinies, into your heavenly kingdom, and not only me, but also all who live piously and are slandered from the spirits of evil: for it is yours to have mercy and save those who want and even those who do not want salvation. Either I want, it is said, or I don’t want, save me 13. Let us pray to the Lord for the salvation of our souls 14. Whoever sincerely observes himself, he constantly notices that our soul perishes in various sins, sleeps a sinful death, is constantly captured by the devil and wears strong shackles of passions, notices this and earnestly sighs and prays to the Lord for the salvation of souls redeemed by the priceless blood of Christ. So our souls perish daily in malice, envy, condemnation, covetousness, in delicacy, gluttony and drunkenness, in fornication, in laziness and negligence, in despondency and murmuring, in ignorance, foul language, idle talk, frivolity, freethinking, disobedience, insolence and self-will, etc. passions. About peace from above: for there is no peace in our bones because of our sins (Ps. 37:4). Through its divine services, the Orthodox Church educates us into heavenly citizens through teaching us every virtue represented by the life of the Mother of God and all the saints, through purification, sanctification and deification of us in the sacraments, through the granting of strength to life and piety (2 Pet. 1:3). Therefore, it is urgent to attend divine services wisely, reverently and willingly, especially on holidays, and to participate in the sacraments of repentance and communion. And those who move away from the church and Divine services become victims of their passions and perish. With what maternal, or, better, divine love, the Church daily seems to carry us in her arms, offering up unceasing prayers to the Lord for all of us, in the evening, at midnight, in the morning and around midday; teaches us, cleanses, sanctifies, heals and strengthens us with the sacraments and in all ways guides us in the most tender and meek way to salvation and eternal life. Blessed are those clergy and clergy who understand this love and this care of the Church for the salvation of her children and try to assimilate her spirit, live by this spirit, breathe this spirit both in the church and outside it, and with heartfelt attention and reverence perform prayers, chants and sacred rites of the church, remembering that through all this they themselves and their flock are saved. A lofty being is man, a wonderful creation of God, created in His image! If in a state of fall he is capable of many amazing deeds that he has performed and is producing, as we constantly see this both in history and in our modern world, then what is he capable of in a state of holiness and perfection? But most of all, what deserves attention, surprise, reverence, and heartfelt gratitude in him is that he can be like his Creator - God, that he is destined for immortality, for eternal bliss in God and with God, that he will one day be enlightened, like the sun, in the kingdom of his heavenly Father! The Lord, foreseeing this glory of His faithful chosen ones, says: then, at the second coming, the righteous will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father (Matthew 13:43). At the proskomedia, the entire Church, heavenly and earthly, the church of the firstborn, written in heaven, and the church warring against the enemies of salvation on earth, are figuratively presented gathered around the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world. The spectacle is majestic, admiring and touching the soul! How, I too am in this company of saints, and I am the redeemer of the Lamb of God, and I am a joint heir with the saints, if I remain faithful to the Lamb until death! Just as all my neighbors are members of this heavenly, holy society and joint heirs of the future kingdom! Oh, how my heart must expand to accommodate everyone, to love everyone, to care for everyone, to care about the salvation of everyone as if it were my own! Behold wisdom and wisdom! Let us be simple, let us walk in simplicity of heart with everyone! Let us remember our high calling and election and let us strive steadily for the honor of the heavenly calling of God in Christ Jesus! We are children of God and heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ (Rom. 8:16–17). Do not look at the sins of others and do not be hostile to the sinner, either internally or externally, but present your sins before you and diligently repent of them, considering yourself truly worse than everyone else; pray with love for those who sin, knowing that we are all prone to every sin. A true Christian acts in this life so that it is a preparation for the future, and not a life for this age only; In his actions, he does not think about what they will say about him here, but what they will say there, in heaven; he always imagines himself in the presence of God, the Angels and all the saints and remembers that one day they will be witnesses of his thoughts, words and deeds. By love for God and neighbor I belong to heaven, I am heavenly; and with cares, especially worldly passions - the earth, I am earthly, demonic. Lord and Master of my life, grant the spirit of love to me, Your servant. Love; with love in your heart for God and your neighbor, you will have everything and will not become poor, for where there is love, there is God; and God is everything for us, the main thing is our life, peace, sweetness, bliss. It is strange and pathetic to see for what empty reasons the devil deprives us of love for God and neighbor: because of the dust of the earth, in the proper sense, innumerable and trampled under foot, because of money, because of food and drink, clothing, housing, honors, this passing along with its matter - the earth and with our many-careful bodies - dust. Remember Love, who laid down her life for people; Do not spare your very life for your brother and mercilessly crucify your carnal man who turns away from donating for his brother. Greedy, greedy miser! Did money or bread give you life? Isn't it God? Was it not His word that gave existence and life to you and to all other creatures? Is it not the Son of God who bears all things by His power (Heb. 1:3)? Is your life supported by money and bread, water and wine alone? Is it not because of every word that comes from the mouth of God that a person lives (Matthew 4:4)? Isn't money and bread dust? Isn't it just the least amount of bread we need to support our lives? Everything was created and is maintained by the Word. The Word is the source of life and its storage. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit - God in the Trinity is glorified by all His creatures: angelic councils, silently proclaiming the Trisagion and St. Church of Christ, St. apostles, martyrs, saints, saints, righteous and all saints, the whole visible world, all true Christians living today - the whole world. The truth of the trinity of the Divine is like the air that surrounds us on all sides, with which we breathe and with which we are completely imbued. Is it possible after this to doubt the Divinity of the Son or the Spirit of God? How many works do we see done in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit? How much of the power of the Spirit of God have we experienced and are experiencing? The Holy Spirit is the spiritual air of rational beings. What air is to physical bodies, the Holy Spirit is to rational and free beings. He fills them, enlivens them, illuminates them, makes them wise, strengthens them; The Son of God is for us the way, the truth, the life (John 14:6), peace (I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28)), joy (I will see you, and your heart will rejoice (John 16:22)). We have experienced this ourselves and are experiencing it. After this, who will we listen to who suggests the opposite? Are the internal whispers of an evil spirit, this gloomy one, breathing lies, malice, despondency, crampedness and fire, which, like smoke, like dust, disappears from the name and cross of the Lord? Will we listen to this dreamer and be indignant at his machinations? Let it be known to you firmly that he is a pure negation of the truth. If I cry because we do not know Him (the Father), I will be like a lie to you. But I know Him (John 8:55). The very fact that he always kills the soul proves that he is a lie, death, and not truth, not life. We know one culprit of death - the devil. Amen. If we call upon the saints with faith and love, then they will immediately hear us: - the connecting principle on our side is faith, and on theirs, together on our side, is love, for they are both in God, and we are in God, Who is love (1 John 4:16). Why is prolonged prayer necessary? In order to warm up our cold hearts, hardened in the long bustle, through the duration of fervent prayer. For it is strange to think, much less to demand, that a heart worn out in the bustle of life could soon be imbued with the warmth of faith and love for God during prayer. No, this requires work and work, time and time. The kingdom of heaven is taken by force, and those who use force take it away (Matthew 11:12). The kingdom of God does not come to the heart soon when people run so diligently from it. The Lord Himself expresses His will that we should not pray briefly when He presents as an example a widow who went to the judge for a long time and bothered him with her requests (Luke 18:2-6). The Lord, our heavenly Father, knows before we ask what we demand (Matt. 6:8), what we need, but we do not know Him as we should; we are very devoted to the vanity of the world, and not to the Heavenly Father; Here He, in His wisdom and mercy, turns our needs into a pretext for turning us to Him. Turn, my erring children, even now to Me, your Father, with all your hearts, if before you were far from Me, even now, with faith and love, warm up your hearts towards Me, which were cold towards Me. Dignified, heartfelt, reverent service to the Lord in church with living faith is a source of peace, joy and bliss for our soul. Thus, a reverent priest, performing services, sacraments, and prayers, actually finds for himself the greatest pleasure and bliss. The Word of the Lord is work, life, being, from Existence - existence, from Life - life, from Truth - truth. From the devil, who fell into dreamy pride, who wanted to appropriate the impossible for himself and who fell away from life and truth, comes dreaming, lies, and from death – death. Man, they say, is free; he cannot or should not force himself either in faith or in teaching. Lord, have mercy! What a diabolical opinion! If you don’t force it, then what will come out of people after that? Well, what will come of you, herald of newly invented rules, if you do not force yourself to do anything good, but live the way your vicious heart, your proud, short-sighted and blind mind, your sinful flesh wants you to live? Tell me what will become of you? Aren’t you forcing yourself to do anything, I don’t say directly good, but at least necessary and useful? How can you do without forcing yourself? How can Christians not be encouraged and forced to fulfill the requirements of faith and piety? Isn't it said in St. Scripture that the Kingdom of Heaven is in need, that the needy delights (Matthew 11:12). How can we not force boys, especially, to study and pray? What will come of them? Aren't they sloths? Aren't they naughty? Will they not learn all kinds of evil? About current charities. “You partake of earthly blessings in full measure, you give to those in need, but you caress yourself more, which means you do good deeds without the slightest self-sacrifice.” Your deeds of charity are not great. What else is there? What are imaginary benefits? They make amusement their charitable goal, that is, first of all they want to intentionally serve their sinful flesh, the devil, and then their neighbor and God. Yes, gentlemen, this is not charity at all! It bears the name of charity alone. Let us not create evil, that good may come (Rom. 3:8). Woe to you who are now saturated, for you will hunger! Woe to you who laugh now, for you will weep and weep (Luke 6:25). When you pray to the Lord and ask Him for yourself or other spiritual, heavenly, material, earthly blessings, then for complete confidence in receiving what you ask for or in general the good that is most beneficial for us, according to the wisdom and goodness of God, keep in mind and in your heart the following words of the Savior: ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find it, ask and it will be opened to you: for everyone you ask accepts, and seek, it will find, and it will be opened to the one who interprets. Or who is a man from you, and if his son asks for bread, food will he give him a stone? 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 7:7-11). When reading known truths, do not say: this is not new, I know this, I also said this. All this is the pride of the devil; such a mood responds with the following wisdom: I know everything, good and evil, - this means almost the following: I am omniscient. And many do not read sermons and spiritual books because they seem to all know that everything is the same, which they have known for a long time, while secular books, in which there is always the same empty everyday vanity, are read willingly and re-read. Oh, unclean flies that feed on carrion! The Lord calls us all into the communion of His divine nature, and we must carefully guard among ourselves the unity of the spirit in the union of peace, as members of the body of Christ, as we judge each other. We made each other happy (Eph. 4:25). After a worthy service and sacrament, always thank the Lord with all your heart with a short prayer that He has vouchsafed you with all your heart, with faith and love, to serve Him, His most loving intentions and deeds, for our service to the Lord, our Creator and Redeemer, is the greatest gift and benefit to us sinners, very fruitful both for those who receive God’s sanctification and salvation through us, and for ourselves, because it pacifies, revitalizes and pleases. We must always thank the Lord that He deigned to make us, sinners and unworthy His servants, His companions, as the apostle says: For we are companions of God (1 Cor. 3:9), - His servants and builders of His mysteries: so let man hate us, as the servants of Christ and builders of the mysteries of God (1 Cor. 4:1). Meanwhile, what are many of us doing? - They perform services and sacraments, prayers reluctantly, sluggishly, carelessly, hastily, with omissions, wanting to quickly finish the holy work and rush to the bustle of life. What a terrible deception and what a grave sin! At the same time, you involuntarily remember the formidable word of the Lord to the careless performers of His works: cursed is everyone who does the work of the Lord with negligence (Jer. 48:10)! I said: what a terrible seduction! Yes, a terrible deception, because in our blindness we neglect the words of the Holy Spirit, breathing in the prayers of the sacraments and services - we neglect the very thing that, with real diligence and zeal, would serve for us as a source of sweet peace, joy in the Holy Spirit and even a source of bodily health, for the words of prayers, during services and sacraments, read with faith, reverence, the fear of God, calmly, with a burning spirit, have an undoubted and the wonderful property of reviving, strengthening and healing our body along with the soul. This has been proven by experience. A grave sin, I say, because by carelessly performing the sacraments, we thereby blaspheme the shrine of the Lord. What needs to be done to perform the sacraments and services with dignity, carefully, and with a burning spirit? We must always have a living faith that our God, worshiped in the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is always with us, looks at us and, at the first word of our sincere prayer for help, is ready to help us in a holy cause, for the prayer of faith, like breathing for our body, is absolutely necessary for us while we live on earth; What breathing is to the body, the prayer of faith is to the soul. Remembering that the Almighty is always with us, and having Him as the very thing in our thoughts, rejecting from our hearts all thoughts, worldly doubts, worries and addictions, we will always do God’s work worthily. About hypocritical prayer. – Did the Pharisees think that they were praying hypocritically? - We didn’t think so; they considered themselves right in the very hypocrisy. It became a habit among them, it became, so to speak, their nature, and they thought that they were serving God with their prayer. Do today's Christian hypocrites think that they pray hypocritically and live hypocritically? - They don’t think so. They pray daily, perhaps for a long time, they pray out of habit, with their lips, and not with their hearts, without heartfelt contrition, without a strong desire for correction, just to fulfill the established rule - and they think of offering service to God (John 16:2), while with their prayer they incur only the wrath of God. We are all more or less sinful in that we pray hypocritically, and we will accept great condemnation for this. Humble yourself, considering yourself to be grass, which is nothing compared to age-old oaks, or thorny thorns, which are insignificant, of little value compared to magnificent fragrant and delicate flowers - for you are grass, you are thorny thorns because of your passions. When you give to a beggar who is not poor, healthy and apparently does not deserve alms, which is why your heart will regret the alms given to him, repent of this, for divine Love also gives us its blessings, while we already have enough of them. Love for your neighbor should speak to you like this: although he has it, it’s not bad if I increase his well-being (and to tell the truth, one or two or three kopecks will not really increase or improve his well-being). God gives to me, why shouldn’t I give to someone in need? I say: to the needy, for who would stretch out his hand without need? If you yourself only received the gifts of His goodness from God based on your merits, then perhaps you would have to walk as a beggar. God is generous to you beyond what you deserve, and you yourself want Him to be generous. How can you not want to be generous to your brothers, having an abundance? Look at everything in the world as a passing shadow and do not attach your heart to anything, do not consider anything great, do not place hope in anything. Cling to the one incorruptible, invisible, all-wise God. 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). The treatment of mental illnesses (passions) is completely different from the treatment of physical illnesses. In physical illnesses, you need to dwell on the disease, caress the sore spot with soft remedies, warm water, warm poultices, etc., but in mental illnesses it is not so: an illness has attacked you - do not dwell on it, do not caress it at all, do not indulge it, do not warm it, but beat it, crucify it; do the exact opposite of what she asks; hatred of your neighbor has attacked you - quickly crucify it and immediately love your neighbor; stinginess has attacked - be generous quickly; envy attacked - rather be kind; pride has attacked, quickly humble yourself to the ground; the love of money has attacked - rather, praise non-covetousness and be jealous of it; tormented by the spirit of enmity - love peace and love; if you are overcome by gluttony, rather be jealous of abstinence and fasting. The whole art of treating illnesses of the spirit consists in not dwelling on them at all and not in the least indulging them, but immediately cutting them off. Regarding the fulfillment of what you ask from God in prayer, believe that just as it is convenient for you to pronounce words, so it is convenient and incomparably more convenient for the Lord to fulfill every word of yours, and if there is a word, then there is also a deed, for with the Lord there is no word without deed, the verb does not return to Him empty, according to His word (Is. 55:11). Always remember in prayer that God is Existent - everything comes from Him: a thought about something, a word about something, a deed, and everything - that He is all-wise, all-powerful, all-good. How much people lose in home conversation, in order to enliven it, by not talking about God! How animated, fruitful and diversified their conversation would be! Believers would then have rivers of saving words flowing from their bellies (John 7:38). How much such conversations would bring edification, soothing, true sweetness! Meanwhile, now, not talking about God in home circles, but talking about the vanity of the world, they soon become exhausted in conversation, get bored and then kill precious time in stupid games or dancing. The enemy of the human race noticed this weakness in people to engage in vain, everyday conversations and generally spend time in vain amusements; he has extracted and continues to derive enormous benefit from this weakness: he started theaters and circuses - a true manifestation of vanity, a true mockery of human vanity; and the insane among people, prone to vanity, laziness and inaction, willingly visit these theaters and circuses, not finding a better activity for themselves that would bring peace and pleasantness to their spirit. Vanity of vanities - all kinds of vanity. Fear God and keep His commandments, as every man does (Eccl. 1:2, 12:13) You are sick, and your illness is very painful: you have lost heart, are despondent; thoughts, one darker than the other, overwhelm you; your heart and your lips are ready for murmuring, blasphemy against God. My brother! Take sincere advice from me: endure your illness generously and not only do not be discouraged, on the contrary, if you can, rejoice in your illness. What’s there to be happy about, you ask, when it’s breaking far and wide? Rejoice in the fact that the Lord has punished you with temporary punishment, that he may cleanse your soul from sins, for the Lord loves him and punishes him (Heb. 12:6); rejoice that you now do not satisfy those passions that you would satisfy if you were healthy; Rejoice that you bear the cross of illness and, therefore, walk the narrow and sorrowful path leading to the kingdom. Diseases, to our eyes, represent only one thing painful, unpleasant, terrible: rarely do any of us during illness imagine the benefit that illness brings to our soul; but with the all-wise and all-good Provider - God, not a single illness remains without benefit for our soul. Diseases in the hands of Providence are the same as bitter medicines for our soul, healing its passions, bad habits and inclinations. Not a single disease sent to us will ever return. Therefore, we must keep in mind the benefits of illness, so that we can suffer more easily and calmly. Those who have suffered in the flesh are free from sin (1 Pet. 4:1), it is said in Scripture. The love of the Lord is greater than the love of a mother. My mother carried me in her womb and brought me into the world by God’s dispensation, then she began to feed me, caress me, and carry me in her arms; when I became able to walk on my own, then she left me to carry me in her arms and even earlier stopped feeding me with her nipples. The Lord always, so to speak, carries me in His womb: he who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, He says, and I am in him (John 6:56), or: although you are neither warm nor cold, the imam will vomit you from My mouth (Rev. 3:16); always carries me in His arms: your walls are written in My hands, and you are always before Me (Isa. 49:16); bear all things with the word of your strength (Heb. 1:3); He is my strength, my peace, my sweetness and joy, the light of my mind and heart; He constantly feeds me, like a mother with breasts, with the various products of the earth. He is my strong food and inexhaustible drink 15. Parents leave us and we them according to age, for it is said: a man will leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife (Matthew 19:5) (either in the proper sense understood, or in a figurative meaning - to Christ, Who is the highest and holiest love, more than a loving wife). The Lord, from the beginning of our existence until our death, does not leave us for a minute (you are ever before Me (Is. 49:16)), every moment thinking about us, like a cocosh about his chicks. He is hope in our death, He is life after our death, He is our consolation at His judgment, He will not put us to shame even then, 16 and He will lead us into the eternal abodes of the kingdom of heaven. Fasting brothers and sisters! Let us be afraid of the petrified insensibility of our sins; let us be afraid of the pride of our hearts, which says: I do not need the forgiveness of sins, I am not guilty, I am not a sinner, or: my sins are light, human, - as if it were necessary for them to be demonic; or: It’s not bad for me to live in my sins. This is satanic pride, and Satan himself repeats the same words in our hearts. Let us feel deeply, deeply, with all our hearts, our countless iniquities, we will sigh for them from the depths of our souls, we will shed tears of tenderness for them and we will appease the angry Master. Let us not justify ourselves in the least, like the Pharisees and hypocrites, for, as it is said, no one living is justified before God (Ps. 143:2), and only by sincere repentance of sins can we appease God. Let us leave indifference and coldness, let us work for the Lord with a burning spirit; Let us not forget that after a long period of lawless life, we have now come to appease the Lord of our life and our righteous Judge. Is this a time of coldness and indifference, which is not approved even in the community when dealing with people? Shouldn't our whole soul turn into spiritual fire and pour itself out in tears of sincere repentance? O our God, our God! our iniquities, in the proper sense, have multiplied more than the power of our head, more than the number of the sand of the sea, and we do not feel them, we are indifferent to them, we do not even stop loving them. What if You take away all our iniquities. Lord?...Who then will stand before You, Lord (Ps. 129:3)! Grant us all, Lord, a contrite spirit and a humble heart, so that we may bring You true repentance. Amen. When your faith in the Lord during your life and prosperity or in illness and at the end of this life weakens, fades from the vanity of life or from illness and from the horrors and darkness of death, then look with the intelligent eyes of your heart at the hosts of forefathers, patriarchs, prophets and righteous people (Simeon the God-Receiver, Job, Anna the prophetess, etc.), apostles, saints, martyrs, saints, unmercenaries, righteous and all saints. See how they continually looked to God during life, and when they left this life they died in the hope of resurrection and eternal life, and be their imitator. These living examples, so numerous, are capable of confirming the wavering faith of every Christian in the Lord and in the future blessed life. Those Christian societies that do not venerate the saints and do not call on them in prayers lose much for piety and Christian hope. They deprive themselves of the great reinforcement of faith by the examples of people subservient to us. When your spirit becomes depressed in illness and begins to imagine death with horror, then calm and comfort your restless, trembling and sad heart with the following saying: You, Lord, with the depth of wisdom, humanely build everything and give what is useful to everyone - and believe that He will certainly arrange everything for our good: whether life, illness, misfortune, sorrow, or death, so that you cannot wish for anything better. Don’t say: it would be too early for me to die, I would like to live a little longer for the glory of God, for the benefit of my relatives and neighbors; I would like to see the light again and enjoy the blessings of the earth. Be grateful to God for the fact that you have previously enjoyed His benefits, His mercies, His bounties. Now submit to His will, His calling, but at the same time do not despair of continuing your life here. In my heart I can enclose both God and people with faith and love, with the prayer of faith and love. How deep and spacious is the human heart! What a great man! The true shepherd and father of his flock will live in grateful memory of them even after his death: they will glorify him, and the less he cares about his glorification here on earth, with his diligent labors for their salvation, the more his glory will shine after death: even the dead will force them to talk about himself. Such is the glory of those who work for the common good. You are a voluntarily fallen being, corrupted by sin: this is where the strongest motivation for you to pray is; you receive daily the greatest mercies from God: this is where the strong incentive to thank God is; You daily contemplate the deeds of God’s omnipotence, wisdom and goodness: this is where the motivation for daily praise lies. Manifestation of satanic pride in people. – Pride usually shows itself in the fact that the person infected with it makes himself equal to everyone, or at least many, who are higher than himself in age, in power, in ability, and does not tolerate being inferior to them. If a proud person is a subordinate, he does not respect his boss as he should, does not want to bow to him, does not respect his orders, carries them out reluctantly, out of fear; he equates himself with all educated people and does not give preference to anyone or very, very few: if he is a learned or even unlearned son or daughter, he does not give due respect to parents and benefactors, especially simple and rude ones, considering them equal to himself. You must be extremely careful not to compare yourself with others in any respect, but to place yourself below everyone else, even if you really were in some way better than many or equal to very many. Everything good in us is from God, not ours. This is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God: not of works, lest anyone should boast (Eph. 2:8-9). All this is shared by one and the same Spirit.. (1 Cor. 12:4, 11). How can I be proud of someone else’s good and be equal to those who are placed above me by God Himself and public trust? So, don’t sit in the first place, someone who is more honest will give you food. Anyone who exalts himself will humble himself, but he who humbles himself will exalt himself (Luke 14:8, 18:14). When we talk about the God of glory, about His will, His law, then we must completely forget about our own glory and completely immerse ourselves in the contemplation of the glory of God or His all-wise, all-good will; We should not then think about our shortcomings, which the devil introduces into our consciousness and into our feelings in order to lower us in our own eyes, to plunge us into false shame, despondency and despair. We must remember that there is no perfection on earth in anything, as well as in glory: in part we understand and in part we prophesy (preach) (1 Cor. 13:9). And whoever is ashamed and blushes for his imperfections, he is ashamed of the ghost that appears to him in his own imagination, he is proud of his imaginary perfections. I have seen and heard people who, with slyness and malice, talk about some dark spots in the life and activities of great and even holy people, and because of these dark, imaginary or true spots, they condemn a person’s entire life, calling him a hypocrite and almost an apostate. They will present you with facts - only these facts are as dark and doubtful as their suspicious, crafty soul is dark, which from someone else’s stain, from someone else’s sin, someone else’s weakness, wants to extract for itself an imaginary justification for its vicious deeds. But they will not justify themselves, but rather bring condemnation upon themselves for the fact that they see a blight in their brother’s eye and condemn him; but they do not smell the logs (truly logs) in their eyes (Matthew 7:3). You say: in this holy father or in this pious man there are such and such sins. So what? He is a man, and no man is without sin. If we say that we are not imams of sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8). But are you without sin? If not, why are you throwing a stone of condemnation at your brother? If I began to analyze your life, according to the Word of God, then I, in your own words, would condemn you in countless and grave sins: in pride, and in arrogance, and in unbelief, and in covetousness, and in adultery, and in misinterpretation of the Word of God and the commandments of God, and in coldness towards your faith... and you never know what. I would find that perhaps your whole body is dark, because your heart's eye is deceitful. Oh! How disgusting I am with this devilish gloating about my neighbor’s sin, this hellish effort to prove his true or imaginary weakness. And people who do this still dare to say that they respect and try with all their might to fulfill the law of love for God and neighbor! What kind of love for one's neighbor is there, when even in great and holy people they deliberately want to see and look for dark spots, for one sin they denigrate his whole life and do not want to cover up the sin of his neighbor, if he really exists? They forgot that love covers everything (1 Cor. 13:7). How much evil these moral worms do to themselves and others! They undermine the legitimate respect for a famous person in many, darken her light for them, distract them from imitation of her and confuse their souls with thoughts of condemnation, and they harm themselves by accepting from the devil the poison of condemning their neighbor. Brother! Who are you, a judge of a foreign slave? His Lord stands or falls. It will become: for God is strong to establish it (Rom. 14:4). Having called on the Holy Spirit to the Gifts that are presented and sanctified them with the prayer of application (during the Liturgy), remember that heaven and earth pass by, but the words of the Lord do not pass by (Matthew 24:35), and that bread and wine are certainly transformed into the body and blood of the Lord, according to the will of the Lord Himself and according to the action of the Holy Spirit, even if the officiating person is unworthy due to some weakness yours. About forcing yourself to do every good thing. – The kingdom of heaven, it is said, is in need, and the needy delight it (Matthew 11:12). Therefore, you need to constantly force yourself to truth and goodness; in prayer, you need to force yourself at every moment to pronounce every word with strength, truly, from the heart; in case of an oversight, inattention to one’s heart, or compulsion to be sincere, the prayer will be hypocritical, false, and ungodly; you need to speak the words of prayer convincingly to yourself. When the prayer words are convincing for you, then they will be convincing for God, and without convincing yourself, do not think with your prayer to convince God to grant you any good. God gives according to our hearts (Ps. 19:5): the more sincerity, heartfelt fervor in prayer, the more generous the gift. Remember, man, that you are a moral and physical nonentity; moral - because you are all sin, passion, weakness, and physical - because your body is earthly dust; - so that through this they can vividly and tangibly show their humility before God, as ancient people and even today some clearly depicted this, sprinkling ashes on their heads, taking off light clothes that feed vanity and vanity in the immortal human spirit. So, man, the smallest good in you is from God, like the smallest trickle of air that is in you or that you inhale from the air around you. Glory to the Most Holy, consubstantial and life-giving Trinity! When the devil pinches my side with displeasure, hatred of my neighbor because of something worldly, carnal, and it becomes hard, painful for me, I stand up and lift my heart’s eyes to the Trinity and say: Father, Son, All-Holy Soul, have mercy on me, and I myself look at the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, as the very essence of the Most Holy Trinity, which is essentially present everywhere, even in the word one, - you look: immediately and easily the enemy will become and run away from the all-powerful, ever-worshipped Name, like smoke will disappear. Glory to Thee, Holy and consubstantial, and life-giving, and inseparable Trinity 17! Holy Trinity! teach me to despise everything earthly, teach me to place peace, contentment, bliss in You alone! And so as not to make me proud, because of the gracious attention of the Most Holy Trinity to me and the salvation She gives me, let me remember that She graciously listens to every worm, every chick. I also remember that some Christians, who have created many powers in the name of God, will one day hear from the Lord the words: get away from Me, I don’t know you (Matthew 7:23; 25:12), for their unevangelical life. Holy Trinity! save me from pride and teach me humility! You kindly and quickly listen to me and save me; I can become proud from this mercy, turn Your endless goodness and mercy into an excuse for self-praise, supposedly I myself was worthy of such attention, as having done some good! Cover me, O most merciful Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Soul, with Thy shelter from all sin. When you speak to yourself in your heart or pronounce the name of God, the Lord, or the Most Holy Trinity, or the Lord of Hosts, or the Lord Jesus Christ, then in this name you have the whole being of the Lord: in it His infinite goodness, boundless wisdom, unapproachable light, omnipotence, immutability. With the fear of God, with faith and love, touch with your thoughts and heart this all-creating, all-containing, all-governing Name. That is why the commandment of God strictly forbids taking the name of God in vain, because, that is, His name is He Himself - one God in three Persons, a simple Being, depicted and contained in a single word, and at the same time not contained, that is, not limited by it and by anything existing. Real life is not a joke or a toy, and yet people have turned it into a joke and a toy: they frivolously play with the time given to prepare for eternity, they play with idle words. They will gather for a visit, sit and chat idlely, and then sit down to play one way or another; they gather in the theater, and there only the characters and those watching their actions are amused; others are amused by their mental gifts, human weaknesses or virtues, the ability to speak and write well; they even indulge in food and drink, consuming them in excess, instead of using them only for the necessary saturation; they amuse themselves with their clothes, they amuse themselves with their faces; They amuse themselves with their children, instead of raising them in faith, piety and the fear of God. Their whole life is fun. But woe to those who amuse themselves! Oh, how terrible it is to eat and drink for fun, to become satiated and drunk! A well-fed womb loses faith, the fear of God, and becomes insensitive to prayer, to thanksgiving and glorification of God. A well-fed heart turns away from the Lord and becomes like a stone, hard and insensitive. That is why the Savior carefully warns us against overeating and drunkenness, lest the day of death suddenly come upon us (Luke 21:34), because of the Lord’s anger against us, for frivolous and idle spending of time in food and drink. As a person satisfies his sensuality, he becomes carnal and removes from himself the Most Holy Spirit of God, Who cannot dwell in people who lead a carnal life: what communication is there between light and darkness (2 Cor. 6:14)? This tear-worthy condition is experienced by many people and - alas! - they do not recognize that they do not have the Spirit of God in them, just as those who were blind from birth do not realize the great loss that they do not see the light. Such people do not have faith and love in their hearts and the spirit of prayer; they avoid communication with the Church. My God! there are so many dangers in life for me. I become my own greatest enemy when I satisfy my flesh too much. Remember that the fulfillment of the life-giving Mysteries is the unchanging consent of the life-giving Trinity, predetermined from the creation of the world; it cannot not be. When you perform the Mysteries, then God the Father Himself, by His Holy Spirit, adds bread and wine to the body and blood of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ - you are only an instrument. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit Himself through you performs the liturgy and consecrates the gifts. You are the one who offers and the one who is offered, they say, Christ our God 18. Remember the immutability of God and faithfulness in all His words. Only then will you perform the sacrament of repentance worthily, when you are not selfish, but loving, when you are patient and not irritable. Oh, what great love is needed for the souls of our neighbors in order to confess them worthily, without haste and without getting excited, with patience! The confessing priest must remember that there is joy in heaven for one sinner who repents (Luke 15:7, 10). How should he try to arouse repentant feelings in those who repent, who do not know what to repent of, as it should be. The priest must also remember how the apostle taught each of the newly enlightened Christians day and night, teaching with tears (Acts 20:31). All selfishness in the work of God must be cast aside, the reward must be placed in the one God - the Lover of Souls. Ask about sins and teach with firmness and sincerity, and not sluggishly and with a divided heart; a firm word will evoke firm repentance, will soon pierce the heart and tear out tears of tenderness and contrition; but if the priest asks not firmly, but sluggishly, double-mindedly, then the spiritual children, seeing the sluggishness and double-mindedness of their spiritual father, will not be spiritually and heartily disposed to repent. Imagine, by your strength, the omnipotence and magnificence of the hypostatic Word of God. He speaks and His word immediately becomes multi-faceted and multi-faceted being; says: let there be light, and light appears; says: let it be firm, and the firmament appears; says: let the waters under heaven be gathered into their own congregations... let there be lights in the firmament of heaven, let the waters bring up the creeping things... and so on. (Gen. 1:3–20), and everything appears according to His word. So the voice of the leader, resounding in the air and reaching the ears of the warriors, moves them as the leader of the army pleases, placing them in various positions, directing them to various actions, achieving through them the fulfillment of their various intentions and goals. Imagine these vast masses of created matter; Imagine how huge mountains emerged from the earth at God’s word; what was the sound of the waters when they gathered into oceans, seas, rivers and springs; imagine how the air spilled; Imagine how suddenly the most diverse vegetation appeared, at one word from the All-Creator - God; imagine how the luminaries appeared and shone and began to make their endless circuits; how suddenly fish, birds, reptiles, animals and, finally, a man appeared. And all this (except for man) is made from the same ugly substance, or, more precisely, from only four soulless, ugly, lifeless elements. Doesn’t the mind marvel at all of these? For Thy works are magnified, O Lord: Thou hast done all things with wisdom! (Ps. 103:24). So now the Lord creates from substance whatever he wants: he speaks and happens (bread and wine into the body and blood of the Eucharist). Verbal creature! remember that you have your beginning from the word of the All-Creator and in union (through faith) with the creative Word, through faith, you yourself can be a material and spiritual creator. Believe that with your faith in the creative Word of the Father, your word will never return to you in vain, powerless (when, for example, you pray to the Benefactor God according to the leadership of the Holy Church or according to the instructions of the Lord), but will bring you a useful gift; believe that with faith in the creative Word, you will not be able to teach people in church during Divine services, during the celebration of the sacraments, in homes; Your word in the school will not be unsuccessful, but will build the minds and hearts of those who listen to you. Remember that in the word itself lies the possibility of action; You just need to have firm faith in the power of the word, in its creative ability. The Lord is inseparable from the word; not a single word will return to Him faint: every word will not faint from God (Luke 1:37); so it should be with us, for we are images of the Word, and the Word sincerely united with us, through incarnation, deifying us, accepting us as partakers of the Divine nature. Opening for others the door to the kingdom of heaven through baptism, shall we not ourselves enter? By cleansing others through repentance and resolving the sins of others, will we not receive remission of our sins? Uniting others with Christ in the sacrament of communion, shall we ourselves not unite with Him sincerely in the non-evening days of the reign of Christ? By giving in Confirmation the strengthening and increasing grace of the Holy Spirit, will we not ourselves receive strength and strength from the All-Holy Spirit and will we not increase the gift of our spirit? Truly we firmly hope to receive the promised good things through the grace, generosity and love of our Savior God. May God grant everyone to receive them! Just let us not be lazy, let us not become discouraged, let us not please the flesh in lust (Rom. 13:14), let us keep the sacrament of faith in a clear conscience (1 Tim. 3:9) and let us prosper in love for God and neighbor. When you doubt the perfection or fulfillment of the word of prayer, remember that the nature of the word is perfection, effectiveness, and that the Holy Spirit, who teaches us to pray for something as it should be, is and is called the Performer Himself, It is He who completes our prayer (performed by the Spirit). Remember that the word is power, it will not fail, it is said that with God is every word (Luke 1:37). The word of the Lord does not return to Him empty (Isa. 55:11), but like rain or snow, it waters the earth of our hearts and gives seed (fulfilment) to the sower. And they say about people: he has extraordinary power of words. You see, the word is power, spirit, life. When you pronounce the powerful, commanding, creative words of the Lord Himself, then consider replenishment according to them as an ordinary and convenient thing, just as it is convenient and ordinary for you to breathe, take, as it is convenient and ordinary for a baby to form in the womb, and even incomparably more convenient. In order to have unshakable confidence during prayer to receive every spiritual benefit from the Lord, believe that when you unite with the Lord in prayer, you become one spirit with Him (1 Cor. 6:17), and God is all-good, all-powerful, all-wise; He is all-perfect perfection; This means that you, to the extent of your acceptability, to the extent of faith and love, will become a participant in His divine perfections. In the union of your soul with God, do not consider anything inconvenient or impossible, for everything is possible with God (Mark 10:27): not only what you can think about or are thinking about, but what you cannot even think about, or what you think about as impossible. For God is an infinite Being, and all His perfections are infinite. If you doubt that you will receive the benefits you ask from God, then remember how even you, being angry and stingy, and not rich, and not omnipotent, give to the needy who ask you, or even before their request you give, knowing only their need. How much more will your heavenly Father, all-good, all-rich, wise, all-powerful, give good things to those who ask Him (Matthew 7:11). The more people you ask for blessings from the Lord and the higher these blessings, the stronger the devil opposes the praying priest, so that for his fervent, fervent prayer God does not give those blessings, for: according to your faith, it is said, it will be done for you (Matthew 9:29), and if you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes (Mark 9:23). However, where the machinations of the devil multiply, there the grace of God abounds. The person praying must remember that if God did not spare His only begotten Son for us sinners, but gave Him up for us all, then how can He not give us everything, every good that we can think of, because if an infinite, great good is given, then lesser blessings will not be given? In Christ, the heavenly Father has given and continues to give us every good thing. All the Divine powers in Him, even for life and godliness, were given to us (2 Pet. 1:3). During prayer, when faced with strong temptations from the devil, cast all your sorrow on the Lord, for He cares for you (1 Pet. 5:7). When you pray, just believe in the Lord, as He is at your right hand, and everything will be possible for you. When you sin for the fiftieth and hundredth time a day and you are overcome by extreme devilish despondency and despair in God’s mercy, say from the depths of your soul with Metaphrastus: “I know, my Lord, that my iniquities have surpassed my head, but the multitude of Your mercies is immeasurable, the mercy of Your kindly goodness is inexpressible, and there is no conquering sin.” Your humanity. Surprise, O wonderful King, kindly Lord, and upon me, a sinner, Thy mercy, show Thy goodness the power, and show the strength of Thy gracious mercy and accept me, a sinner turning to You. Accept me as You accepted the prodigal, the thief, the harlot; accept me, who have sinned immeasurably in word and deed, with placeless lust and thoughtless thoughts, and do not convict me with Thy righteous judgment and do not punish me with Thy righteous anger. Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am not only weak, but also Your creation. You have established Your fear on me, and I have done evil before You. I trust in You, my God! If there is hope of salvation for me, if Your love for mankind exceeds without number the multitude of my iniquities, be my Savior and, according to Your generosity and Your mercies, weaken me, leave me everything in which I have sinned before You, for my soul is filled with many evils, and there is no hope of salvation in me. Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your great mercy and do not reward me according to my deeds, and do not judge me according to my deeds, but convert me, intercede, deliver my soul from the evils and cruel perceptions that grow with it; save me, for the sake of Your mercy, so that where sin has multiplied, Your grace will abound, and I would praise and glorify You always, all the days of my life, for You are the God of the repentant and the Savior of those who sin” 19. Remember that if during prayer you do not idle, but say the words of prayer with feeling, then your words will not return to you thinly, without strength (like a husk without grain), but will certainly bring you the very fruits that are contained in the word, like a fruit in a shell. This is the most natural thing, just as the fruit and its shell are natural and ordinary in nature. But if you throw out words in vain, without faith, without feeling their power, like a husk without a kernel, then they will return to you empty; you throw away the husk, the husk will come back to you; you throw the seed, the whole ear will bring you, and the better, the fatter the seed, the more abundant the ear. So it is with our prayers: the more sincerely and heartily you pronounce each word, the more fruit from the prayer: each word, like a grain, will bring you spiritual fruit, like a ripe ear. Who among those praying has not experienced this? It was not in vain that the Savior compared the seed with the word, and the human heart with the earth (Matthew 13:5). The same must be said about the words of prayer. Also: who doesn’t know that rain irrigates the earth and plants and gives them water? So the word of God, and even our word, spoken with faith, will not return to us without watering our souls or the souls of obedient and believing souls. This is just as natural as it is natural for rain to water and nourish the earth and plants and promote their growth. Anyone who becomes irritated with another because of something material puts this material object above his brother. But what is higher than man? There is nothing on earth. When you pray, try to pray more for everyone than for yourself alone, and during prayer vividly imagine all people together with you as one body, and each individual as a member of the body of Christ and your own member: we are pleased with each other (Eph. 4:25); pray for everyone as you pray for yourself, with the same sincerity and warmth; Consider their weaknesses and illnesses as your own weaknesses and illnesses; their spiritual ignorance, their sins and passions - with their ignorance, their sins and passions; their temptations, misfortunes and sorrows are manifold - with their own temptations, misfortunes and sorrows. Such prayer is accepted with great favor by the Heavenly Father - this all-good Father, common to all, with Him there is no partiality (Rom. 2:11), not a shadow of change (James 1:17), - this Love, which has no limits, embraces and preserves all creatures. Wonderful thing! When confronted with an unbeliever and someone who is cold towards God, our soul feels disgust towards him, and the devil tries to turn this just dislike and indignation into anger towards him. In order not to harbor malice and not serve the devil, you must say to yourself: I am disliked and cold towards my brother for his dislike and coldness towards God, and I do not harbor hatred and malice towards him in my heart, for I endure him as my own sick member and I want to heal him with meekness, punishing the opposite, food as God will give them (him) repentance to the mind of truth (2 Tim. 2:25). If he turns to God, and I turn to him with heartfelt love; if he is compassionate towards others, and does not think only about himself, about his benefits and pleasures, then I will sympathize with him. However, endure everyone with love and look more at yourself: what are you like, are you not cold towards God and your neighbor? If so, then there is no need to throw a stone at your brother when this stone should be turned on yourself. For this reason, God came down to earth so that he could lead us to heaven 20. After this, it would seem that even while living on earth, we need to live in things above, moving there in advance with hope. In fact, for the most part it turns out the opposite. People cling with their entire being to the earth and everything earthly. Why is this? Because the common enemy, the devil, is trying with all his might to oppose the intention of the God-man Christ. He is increasingly trying to do the opposite of what Christ did and is doing. Christ wants to raise people to heaven and has given all the means for this; the devil, himself cast down from heaven for pride into the airy region, the valley, wants in every possible way to tie a person to the earthly, sensual, transitory, and uses the most powerful and enormous means for this. Christ taught us the truth; The devil teaches lies and tries in every possible way to contradict every truth, raising various slander against it. The devil tries in every possible way to keep people in error, in the delusion of passions, in the darkening of mind and heart, in pride, stinginess, love of money, envy, hatred, evil impatience and irritability, in evil despondency, in the abominations of fornication, adultery, theft, false witness, blasphemy, negligence, laziness, parasitism. Always carry in your heart the words: Christ is love, and try to love everyone, sacrificing for love not only your possessions, but also yourself. The root of all evil is a proud heart, or self-pity, self-sparing; from self-love or excessive and unlawful love for oneself stem all passions: coldness, insensibility and hard-heartedness towards God and neighbor, evil impatience, or irritability, hatred, envy, stinginess, despondency, pride, doubt, lack of faith and unbelief, greed for food and drink, or gluttony, covetousness, vanity, laziness, hypocrisy. Never feel sorry for yourself in anything, crucify yourself - your old man, nesting mainly in the flesh - and you will cut off all your passions. Endure complacently everything that happens that is unpleasant for the flesh, do not spare it, go opposite to it, and you will be a true follower of Christ. The whole wisdom of a Christian consists in prudently walking in his life contrary to his flesh in everything, for nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh, says the apostle (Rom. 7:18). The heart of a completely healthy person relaxes for faith and love for God and neighbor and easily falls into carnal lusts: laziness, negligence, coldness, gluttony, stinginess, fornication, pride; but the heart of an unhealthy person, or a wounded, oppressed, exhausted heart, is strengthened in faith, hope and love and is far removed from carnal passions. That is why the Heavenly Father, who cares about our salvation, punishes us with various diseases. The hardships and sorrows of illness again turn us to God. To love your neighbor as yourself, to sympathize with him in joy and sorrow, to feed him, to clothe him if he needs food and clothing, to breathe with him, so to speak, the same air - consider it just as commonplace as feeding and warming yourself, and do not think of acts of love for your neighbor as virtues, so as not to become proud of them. We made each other happy (Eph. 4:25). I marvel at God’s omnipotence and wisdom - how from the same earth and water He created for me various parts of the body: flesh, blood, skin, bones, hair, lungs, liver, bile, veins, eyes, ears, everything - how He put this inert and immobile substance into motion, and in me the harmonious movements of blood, juices, phlegm, separation of food, etc. are constantly taking place. Wonderful are Your works, O Lord! You have created all things with wisdom (Ps. 103:24). You don’t have the words to tell the wisdom, goodness, omnipotence of God the Creator and Provider - ask the Word of God. – What is the variety of creatures in heaven and earth, animate and inanimate, from the four elements? If Your mind is amazed at Me, I will not be able to reach it (Ps. 139:6). Of the four elements - the sun, moon, stars, clouds, light, air, water, earth, various stones and metals, trees, all vegetation, the flesh of all animals, birds, fish and humans! For me to think, but for God to think and to create or transform is one and the same thing, because He is He, a simple and omnipotent Being. By His very simplicity, everything is possible for Him in a single moment. The Lord said - this is enough for me to believe without a doubt that the known thing is exactly what He said. Let doubt be impossible. Deity would not be Deity if It were not omnipotent. Our God has created everything in heaven and on earth as He pleases (Ps. 113:11); wants - and it happens. He wants water to flow from the stone, and it does; He wanted the world to come out of nothing, and it appeared. Works show that He is omnipotent. Come and see. Try to turn your whole life into serving God: whether you read anything at home, begin this work with a short heartfelt prayer, so that God will enlighten and make you wise in faith and piety and in carefully fulfilling your duties; never read out of idleness, to pass time; by this you will degrade the word, which should all serve our salvation, and not idle talk, and - a means to pleasure and a pleasant pastime; When you speak to your neighbors, speak wisely, prudently, instructively, edifyingly; Avoid idle talk, like the poison of the serpent, remembering that for every idle word, even if men speak, they will give a word about it on the day of judgment (Matthew 12:36), that is, they will hear the just sentence of the Judge; Whether you teach your own children or those of others, turn the matter into the service of God, teaching them with diligence, first thinking through the means for teaching clear, intelligible, complete (if possible) and fruitful. Defeat in the name of the Lord and by the power of the cross the machinations of the enemy, who is trying to confuse, overshadow, constrain, and weaken you. Even if you eat, drink or do anything else lawful, do everything for the glory of God. In every word there is God the Word, a simple Being. How carefully should one pronounce words, with what humility and prudence, so as not to anger God the Word with the Father and the Spirit? My Lord, Lord Jesus Christ! My speedy, swift, unashamed Intercessor! I thank You with all my heart that You graciously listened to me - when I, in darkness, crampedness and the flames of the enemy, cried out to You - very quickly, sovereignly, graciously delivered me from my enemies and gave my heart space, lightness, light! Oh, Master, how I suffered from the machinations of the enemy, how timely You showed me help and how obvious Your almighty help was! I praise Your goodness, benevolent Master, hope of the desperate; I praise You that You did not disgrace my face in the end, but mercifully delivered me from the darkness and dishonor of hell. How, after this, can I ever despair of Your hearing and mercy on me, the accursed? I will, I will always call on Your sweetest name, my Savior; But You, O most unfortunate Beneficence, as always, now and before, save me according to Your immeasurable compassion, for Your name is the Lover of Mankind and the Savior. Do not trust your flesh when it relaxes and refuses to serve you, as if due to a lack of reinforcement with food. This is a dream. Overcome yourself, pray earnestly, and you will see that the weakness of your body was false, illusory, and not real: you will see in fact that man will not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4). Don't rely on bread. Christ on earth, be exalted 21, it is said. This means that a believer in the coming of Christ to earth, in His incarnation and in all His humane considerations for our salvation, does not cleave to the earth, but is constantly lifted up mentally and heartily by grief; his will constantly strives for God, for heavenly blessings, and is not seduced by earthly sweets, earthly splendor, wealth, honors. Unfortunately, we have little faith in Christ, and we want to combine love for the world with love for Christ, worldly passions with love for God. Incompatible! If anyone wants to follow Me, let him deny himself (Matthew 16:24) everything he loves in the world to the point of partiality, and let him hate his sin-loving soul. (December 24, 1869). My God! how the love and sincere sympathy of our neighbor for us delights our heart! Who can describe this bliss of a heart imbued with a feeling of love for me from others and my love for others? It's indescribable! If here on earth mutual love delights us so much, then with what sweetness of love will we be filled in heaven, in cohabitation with God, with the Mother of God, with the heavenly powers, with the holy people of God? Who can imagine and describe this bliss, and what temporary, earthly things should we not sacrifice to receive such ineffable bliss of heavenly love? God, Your name is Love! Teach me true love, like strong death. So I have abundantly tasted its sweetness from communication in the spirit of faith, even in Thee, with Thy faithful servants and maidservants, and I have been abundantly pacified and enlivened by it. Confirm, O God, this which you have done in me. ABOUT! If only it were like this all the time! Grant me more often to have communion of faith and love with Your faithful servants, with Your churches, with Your church, with Your members! My sweetest Savior! You, having gone out to serve the human race, not only preached the word of heavenly truth in the church, but flowed around cities and villages, did not shy away from anyone, went to everyone’s houses, especially to those whose warm repentance You foresaw with Your divine gaze. So You did not sit at home, but had fellowship of love with everyone. Grant us also to have this communion of love with Your people, so that we, shepherds, are not confined to Your sheep in our houses, as in castles or dungeons, leaving only for services in the church or for services in houses, according to one duty, with memorized prayers. May our lips open to speak freely in the spirit of faith and love with our parishioners. May your Christian love for your spiritual children be revealed and strengthened through lively, free, fatherly conversation with them. Oh, what sweetness You have hidden, Master, our boundless Love, in the spiritual conversation, warmed by love, between the spiritual father and his spiritual children, what bliss! And how can I not strive on earth with all my might for such bliss? And it is still only weak beginnings, only some weak semblance of the heavenly bliss of love! Love especially the fellowship of charity, both material and spiritual. Do not forget about charity and fellowship (Heb. 13:16). When the devil confuses you with unbelief in the Mysteries, saying: it is impossible for bread and wine to be the body and blood of Christ, tell him: yes, for you and for me this is impossible, you are telling the truth, but not for God, for everything is possible with God (Mark 10:27). God's very thought is action; God's word is deed. Speech and bysha - he speaks and happens (Ps. 32:9). Brief and clear. And all the worlds stand by the word of God. Bear all things with the word of your strength (Heb. 1:3). Don’t your feet want to be above and teach—it’s strange to say—the Creator of all? Is it possible to doubt something that our own experience and the visible and invisible worlds assure us of being! What is the secret of the existence of all creatures? – In the word of the Creator: speech and bysha. Everything comes from the word, all the infinite variety of creatures from the almighty, all-wise, all-good word of God, and nothing else. You are also shown an example in Scripture of how everything became powerfully and quickly by the word of God: the waters turn, according to the voice of Moses, into blood, the earth into midges, the rod into a serpent; the hand becomes covered with leprosy and is suddenly healed and restored; light is applied to tangible darkness. Moses only stretches out his hand, and the Lord transforms the essence of things in an instant; The country of Egypt is covered with frogs because Aaron, at the voice of Moses, stretched out his hand to the waters; Moses takes the ashes in his hand and throws them into the air, and people and cattle are covered with scabs; Moses only raises his staff to the sky, and a terrible thunderstorm with hail appears. Come and see. This is how convenient it is to create everything and turn it over to the Lord! Isn’t it the same Lord who acts through us – the priests and among us? Here is the Lord Himself, incarnate for our sake, and the Intercessor and Finisher of everything: He offers sacrifice and is offered, accepts and distributes 22. The priest only speaks the words, stretches out his hands - and the Lord makes everything happen. Remember: the mind is the servant of the heart, which is our life; if he leads the heart to truth, to peace, joy, to life, he fulfills his purpose, he is truth; if to doubt, to anxiety, languor, despondency, darkness, he deviates from his purpose and is certainly deceitful (of a false mind). If the heart feels peace, pleasure, lightness from believing in something, that is enough; There is no need to demand proof of the truth of this subject from reason; he is undoubtedly true, he assures his heart with his life, for the goal of all searches is truth and life. When you perform the sacrament of repentance, you feel your most remorseful repentance before God and all the poverty, ignorance, and sinfulness of human nature. The cross, truly the cross is a confession! Oh, what a debtor a priest feels to his spiritual children during confession! truly an unpaid debtor, guilty of heavenly truth and deserving of a thousand fires of hell! You see and feel that with the deep ignorance of people, with their ignorance of the truths of faith and their sins, with their petrified insensibility, the confessor needs to pray strongly, firmly for them and teach them day and night, early and late. Oh, what ignorance! They don’t know the Trinity, but they know who Christ is, they don’t know why they live on earth! What about the Falls? But we are looking for enrichment, peace, we don’t like work, we get irritated when there is more of it than usual! We are looking for a spacious home, rich clothes! Let us not love earthly peace, let us not become distracted, let us not be careless about our spiritual affairs, and let us not lose eternal blessings and heavenly peace, for having tasted the abundance of worldly peace here, what kind of peace can we expect there? The Holy Trinity is an amicable, good unity; The Most Holy Trinity is the most perfect unity of three Persons in one Being, because it is the most perfect equality. He will truly give alms who gives from the heart and with a loving heart. He is truly merciful, who talks with everyone with his heart, and not with his mind or lips, who gives everyone sincere, heartfelt respect, who preaches the word of God and serves from a true heart, unfeignedly - in a word, who embraces everyone and carries everyone with love in his heart, despising everything material that becomes an obstacle in love between him and his neighbor - he is truly merciful. In order to wean our corrupt nature from being seduced by the temporary sweetness of sin, the Lord arranged it so that the most pleasant sensual pleasures, which we greedily rush to, are harmful both by their very nature and because of our greed and immoderation; Such are all almost delicious dishes, all pleasant drinks, such are the pleasures of voluptuousness. Glory to the goodness and wisdom of the heavenly Father, who in every way diverts us from falling into sensuality or into the crude pleasures of sensuality. He who has spiritual eyes to see and ears to hear, let him see and hear all this (cf. Matthew 13:9). So, Christian, the very harm from sensual pleasures that are destructive to our body shows that we were not created for them and live on earth, but for higher, spiritual, eternal pleasures! So rest and enjoy in God, my soul! Here is your perfect, harmless, true, eternal pleasure! You've experienced it many times already. But all earthly pleasures are charming, harmful, transitory, and at their very beginning bear the germs of corruption, as soon as we touch them. Pain and illness from them serve as proof of this. Brother! you feel in your heart a murderous evil against your neighbor, you are tormented by evil thoughts about the insults inflicted on you by him - here is a way to get rid of your inner tightness: imagine the multitude of your sins, innumerable in number, and vividly imagine how the Lord of your life endures them on you, how He daily and without number forgives you, if you sincerely pray to Him for that, your sins - meanwhile you do not want to forgive to his neighbor several outbursts of passion aroused in him by the devil. Sigh, if you can cry about your madness, just condemn yourself, and not your neighbor, - and now mercy from the Lord is ready for you: inner tightness will disappear like smoke, your thoughts will become clearer, your heart will calm down and you will again walk in the space of your heart; Accustom yourself to gentleness as if it were not you who listened to reproaches, slander, insults, but someone else entirely or, as it were, your shadow; do not allow suspiciousness. I walk through my kindness (Ps. 25:1). Whenever the sinner stood before me, I became dumb and humbled and kept silent (Ps. 39:2-3). But as if I were deaf and did not hear, and as if I were dumb and did not open my mouth (Ps. 37:14). The bread of life is Christ; let us put aside other concerns about bread. The Lord, who gives us the flesh and blood of His Son for food and drink, will much more give us natural bread; He who clothes our soul in Christ will much more send us material clothing; He who deigns to dwell in us will not deprive us of our perishable dwelling. To doubt the Divinity of the Holy Spirit means to doubt one’s life, for the Holy Spirit revives and nourishes everyone spiritually, serves as a spiritual sun, air, food and drink for the soul; - means to abandon prayer, for we pray with the Holy Spirit, - from truth and holiness, for the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth and all that is holy, - from all spiritual consolation in sorrows and illnesses, for the Holy Spirit alone is the true and only Comforter with the Father and the Son, - from faith, for faith is given by the Holy Spirit, - from hope and love, for hope and love are also given to the hearts from the Holy Spirit: the love of God is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, given to us (Rom. 5:5), - from spiritual and bodily strength, for the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of strength and strength, - from wisdom and reason, from the fear of God, from our breath, for He is the breath, the air of the soul: in a word, it means dooming yourself to moral insignificance and killing yourself. Do not pay attention to doubts about the truth, they are the breath of the spirit of the evil one, the spirit of lies - a murderer. By their fruit you will know them (Matthew 7:16). Doubt about the truth is always deadly to the soul. All truth is the breath of the Spirit of God: the word of God, the creations of St. fathers and teachers of the church, words and creations, the deeds of every pious and truth-loving person. Love for God and neighbor, in our present damaged state, does not and cannot exist without self-sacrifice; whoever wants to fulfill the commandments of love for God and neighbor must doom himself in advance to exploits and hardships for the sake of his loved ones. (Amen). For this knowledge of love, for He (Christ) laid down His soul for us (1 John 3:16). Greater love has no one to sow, but whoever lays down his life for his friends (John 15:13). God is eternally cheerful, and therefore we must always pray to Him with a cheerful and sober mind and heart: be sober in prayer (1 Peter 4:7), it is said, and drive away self-forgetfulness and laziness. Do not let your prayer evaporate and only dry words remain, but let it breathe with the warmth of the spirit, like moist and warm bread taken out of the oven. Many people pray hypocritically, and their hypocritical prayer has become a habit; They themselves do not even notice and do not want to notice that they are praying hypocritically, and not in spirit and truth, so that if someone told them in reproof that they were praying hypocritically, they would be angry with the one who dared to say such, in their opinion, inconsistency. A person does not reach hypocrisy suddenly, but gradually. At first, perhaps, he prayed from the heart, but then - since praying always with the heart is a significant work, to which one must always force oneself, for the kingdom of heaven (it is said) is forced (Matthew 11:12), - he begins to pray more with the lips, superficially, and not from the depths of the soul, since this is much easier; and finally, with the intense struggle between the flesh and the devil, he prays with his lips, without bringing the power of the words of prayer to the heart. There are a lot of such people. The Lord says about them: 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; Isaiah 29:13). What has been said about prayer should also be said about the communion of the holy, immortal and life-giving Mysteries. Often, at first a person receives communion with living faith, with a feeling of love and reverence, and then, with the unceasing opposition of the flesh and the devil to the truth of God, he yields to them victory over himself and receives communion hypocritically, not of body and blood, but, according to his thoughts of the heart, of bread and wine. The Mystery being, spirit and belly (John 6:63), as the Savior said, does not fit (John 8:37) in it; he is internally robbed by Satan. God save everyone from such communion, from such blasphemy against the Lord. The same happens with the sacrament of repentance. Public confession for a priest is a school of self-sacrifice: how many reasons for the priest’s self-love to become impatience, irritability, laziness, contemplation, negligence, inattention - this is the touchstone of the priest’s love for his parishioners! The priest should by no means live in bliss and especially cherish himself with sleep and pleasant foods and drinks, otherwise the devil will easily stifle his heart with some passion and plunge him into crampedness and relaxation. Crucify, be sure to crucify your belly! Confession for a priest is a feat of love for his spiritual children, not looking at faces, long-suffering, merciful, not arrogant, not proud, not looking for one’s own (one’s own peace of mind, self-interest), not being irritated, not rejoicing or not condoning untruth, but rejoicing in the truth, which covers all, endures all, and falls away in no way (1 Cor. 13:4–8). Here it is clear - the priest himself sees, his spiritual children see - he is a shepherd or a hired servant, a father or a stranger to his children, whether he is looking for his own or even Christ Jesus. My God, how difficult it is to confess properly! How many obstacles there are from the enemy! How gravely you sin before God by confessing improperly! How the word becomes impoverished! How the source of the word is blocked by the heart! How language changes the mind! Oh, how much preparation is needed for confession! How much you need to pray for the successful completion of this feat! And what ignorance of spiritual children! Day and night you need to sit with them, teach each of them with calmness, meekness and long-suffering. What a cross for a priest to make a confession in the consciousness of the ignorance of those confessing, their coldness, all kinds of sinfulness, and in the consciousness of their wretchedness, their weakness, lethargy, the inertia of their hearts towards sympathy and zeal for the glory of God and the salvation of their neighbors as for their own! And how many crosses the devil puts on you during confession! The work of love, the work of a father’s conversation with his children, he transforms into the work of a mercenary with slaves, reluctantly paying them back! The Lord Jesus Christ, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, is everywhere. Angels and holy men are one spirit with the Lord. But if, through the action of an evil spirit, you have lost for some time your heartfelt faith in the Holy Spirit, then at that time there is neither the Son nor the Father for you, for faith is given by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, that is, by the Spirit of Christ, Who said about Himself: I am the truth (John 14:6), or by the Spirit of the Father: The Spirit of your Father speak in you (Matthew 10:20), or by the Spirit Son: God has sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts (Gal. 4:6). About the word. – In the word there is an image of Pr. Trinity, in the word and thought and word and spirit. When you pray truly from the heart, you feel that you are praying with the Holy Spirit: the words are imbued with such warmth from the heart, and sometimes you feel that you are praying not with the Holy Spirit, but with the spirit of a lie: your mouth says one thing, but your heart feels something else, often completely contrary; eg you pronounce words with doubt, in a spirit of impatience, indignation at someone, anger, or in a spirit of pride, arrogance, failure to recognize yourself as what you should recognize. About anger. – If you are angry with your brother for his sins, even tempting ones, then remember that you yourself are not without sins, also tempting, although perhaps of a different kind. You yourself want your tempting sins to be covered by the condescending, all-covering (sins) love of your neighbors; how grateful you would be to them, with what love you would hug and kiss them for their all-enduring love; How this condescension would ease your already heavy grief over sins, encourage and strengthen your weakness in the fight against them, strengthen your spirit with hope in God’s mercy! But what you would want for yourself in such cases, do the same for your brother: he is your member and a member of Christ: love, it is said, your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:31). Always remember, when condemning, the anger of your heart against your brother for his sins, that you yourself are not without sins. What do you see of the bitch that is in your brother's eye, but don't you hear the log that is in your eye? You hypocrite, truly a hypocrite, first remove the log from your hair, and then you will see to take away the stubble from your brother’s hair (Matthew 7:3–5). Moreover, your brother stands or falls for his Lord (Rom. 14:4), and not for you. And if your brother has sinned against you, then you must certainly forgive him for the offense he caused you, or for his sins against you. You yourself daily strongly need the forgiveness of your sins from the Heavenly Father and pray: forgive us our debts, just as we forgive our debtors (Matthew 6:12). And if you want your sins to be forgiven, forgive your brother his sins against you. If you forgive men their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; If you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive you your sins (Matthew 6:14–15). Our soul is a simple being, therefore it cannot love God at the same time, and for example. money, food, drink, or neighbor and together money, food and drink; That’s why it is said: no one can work for two masters: either he loves one and hates the other, or he sticks to one and begins to be careless about the other. You cannot work for God and mammon (Matthew 6:24). That is why the psalmist says by the Holy Spirit: if wealth flows, do not apply your heart (Ps. 61:11). So, every Christian should be afraid to attach his heart to money, food, drink, elegant clothes, an elegant apartment, books, secular music; Yes, you do not love, do not caress your flesh with anything: amusements, elegant views, food and drinks, sleep, idleness and laziness, shameful deeds, games; idle travel, empty books and spectacles. Love the one God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your thoughts and your neighbor as yourself, and be indifferent to everything else in the world, partial to anything and greedy. Be zealous for simplicity in everything, so that you will be loved by a simple Being - God. Take away guile, doubt, lack of faith and double-mindedness from your soul. God is Life; He gave existence and life to everything; He is the Existing One and the Almighty, for from Him are all things and by Him all things are supported; Let us know His one and only Existence. The devil is death because he arbitrarily deviated from the Life-God, and just as God is the Existing One, so he, the devil, due to his complete falling away from the Existing One, is the culprit of non-existence, the culprit of dreaming, delusion, for truly he cannot bring anything into existence with a word; he is a lie, just as God is truth. What air is to animal bodies and plants, so is the Holy Spirit to spiritual beings, angels and men; That’s why the Lord said: The Spirit breathes wherever it wants, and you hear His voice (breath), but do not know where it comes from and where it goes (John 3:8). Therefore, believe that your soul breathes the Holy Spirit, know your Benefactor, your Life, and reverence Him daily and honor Him with love and good deeds. Flee the stinking breath of the devil, sins and passions, especially enmity, disorder, pride, and unbelief. Say to yourself more often: my soul breathes the Holy Spirit, so be from Me eternal glory to the Holy Spirit together with the Father and the Son. We must always remember that man is the breath of the mouth of God, the image of God - the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and the sins and infirmities in him are an accidental matter, surpassed from the outside, dirty spots that grace conveniently cleanses: sprinkle me with hyssop and I will be cleansed, wash me and I will be whiter than snow (Ps. 50:9). We must remember that God so loved the world, even though it is an adulterer and a sinner, for He gave His only begotten Son to eat, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life (John 3:16). And God and I (in God’s way) need to love every person as ourselves. We love ourselves, although we are great sinners; we must also love another, even though he is a sinner: for there is no man who is not a sinner. False thoughts in faith immediately expose themselves and kill the life of the heart - a sign that they come from a liar, a dreamer, who has the power of death - the devil. True thoughts show their truth in practice: they enliven the heart - a sign that they come from the life-giving Spirit of God, the Life, which proceeds from the Life-Father and rests in the Life-Son. By the same token you will know them by their fruit (Matthew 7:20). Do not be indignant and do not remain in confusion and bewilderment when murderous thoughts crowd in your head and oppress your heart, your soul: they are false, they are from the devil - murderers. Drive them away, and don’t ask where they came from, these uninvited guests: you will instantly recognize them by their fruits. Don’t enter into a competition with them, they will lead you into such a labyrinth that you won’t even get out, you will get confused and exhausted. I love to look at the image of the resurrected Life-Giver with a banner in his hand, with this symbol of victory over death and the possessor of the power of death - the devil. Where is the sting, death? where is the victory (1 Cor. 15:55)? What a glorious Victor! What a fierce, all-evil enemy he defeated! - an enemy who boasted of his victories for several thousand years! To you, the Conqueror of death, we cry: Hosanna in the highest, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord 23. We magnify You, Life-Giver Christ, who for our sake descended into hell and raised everything with Himself 24 . You, O Christ, have resurrected all-begotten Adam; you have risen from the grave 25. For every idle word that men speak, they will repay it on the day of judgment (Matthew 12:36). You see that an answer and punishment awaits you for every idle word, not only seductive. Because our Lord, the All-Creator of the Word, does not and cannot have idle words: the word of the Lord will not return to Him empty (Is. 55:11); God will not fail every word (Luke 1:37); and we are created in the image of God, therefore our words also should not be spoken in vain, in vain, idlely, but every word of ours should have spiritual, instructive and edifying power: let your word always be in grace... (Col. 4:6). Therefore, in prayer and in conversations, be extremely careful not to say words idly, to the wind. How worthily, with faith and love, will you accept the Body of Christ when you despise His members or do not have mercy on them? Christians are members of Christ, especially the poor. Love His members, show them mercy, and the Lord will show His rich mercy to you. Could there be any other mercy richer than that which our Savior gives us in the communion of His most pure Body and His most pure Blood. The words: for Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever - - mean the following: You are one everywhere and reign forever, the Almighty and Glorious King; or: kingdom - Father, power - Spirit, glory - Son; for it is said: I glorified Thee on earth (John 17:4). Don't be dead at heart; do not allow your heart to fall into laziness, spiritual sleep and petrified insensibility; Otherwise, woe to you when you have to be with such a heart in the work of God, which requires labor of the heart and mind. In every possible way, eradicate from your heart pride that opposes the Holy Spirit, both carnal and spiritual; it lurks inconspicuously in the heart and is clearly revealed in dealing with others or during prayer. From the being of the thinking spirit, a word is born, inherent in it, which in itself shows thought and is equal to it; from thought and with thought comes the spirit, resting in the word and communicating in the word to the listener; This spirit is completely equal to both thought and word and is inherent in them. Eg. in the word love you see both the loving principle and the word born from it and you feel some kind of pleasant breath of love. I will write thanksgiving to the Lord my God, the God of my salvation. Before confession during Holy Week, the enemy stopped me, striking my heart with tightness, confusion and evil despondency. But then I prayed with all my heart with undoubted faith in Him, the God of my salvation, and said: God, All-merciful Father! You, by Your only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, said: ask and it will be given to you... everyone who asks receives it... or whoever is of you, if his son asks for bread, he will give him a stone for food... how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask Him (Matthew 7:7-11). By faith, having embraced in my heart what You have spoken, I appeal to You: give me now Your Holy Spirit, may I strengthen my heart to undertake the work of confession, to a prudent decision or binding of human consciences, to patience and complacency, to a kind and edifying treatment of my spiritual children. So what? O God of mercy! I conducted the entire confession perfectly: calmly, kindly, edifyingly, without any burden or restless haste. I glorify the merciful right hand of the all-good Heavenly Father. So you always need to strengthen yourself with heartfelt prayer to the Heavenly Father for every spiritual feat, as our Lord Jesus Christ prayed before appearing to the human race, before the election of the apostles, before His sufferings. Do not be offended if someone speaks to you or acts towards you insincerely: for do you yourself always speak and act sincerely towards others? Isn't it often hypocritical? In prayer, do you always talk to God sincerely and without hypocrisy? Is it not often that the mouth speaks words of truth, but the heart lies? Do you live sincerely and in simplicity before God? If you are wrong before God and before people, often deceitful, hypocritical, do not be angry if others are insincere and hypocritical towards you. In the image of those who sin, they suffer (Wis. 11:17). Have leniency towards others where you yourself have sinned. Firmly believe that the evil in you of the devil and yours will never overcome and will not overcome the unspeakable, infinite goodness of the Lord. Great is the evil of the devil in you, but the goodness of the Lord is infinitely greater. Therefore, in doubt, lack of faith, blasphemy, malice, envy, stinginess, love of money, involuntary hypocrisy, beg the Lord with hope and know that His infinite goodness will bend to mercy towards you if you turn from your malice. Do good to the poor willingly, without suspiciousness, doubt and petty inquisitiveness, remembering that in the person of the poor you do good to Christ Himself, according to what is written: Since you have created one of these least of my brothers, you have created for Me (Matthew 25:40). Know that your alms are always insignificant in comparison with man, this child of God; know that your alms are earth and dust; know that spiritual mercy must certainly go hand in hand with material mercy: affectionate, brotherly treatment of one’s neighbor with sincere love; Don’t let him notice that you’re favoring him, don’t show him a proud look. Give, it is said, in simplicity, show mercy with good intentions (Rom. 12:8). Be careful not to deprive your material alms of value by not giving spiritual ones. Know that the Lord will test good deeds at judgment. Remember that heaven and earth are for man, for to him is an incorruptible inheritance in heaven (1 Pet. 1:4); For man, God the Father did not spare His only begotten Son, but gave him up to death for him. The devil, through our cunning, stumbles us in our good deeds. The words of prayer are like rain or snow if spoken with faith and compassion: each of them contains its own strength and its own fruit. Raindrops or snowflakes, falling in a continuous thread or flakes, water the earth, and it vegetates and bears fruit; So the words of prayer - this spiritual rain - each individually, water the soul, and it vegetates the fruits of virtues, assisted by the Holy Spirit, especially if there is still tearful rain. Human alms are suspicious: they are afraid not to give to someone who has, or not to give much. The mercy of the Lord is not like this: the Lord is good to everyone and His compassion is in all His deeds (Ps. 144:9); to the one who has, says the Lord, more will be given and he will have more; but from the one who has not, even if he thinks he has, it will be taken from him (Matthew 25:29). Do not please the lazy flesh in prayer; do not rush: the flesh, bored and burdened by the holy work, hurries towards the end in order to calm down or get busy with carnal, worldly affairs. May simplicity accompany you everywhere; especially be simple in faith, hope and love, for God is a simple Being, an ever-worshipped Unit, and our soul is simple. The simplicity of our soul is hindered by the flesh when we please it, when, for example, we eat and drink sweetly and generally pleasantly and a lot, smoke, have fun, and generally when we do what pleases it, for then it takes precedence over the spirit. How sharply there is a difference in us, on the one hand, the good spirit, the spirit of peace, tranquility, joy, light, the life-giving spirit, and on the other, the evil spirit, the spirit of oppression, languor, despondency, darkness, the spirit that kills our soul. The first is the Spirit of God, by whom we live, breathe spiritually, move and exist; the second is the evil spirit, Satan. God the Love is unchangeable, and we must be unchangeable and constant in love: love never ceases to exist (1 Cor. 13:8). Lack of love, hatred, or just indifference and neglect are from the devil. Every word of the Lord is a spiritual or material being, because He is the One and the Creator. The Lord God is omnipotent, because He is an infinite Spirit, boundless Power and Wisdom: and every thought of Him is, or can be, according to His will, immediately a deed, a life. The one who loves beyond the measure of convenience in life and has furnished himself with all sorts of conveniences is ill-fated: he will shun all inconvenience, become pampered and will not get used to patience; Meanwhile, the life of a Christian is all inconvenience, the path is narrow and rough, there is a cross that requires inconvenience and great patience. So, do not look for a home with all the comforts and do not love the comforts of this world, but love Christ the Crusader. Endure the inconvenience, get used to the inconvenience. Having learned in them, I am content to be, says the apostle (Phil. 4:11). The one who loves decorations and seeks decorations for his body is ill-fated: he will not make due efforts to decorate his soul with faith, love, meekness, humility, righteousness, patience; Particularly ill-fated is the one who seeks the decoration of honors: he will make a shameful idol of himself and, like Nebuchadnezzar, will be arrogant before those who do not have his honors and demand worship for himself. (Not in molded ornaments (1 Tim. 2:9)). Even we, men, have become like women: we covet decorations and decorate ourselves like some kind of idols, but we think little about inner beauty, we have even completely abandoned the inner church, or the tabernacle of our soul. The one who loves haste is ill-fated: he will make many stumbles, he will encounter thousands of troubles and internal difficulties due to his haste and will have frequent reasons for irritability. Unlucky is the one who is addicted to food and drink, jealous of satiety and pleasure: he will actually see, when he begins to work for the Lord, that food and drink, if we attach our hearts to them, are a burden of the body, sorrow and ruin of the spirit, and that a person can be satisfied with very, very few and simple foods. The human soul is as simple as spirit; therefore, it must be simple in love, that is, it must love God as its Creator, from Whom it came, and man as itself, like like, but it must not cleave to the things of this world even for a minute, for they are not akin to it, and so, due to their dissimilarity with our soul, the soul feels so painful when it cleaves to them. Every word of Holy Scripture, every word of the Divine Liturgy, Matins and Vespers, every word of sacred-mysterious prayers and prayer books has a power corresponding to it and contained in it, like the sign of the honorable and life-giving cross. Such grace is inherent in every church word, for the sake of the hypostatic, incarnate Word of God who dwells in the Church, Who is the Head of the Church. And every true good word has a corresponding power for the sake of the all-filling simple Word of God. With what attention and reverence each word must be pronounced, with what faith! For the Word is the Creator Himself - God, and by the Word everything is brought into being from non-existence. The Holy Mysteries are called Divine gifts because they are given to us by the Lord completely undeservedly, freely, undeservedly on our part; Instead of punishing us for our countless iniquities, committed every day, hour, minute, and giving us over to spiritual death, the Lord in the Holy Mysteries gives us forgiveness and cleansing of sins, sanctification, peace of spiritual strength, healing and health of soul and body and every good, solely according to our faith. If the Lord daily gives us Himself and His Divine Mysteries freely for us to partake of, then shouldn’t we urgently give tuna, freely, perishable goods: money, food, drink, clothing - to those who ask them from us? And how can we be indignant at those who eat our bread for free, when we ourselves eat for free the priceless and immortal meat of the Body and Blood of the Lord? From him who takes yours, do not torture him (Luke 6:30). You live in the house of God - in this beautiful world - tuna and you use all the gifts of God’s goodness and generosity, given through nature, also to tuna, you live in the house of God - in the Church or in the community of those who are being saved - and you use all the gifts of grace for your salvation tuna: and you do not hesitate to do good to the brethren, as long as you can; be kind even to the ungrateful and evil, so that you may be a son of the Heavenly Father (cf. Luke 6:35). Welcome everyone into your home, knowing that you yourself live freely in the house of God - in this universe, and in the spiritual house of God, the Church, preparing you for eternal life; let everyone partake of your meal with joy and tuna, remembering that you freely eat daily from the Lord’s meal—His most pure body and His blood. (April 16th 1862). You say: what should I do with my heart? It contradicts everything that is true and holy; relaxes with unbelief where strong faith is needed, betrays where loyalty to death is needed; does not tremble and is even ready to laugh where he should tremble and fear. What should I do, what should I do, you say, with my heart? Recognize firmly, once and for all, as an irrevocable truth, that your heart is a lie and a pillar of lies—every person is a lie (Ps. 116:2); and everything that is in the Church, starting from the word of God to the shortest prayer, is the truth, that the Church of God is the pillar and foundation of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15), as founded on the cornerstone - Christ, Who is the Truth, and animated and guided forever by the Holy Spirit, Who is the Spirit of truth. The Church is a reliable road to eternal life: walk along it steadily, stick to it, and you will reach the kingdom of heaven; If you deviate into the paths of wisdom and unbelief, then blame yourself: you will get lost and perish. I am the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6). There is no doubt that the devil in the hearts of very many people sits with some kind of heartfelt lethargy, relaxation and laziness towards every good and useful deed, especially the deed of faith and piety, which requires heartfelt attention and sobriety, and spiritual labor in general. Thus he strikes the heart with lethargy and the mind with dullness during prayer; Thus, he affects the heart with lethargy, coldness and inaction of the heart when it is necessary to do good, for example: to sympathize with the suffering, to help those in trouble, to console the sad, to teach the ignorant, to guide the erring and vicious on the path of truth. We must constantly listen to our heart, drive away from it the darkness of laziness and petrified insensibility, see that it always burns with faith and love for God and neighbor and is ready for all labors and self-sacrifice for the glory of God and for the salvation of our neighbor. Do not be lazy with diligence, fervent in spirit, working for the Lord (Rom. 12:11). The devil still sits in our hearts with unusually strong irritability; We sometimes become so sick with pride that we do not tolerate the slightest contradiction, material or spiritual obstacle, we do not tolerate a single unsmooth, rude word. But then we must endure when the waters of anger and impatience reach our soul. Through your patience gain your souls (Luke 21:19). The rivers came, and the winds blew, and they questioned that church (Matthew 7:27). What will happen to her, what will happen to a person, when the devil unleashes the river of his temptations on him and blows the wind of his wiles on him? If a Christian stands firmly on the rock - Christ, then he does not fall, but if he stands on the sand of his wisdom and passions, then he falls greatly (cf. Matthew 7:24-27). Am I not everything to you, My worm, adorned with My image? What are you clinging to? What else do you hope for? Do not leave Me, the Source of living water (life), I am Life itself. Our life - the Lord - is simple. He is in the heart, and that’s enough. He alone will sustain our life. That is why it is said: Man will not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4). Do not be lazy to pray earnestly for others at their request, or on your own and together with them, - you yourself will receive mercy from God - the grace of God in your heart, delighting and strengthening you in faith and love for God and your neighbor. These are words of truth; they are drawn from experience. We usually do not very willingly, more out of need or habit, pray for others, without the full participation of our hearts; We must force ourselves to pray with all our hearts, with great faith, with great boldness, so that we may receive great and rich mercy from the generous and generously gifted God! Let him ask, it is said, by faith, without doubting anything: doubt for you are like the turbulence of the sea, tossed and tossed by the winds (James 1:6). The Lord, this common Father of all, is pleased when we willingly pray for each other with faith and love, for He is a network of Love, ready to have mercy on everyone for mutual love. The Holy Spirit said: pray for one another, that you may be healed (James 5:16). You see how pleasing to God and how effective prayer is for one another. When you pray to God, then you cannot imagine His nearness in any other way than that you breathe in Him every minute, move, are enlightened, rest, are comforted and strengthened - in a word, you live in Him, according to the Scripture: in Him we live and move and are. Giving everyone life and breath and everything (Acts 17:28, 25). God is near (verb) in your mouth, and in your heart... For if you confess the Lord Jesus with your mouth, and believe in Him in your heart, you will be saved (Rom. 10:8-9). A Christian must pray for all Christians, as for himself, so that God will grant them prosperity in life and faith and spiritual reason, and freedom from sins and passions. Why? According to Christian love, which sees in all Christians its members and the members of Christ God, the common Savior of all, it desires for them the same as for itself, just as it strives by all means to do for them the same as for itself. We keep icons in our homes and worship them, among other things, to show that the eyes of the Lord God and all the inhabitants of heaven are constantly fixed on us and see not only all our deeds, but also our words, thoughts, and desires. I thank the Mother Church for showing me in the litanies what to pray for, for for what we will pray as we should, we do not know, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us in the litanies with groanings that cannot be uttered (Rom. 8:26). Glory to the grace of the Holy Comforter-Spirit! I believe that He, according to the promise of the Savior, remains with us forever and guides us into all truth, and does not allow those who diligently and humbly seek the truth of God to go astray. Why do we begin our prayers with a prayer to the King of heaven - the Spirit of truth? Because He is the Teacher of prayer and the Giver of prayer, He abides with us forever and acts in the world. We thank You, Lord Jesus, for for Your sake the Holy Spirit has come into the world below. Christ - our hope, purification and sanctification, resurrection, life and peace - is the only thing we all need, and therefore the Holy Church constantly pronounces these words aloud to us during funeral services or memorial services for the dead and in other church services, for we are inclined to forget the one thing we need; Carnal passions carry away our mind, memory, imagination, heart, and will. Everything will be taken from us by death, all earthly blessings: wealth, distinctions, the beauty of the body, the beauty of clothes, the spaciousness of the home, all the sweets of food and drink (and the virtue of the soul will forever remain with us, this imperishable clothing); and Christ - our eternal wealth, our life and our true beauty, true glory and honor, our incorruptible clothing - will remain with us forever. In order for a Christian to live a Christian life, and not to completely extinguish the life of the spirit in him, he needs prayer at home and in public, he must attend divine services in church with faith, understanding, and zeal, just as it is necessary to add oil to a lamp so that it burns and does not go out; and since sincere, fervent prayer occurs with abstinence, then in order to maintain Christian life, or the fervor of faith, hope and love, abstinence and fasting are needed. Nothing extinguishes the spirit of faith in us so quickly as intemperance, delicacy and satiety and an absent-minded, riotous life. I fade away, die spiritually when I don’t serve in church for a whole week, and I burn up and come to life in soul and heart when I serve, forcing myself to pray not formally, but really, spiritually, sincerely, passionately. But how many times do I need to overcome ethereal enemies! How many to overcome their deceits and slander! – Theater also extinguishes faith and Christian life, teaching absent-mindedness, deceit (or the ability to live in the world), and laughter; he raises clever sons of this age, but not sons of light. The theater is the enemy of Christian life; he is a product of the spirit of this world, and not the Spirit of God. True children of the church do not attend it. There is nothing more important in the world than the salvation of human souls, and there is no subject more worthy of constant and everlasting remembrance than the redemption of the world by the Son of God from sin, damnation and eternal death. The Holy Church has inscribed forever in indelible letters, images and rituals in her Divine service the entire economy of our salvation so that people, so prone to forgetting God and the salvation of their souls and everything that God has done for our salvation, eternal joy and bliss, would constantly have, so to speak, before their eyes and, as it were, at hand, all the great, wise and good deeds of God regarding us, constantly arousing themselves to repentance, correction and salvation, and the vanities of the world, corruptible and fleeting, fled. The world passes away and its lusts, but he who does the will of God abides forever (1 John 2:17). Pay attention to yourself constantly so that your spiritual life and spiritual wisdom do not dry out. Think often about everything you read and sing or listen to in church or sometimes at home. Live the life of the saints, by prayer, their wisdom, their virtues: meekness, humility, kindness, mercilessness and denial of yourself, your peace, contentment and pleasure for the sake of love for God and neighbor, patience, courage, struggle - their faith, hope, love. May your loins be girded and your lamp burning, and you may be like a man who waits for his master when he returns from marriage (Luke 12:35–36). If you read secular magazines and newspapers, extracting from them what is useful for yourself, as a citizen and a Christian and a family man, then most of all and most often read the Gospel and the writings of St. fathers, for it is a sin for a Christian, when reading secular works, not to read the inspired scriptures. You follow events in the outside world, but don’t lose sight of your inner world, your soul: it is closer to you and dearer to you. To read only newspapers and magazines means to live only with one side of the soul, and not with the whole soul, or to live only according to the flesh, and not according to the spirit. Everything worldly will end in peace. And the world passes away, and its lust, all its plans, but he who does the will of God abides forever (1 John 2:17). Addiction to things immediately leads to cooling towards God and to the cause of one’s salvation, cooling towards one’s neighbor or hatred and envy of him, if it depends on him to give us certain things, and he does, or if we are obliged to involuntarily give them to him. Therefore, it is good to have complete indifference to things, so as not to have any reason for enmity against your neighbor, which is a great sin. Be above the passions of this corruptible, vain and fleeting world; live in heaven with your heart and love the imperishable blessings there, prepared for those who love God and their neighbor. The priest, as an angel of the Lord Almighty, must be above all passions and disturbances of the spirit, all worldly addictions or vain fears induced by demons; he must be entirely in God, love and fear Him alone. Man's fear means that he has not clung completely to God. Do not stare at the physical face, but look more closely with your inner eye at the face of your soul, what it is like: whether passions have not disfigured it; destroy this disgrace through prayer and tearful repentance. Do not look at the beautiful clothes: they are perishable, but at the incorruptible clothing of your soul, what it is like: is it not vile and unclean due to frequent secret and open falls into sin, and acquire the clothing of the soul in the imperishable beauty of meekness, humility, chastity and purity, mercy, truth. I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. Do you believe that all Orthodox Christians are members of one and the same body, and that therefore we must all maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace (Eph. 4:3), must take care of each other, take care of each other, help each other? Do you believe that the holy saints are also members of the one body of Christ, that is, the Church, and our brethren who intercede before God for us in heaven? Do you respect every Christian as a member of Christ, as His brother in humanity? Do you love everyone as yourself, as your own flesh and blood? Do you generously forgive offenses? Do you help in need if you yourself have enough? Do you instruct the ignorant, do you turn a sinner from the error of his ways? Do you console the sad? Faith in the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church instills in you, obliges you to do all this, and for all this you have been promised a great reward from the Head of the Church - the Lord Jesus Christ. Carried away by addiction to perishable things, thoughts, worries about them, we lose objects of the greatest importance, objects truly akin to our soul, constituting its true and eternal element: we dig wells for ourselves that cannot hold water, and leave the source of living water (cf. Jer. 2:13); We do not turn spiritual, holy, heavenly, life-giving thoughts into our life, into juices and blood, and we continue to live with worldly, earthly, passionate thoughts and aspirations, which only torment, torment, and kill us. Oh, if only we could always philosophize as the Gospel philosophizes, as the Holy Church philosophizes in her Divine services, in prayers, during the celebration of the sacraments and various prayers, as the holy fathers philosophize in their writings! Then all of us still on earth would be heavenly citizens, verbal heavens. The Divine Liturgy is a truly heavenly service on earth, during which God Himself is present and abides with people in a special, closest, closest way, being Himself an invisible priest, offering and being offered. There is nothing on earth holier, higher, more majestic, more solemn, more life-giving than the liturgy! The church at this special time becomes an earthly sky, the clergy depict Christ Himself, angels, cherubim, seraphim and apostles. The Liturgy is a constantly repeating triumph of God’s love for the human race and an omnipotent intercession for the salvation of the whole world and each member individually. The Marriage of the Lamb is the marriage of the royal son, in which the bride of the Son of God is every faithful soul, the evangelist is the Holy Spirit. With what kind of prepared, pure, exalted soul one must always be present at the liturgy, so as not to be among those people who, not having the wedding garment, but having the defiled garment of passions, were bound hand and foot and thrown out of the bridal chamber into utter darkness. And now, unfortunately, many do not consider it necessary to go to the liturgy; others walk only out of habit, and as they came, they leave as they are, without lofty thoughts, without a contrite heart, with an unrepentant soul, without determination to reform. Others stand irreverently, absent-mindedly, without any concentration, without any preparation of themselves at home through reflection and abstinence, for many will have time to get drunk before mass, and sometimes even eat. When the Lord descended on Sinai, the Jewish people were commanded to prepare and cleanse themselves; here is not less than the Sinai descent of God, but more: there is only the back of God, here is the very face of God the Lawgiver. When the Lord appeared to Moses in a bush at Horeb, he was commanded to take off his boots; and here there is more of the Epiphany of Horeb: there is a prototype, here the Prototype Himself. Oh, how partial we are to earthly things, we do not want and cannot devote even one hour, as we should, exclusively to God during the divine, heavenly liturgy, and then we allow ourselves to dream about earthly things and fill our souls with images and desires of earthly things sometimes - alas! – even unclean images; meanwhile, how we should pray fervently, reflect earnestly on this great mystery, repent of our sins, desire and ask for cleansing, sanctification, enlightenment, renewal and confirmation in Christian life, in fulfilling the commandments of Christ, pray for the living and the dead; for the liturgy is a sacrifice of propitiation, thanksgiving, praise and supplication. Great liturgy! It remembers the whole life not of some great person, but of God, who became incarnate, suffered and died for us, rose again and ascended, and is again coming to judge the world! What is false gratitude to God? False gratitude, when, receiving generous, undeserved spiritual and material gifts from God, they thank God for them with their tongues and use them only for their own benefit, without sharing them with their neighbors; receive and hide them in their treasuries, chests, book depositories, thereby depriving many of their brethren of spiritual enlightenment, edification, consolation or food, drink, clothing, housing, healing in illness or movement from place to place to obtain funds for food. Such gratitude is false and ungodly. This means: to give thanks in tongue, but in deed to show extreme ingratitude and ill-will. And how many are so grateful, or rather ungrateful! Our corrupted nature is inclined to quickly forget everything that is holy and saving, because sins and passions constantly cloud and darken our heads and hearts, occupy them and dominate them, displacing memories, thoughts and feelings about sacred events and God’s great benefits to us. Therefore, the Holy Church, the faithful keeper of the commandments of her Lord, all His teachings and all His deeds, eternally grateful to His ineffable blessings, has established to commemorate in daily, as well as in Sunday and holiday services, solemnly, with picturesque, visual, figurative ritual, all saving events from the life and deeds of our Lord Jesus Christ, all the economy of His salvation, as in the old, so in the new Testament, as well as His very creation of the visible and invisible world, and not only the events from His all-saving, miraculous life, but also from the life of His Most Pure Mother, who served so gloriously the mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God, from the life of His Forerunner, the apostles, His prophets, hierarchs, martyrs, saints, unmercenaries, the righteous and all the saints who served God in every possible way, these countless witnesses of the Lord, the truth and salvation of His divine faith and all His divine teaching, who inherited, according to His promise, eternal life. This is useful and necessary for the affirmation of our faith, hope and love, for the spiritual education of Christian humanity, for the constant teaching of the dogmas of faith, various virtues: fidelity, courage, patience, meekness, gentleness, humility, non-covetousness, abstinence, purity and chastity and other virtues, for the life of the Lord and His Most Pure Mother, as well as the saints, represents examples of all virtues, fulfilling which a person can conveniently please God and save both his soul and the souls of his brothers. The science of sciences is to overcome the sin that lives in us, or the passions operating in us; for example: great wisdom is not to be angry with anyone or for anything, not to think evil about anyone, even if someone has done us harm, and to excuse it by all means; wisdom is to despise self-interest and sweets, and to love non-covetousness and simplicity in food and drink with constant moderation; wisdom is not to flatter anyone, but to speak the truth to everyone without fear; wisdom is not to be seduced by the beauty of a face, but to respect in every beautiful and ugly person the beauty of the image of God, which is the same for everyone; wisdom is to love your enemies and not take revenge on them in word, thought, or deed; wisdom is not to accumulate wealth for ourselves, but to give alms to the poor, so that we may acquire for ourselves an inexhaustible treasure in heaven. Alas! We have studied almost every science, but we have not taught the science of avoiding sin at all, and we often turn out to be complete ignoramuses in this moral science. And it turns out that the truly wise, truly learned were the saints, the true disciples of the true Teacher-Christ, and we all, the so-called scientists, are ignorant, and the more learned, the more ignorant, because we do not know and do not do anything for the need, but work for self-love, love of glory, lust and self-interest. How impartial a priest must be to earthly things, so that, while performing such services and such lofty heavenly sacraments, he can be elusive from the enemy and always burn with pure love for God and for fellow men who perish from sins and are saved by the grace of Christ in the Holy Spirit! But how great is our habit of sin! How strong are our earthly passions! And while performing the sacraments, we sometimes do not completely put aside everyday cares and addictions out of habituation to them, and therefore the enemy confuses, darkens and transforms our mind, binds our heart and takes us into his heavy captivity. And to the point! Don't dream. A priest must be an angel in his loftiness of thoughts, in his spiritual and physical purity, in his fervor for God the All-Creator and Savior and for people, his brothers. To love God with all your heart means to love with all your soul meekness, humility, purity and chastity, wisdom, truth, mercy, obedience for the sake of God, and never to do the opposite of these virtues, that is, not to be proud, not to be irritated, not to be angry with anyone, not to commit adultery, not even in the heart, not with a glance, not in a word, not in a thought, not in a body movement, not to violate chastity, to shun all reckless things unnecessary words and deeds, avoid all untruth, hate stinginess and greed, avoid selfishness and disobedience. Passions, like cruel drivers, drive us on, daily forcing us, due to our passion for earthly things, to do what is contrary to the Lord and our true good and pleasing to the flattering Satan. I thank You, my Joy, Lord of glory, for You received my image through incarnation from the Most Pure Virgin and honored, exalted, and deified humanity; I thank You, for you have raised me from corruption to incorruption, you have cleansed my filth, you have healed infirmities and illnesses, you have transformed sorrow into joy, you have turned the oppression of sin into the space of Your justification, which comes from faith and repentance of the heart, you have driven away the darkness of passions and given Your spiritual light, you have taken away confusion and peace from above. you have sent down, you have taken away cowardice and you have given courage with boldness. Glory to Your mercy! I look at the icons in the church: at the icon of Your Lord, Your Most Pure Mother, St. Angels and Archangels and on the faces of saints, adorned, and shining with gold and silver, and I think to myself: how You have honored and adorned our nature, Creator and Provider of all! By Your light Your saints shine, By Your grace they are holy, having conquered sinfulness and washed away the sinful defilements of the flesh and spirit; They are glorious by Your glory, Incorruptible by Your incorruption. Glory to You, who has so much honored, enlightened and magnified our nature! Here are Your apostles and hierarchs, living images of You, the Supreme One who has passed through the heavens, the Messenger of the Father, the Hierarch and the Chief Shepherd; Your kindness, Your wisdom, Your strength, spiritual beauty, power, greatness, shrine shines in them. These are Your martyrs, who by Your power overcame terrible temptations, endured terrible torment, and in Your blood they whitened the garments of their souls. Here are Your saints, who through fasting, vigil, and prayer received Your wonderful gifts, gifts of healing, insight; Your power strengthened them to rise above sin and all demonic wiles; Your likeness shines in them like the sun. In the church, its location and parts, in icons, Divine services with the reading of St. scriptures, singing, rituals, depicted figuratively, as on a map, in faces, in general terms, the entire Old Testament, New Testament and church history, the entire divine economy of human salvation. The spectacle of the Divine Service of our Orthodox Church is majestic for those who understand it, who delve into its essence, spirit, significance, meaning! Voluptuary! What will you apply your love to after your death, when you will have no pleasures, and their place will be taken by the bitterness of complete deprivation? What will your imperishable soul be nourished by? – she doesn’t like sweets. Silver lover! Will you attach the love of your heart to him, when with death the possession and enjoyment of your money and various treasures will cease? The soul, a spiritual being, then will not need these treasures, they will be disgusting to it, like poison, like rust and aphids, which smoldered it during life and removed it from God, depriving it of its imperishable treasure - God. A majestic ambitious man who sought distinctions and honors and loved them more than anything in the world! what will you apply your love to when death strips you of all your distinctions and shows you in all your nakedness and ugliness? What then will be the food and life of the incorruptible spirit, which has withdrawn from God for the sake of the vain honors of this world, idolizing itself like idolaters? So is a man subject to passions vain - he does not know what he is doing, what deprivation he is preparing for himself, what torment for his insane passions, for the fact that, having been honored with the image of God, the title of a child of God, a friend of God, an heir to the kingdom of heaven, a joint heir of Christ, he was likened to senseless cattle, in his senselessness, and became like them (Ps. 48:13) in greed, in lustful fury, in anger, in envy! Therefore, be afraid to attach your soul to anything earthly. Imagery or symbolism is the need of human nature in our present spiritual-sensual state: it clearly explains to us very much from the spiritual world, which we could not know without images and symbols. Hence the Divine Teacher, the Hypostatic Wisdom, who created everything, the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, often taught people in images or parables; hence, in our Orthodox church it is customary to present many things figuratively to the eyes of Christians, for example. the Lord Himself in the icon, the Most Pure Mother of God, the Angels and all the saints, so that we imagine our lives, imagine all our thoughts, words and deeds, according to the image of the thoughts, words and deeds of the Lord and His saints; hence the frequent image of the cross, burning incense, lighting candles and lamps, entering and exiting the altar; for this - bows, prostration, prostration (we fell deeply through sin). All this reminds us of various spiritual objects and states. Imagery has a great influence on the human soul, on its creative or active ability. So, they say, if a mother, during pregnancy, often looks at the face or image of her beloved husband, then the baby is born very similar to the father, or if she looks at the portrait of a beautiful child, then a beautiful baby is born to her; so if a Christian often, with love and reverence, looks at the image of the Lord Jesus Christ or His Most Pure Mother and His saints, then his soul accepts the spiritual traits of the kindly seen face (meekness, humility, mercy, abstinence). Oh, if we would more often look at the faces and especially at the life of the Lord and His saints, how we would change, ascend from strength to strength! Thus, smelling the fragrance of incense in a church or at home, by analogy, reminds us of the fragrance of virtue, and by contrast - of the stench of sins and teaches us - attentive to the inner feeling - to avoid the stench of passions, intemperance, fornication, malice, envy, pride, despair and other passions and to adorn oneself with all sorts of Christian virtues; the censer reminds us of the words of the apostle: the fragrance of God is in those who are being saved and in those who are perishing, for the stench of death is in death, and the stench of animals is in the belly (2 Cor. 2:15-16), in the same way a candle or lamp reminds us of light and spiritual fire, for example. about the words of the Lord: I am the light that has come into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness (John 12:46), or: I have come to cast fire on the earth, and whatever I want is already on fire (Lk. 12:49), or: let your loins be girded, and your lamps burning, and you be like a man who waits for his Lord when he returns from marriage, so that when he comes and pushes, they will open it to him (Luke 12:35-36), or: so let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father, who is heavens (Matthew 5:16) - and by the very thing, by their very being, they teach us spiritual things or objects corresponding to light and fire, for example, so that our hearts always burn with love for God and neighbor, so that we do not allow passions or the fire of hell to flare up in ourselves, so that we shine with an example of a virtuous life for others, as a candle shines for us in everyday affairs. It is natural to have images of Christ, the Most Pure Mother of God, Angels and Saints: firstly, this is required by our nature: we always want to have before us the image of a loved one, the image of the Benefactor, so that, looking at Him, we more often remember Him and His benefits (worship Him), as we usually do with living people, especially those whom we respect and love; secondly, we are created in the image and likeness of God: it is natural for us to desire to always have before our eyes our Prototype, our First Principle, the Lord God in those images in which He deigned Himself to appear to people, in order to more often remember Him, about His ever-present co-presence with us, about His providence, in order to express in visible signs or rituals our reverence for Him, gratitude, love, for we We are bodily and, due to our physicality, we need material images, material rituals (therefore, of course, the Lord Himself appeared to His saints in the form of, for example, three pilgrims at the oak of Mamre to Abraham; Isaiah - in the form of a great King sitting on a high and exalted throne; Daniel the prophet - in the form of the Ancient of Days and in the form of the Son of Man brought to Him). If a visible image of the invisible God were not needed, then He, of course, would not have appeared in a visible image, would not have appeared on earth in our flesh, would not have taken on the form of a slave, and David says: seek His face from the outside (Ps. 105:4). That is why we make, have and venerate images of the Most Pure Mother of God, Angels and saints, that is, because they are living images and likenesses of God, and we, looking at them, more vividly recall their deeds of virtue, good deeds to us, their fiery love for God, and we ourselves are excited to imitate them, to be vigilant over ourselves, to cleanse ourselves from all filth of the flesh and spirit, to glorify their exploits, and through this we make them intercessors and intercessors for us before God, for God is pleased to accept the intercession of His friends and His faithful servants for the people for whom they intercede before Him. Since we are not disembodied spirits, but beings covered with flesh, having material outlines, a material image, then naturally we are looking for the image of invisible beings, and, of course, condescending to our help, the Lord gave the Angels the power to take on our appearance and appear to us (when He is pleased) in our image, as for example. The Archangel appeared to Joshua, David, Manoah and Anna, Zechariah, the Blessed Virgin Mary and others in the Old and New Testaments. In everyday life, do we not ourselves prove the need of our nature, its desire to have images of our loved ones, when we express the desire to have their portraits, and we ourselves make our own images and hang them on the wall or insert them into an album so that we can often look at them and enjoy the sight of respected and beloved faces? And this is such a natural, proper and godly thing - the veneration of holy icons, many Lutherans and Anglicans consider it something unnatural, contrary to God, almost idolatry and heresy, and not only in their homes, but also in their churches they do not have icons and consider it a sin to have them and venerate them, through which they lose extremely much for faith and piety, for, having interrupted the visible connection with saints, they thereby broke the invisible connection, while the heavenly and earthly Church are one body; In this way, they have broken the connection with the dead, because they do not pray for them and do not make sacrifices for their souls - sacrifices with which the merciful God is pleased, and thereby show their disbelief in the power of the Church’s prayers for the dead. What kind of church is this - that church that foolishly and boldly broke the connection with the triumphant heavenly church, interrupted communication with the dead in prayer and interrupted communication with the church professing the faith of Christ in primitive purity?! Is this a living and holy body of the church? Can one body without a head and without arms and without legs, without eyes and without ears be called an organized and living body? And such a society still proclaims its faith as a purified, true faith and shuns the rituals of our holy, immaculate faith. Is it the purified faith that rejected the priesthood and other sacraments, except baptism and communion, which, however, is not valid, rejected the veneration of saints, their relics, icons, fasting, monasticism, prayers for the dead? Is this the evangelical faith? Is this the Church of Christ and the Apostolic? No, this is a self-made church, compiled according to human will, under the influence of human passions and catering to human passions; this is truth in untruth (Rom. 1:18), this is the converted gospel of Christ; This is the corruption or turning away of the people of Christ into a different gospel, about which the Apostle said: If we, or an angel from heaven, bring you more good news than the good news brought to you, let him be accursed (Gal. 1:6, 8). This is not a church, but a soul-destroying dissection of the body of Christ. So, the veneration of icons is natural, fair, godly, and useful. Holy Angels and holy people of God are our best, kindest, most faithful brothers and friends, who so often help us in various circumstances in which no other person can help. Since these brothers, who live forever and benefit us, are invisible, and we, due to our physicality, want to have them before our eyes as if they were always with us, we make images of them, and, looking at their images, it seems to us that they are with us, and we call upon them in our prayers, knowing that they have great boldness before God and help us in various circumstances. Thus, the veneration of icons is very beneficial for us, in accordance with our nature, with common sense, and with St. himself. Scripture, for images of cherubim were also in the Old Testament tabernacle of Moses. Icons serve us as an everlasting, obligatory reminder that the Lord is always with us: I am with you always, even to the end of the age (Matt. 28:20); that the Most Holy Theotokos is always close to us, as the Head of the mental creation of the church, as the Mother by grace of all true Christians, and all true Christians have the image of the Mother of God and their own by grace of the Queen and Mother in their homes and abundantly, worthily and righteously decorate her with silver, gold, precious stones, for there is no one dearer and more honorable to them after God, like His Most Pure Mother. Both the Lord and His Most Pure Mother themselves continually testify to us, both internally and externally through miracles, that our true veneration of His saints and His Mother, and His holy icons is pleasing to Him, and is extremely useful for us. Christmas. – He came to earth, Who in the beginning created us from the earth and breathed His divine breath into us; he who gives life and breath and everything to everyone has come (Acts 17:25); He came who with a single word called everything visible and invisible from non-existence into being, - Who with a word commanded to be birds, fish, four-legged animals, insects, every creature that exists under His almighty providence and preservation; He has come, Whom countless armies of Angels constantly serve with fear and joy. And in what humiliation! Born from a poor Virgin, in a den, swaddled in wretched swaddling clothes, placed in a manger! Wealth, nobility, the glory of this world! fall, fall with humility, tearful tenderness and deep gratitude to the Savior of men and share your wealth with the poor and poor, do not be proud of your illusory, quickly disappearing nobility: true nobility lies only in virtue. Glory to this world! recognize your vanity here, at the manger. So, all of you humble yourself, all of you fall into the dust before the immeasurable humility and exhaustion of the Lord of all, God, who came to heal our infirmities, to save us from pride, vanity, from corruption, from all filthiness of sin. Sin in itself is fire, therefore we say that such and such is inflamed by anger or carnal love, or envy. So, sin itself carries fiery condemnation. What kind of fire will this be in sinners when, because of unrepentance, the goodness of God completely leaves them? What will this fire be like outside of sinners? since it is certain that there will be a lake of fire, and a fiery cave, or a fiery Gehenna, or a fiery wild! All this is essential, true. But we, insensitive, are not afraid, we do not tremble, we spend our lives in pleasures, we are cold towards the church, we do not fulfill our Christian duties, we become rigid in our sins! Woe to us! Our priestly and ecclesiastical work is to repeat the same prayers, starting with the Lord’s Prayer, just as the work of everyone in general is to fulfill the same commandments of the moral law, for it is not by the difference of prayers that the soul is strengthened, but by repeating and carrying them into our thoughts, into our hearts and into our will, or into activity, throughout our entire life. Avoid by all means cases, occasions, words that feed enmity, and take advantage of every occasion and occasion to show sincere and holy love: in the first case, the hostile mood of the soul is little by little eradicated, in the second case, love is nourished and strengthened. Do not have an evil heart for a minute, always be kind to everyone, conquering your evil disposition with love that endures everything and conquers everything - avoid stubbornness, self-will and opposition to your neighbors, do not put yourself in your way to fulfill your evil whim, to deliberately harm someone. One specific commandment was given to people, Eve and Adam, so that by fulfilling this one commandment, and an easy one at that, people could acquire the skill to fulfill the will of God, the fulfillment of which consists of all the goodness of creatures, and could be confirmed in love for God. Paying attention to the opposite - to the failure to fulfill the will of the Creator and the fulfillment of our own will, contrary to the Creator, we notice that man, little by little, acquires the habit of doing evil and perverts his high nature, created in the image of God and in the likeness, and becomes the enemy of God. So important is the fulfillment of God’s commandments, and so destructive is failure to do so! Giving a specific commandment to the first people about not eating the fruits of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the Lord God Himself appeared as the nurturer of the newly created rational creature, His children by adoption. Who is to blame that this nurturing was rejected, and man wanted to better manage himself! Until now, with all the successes in the sciences and arts, with all the treasures of human wisdom, ancient and modern man cannot educate himself, because he rejected God’s child-rearing at the beginning, for, tell me, who else but God should have been our nurturer? Both in the present time and in the past, only those people have successfully completed their mental and moral education who entrusted themselves to God, lived according to His commandments, who now live according to the Gospel and the teachings of the Church, submitting to its leadership. Here's a useful note for you, all modern teachers! We have a lot of science, but little work comes out, our young men have a lot in their heads, but little in their hearts, little, but often - alas! - there is nothing! Life does not correspond to education and science. But even if we have all the secrets and all the understanding, but love is not imam, there is no benefit for us (1 Cor. 13:2-3). The Church, through its church and worship, affects the whole person, educates him completely: it affects his sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste, imagination, feelings, mind and will with the splendor of icons and the entire church, ringing, singing of singers, incense, kissing the Gospel, the cross and holy icons, prosphora, singing and mellifluous reading of scriptures. Our prayer must be deep, sincere, reasonable, fruitful - change our heart, direct our will to good, turning away from evil. Superficial prayer is hypocrisy, blasphemy, vain prayer. 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). By praying to the Mother of God, the Angels and the saints, we recognize them as one mystical body of the Church, to which we also belong, although we are sinners, and we believe that out of their love they pray to God for our salvation; praying heartily for the different classes and persons of the earthly fatherland and for the whole world, we also recognize ourselves as one great body with everyone, in the spirit of love and desire for the good of everyone as much as for ourselves; finally, praying for the repose of the departed (heavenly, earthly and underworld), we consider them to be one body with us, a spiritual body, and wish them peace and tranquility in the land of immortality, confessing that they are alive in their souls, and that we, too, may very soon go to them. This is the fruit of the faith of Christ - the unity of love with everyone - with heavenly, earthly and underworld! How high is the spirit of the Church! Oh, that we would rise to this spirit! Delve into the spirit of Christian worship, into the spirit of litanies, prayers, sacraments, rituals, and become imbued with it yourself. Woe to those who move away from the Church: they are completely overwhelmed by the spirit of the world, the spirit of malice. Only the faithful servants of Christ give the true value to the incarnation of the Son of God and the vision of God the Father and the entire Holy Trinity for the salvation of the human race; only they truly appreciate the pure body and blood of Christ, and the people of this age live like unreflective animals, in the sorrows of life and in sensual pleasures, not valuing either the incarnation of the Son of God or His most pure Mysteries. And since God’s chosen ones value as they should the works of God and God’s endless love for an adulterous and sinful world, then God values ​​them and does wonderful things through them; the Holy Spirit dwells in them together with the Father and the Son, and from their belly flow rivers of living water; and those who know God come to drink to them, as to sweet springs. Let us all be servants of Christ. The sun is shining. The Mental Sun - God constantly shines in the souls of the chosen ones. God rests in the saints and in their very name, in their very image; you just need to use their images with faith, and they will work miracles. Grant to me, Lady, purity of heart, simplicity of heart, filial trust, devotion and love for You always, now and ever, and forever and ever. Amen. The liturgy is a visual depiction in persons, various things, words and actions, of the birth, life, teaching, commandments, miracles and prophecies, suffering, crucifixion, death, resurrection and ascension into heaven of the Head of our faith, the Lord Jesus Christ the only begotten Son of God. During the liturgy, He Himself is invisibly present, He Himself acts and accomplishes everything through the priest and deacon, who are only His instruments. The Holy Spirit is as easy for a believer to attract into himself as air; like air, He fills everything and penetrates everything. Sit everywhere and do everything. He who prays earnestly attracts the Holy Spirit into himself and prays with the Holy Spirit. Prayer is the breath of the soul, like air is the natural breath of the body. We breathe the Holy Spirit. You cannot say a single word of prayer from your whole heart without the Holy Spirit. When you pray, you converse mouth to mouth with the Lord, and if you have your heart’s lips open by faith and love, at the same time you seem to inhale from Him the spiritual benefits you ask for through the Holy Spirit. What is our life? The burning of a candle: one has only to blow on the One who gave it - and it goes out. What is our life? The procession of a traveler: he has reached a certain limit - the gates are opened to him, he leaves his wanderer's clothing (body) and staff and enters his home. What is our life? A long bloody war for the possession of the true fatherland and for true freedom. The war is over - you are a winner or a loser, you are recalled from the place of struggle to the place of retribution, and you receive from the Giver either an eternal reward, eternal glory, or eternal punishment, eternal shame. Man is a wonderful, beautiful, majestic creation of God, especially a holy man; this is the star of God; it is a luxurious color, all beautiful, pure, unblemished; this is fragrant cedar, this is valuable beads; it is a precious stone that has no price; This is a beautiful fruitful tree of God's paradise! Wonderful creation of God man! Glory to the Creator and Provider! Glory to the Savior of the human race, who draws our race out of the mire of passions, from corruption and death, and leads us into the eternal belly. I thank the Lord and my holy mother, the Church, the immaculate and incorruptible bride of Christ, that she pointed out, leveled, smoothed out for me the right path to salvation, cutting off at the ecumenical and local councils all heresies and schisms that could serve as an extreme stumbling block and an obstacle to salvation in God - that she courageously, with victorious glory, fought off all the persecutors of the faith and defended for me the royal path of St. truth, leading into eternal life; I thank you that she has preserved all the sacraments established by the Lord, leading me on the right path to salvation; I thank you that she established and established for me a magnificent Divine service - this is an angelic service on earth; - that she celebrates annually all the most important events from the earthly life of my Lord and the Most Pure Mother of God, for the proper and grateful remembrance of the ineffable benefits of God to us, revealed in the redemption of us by the Son of God from sin, curse and death, and daily in the divine liturgy presents to my reverent attention the entire earthly life of my Lord; I thank you that in daily worship she glorifies the exploits of the holy saints of God and shows me in them living examples of faith, hope and love for God and various paths to eternal life; I thank her, my holy mother, for the creations of St. fathers and teachers of the church, for their sweet and soul-saving words, left to us as a heritage, as a priceless spiritual treasure; I thank you for the divinely established priesthood, which ministers my salvation in Christ and through Christ, reconciling me with God, sanctifying, comforting, strengthening, shepherding me and leading me into the heavenly fence. Do not be discouraged by strong temptations, sorrows or illnesses or stumblings from the embarrassment of the enemy: all this is reproof and righteous punishment, testing the hearts and wombs of the Lord, for your cleansing, awakening and correction, for burning out the thorns of carnal passions, and therefore do not complain if sometimes it hurts you very much. Look not at the pain, but at the good consequences of this punishment and the health of your soul. What are you not doing to keep your body healthy? Moreover, for the health and salvation of the soul, which has immortal life, one must endure everything. Do not trust in piles of money, but in God, who constantly cares for everyone, and especially for His rational and verbal creatures, and especially for those who live piously. Believe that His hand will not fail, especially for those who give alms, for man cannot be more generous than God. The proof of this is your own life and the lives of all former people who gave alms. Let God alone be the treasure of your heart; Cling to Him completely, as created in His image and likeness, and flee from the earthly aphids, which constantly corrupt our souls and bodies. Hasten to eternal life, to life that does not grow old for endless centuries; drag everyone there as much as you can. God! teach me to give alms willingly, with affection, with joy, and to believe that by giving it, I do not lose, but gain infinitely more than what I give. Turn my eyes away from people with a hard heart, who do not sympathize with the poor, who face poverty with indifference, condemn, reproach, brand it with shameful names and weaken my heart, so as not to do good, in order to harden me against poverty. Oh my God! how many such people there are! Lord, fix the matter of almsgiving! Lord, may all my alms be for benefit and not for harm! Lord, accept alms from Your poor people! Lord, deign to build a house for the poor in this city, as I have repeatedly prayed to You, the all-good, all-powerful, wise, wonderful! (and erected). Looking at the image of Christ the Savior, His Most Pure Mother, the holy saints of God, imagine in what glory our nature is clothed with God’s mercy, God’s wisdom and power, and what glory, what bliss awaits all His servants faithful to the Lord; leave behind the wordless aspirations and addictions of life, the decay and dust of the earth; love the Lord and the holy law of His Gospel with all your heart, with all your soul, and strive for the honor of the heavenly calling of God, for eternal life that does not grow old. Oh, that we would pay attention to the consequences of our sins or our good deeds! How careful we would then be, avoiding sin, and how zealous we would be for good; for we would then clearly see that every sin, not eradicated in time, strengthened by habit, takes deep roots in the heart of a person and sometimes confuses, wounds and torments him to death, awakening, so to speak, and coming to life in him in any case reminiscent of the sin he once committed, and thus desecrating his thoughts, feelings and conscience. Clouds of tears are needed to wash away the old dirt of sin: it is so sticky and caustic! On the contrary, every good deed that has ever been done sincerely, unselfishly, or through repetition has turned into a skill, pleases our heart, constitutes the joy of our life in the knowledge that we have not entirely lived our lives in vain, full of sins, that we are like people and not like animals, that we are also created in the image of God, and there is a spark of divine light and love in us, that although some good deeds will be a counterweight to our bad deeds in the scales of God's unwashed truth. I am touched by the spirit of holy love for all humanity, moving in all the prayers, supplications, petitions, thanksgivings, hymns and readings during the Divine services of our Orthodox Church! Oh, what a priest should be, the organ of this divine, heavenly mother on earth, who with such love incessantly cares for all her children, from the king to the villager, from the sacred government council to the lowest clergy of the church, and not only about her own children, but also about the whole world. What a shepherd should be filled with love for everyone - this is a child of the Church, whom she has clothed with the grace of the priesthood and brought so close to the throne of God, as one of her own, as a friend of God, whom she honored, endowed with great spiritual gifts and advantages, crowned with glory and honor as a bridegroom of the church, as a servant of the King Christ, God, Savior and shepherd of souls! How far away all passions should be from him: partiality, pride, sensual, carnal love, pride, enmity, covetousness, laziness, despondency, murmuring and other passions! He must be completely imbued with and filled with divine love for everyone and his main concern is to stand before the throne of God without sin and raise reverend hands for all people and save, sooner or later, the souls entrusted to him, redeemed by the priceless blood of Christ. And who is pleased with this (2 Cor. 2:16)? May the Lord Himself give this to us according to the abundance of His goodness, for we are cold, self-loving, hostile, money-loving, sad, murmuring and lazy. What does it mean when it is often sung in church: Lord have mercy! This is the cry of a guilty person condemned to death, asking for mercy from an irritated justice. We are all guilty of eternal damnation and eternal fire for our countless sins, and only the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, interceding for us before the Heavenly Father, saves us from eternal punishment. This is the cry of one who repents and expresses a firm intention to correct himself and begin a new life befitting a Christian. This is the cry of a repentant sinner, who is ready to show mercy to others, as one who has been immeasurably pardoned and merciful by God, the Judge of his deeds. Passion is hot, vague, thoughtless, evil, impetuous, and therefore a person in passion, for example, in anger, says a lot of thoughtless, untrue, fictitious, evil things that he would not say in a calm state. Therefore, knowing from experience this property of passions, first of all, do not speak when you are embarrassed or angry, and excuse hot and irritated people when they hurl curses and reproaches, unfair or just. Just as light and warmth are inseparable from the sun, so must be inseparable from the face of a priest: holiness, teaching, love, mercy for everyone; for whose title does he bear? - Christ's. Whom does he associate with so often? Christ God Himself, His body and blood. Therefore, a priest must be the same in the spiritual world, in the circle of his flock, as the sun is in nature: he must be light for everyone, life-giving warmth, the soul of everyone. The Savior deigned to be incarnate not only in order to save us when sins and passions overcame us, when we were already entangled in them, but also in order to save us, through our prayer, when sin and passion were still intensifying to break into us, when they were fighting us. We should not sleep and give up cowardly when passions overcome us, but at this very time we should be on our guard, watch and pray to Christ so that He will not allow us to sin. It is not necessary to save a house from a fire when the fire has already spread everywhere in it, but it is best when the flames are just beginning. So it is with the soul. The soul is home, passions are fire. Do not give place to the devil (Eph. 4:27). Do not be afraid of the struggle and do not run away from it: where there is no struggle, there is no virtue; where there is no temptation of fidelity and love, it is unknown whether there is fidelity and love for the Lord. Our faith, hope and love are known in adversity, that is, in difficult and difficult circumstances, external or internal: in illness, in sorrow, in deprivation. Almsgiving is the seed; if you want it to bear good and a hundredfold fruit, make this seed good, giving in simplicity and from a kind, merciful, compassionate heart, and be sure that you are not losing so much, or, better, not at all, but gaining infinitely more through perishable alms, if you give from a good heart, with faith in the Giver, and not from selfish or selfish types. Do me, your Lord, to show mercy to the only one of these least of my brethren (Matthew 25:40). A person's thoughts have an extremely powerful influence on the state and disposition of his heart and actions; therefore, in order for the heart to be pure, kind, calm, and the disposition of the will to be good and pious, one must purify one’s thoughts through prayer and reading St. Scriptures and works of St. fathers, thinking about corruption and transience and the disappearance of earthly pleasures. You wish for yourself or for someone else or for everyone some spiritual good, and the Lord has long, long before you, wished it for you and others and is ready to grant it, if only there was a readiness to accept the divine gift, if only those who were in any way worthy to accept it, because God is infinite goodness, infinite goodness and is always ready to bestow any good, and often gives before asking and in any case can create according to the abundance of what we ask or understand ( Eph. 3:20). Therefore, with hope and boldness, I always ask the Lord for spiritual and even material blessings, when these latter are needed, and the Lord gives according to His unfalse promise: ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, ask and it will be opened to you: for everyone who asks receives it, and whoever seeks finds it, and to the one who asks it will be opened (Matthew 7:7-8). After the resurrection, our bodies will be spiritual, not earthly: everything earthly will remain on earth. Let us, Christians, remembering this future life of ours, gradually renounce everything earthly. In the resurrection of the dead, people will be like angels in heaven (Matthew 22:30), so spiritual! Therefore, there will be no food, no drink, no clothing, no air, no warmth - feeding, warming and supporting our bodies, but truth, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17). Now our earthly bodies are supported by the earth, that is, by the elements of the earth, but then all the elements that are burned will be destroyed, and the earth and the works on it will be burned up (2 Pet. 3:10). So, remembering these future revolutions in our destiny, in our bodies and in our lives, and strangely seeing God incarnate, let us withdraw from the vanity of the world and place our minds on the Divine: for this reason God came down to earth, so that he may lead us to heaven 26 . The spiritual body is directly opposite to the material, elemental one. God will be all things in all (1 Cor. 15:28). Since the Lord composed us from two principles - spiritual and material, from a rational soul and a material body, which has a need for material support, the devil, to the evil of God and us, tries in every possible way to benefit from this very duality of our nature, inclining us to trust not in God, but in carnal things, and through the flesh, seducing us into all sin: to gluttony, fornication and all uncleanness, love of money, covetousness, envy, laziness, theft, stinginess, hatred, murder. So, for example, he inspires us, he forces us to rely not on God, but on money, on food and drink, on human connections, on ranks, distinctions and advantages, on the nobility of the family, on intelligence, on education, on books, he inspires us to seek pleasure in food, drink, clothes, in secular concerts, in theaters, in laughter, in idle talk, in wordplay. But the true servant of God always and in everything relies on his Lord, who acts all in all, the common Father and Provider of all, hearing the saying: Cast all your sorrow on Him, for He cares for you (1 Pet. 5:7). By the confusion and violence beginning in the soul, recognize Belial and immediately oppose him with a stone - Christ; Belial will break his teeth on Him, but it will not reach you. But, look, love everyone as yourself. The Lady Theotokos, the holy Angels and all the saints are just as close to me when I call on them with a pure, whole heart, just as my soul is close to me, and they hear me just as I hear myself: for all are one body, one spirit, one Church of Angels and men. Whatever relationship the members of the body have to each other, this is the relationship the members of the Church have to each other: they serve each other, help each other, support each other, save each other. (What about Protestants?) In what high, holy society does a Christian see himself in a church, surrounded by the faces of St. Angels and St. pleasers! He is a member of the Church, the same one to which these saints belong. What an incentive for moral change and the desire for the same ageless life that they strived for and achieved. The devil captivates and defeats a person in this world by excessively stimulating the natural mental and physical needs of a person, such as: the need for food and drink (and as everything comes from money, so does money), the need for clothing, the need for pleasure, the need for honor or glory, a good name. All these and similar human needs, invested by God in the very nature of man, the devil constantly perverts, taking them to extreme limits, sometimes without any need (for example, for food and drink) and thereby drowns both soul and body, tears the soul away from God through clinging to the sensual, or through its descent into sensuality and the passions of anger, pride, envy, despondency, laziness, gluttony, fornication, drunkenness, greed, ambition, etc. Therefore, we need: fasting, virginity, non-covetousness, meekness, humility, kindness, faith, hope and love, prayer, contemplation of God. Take full care of your heart, or sincerity of the heart, the ability to sympathize with your neighbors in their joys and sorrows, and, like a deadly poison, avoid coldness and indifference to various troubles, misfortunes, illnesses, and human needs: for in sympathy, especially in active, the love and kindness of a Christian is expressed, and in love - the whole law, and on the contrary, in insensibility our pride, our anger, ill-will are expressed and envy. So, pray for everyone for whom the Church commands to pray, or you voluntarily pray, as for yourself, and do not weaken in sincerity, do not lose inner respect for the person or persons for whom you are praying; do not allow the holy fire of love to go out, your light to be eclipsed; Do not be discouraged by the machinations of the enemy, who is undermining your heart and trying to instill disgust in your heart for everyone, and tear out from your lips a prayer for all people, which is the best proof of the Gospel love for your neighbors. God! grant that Your church may impart enlightenment of souls, cleansing of sins, sanctification, peace, health, and peace of mind to all who come to it with faith, reverence and fear of God, strengthen faith, hope and love, contribute to the correction of life, success in all good undertakings and deeds, mutual love, pure Christian life, softening of hearts and the cessation of self-love, hard-heartedness, covetousness, greed, envy, malice, gluttony, drunkenness, debauchery - these vices are so harmful in public life and undermine its foundations. Grant this, grant, Lord, to all those who love to visit Your church, and even those who do not love it, incline them to love it and correct their hearts and deeds: for the time is near and judgment is at the door for all people of every rank and condition, of every gender and age, and everyone faces a matter of infinitely great importance - to give an answer at the Last Judgment of Christ. How and when should we take care of the imperishable garment of the soul: meekness, truth, chastity, patience, mercy, when all our worries, cares and resources are directed towards the perishable garment and adornment of the body? It is impossible for two masters to work: for the soul is simple and one. How and when should we take care of the spiritual wealth of good deeds, when we are greedy only for perishable wealth and collect it with all our might and means, when our hearts are attached to money, to the world, and not to God? How and when should we take care of incorruptible, spiritual food, the drink of grace - prayer, reading the Word of God, the scriptures and lives of St. father, about the communion of the body and blood of the Lord, when we do not let go of our food and drink and this stupefying lit and smoking potion and smoke, so sweet for many? How can the soul leap with the Holy Spirit when we are constantly busy with earthly, vain games and amusements! Oh, the destructive work of corruption, which takes us away from imperishable, true, eternal life! When we pray, the most holy, lofty objects, along with earthly, everyday, insignificant objects, revolve in our thoughts in a strange way! eg and God, and any favorite object, for example. money, some thing, clothing, hat, or some sweet piece, sweet drink, or some external distinction, cross, order, ribbon, etc. So we are frivolous, biased, absent-minded! This is typical only of pagans, who do not know the true God and His Son Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit, and not of Christians, whose treasure is not on earth, but in heaven. Where is the living water in our hearts, flowing like a life-giving spring in hearts wholly devoted to God? The reason she doesn’t exist is because she is forced out of him by the vanities of life and other passions. You cannot work for God and mammon (Matthew 6:24), says the Truth. There is a close relationship between the image and the Prototype, the pious man and God; between the members and the head, the shepherd and the sheep, between the vine and the offspring (branches). If this truth were always believed and remembered, oh! in what harmony, in what love and purity would we live, how would we have mercy on each other, how would we condescend to each other, forgive each other, knowing that we ourselves first of all need condescension and mercy towards ourselves, Divine and human, as we are extremely weak in spirit and body. The concept of grace. – What is grace? The good power of God, given to a believer and baptized in the name of Jesus Christ or the Holy Trinity, cleansing, sanctifying, enlightening, assisting in doing good and avoiding evil, comforting and encouraging in adversity, sorrow and illness, guaranteeing the receipt of eternal blessings prepared by God in heaven for His chosen ones. Whether someone was proud, proud, angry, envious, but he became meek and humble, selfless, for the sake of the glory of God and the good of his neighbor, friendly to everyone, condescending, compliant without indulgence - he became so by the power of grace. Whether someone was an unbeliever, he became a believer and a zealous follower of the precepts of faith - he became so by the power of grace. Whether someone was money-loving, selfish and unjust, hard-hearted towards the poor, but, having changed in the depths of his soul, became non-covetous, truthful, generous, compassionate - he owes this to the power of Christ’s grace. Whether someone was a glutton, a polyeater and a heavy drinker, but became an abstinent, fasting person, not out of illness or awareness of the harm to the body of intemperance, but out of consciousness of a moral, higher goal - he became so by the power of grace. Whether someone was a hater, vindictive, vengeful, but suddenly became humane, loving even his enemies, ill-wishers and scolders, not remembering any insults - he became so through the restoring, transforming and renewing power of grace. Has anyone been cold to God, to church, to Divine services, to prayer, in general to the sacraments of faith that cleanse and strengthen our souls and bodies, and suddenly, having changed in soul, he became warm to God, to Divine services, to prayer, reverent to the sacraments - he became so through the action of the saving grace of God. From this it is clear that many live outside of grace, not realizing its importance and necessity for themselves and not seeking it, according to the word of the Lord: seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matthew 6:33). Many live in all abundance and contentment, enjoy flourishing health, eat with pleasure, drink, walk, amuse themselves, write, work in various parts or branches of human activity, but by the grace of God in their hearts they do not have this priceless Christian treasure, without which a Christian cannot be a true Christian and heir to the kingdom of heaven. For Christians, science and literature have become almost exclusively earthly - the Gospel and the law of God are neglected, the lives of the saints are ridiculed; in general, everyone has some kind of feverish, earthly activity - almost no one thinks about pleasing God and saving the soul. Pathetic condition! Here is our contemporary idolatry in Christianity: self-love, ambition, earthly pleasure, gluttony and covetousness, fornication; it completely turned our eyes and our hearts away from God and the heavenly fatherland and nailed us to the ground; It is this that has eradicated love for neighbor and armed us against each other. Woe, woe to us! How do we perceive the highest sacrament of Divine love for us - the sacrament of the Christian faith? mind, heart and life or our free will. Are all three powers of our soul imbued with holy faith, like the souls of saints?... The kingdom of heaven is like kvass, which one woman took and put into three measures of flour (three powers of the soul) until everything was leavened (cf. Luke 13:21). With all the strength of soul and body, we will accept the worldly, transitory, sinful (voluptuousness, greed, ambition), and not the heavenly and eternal. The Lord God shared, so to speak, His endless life with us: we are all deified by His most pure flesh and blood, united with the Divine. Az reh: you are gods by nature and sons of the Most High (Ps. 82:6). (Our Father, Who art in heaven). Shouldn't we, according to His will, share what serves to support our soul and body: our mind, our knowledge, our material property, with our neighbors, while He Himself promised us not impoverishment, but an increase in the talents entrusted to you and returned by us? When you measure according to measure, it will be measured back to you (Matthew 7:2). If God accepted us into the communion of the Divine, into the communion of His flesh and blood, then we must have everything in common, without indulging in idleness and parasitism, that is, the rich must help the poor, give alms if possible, receive the strange, visit the sick, console the sad, instruct the ignorant, admonish the erring, forgive offenses, remembering that we are all Christ’s. And Christ will reward everyone and everything. Be hungry, and give Me food... (Matthew 25:35) and so on. The cross and the sign of the cross are the power of God, therefore the Lord is always inherent in them. In the same way, the image: the Lord, the Mother of God, St. Angels and holy people can also be the power of God for believers and perform miracles on them. Why? Because, by the grace of God, they have the Lord, the Lady, Angels or saints, that is, they are always so close to us and even closer than these images. True. Experience confirms this quite often. What do theaters bring into human hearts? The spirit of this age is the spirit of idleness, idle talk, idle talk, ridicule, cunning and deceit, the spirit of pride, conceit, and does not give anyone the slightest bit of good morality. Writers of plays and actors convey to the people what they have in themselves, their spirit, no more, no less. Do actors think about people’s morality? Do they intend to correct popular morals? No and no. Always consider it a great happiness to talk in prayer with the Lord or with the Most Pure Lady Theotokos, or with Angels, or with holy people, and always pray to Him with joy and trembling reverence, remembering Whom you are talking to, unclean and insignificant worm. Why does our sincere prayer for each other have great power on others? Because, clinging to God during prayer, I become one spirit with Him, and those for whom I pray, I unite with myself through faith and love, because the Spirit of God, acting in me, acts at the same time in them, as if He fulfills everything. We are one body of many (1 Cor. 10:17). One body, one spirit... (Eph. 4:4). The peace of mind and sweetness that we feel from time to time in the church of God, with the harmonious singing of the choristers and the intelligible reading of the reader and clergy, is a deposit for us of that infinite sweetness that those who eternally contemplate the ineffable kindness of the face of God will feel within themselves. We must be jealous of harmonious singing and intelligible reading. By calling the saints of God by name in prayer, we encourage them to pray for us. Coming to the church of God to pray, we must know and remember that we are children of the Heavenly Father and have come to His house; must stand with filial feelings of sincere love, gratitude, and fiery prayer. Our spirit must cry out: Abba Father! (Rom. 8:15). How good You are, my Lord, and how close You are to us - so close that we can always talk with You and be comforted by You, breathe in You, be enlightened by You, have peace in You, find space in our hearts in You. God! teach me the simplicity of love for You and for my neighbor, may I always be with You, may I always have peace in You. God! do not allow me for a moment to commit fornication with the disgusting and all-evil enemy - the devil, neither malice, nor pride, nor envy, nor stinginess, nor covetousness, nor gluttony, nor lustful thoughts, nor blasphemy, nor despondency, nor lies, nor anything sinful. May I always be all Yours! My endless sweetness, Lord Jesus Christ, what sweets did You not give me to taste in my temporary existence! Thank you, my mercy, my sweetness! But if earthly sweets are so numerous, varied, and pleasant, then what are heavenly, spiritual sweets: they are truly infinitely, countlessly, unimaginably pleasant. Do not, O most merciful and generous Lord, deprive me of Your heavenly sweets, which You have prepared for those who love You. Do not deprive them and your other people! Let them all know You, Lord, our Sweetness. After all, You, this Sweetness of ours, are everywhere and on earth, i.e. Every sweet thing is your business. However, Lord, grant me to graciously endure the sorrows of life: they are needed for my many-passionate flesh, for my old man. More humane! Teach them and Your other people to bear it with kindness and let them know their need. Tribulation endures (Rom. 12:12). You will be in a world of sorrow (John 16:33). You ask others for life and faith and spiritual reason - are you sincere, aren’t you hypocritical, aren’t you asking with just your tongue? Do you wish them this success with all your heart? Are you successful yourself? Aren't you yourself in passions? Look, the Lord sees everything with His brightest eyes: you must skillfully ask Him, in the simplicity of your heart, with a burning spirit. When, due to various impurities accumulated in the stomach and intestines, you feel unwell, in disposition, and when, in this state, your prayer is cold, heavy, filled with despondency and some despair - do not despair and do not be discouraged then, for the Lord knows your painful, difficult state. Fight against weakness, pray as much as you can, and the Lord will not despise the weakness of your flesh and spirit. You feel like an ungodly, nasty, evil, blasphemous sinner, and therefore you don’t want to approach the Lady and pray to Her - but that’s why you pray fervently, because you recognize yourself as such a sinner, don’t lie in the mire of sin, come to the Lady, stand before Her image in the hope that She Herself is here, show Her without shame your sinful ulcers, have disgust for them and ask Her to cleanse you from this spiritual leprosy - and you will not be ashamed. The All-Good One will not despise you, the Most Pure and All-Powerful One will cleanse you, as the Lord cleansed the ten lepers. Where can I find a true Christian who would teach by his very deeds to despise the flesh as fleeting and to be diligent about the immortal soul? Where can I find such an uplifting husband? On earth, among the living, it is difficult to find, although of course there are such men, but in the church of the firstborn in heaven, written (Heb. 12:23) in the heavenly church, there are many such men, like the stars in the sky. Rejecting themselves as an old, corrupt, pernicious person, as a broken vessel unable to contain water, they took up their cross and followed Christ, and surrendered their entire life to Him, despising the flesh and the fleeting world. They heard him saying: what good is it to a man, if the whole world gains and loses its soul (Matthew 16:26), and they knew that the flesh and the world will pass away and they will be no more, that our soul, among other things, is priceless, because it, being the image of God, is immortal, and because the whole world means nothing in comparison with the soul, because it is transitory, for heaven and earth will pass away (Mk. 13:31), according to the word of the Savior. And at every step, with our own eyes, we are convinced of the transience of the world, for everything in the world walks and spins, and the elements are all in motion; the seasons revolve as if in a round dance; people, some are born, others die; some get married, others lose their wives; some are being built, others are losing their homes and property; Some cities are built and beautified, others are consumed by fire and turned to ashes. Everything on earth comes, which means that the earth itself will never pass away. If everything in the house catches fire, then the house itself will burn down. Heaven and earth are on fire. The first world, having been drowned by water, perished, and the present heavens and earth were devoured by fire for the day of judgment and destruction of wicked people (2 Pet. 3:7). Where can I find true Christians who would despise everything earthly as transitory, and strive with all their might to please God, their immortal King, and to save their souls! Where can I find such an exalted man who, like a king or like some kind of god, would despise the earth and everything earthly for the sake of God (and not out of contempt) and courageously submit to his mind or the law of God all the passions and addictions of life? who would be zealous with God's zeal for the salvation of the souls of his brothers, fellow humans, and would take care of their enlightenment, purification, strengthening in faith and virtue? God! erect such lamps on the candlestick of this world, on the candlestick of Your Church, may they preach Your glory, may they be zealous for Your glory and for the salvation of Your people! Lord, everything is possible for You! How long, Lord, will the vanity of this world surround us? How long will we turn away from You, our Creator and Savior? As you wish, Lord, arrange a thing for us. When an alien, proud, evil spirit confuses you before reading and while reading prayers to the Lord God or the Mother of God, then vividly imagine that all those present are children of the heavenly, omnipotent, beginningless, infinite, all-good Father, and that the Lord is their Father, and boldly, peacefully, joyfully, freely pray to Him, on behalf of everyone, without fear of ridicule, contempt, or malice of the people of this world. Do not be wicked, being ashamed of human faces; do not hesitate to sincerely pray to the Heavenly Father, especially read the Lord’s Prayer with reverence, peacefully, without haste; In general, read all prayers calmly, evenly, with reverence, knowing before Whom you are speaking them. How many Christians are there who say: I believe in God, but do not believe in deed? How many lips are numb when it is necessary to defend in society the glory of God and His saints, which the sons of this age blaspheme - and become numb before them? Others are silent when it is necessary to maintain a conversation about God, or when it is necessary to stop some kind of outrage or insolence. Many people say: I believe in God, but if trouble, adversity, temptation happens, they become faint-hearted, despondent, sometimes grumble, and where does all the faith go? Here it would be necessary to show devotion to the will of God, to say: as the Lord willed, so be it: blessed be the name of the Lord (Job 1:21). Otherwise, apparently, they believe in God only in happiness, and in misfortune they reject Him. You will endure the difficulty and painful sting of the operation, but you will be healthy (they talk about confession). This means that in confession, without concealment, you must reveal all your shameful deeds to your confessor, even though it is painful, embarrassing, shameful, humiliating. Otherwise, the wound remains unhealed and will ache and ache and undermine mental health; it will remain a leaven for other mental infirmities or sinful habits and passions. A priest is a spiritual doctor; show him the wounds, without shame, sincerely, openly, with filial trust: after all, the confessor is your spiritual father, who must love you more than your relatives, father and mother, for Christ’s love is higher than carnal, natural love - he must give an answer to God for you. Why has our life become so unclean, full of passions and sinful habits? Because so many people hide their spiritual wounds or ulcers, that’s why they hurt and get irritated, and no medicine can be applied to them. Heaven and earth, created by the Lord and existing, acting and moving by Him, give understanding to me, me who is one spirit with the Lord! Why should I grieve when I am and can always be one in spirit with the Lord? I will cast all my sorrow upon Him. Heaven and earth have existed for several thousand years by the Lord, by His power and laws, while they are soulless, inert, ineffective, weak matter. What about grass, and wild flowers, and trees, and birds, fish, etc.? How all this teaches us to completely rely on God’s providence! Do not despise a single person, any poor person, but treat with complete respect and goodwill every well-intentioned person, especially the poor, as members of ours worthy of pity, or even more so members of Christ, otherwise you will severely wound your soul. Oh, how easy it would seem to be to live in the simplicity of love, and how difficult it is for our corrupt heart to live in love! At every step there is a pretext for enmity against one's neighbor. God! Behold, I am Your vessel: fill me with the gifts of Your Holy Spirit, without You I am empty of all good, or, moreover, full of all sin. God! Behold, I am Your ship: fill me with a load of good deeds. God! Behold Your ark: fill it not with the charm of love of money and sweets, but with love for You and for Your animated image - man. Human! Where has your nature been exalted in the person of Jesus Christ, the God-man? To the throne of the Divine. Where is your nature elevated in the person of the Mother of God? Above the Cherubim and Seraphim. For whom? For you, so that, having freed you from the corruption of lusts, I would make you a partaker of the divine nature. How do you respond to these intentions, to these deeds of the Divine, to this all-good providence of the Lord? You have been given all the divine powers for life and piety - how do you use them? Are you neglecting them? Aren't you stuck to the ground like a snail? Our soul is a simple being, like the image and likeness of God; therefore, when it is well-ordered and lives in accordance with the will of God, then it is peaceful, and easy, and joyful; and when she deigns to sin, or commits some kind of sin, or is forced by the enemy to sin, then she becomes restless, gloomy, and heavy. So, continually do the will of God, and you will be simple and peaceful; but if you sin, you will not have peace. Don't give in to the enemy; it brings languor, tightness, darkness, fire into the soul. Take away wickedness from your souls (Isa. 1:16). Just as it is natural, sweet and easy to breathe air, so it should be natural, easy and sweet to breathe the Holy Spirit, Who is the breath of our soul. Just as it is natural, easy and pleasant to love oneself, so natural, pleasant and easy it should be to love every person, for we are all one, one God of creation, one image and likeness of God, we have one breath, the same soul, one appearance. All sorrows, torments, deprivations, illnesses are allowed by God in order to drive out seductive sin and plant true virtue in hearts - in order to give experimental knowledge of the deceitfulness, arrogance, madness, tyranny and lethality of sin and instill disgust for it, and experienced knowledge of truth, meekness, wisdom, gentle dominion over human hearts and the life-giving nature of virtue. Therefore, I will endure all sorrows generously, with gratitude to the Lord, the Physician of our souls, our most loving Savior. Everywhere and in everything is the Lord, and the Lord bears and preserves everything, and therefore is called the Almighty. I should be carefree. From insignificance we are all called to the existence of God by omnipotence and, as insignificant in ourselves, we cannot do or support ourselves in life with our own strength, without God, therefore God is everything to us: life, and our strength, and our light, and our air, and spiritual food and drink, and clothing, and everything. He created and provides everything for our material body: light, air, warmth, food, drink, clothing, and housing. Blessed are the poor in spirit, always aware of their insignificance - and the omnipotence and omnipotence of God; blessed are those who are carefree in this life; blessed are the simple-hearted; Blessed are those who surrender themselves to God in everything. Let us give ourselves and each other and our whole life to Christ our God. Just be always with God, and everything will be given to you, will be added to you: seek first the kingdom of God (in yourself and in others), and all these things will be added to you (Matthew 6:33). Let only God be in your hearts, always be inseparably united with Him, and everything in life will be added to you. Just do not attach your heart to anything of this life: for your part is God, the God of your heart. God is inexhaustible wealth, an ever-flowing source; where God is, there is every good thing. For the lover of God, like a shadow following a body, all good things follow. How can I be cold towards my neighbor when the Lord told me to love him as myself, or as He Himself loved us? And we become cold towards our neighbors because we are addicted to sweets and self-loving. So let us reject indulgences and intemperance, so that we may please our Lord. If it were not for the Lord and not the Lady, not the Guardian Angels, not the saints, the devil and his minions would have blocked the lips of all of us and would not have allowed us to glorify the name of the Lord; this would be true, since they are trying to do this now and how sometimes they succeed at least a little in this! Who kicks priests during services? Devil We must never forget that we are all one body and should encourage each other to love and good deeds; especially we, shepherds, must remember and do this. Yes, we must remember that if we are bright in soul, stand firm in faith and piety, then our flock becomes firmer, brighter and purer in life; if the head is bright, so are the members, and if we have darkened our souls from many different passions, the body of the Church, our flock, will be darker, because there is a close connection between the head and the members, between the shepherd and the flock. That is why the Lord said: let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in heaven (Matthew 5:16). Though there be darkness in you, there is still darkness (Matthew 6:23). So, do you think that your gluttony, your covetousness does not respond to your flock, firstly, because of your carelessness about souls, for what care for souls does one have who cares about rubles? none. Yes, if the light in the shepherd is darkened, then it is necessarily darkened in the flock: due to his close, spiritual connection with it, head with members. You stand strong in your spiritual virtues - and they are firm; you stand in prayer and pray fervently for them - and they feel it; If you become stronger spiritually, they too will become stronger; If you relax, they will relax too. Lord, have mercy on me! Our body consists of earthly elements: light, heat, air, water and earth - it will decompose into these same elements after death. Light and heat will unite with light and warmth, air will unite with air, water with water, earth with earth. We get together and resolve again. Glory to Your creativity, Lord! Let us know and remember our earthiness and short-term existence, and let us revere the Creator. We are all the work of His hands, sheep of His pasture (cf. Ps. 99:3). Our life is a continuous flow of God’s ineffable mercies: hence it should be unceasing thanksgiving and praise to God the Creator and Benefactor, and especially should be unceasing love for God and our neighbor - His image and our fellow member. By loving our neighbor, we love God; By honoring every person, we honor the image of God, God Himself, and ourselves: for our neighbor is another, fifth, tenth, hundredth, thousandth, millionth, and so on—I am. There are many leaves on a tree, but they are all one tree, they live the same life, have the same origin, have the same appearance, have the same beginning, and the same end. If you doubt whether the icon of the Mother of God, before which you pray, is consecrated, then know that the Primordial Lady Herself has been blessed for one thousand nine hundred years already in the womb of Her parents - Joachim and Anna, then at birth and in the temple of Jerusalem and, finally, by the ineffable incarnation of God the Word from Her; She is always holy and all-holy forever, unshakably, unchangeably, and She exists in every place, is inherent in every icon of Her, and with just the inscription of Her face and name, and the face of the Savior and His name, already sanctifies the substance with Her very face and the inscription of names. In the simplicity of your heart, look at every icon, and doubt is from the devil, to distract you from heartfelt prayer. Tell him: the whole earth is holy; in every place is the dominion of my Lord and His Most Pure Mother - the Lady of the whole world; I look at Her, the Most Pure One, with the eyes of my heart, and do not worship the board: the image was made only to help my weakness. The miraculous icons of the Mother of God and other saints teach us to look at every icon as at the very saint or saint to whom we pray, as living persons who converse with us, for they are also close to us and even more than icons, if only we pray to them with faith and heartfelt disposition. We should also speak about the life-giving cross. Where there is a cross or the sign of the cross, there is Christ and His power and His salvation, only with faith depict it or worship it. When you pray to God using familiar prayers that you get used to, say in your heart: Lord! You are always the same. My heart changes and grows cold towards the words of prayer, and yet their power is one and the same, just as You are eternally the same. When you pray to God, you talk with Him face to face; talk with Him as with a king - eye to eye, talk with the Queen of Heaven as if you were alive, with Angels and saints just as eye to eye, and let your heart not be occupied with anything extraneous at this time or attached to anything, for say: will you, while talking with the king or the queen, be engaged at this time in anything extraneous or unimportant, for example. look out the window at people passing by, or look at things in the chambers, etc.? And wouldn’t this be an extreme insult to the royal majesty? How can we, when talking with the Lord, do something similar and much worse than this? Sorrow is a great teacher; sorrows show us our weaknesses, passions, and need for repentance; Sorrows cleanse the soul, sober it up as if from drunkenness, bring grace into the soul, soften the heart, inspire disgust for sin, and confirm faith, hope and virtue. Matter, when we cling to it with our hearts, passionately desire it or feel sorry for it with others, kills the soul by moving away from God, the Source of life. The heart must always be in God, Who is the inexhaustible Source of spiritual and material life: for who is the cause of the existence of all creatures and organic, plant and animal life, the existence of order and the life of all worlds great and small? Lord God. Everything material must be counted as rubbish, as unimportant, insignificant, transitory, decaying, corruptible, disappearing, but we must pay attention to the invisible, simple, immortal soul, which cannot be destroyed: despise the flesh, for it passes away, but be diligent about souls, things that are immortal 27 . Prove this by deeds: fast, give cordially to the poor, cordially treat guests, spare nothing for your family, read the Word of God diligently, pray, repent, mourn your sins, strive with all your might for holiness, meekness, humility, patience, obedience. How do we maintain contact with the spiritual world, with the heavenly church? Through calling them in prayers, through celebrations in their honor and church services: for the Church is one, under one Head - Christ. How do we keep in touch with the deceased? Through prayers for them, especially those combined with the offering of a bloodless sacrifice. How do we keep in touch with living Christians and all people? Again through prayers for all of them in the church of God and even at home. This is how we maintain contact with the tribes of heaven, earth and hell. Great is the Christian faith! В мире действительном представляется с одной стороны бесконечность материальных вещей – одушевленных и неодушевленных вещественных тварей; с другой стороны – бесконечность внутреннего мира мысли и чувства, или бессмыслия и бесчувствия греховного, или мысли и чувства греховного, страстного. Но вся материальность ничто, а единая благодатная мысль человека, одно чувство святой любви бесконечно дороже всей материальности. He told the Lord his sins with contrition of heart - and they melted away; - he sighed, regretted his sins - and there are none. The words of your iniquity, that you may be justified (Isaiah 43:26). As they come, so they go. A dream is a dream. He realized that they were a dream, an absurdity, a madness, and he intended to behave properly from now on - and God cleansed them through His servant and St. sacraments. Christ, as the Giver of Life, as the all-perfect God, as the Creator, as the Provider, Trustee and Savior of mine is quite sufficient for me, for the fullness of my life, and no things are needed for my immaterial heart; they are needed only for the corruptible and transitory body, but the body has everything it needs daily and usually by the goodness of God and His bounties. The lusts and whims of the flesh, or the old man, are countless, but they are a dream, vanity, a ghost, nothing; they are darkening, turning and ruining the spirit. In God alone is my peace and my life. What a close connection between the heavenly and earthly Churches, what love the Church has! Look: she constantly remembers, calls in prayers and glorifies the heavenly Church for her deeds on earth, raised for God’s sake; prays unceasingly for the earthly Church and intercedes for the dead in the hope of resurrection, eternal life and communion with God and with the saints. Immense love, majestic, divine love! Let us enter into the spirit of this motherly love - our Orthodox Church and let us be imbued with the spirit of this love. Let us consider all our neighbors as members of ours, ourselves and them as members of one body of the Church, and actively love them as ourselves - then we ourselves will be living members of the heavenly Church, and she will be our active and quick-to-obey helper and prayer book for our souls. As long as we lead a carnal life and do not approach God heartily, as long as demons lurk in us, hiding under various passions: greed for food and drink, lust for lust, pride and proud free-thinking about faith, about the Church, about the dogmas of faith, malice, envy, stinginess, love of money, so that we live according to their will; but when we begin to sincerely work for the Lord and touch the living demons of our passions nesting in us, then they arm themselves against us with all their hellish malice, with all their fiery and varied insurances, strong, burning addictions to earthly goods, until we drive them out of ourselves with fervent prayer or Holy Communion. Tain. Thus, those possessed by demons are at peace until they are brought to the shrine, but when they are brought to the shrine, where will the extraordinary power come from, aversion from the shrine, blasphemy, spitting on the shrine, a piercing cry. Here is an explanation or solution to your bewilderment - why do demoniacs or so-called cliques scream in church during mass or when they are brought to St. relics; this is because demons meet with a good force, hateful to them and stronger than them, which scorches, oppresses, strikes them righteously, drives them out of their beloved home. Every Christian house represents an infinitely great house - the universe, heaven and earth, in which the Lord dwells. Therefore, in every Christian home you see images of the Savior and the Mother of God, heeding the prayers of those living in the house and resorting to Them. Man, recognize your spiritual trouble and firmly, constantly pray to the Savior of men to save you from it. Do not say to yourself: I am not in danger, I am not in trouble, I do not need to pray often and much for deliverance from a disaster that I do not comprehend and do not know. This is the trouble that you, being in the greatest trouble, do not know your trouble; this trouble is your sins. If you have to endure severe adversity, sorrow and illness, then do not be faint-hearted, do not be discouraged and do not complain, do not wish for death for yourself, do not speak daring speeches before the all-seeing God, for example. such: oh, what a fierce sorrow, oh, what an attack beyond my strength - it would be better for me to die, or: it would be better if I killed myself! God save you from such cowardice, murmuring and insolence! But endure all this generously, as sent to you from God for your sins, and repeat with the prudent thief: I accept what is worthy of my deeds (cf. Luke 23:41), and look with your mental eyes at the Savior suffering on the cross. Be careful that the rivers of internal sorrows and disasters do not tear you away from the Lord Jesus Christ, for the enemy tries in every way to distract us from the Lord: both with the charm of pleasures, and the burden of disasters, like Job, and especially with internal tightness and sorrows. Endure everything, giving thanks to God, for all things work out for good to those who love God (Rom. 8:28). Remember that you yourself confess daily in prayer to God, that because of your sins, with which you always anger God and His Most Pure Mother, and all the heavenly Powers, and the holy Guardian Angel, you are not worthy of His love for mankind, but worthy of all condemnation and torment, and now the Lord reveals His truth and at the same time His love to you, visits you with sorrows and hardships, and humiliation, and shame, in order to cleanse your heart, soften, thin it, humble it and make it worthy of His church. He loves the Lord and punishes him: he beats every son who he accepts. Any punishment does not seem to be a joy of being, but sorrow: after all, the fruit of peace rewards those who have learned righteousness (Heb. 12:6, 11). The sin that you do not deign to commit is not imputed to you; eg involuntary stumbling in prayer, nasty and blasphemous thoughts, involuntary anger with which we diligently fight, stinginess with which we turn away - these are all attacks of the evil spirit. Our job is to endure, pray, humble ourselves and love. Oh, the sweetest name, the most holy name, the almighty name, the name of our Lord Jesus Christ! My victory, Lord, glory to You! Lord, we are Your members, we are one body, You are our Head. Lord, may all passions flee from us, may demons flee from us! God! give us the grace of love that never falls away! God! May we show respect and love to each other, as to You, as to those deified by You. How good it will be with You for Your chosen ones in heaven, Lord! How all the delights of earth are painful for the heart! How detrimental to the heart is an instant addiction to anything earthly! And in You what peace, what freedom, what space, what light, what joy! Glory, Lord, to the never-failing power of Your cross! When the enemy oppresses me with sinful thoughts and feelings, and I, not having freedom in my heart, draw the sign of the cross several times with faith, then suddenly my sin falls away from me, and the oppression disappears, and I go free. Glory to Thee, Lord! God! May nothing tear me away from You, nothing carnal or material, may I always be with You! How good it is to be with You! God! do not deprive me of Your heavenly blessings, for You are the Lord and can do this if You wish; Lord, deliver me from eternal torment, for You are the Lord, and you can also conveniently do this if you wish; Lord, whether I have sinned in mind or in thought, in word or in deed, forgive me, seeing the weakness of my soul. So, You are the Lord and you can do everything for me, who repent and ask for Your blessings. And You, the Lady of all Angels and men, all-good and all-powerful, as a formidable mistress, the driver and flame of all opposing forces, as conveniently able to destroy with the speed of lightning all the varied machinations of evil spirits, deliver us from all sin and strengthen us with Your power for all virtue; Make us conformable to Your Son and our God and to You, the Most Holy Virgin, Mother of our Lord, for we are called by the name of Christ, Your Son, as His members. May our name Christian not be an empty sound, without power, but may we all be imitators of Christ, the Head of our faith, and You, the Head of mental creation. May we all, like living stones being built into a spiritual church, holy holiness, offer sacrifices pleasing to God. Oh, Lady, Lady! Yes, it is not in vain and in vain that we call You the Lady: reveal and continually manifest Your holy, living, effective dominion over us. Show that you can do everything for good, as the all-good Mother of the all-good King; disperse the darkness of our hearts, repel the arrows of crafty spirits, flatteringly driven towards us. May the peace of Your Son, Your peace reign in our hearts, and let us all ever exclaim with joy: who is after the Lord, as our Lady, our all-good, all-powerful and most swift Intercessor? For this reason You are exalted, Lady, for this reason you have been given an indescribable abundance of divine grace, for this reason you have been given ineffable boldness and strength at the throne of God and the gift of almighty prayer, for this reason You have been adorned with indescribable holiness and purity, for this reason You have been given unapproachable power from the Lord, so that You may preserve, protect, intercede, cleanse and save us, the inheritance of Your Son and God, and Yours. Save us, O Most Pure, All-Good, All-Wise and All-Powerful! For you are the Mother of our Savior, Who of all names was most pleased to be called Savior, just as His very name is Jesus, or Savior. It is common for us who wander in this life to fall, for we are covered with many-passionate flesh, surrounded by spirits of wickedness in high places, seducing us into sin, we live in an adulterous and sinful world, tempting us to sin; and You, above all sin, You are the most luminous Sun, You are the Most Pure, All-Good and All-Powerful, You tend to cleanse us, defiled by sins, like a mother cleanses her children, if we humbly call on You for help, You tend to raise us, who are constantly falling, to intercede, protect and save us, slandered from the spirits of evil, and instruct us to walk along every path salutary. The light of Christ enlightens everyone I am the vine, says the Lord, but you are the birth (John 15:5), that is, the Church is one, holy, catholic and apostolic. That is why, as the Lord is holy, so is the Church holy; just as the Lord is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6), so is the Church, because the Church is one and the same with the Lord, is His body from the flesh and from His bones (Eph. 5:30), or His birth, implanted in Him - a living vine, and feeding from Him and growing in Him. – Never imagine the Church separately from the Lord Jesus Christ, from the Father and the Holy Spirit. When an enemy strikes your heart with doubt in any word of the Savior and hurts you, tell him internally: every word of my God Jesus Christ is life for me, and the poison of doubt will erupt from the heart, and your soul will be calm and at ease. When doubt arises in any word or saying of the Church, in an action, in a ritual, tell him again inwardly the word of the Savior about the Church: when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you (that is, the Church planted and spread by the apostles, especially pastors and teachers) into all truth (John 16:13; fn. John 14:26) and Believe firmly that, according to the promise of the Savior, the Holy Spirit abides in the Church forever and guides her into all truth; that means everything in it is true and saving; that is why it is called the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15). In church books, in the sayings of St. fathers and teachers of the church, the Spirit of Christ breathes everywhere, the Spirit of truth, love, salvation. Prayer is a constant feeling of one’s spiritual poverty and weakness, contemplation in oneself, in people and in nature of the works of wisdom, goodness and the almighty power of God, prayer is a constantly grateful mood. Prayer is often called something that is not prayer at all - he went to church, stood, looked at the icons, or first at people, at their faces, attire, and said: he prayed to God; stood at home in front of the icon, nodded his head, spoke memorized words without understanding or sympathy, he said: he prayed to God, although he did not pray at all with his thoughts and heart, but was somewhere else, with other persons and things, and not with God. Prayer is the raising of the mind and heart to God, 28 the contemplation of God, the bold conversation of the creature with the Creator, the reverent standing of the soul before Him, as before the King and the Life-Itself, who gives life to everyone; oblivion for Him of everything around him, food for the soul, air, light, its life-giving warmth, cleansing of sins - the good yoke of Christ, His light burden. Prayer is a constant feeling of one’s weakness, or spiritual poverty, sanctification of the soul, anticipation of future bliss, angelic bliss, heavenly rain refreshing, watering and fertilizing the earth of the soul, strength and strength of the soul and body, purification and refreshment of the mental air, enlightenment of the face, joy of the spirit, the golden connection connecting the creature with the Creator, cheerfulness and courage in all sorrows and temptations of life, lamp of life, success in business, equal angelic dignity, affirmation of faith, hope and love. Prayer is a community with Angels and saints who have pleased God from time immemorial. Prayer is the correction of life, the mother of heartfelt contrition and tears; strong motivation for works of mercy; life safety; destroying mortal fear; neglect of earthly treasures; desire for heavenly blessings; expectation of the universal Judge, the general resurrection, the life of the next century; intense efforts to get rid of eternal torment; constant seeking of mercy (pardon) from the Lord; walking in the sight of God; blissful disappearance before the all-creating and all-fulfilling Creator; living water of the soul; containing love in the hearts of all people; bringing heaven down into the soul; containing the Holy Trinity in the heart, according to what was said: we will come to him and make an abode with him (John 14:23). How close your thought is to you, how close faith is to your heart, so close is God to you, and the more vivid and firm the thought of God, the more lively the faith and knowledge of one’s weakness and insignificance and the feeling of need for God, the closer He is. Or, as close as the air is to the body and to its entrails, so close is God. For God, so to speak, is the mental air that all Angels, the souls of saints and the souls of living people, especially pious ones, breathe. You cannot live without God for a single minute, and indeed you live every minute in Him: for in Him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28). Your doubt in the presence of God in any place and at any time and the resulting torment of the soul prove that we cannot be without God for a minute or in any place, and at every moment and in every place we live by Him alone; This means that doubt in a negative way only affirms the truth of the presence of God in every place and the impossibility for us, like any creature, to be anywhere without Him. And indeed, wherever you are, if you doubt the presence of God and you have tightness and fire in your heart, do not give in to doubt, consider it a charm, a dream of the devil, and immediately it will be easy for you. We must always remember that God, like our soul, are mental, spiritual beings: with our thoughts and hearts we either approach God and become one spirit with Him, or we move away from Him and become one spirit with the devil and his hasty power. Every Christian should recognize the flattery of the devil, which lies on everything worldly and corruptible, turning us away under various plausible pretexts from loving our neighbor as we love ourselves. Icons are required by our nature. Can our nature do without an image? Is it possible to remember something that is absent without imagining it? Didn't God Himself give us the ability to imagine? – Icons are the Church’s answer to the crying need of our nature. Praying! the name of the Lord, or the Mother of God, or an Angel, or a saint, may it be for you instead of the Lord Himself, the Mother of God, an Angel or a saint; Let the closeness of your word to your heart be a guarantee and indication of the closeness to your heart of the Lord Himself, the Most Pure Virgin, an Angel or a saint. – The name of the Lord is the Lord Himself – the Spirit is everywhere and fills everything; the name of the Mother of God is the Mother of God Herself, the name of the Angel is Angel, the name of the saint is saint. - How is this? Don't you understand? – Here’s how: let’s say your name is Ivan Ilyich. If you are called by these names, because you recognize yourself fully in them, and respond to them, then you agree that your name is you yourself with soul and body; - So it is with the saints: call on their name, you will call on them. But they, you say, have no body. What of this? The body is only the material shell of the soul, its home, and man himself, the essence of man, or his inner man, is the soul. When you are called by name, it is not your body that responds, but your soul, through a bodily organ. - And so the name of God and the saint is God Himself and His saint. But since God is the most simple and omnipresent Spirit, and the saints all rest in God, then communication through the prayer of faith with all the saints, the most convenient thing, is easier than communication with the people who live with us, for when communicating with people sometimes there is no language, or you are embarrassed how to say so as not to condemn our speech, but there they hear the simple, unartificial voice of the heart of a believer and a lover, there they understand the silence of the tongue; there, without language, they see the soul and its state, its desires. Icons in churches and in homes are necessary, among other things, because they remind us of the immortality of the saints, who live (Luke 20:38), as the Lord says, that they see us in God, hear us and help us. What is the name of our God? – Love, Kindness, Philanthropy, Generosity. When you pray, see with the eyes of your heart that Love and Goodness stand before you, that the Lover of Humanity is listening to you. When you pray to the heavenly Powers, do not imagine them as very formidable, inaccessible, unmerciful: no, these are short-lived, humble, pious, loving, approachable and inquisitive, obedient beings, close to those who call upon them in their prayers with sincere faith and love. Their characteristic is love for unity with all Christians through the prayer of faith. Also, when you pray to the heavenly Powers, despise everything earthly as perishable, and with all your heart love the heavenly, spiritual life and strive for it. They are very pleased to see our true wisdom, our desire to become their fellow citizens, to which we are called by the grace of Jesus Christ in the Divine Trinity. Will I forget You, Lord, invisible, incomprehensible Lord, who always fills my heart with life, light, peace, joy, strength, patience, You, Who is for me every good in my life and who alone makes up my life? - ABOUT! don't let me forget you! God! Your name is Love: do not reject me, a misguided person. Your name is Strength: strengthen me, who is exhausted and falling. Your name is Light; enlighten my soul, darkened by worldly passions. Your name is Peace: pacify my restless soul. Your name is Mercy: do not cease to have mercy on me. I sometimes pray in church for the people of God like this: behold, many of those standing in Your church stand idle with their souls, like idle vessels, and do not know what to pray for, as it should be; Fill Thou their hearts now, at this favorable time for them, on this day of salvation, with the grace of Thy All-Holy Spirit, and grant them to me, my prayer, my love, filled with the knowledge of Thy goodness and contrition and tenderness of the heart, like filled vessels; Grant them Your Holy Spirit, who intercedes in them with groanings that cannot be uttered (Rom. 8:26). I myself am a shepherd, sinful and unclean more than any man, but do not look at my sins, Master, but despise them according to Your great mercy, and hear my prayer, for the sake of the grace of the priesthood, which lies on me and abides in me, at this hour; May the grace of the priesthood not be idle in me, Lord, but may it always burn in me with faith, hope, love and filial boldness in prayer for Your people. Master! Accept my tearful prayer for my spiritual children and all those who please You, Orthodox Christians, as my very concern for their salvation, for my pastoral care! Be, according to my prayer, You Yourself a voice and a trumpet for them, awakening them from the sleep of sin, and an eye watching over their hearts and a hand, strengthening them on the path to the heavenly fatherland and raising up those who fall from lack of faith, cowardice and despondency, and maternal love, of which I am poor, tenderly caring for their true good; be unto them all, and save every one (1 Cor. 9:22). For You are in truth the only Shepherd, who invisibly and secretly shepherds the very souls of men, You are the only true and wise Teacher, speaking into the very hearts of Your people; You are the only true Lover of Your creatures and children by grace; You have an abyss of wisdom and omnipotence. You are the only one who is ever awake and never sleeps, and in our very sleep you teach us Your ways. - Be then You, Master, instead of me, Shepherd and Teacher of Your sheep entrusted to me by You; Lead them yourself to green pastures: Protect them yourself from spiritual and carnal wolves; Direct their feet yourself to the path of truth, righteousness and peace. Instead of me, be for them light, and eyes, and lips, and hands, and wisdom, and most of all love, with which I, a great sinner, am poor. God is the abyss of all good, omniscience, wisdom, omnipotence, grace and mercy, truth, immutability in goodness, but cleave to the Lord through the prayer of faith and through deeds of love - there is one spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17): therefore, he is filled, according to the measure of his faith and love, with wisdom, spiritual strength, and receives from Him, as from true goodness, all of which leads to salvation, and he himself is good and compassionate towards others, filled with spiritual intelligence, firmness and immutability in faith and virtue. Since God is an ever-flowing source, we should only be united with Him by living faith and unfeigned love in order to be filled with all spiritual blessings from Him. This union is possible always and in every place, if only our heart would always be with us, and not with the devil and not with the vanity of this world. - That is why we see among the righteous the clairvoyant and the prophets, working miracles of divine omnipotence, love and mercy, firm, unchanging in virtue until the position of their lives for faith, for the sake of love for God, saints filled with spiritual wisdom, for holy is the Lord their God (Ps. 98:9). If your heart and thoughts are in agreement with the universal faith and with the commandments of God, then you certainly have a close connection with God and affinity with Him, because God is a spiritual, mental, personal Essence; but if your heart and your thoughts in any way consciously betray the universal faith and commandments of God, or the words of the Gospel prescribing the rules of Christian life, then your connection with God is severed and your heart enters into a disastrous connection with the enemy of truth and life - the devil. – Just as indoor air, not communicating with the outside air, burns out, is filled with many extraneous principles harmful to life and loses its life principles, so the soul, separated from God through deliberate doubt, unbelief and lawlessness, loses its life principle and lives only a physical, lower life. Just as to refresh the air, to fill it with vital principles, it is necessary to bring external air into the room, so into the soul - this, as it were, air contained in the church of our body - must be brought, by faith and love, life-giving breath or the breath of the Divine Spirit; and then every time she will be revived, she will receive new strength for faith and love. Every soul is alive by the Holy Spirit 29. For what is a person if not a glass filled with the breath of God - or a soul in the image and likeness of God? It is necessary to change the air in this glass, especially since in us it is naturally corrupted, from the very first perpetrators of sin, and is spoiled by our passions and lusts, and is often infected with the poisonous breath of the devil. Just as indoor air has identity with the external air and comes from it, just as it necessarily presupposes external air diffused everywhere, so our soul - the breath of the Spirit of God - presupposes the existence of the omnipresent and all-filling Spirit of God. The parallel between material churches and spiritual churches. Once and for all, know that in the Church, in all its services, sacraments and prayers, the spirit of holiness, the spirit of peace, the spirit of life and salvation breathes, and this is characteristic only of the Holy Spirit. Holy thoughts or words of life and truth are easily distinguished from thoughts and words of lies and death; the former bring peace and life to the soul: the latter languor, anxiety, spiritual death. – Carnal wisdom – there is death; and spiritual wisdom is life and peace (Rom. 8:6). Since God is a mental Being, one can very quickly lose Him from the heart; just as quickly as one can win His heart through decisive repentance of sins. Wonderful thing! when the heart, through living faith, is connected with the life principle - the Holy Spirit, when it is calm, spacious, and the thought is then free and bright, and the tongue is free and smoothly even; but as soon as a person mentally regrets something material for his brother at this time, for example: food, money, remembering some brother looking for his food, his heart is instantly struck by spiritual apoplexy, it becomes bound, dejected; thought is also bound as a result of damage to the heart - the source of thought - and becomes dark, the tongue too, the blood takes on increased circulation and there is a rush to the head, the whole person is in a shy, abnormal position. “This is how our neglect of the spiritual side of our brother is deservedly punished; so fittingly is our attachment to materiality punished! Glory to Thy truth, Lord! The almighty power of God, existing and active throughout the world, is concentrated, just as the rays of the sun are collected in a focus or in glass, in holy icons. The concentration of the power of God especially occurs in the rational image of the Divine - in man, precisely in his heart, full of faith, hope and love, as if in focus; It is in it that the Sun of Truth, our Trinitarian God, with the abundance of His gifts is reflected with His light according to the faith of each one, warming and illuminating the soul of each one. Have you seen how the human face in a broken mirror is reflected in many faces according to the number of separate, broken pieces of the mirror, or how in every water bubble, or in every drop of dew and in every pupil of the eye a human face is reflected? If this is such a possible and ordinary thing in nature, then why should we Christians not allow numerous images of the same person, let’s say the Lord, or His Most Pure Mother, or a saint, and not see the Lord Himself, or His Most Pure Mother, or a saint in each image, just as in a mirror or in drawings we see numerous images of the same face, and not honor them with the honor inherent in them? – Doesn’t nature itself in some way teach us to adopt from it that which serves our piety? When we pray to God, the Most Pure Mother of God, the Angels and holy people, they are assumed to be present to us and listening to us, as usually happens during a conversation between two or more persons facing each other face to face. And this is indeed true. The face of the Lord is always before us; Likewise, the Lady with the Angels and saints in the Lord God is always face to face with us, if only our hearts were turned to them. The Lady, all the Angels and holy people, as in one house, one family - the Lady, like the Mother of all, the holy Angels and people, like our elder and younger brothers. – Just as in the family of a good father, all the children are always with him, everyone loves each other and takes care of each other, so with the Heavenly Father, Angels and people are always before His face, they love each other and take care of each other, the strong for the weak, the perfect for the imperfect. If you pray from your heart to the Lord, or the Lady, or the Angels or a saint, then you are saying to the very heart of the Lord, the Lady, the Angel or the saint: for we are all in one heart of God - in the Holy Spirit, all saints are in God’s heart. I abides in Me and I in him (John 6:56). When you pray, firmly believe that the Lord is present in every word of prayer and whatever you ask for, He is the fulfillment, for you and for everyone else, of every request you make. The enemy severely persecutes my faith, hope and love every day. - They are persecuting you, my faith! They are persecuting you, my hope! They are persecuting you, my love! Be patient with faith, be patient with hope, be patient with love! Take courage faith, take courage hope, take courage love! - God is your champion! – Don’t weaken faith, don’t weaken hope, don’t weaken love! Honor the faces of living people in every possible way, so that you honor the face of God as you should. For the face of the Lord Jesus Christ is the face of a man. “He who does not respect the human face will not respect the face of God!” Am I not everything to you, I am the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit - your God, your life, your peace, your joy and bliss? Your wealth, your food and drink, your clothing and all yours? -What are you clinging to? To the dust? What do you regret for Me in the person of your neighbor? Is it dust? Is it for Me, who created everything, is it for Me, Who can turn earth and stones into bread, and bring forth water from stones? - Always be with Me and in Me, and you will always be calm and cheerful. – Has your trust in Me ever suffered? Have I not always calmed and revived you? If all your good is in common with your neighbor, then all of God will be in common with you. If you want, ask, and it will be done for you. My whole essence is Yours and Yours is Mine (John 15:7, 17:10) When you rebuke the devil in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, then this very name, sweetest for us and terrible and bitter for demons, itself creates power, like a two-edged sword. Likewise, if you ask something from the Heavenly Father or do anything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, then the Heavenly Father, in the name of His beloved Son, gives you everything in the Holy Spirit, if you keep His commandments, and in the sacraments, and not at all looking at your unworthiness. Where the name of God is used with faith, there it creates strength: for the very name of God is power. Some say: why remember the names of the dead or the living when praying for them? God, as omniscient, Himself knows these names, and also knows the needs of everyone. But those who say this forget or do not know the importance of prayer, do not know how important the word spoken from the heart is - they forget that the justice of God and the mercy of God are bowed down by our heartfelt prayer, which the Lord, in His goodness, credits as if to the dead or living themselves as merit, as members of the one body of the Church. - Such people do not know that the Church of the firstborn, written in heaven (Heb. 12:23), out of love, constantly prays to God for us - and specifically mentions before God the names of those people who pray to them - equal for equal. We remembered them, they remembered us. And whoever does not remember his neighbors in prayer out of love will not be remembered and will not be worthy of commemoration. – One word of faith and love means a lot in prayer. The prayer of a righteous man avails much (James 5:16). Have the same attention and respect for every word that you have for a living person, and firmly believe that the Word of God is alive and active, like a living being, like an Angel, and, because of its spiritual subtlety, passes to the division of soul and spirit, members and brains, and judges the thoughts and thoughts of the heart (Heb. 4:12). The Word of God is God Himself. - So, when you speak, believe that you are dealing with living, and not with dead, beings, with active, and not with inert and powerless ones. Know that you must speak every word with faith and confidence. – Words are living beads. Do not cast your pearls before swine (Matthew 7:6). That man originated from the Word of God, proof of this is the word man itself, and then the name given to him at baptism or during the rite of naming. As long as a person lives, everyone calls him by this name and he responds to him that he is exactly that; he is all about his name. Finally, when he dies and his corruptible remains are buried in the ground, only his name remains in memory, as evidence of his origin from the Word of God - this is an immaterial, eternal, like the soul, heritage of his and ours. In prayer, it is required, firstly, that the subject of the prayer be expressed definitely, or at least there is a clear consciousness and desire for it in the heart; secondly, that this desire be expressed with feeling and living hope in the mercy of the Lord or the Mother of God; thirdly, you need a firm intention not to sin in the future and to do the will of God in everything: behold, you are healthy, do not sin, lest it be worse (John 5:14). When you pray for something to the Lord, or the Most Holy Theotokos, or the Angels and Saints - ask for their intercession for yourself or for other people before God - then take the words expressing your petitions, your needs, for the very things, for the very thing that you ask from the Lord, and believe that you already have a sure guarantee in receiving the subject of your petitions in the very words by which this subject is signified. For example: you ask for health for yourself or someone else: take the word - health - for the thing itself, for the deed itself; believe that you already have it by the mercy and omnipotence of the Lord, for the very word, the name, in an instant can be deeded by the Lord, and you will certainly receive what you ask for for your unshakable faith. Ask and it will be given to you (Matthew 7:7). Whenever you pray, if you ask, believe as you receive, and it will be done for you (Mark 11:24). Do not pay attention to the darkness, fire and oppression of the enemy while praying, and firmly place your heart on the very words of the prayer, with the confidence that the treasures of the Holy Spirit are hidden in them: truth, light, life-giving fire, forgiveness of sins, space, peace and joy of the heart, life and bliss. Great names: the Most Holy Trinity, or Father, Son and Holy Spirit, or Father, Word and Holy Spirit, called with living, heartfelt faith and reverence, or imagined in the soul, are God Himself and bring down into our soul God Himself in three persons. - But from God and by God and in God all things (cf. Rom. 11:36): therefore, if you are united with the Trinitarian God by living faith and virtue, especially meekness, humility and mercy, ask Him for what you want, what the Holy Spirit teaches you to ask: and it will be done for you; - either quickly, in an instant, in one hour, or after some time, at the discretion of the wisdom of God. - Ask from Me and I will give you (Ps. 2:8), - whatever you ask is less, without any doubt, infinitely less than the Giver Himself, as having its being from Him. And as the Giver Himself, this infinite, simple Being, may, in some way, be embraced by one of our thoughts, in one word, then believe that one word of yours, one request of yours for the fulfillment of something, immediately, at the behest of the Lord, can become a thing and a deed. He says: and it will be, he commands: and it will be created (Ps. 32:9). Remember the miracles of Moses, remember how this man of God was a god for Pharaoh, and how instantly at his word, or at the movement of his hand, or his rod, everything was transformed or appeared. - O great God, glorified God, God of miracles, God of mercy, generosity and unspeakable love for mankind, glory to You always, now and ever and unto ages of ages! Amen. Pride in faith manifests itself in the fact that the proud dares to set himself up as a judge of faith and the Church and says: I don’t believe this and I don’t recognize this; I find this unnecessary, this is unnecessary, but this is strange or funny. Pride in faith also reveals itself as boasting in imaginary knowledge of everything, while it knows very little, or is completely blind with the eyes of the soul. This is not worth reading, he says: it is known; These sermons are not worth reading: everything in them is the same, which is already known to me. – A great degree of human pride is revealed when a mere mortal dares to compare himself with the saints of God and does not see their great and wondrous perfections, acquired by their own exploits, with the assistance of the grace of God, perfections that God Himself crowned and glorified in them. He says: why will I honor them, especially pray to them? They are the same people, I pray to God alone, but they don’t know that God Himself commands us to ask for the prayers of the righteous for ourselves. I will accept his face exactly (Job 42:8). When, during the prayer to the Mother of God, you do not find in your heart the appropriate reverence for Her, and you feel evil and blasphemous thoughts, then exclaim the following praiseworthy words that are applicable to Her: “all You, Lady of light, all holiness, all goodness, all wisdom, all You can, as the Mother of the Almighty, You are always one and the same all-perfect as the Mother of the all-perfect King of glory! Unbelief exposes itself in that it is false and has nothing in common with the truth; the unbelieving heart is restless, vague, weak, unfounded; on the contrary, faith is calm, blissful, majestic, firm. When praying to the Lord, or the Lady, or the Angels, or the saints, do not give any work to the Lord, the Lady, the Angels and the saints to fulfill your request or the request of believers, but believe that just as it is easy for you to think about any good, it is easy and simple for the Lord to grant it to His people, as well as through the prayers of His Most Pure Mother, the Angels and the saints. In addition, since God is overflowing, infinite Goodness, He wants and always seeks to communicate His goodness to His creatures, if only we turn to Him with faith, hope and love, like children to the Father, realizing our sinfulness, poverty, poverty, blindness, weakness without Him. When you pray to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit - the one God in the Trinity - do not look for Him outside yourself, but contemplate Him in yourself, as living in you, completely penetrating you and knowing you. – Do you not know that you are the church of God (God in the Trinity), and the Spirit of God lives in you (1 Cor. 3:16)? - I will dwell in them and walk (and walk with them), and I will be their Father (2 Cor. 6:16, 18; cf. Lev. 26:12). God! You penetrate me and know me (Ps. 139:1), says David. When, during prayer, you doubt the possibility of the fulfillment of any of your requests, then remember that on the part of God everything is possible to bestow upon you, except for direct evil, which is characteristic only of the devil - that your very word or your very request for something is already a sure guarantee on your part that its fulfillment is possible: for if I can only think about something, whether it is possible for me or impossible, then this something is certainly possible for the Lord, for Whom one thought is already a deed, if He deigns to carry it out; Yes, and for you this good already exists in word, and only does not exist in deed; - but to bring the petition to fulfillment, He has the Creator Son and the Holy Spirit as a Finisher. – To the ability to accomplish everything add His infinite goodness, according to which He is the ever-flowing Source of both being and all the gifts of being. He is the God of gifts, the God of mercy and generosity. Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; push, and the opening will be opened to you (Matthew 7:7). – Add to this the wisdom of God, which in its gift knows how to choose for us the best good, the most appropriate to our spiritual and physical state. - On your part, what is required is firm, undoubted confidence in the possibility of fulfilling your request for the Lord, and also that your request is certainly good, about something good, and not about something bad - He will give, it is said, good things to those who ask Him (Matthew 7:11). Pride in faith is also revealed in the insensibility of one’s sins, in the Pharisee’s justification and self-praise, in the insensibility of God’s mercies, in ingratitude to God for all that is good, in the inability to feel the need to glorify the magnificence of God. - All who do not pray to the Lord Almighty, the God of spirits and all flesh, their own Belly, do not pray out of secret pride. When praying to God, you need to acquire such a firm, unshakable faith that doubting anything is difficult, even impossible, and for this you have the words inscribed in your heart: all things are possible with God (Mark 10:27); one must also have living confidence that the Lord fulfills everything - that His Being is Love and Goodness; that it is His business and, as it were, His being: to create, to give, to have mercy, to be generous, to fulfill our requests. – And whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be done for you (Matthew 21:22; Mark 11:24). You also need to pay close attention to your heart, so that it does not lie, so that every word comes from the depths of it, as it is said: from the depths I have cried to You, Lord (Ps. 129:1)! that is, one must be extremely concerned about the truth of prayer, about that sincerity that makes all the words of prayer composed by others its own, considers every word of prayer true. Be zealous for love: everything will pass, but love will endure forever, like God Himself, Who is Love. When praying for the living and the dead and calling them by name, you must pronounce these names with all your heart, with love, as if carrying in your soul those faces whose names you remember, just as a milkmaid carries and warms her child (1 Thess. 2:7); – remembering that they are our members and members of the body of Christ (Eph.4:25, 5:30); - It is not good in the face of God to only go over their names with the tongue, without the participation and love of the heart. - We must think that God looks at the heart - that the persons for whom we pray also demand from us, out of the duty of Christian love, brotherly sympathy and love. There is a great difference between an insensitive list of names and between a heartfelt remembrance of them: one is separated from the other as heaven is from earth. But the name of the Lord Himself, His Most Pure Mother, St. Angels and St. God's people must always be called upon from a pure heart, with faith and ardent love; In general, the words of the prayer do not need to be sorted out only with the tongue, as if turning over sheets of paper with a finger in a book, or as if counting out a coin; It is necessary that the words come out like a spring of living water from its spring - that they be the sincere voice of the heart, not be someone else's borrowed clothes, someone else's hands. Life is a great experimental science. There is nothing more difficult than to pass this science, the narrow path and the narrow gate. And whoever, at motherhood school or college, has not learned faith and the fear of God and a pious life will find it especially difficult to study at the school of life. Even though he was smart and well-versed in the school of sciences, and was held in high esteem for his abilities, in the school of life he turns out to be ignorant, and what’s more: sometimes he has no use for anything, neither for family life, because of his quarrelsome character or his unbridled heart, nor for social activities. He is poor and often wrecks in life, like a ship loaded with a lot of goods at sea, launched during a storm without a rudder, without tackle and sails. Remember, verbal being, that everything was created by the Word and everything exists by Him, and have undoubted faith that creation or transformation through the word of your mouth, by the power of God, is the most ordinary thing; therefore, have the greatest respect for the word and do not waste it in vain, much less use it as an instrument of lies - the Lord will judge those who tell lies. - Oh, my God! the world of spirits and the material world were created and exist by the Word of God, which, with the Father and the Spirit, is a simple Being, Spirit, Unit, worshiped in the Trinity of Hypostases. When asking God for various blessings, believe that God is everything to everyone: if you ask Him for health, believe that He is your health; you ask for faith, He is your faith; love, He is your love; peace and joy, He is your peace and joy; help against enemies visible and invisible, He is your omnipotent help; Whatever good you ask from Him, He is precisely this good, like any other, and if He finds it expedient to grant you this good, it will be this good for you. God will be all things in all (1 Cor. 15:28). The Word in the mouths of some is spirit and life, while in the mouths of others it is a dead letter (for example, during prayer and preaching). The verbs that I spoke to you are spirit and life (John 6:63). This should truly be our words, for we are images of God the Word. Just as the body breathes air, so the soul breathes the mercies of God. - Just as fathers and mothers consider it an ordinary, as if natural, necessary task - to serve their children bread or fish every day - our most common food, and do not give them a stone instead of bread, or a snake instead of a fish, although they are evil and wicked by nature - then, how much more, is not the heavenly Father infinitely more gracious, the essence of Goodness, and will not, how much more, He give good things to those who ask Him ( Matthew 7:11)? – Just as there is an abundance of water on earth, and everyone drinks it, comes and scoops it up for free, so the Lord is like the Ocean of spiritual waters, come and draw up every spiritual blessing with the help of true, firm and shameless faith. Just stretch out this heartfelt and you will certainly draw up abundantly the water of life, forgiveness of sins and peace of conscience. But be afraid of doubt: it deprives you of the means to receive all the mercy of God. If you do not have firm, shameless faith in God, the all-good and all-powerful, do not hastily ask Him to bestow any good: otherwise the devil will strike and wound you with little faith or disbelief in the possibility of fulfilling your prayer, and you will depart from the face of God disgraced, sad and gloomy. - Do not be frivolous, but in advance, sit down, consider, according to the word of the Lord, your spiritual possessions, or weigh your faith - if you have much to accomplish. Otherwise, the demons who see your incompetence will begin to laugh at you, saying: This man began and cannot finish it (Luke 14:28-30). - So, before praying, consider the degree of your faith and, having found it sufficient, living, firm, unashamed, approach boldly the throne of grace, so that you may receive mercy and find grace in time of need (Heb. 4:16). Just as in the material world the Lord does good to us through the sun, illuminating and warming us and the earth with all its contents through air, water, plants, animals, so in the spiritual world the Lord, doing good to us directly, enlightening our minds and hearts, interceding, saving, merciful and preserving with His grace (though here also through the clergy), He does us more good through His servants, Angels, called ministerial spirits, through His saints and especially through the medium of the highest of all creation, His Most Pure Mother, through the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, saints, martyrs, saints, righteous and all saints. These holy beings are God's servants for our salvation. Are they not all ministering spirits, sent into service for those who want to inherit salvation (Heb. 1:14)? They are luminous, intelligent rays of the eternal Sun of truth - God. - How can we not call upon these good creatures who have received grace from the Lord Himself to serve our salvation for help and intercession? How can one remain without due reverence and gratitude to them? – Is this consistent with the laws of even human society and decency? Lutherans say: “Why should we ask the prayers of the saints for ourselves? We ask God Himself,” and they refute themselves: for why do they ask the pastor to pray for themselves? We would pray without a pastor if everyone has the same access to God and there is no need for consecrated prayer books for us. - What blindness! – They say: by praying to saints, we worship idols. Not true. We do not honor any saint as God, we do not pray to any saint as God, but only ask his prayers for ourselves; Is there even a shadow of idolatry here? – Just as we ask the living clergy and prayer books for us before God, so that they pray for us, so we ask the heavenly prayer books, who, out of their love for God, have great boldness before Him; Moreover, very many of them here on earth were prayer books and intercessors before God for peace; there - in heaven, this activity of theirs only continues, has large dimensions and is especially strong, for it is not repressed by heavy and inert flesh. - All saints, although they have finished their earthly career, are still alive: God is not dead, but alive: for to Him all live (Luke 20:38). Rejoice, full of grace, the Lord is with you (Luke 1:28), - the Lord and with every pious soul who believes in Him. The presence of the Lord with the Virgin Mary, before Her conception of the Savior, is not a feature characteristic of the Most Pure Virgin alone: ​​the Lord is with every believing soul. - The Lord is with you. These words can be said to every person who keeps the commandments of the Lord. – And the Lord is close to everyone: only people are far from Him in their hearts, in their thoughts, in the intentions and dispositions of their hearts, in their words and deeds that are contrary to the law of God. I am with you, says our Lord, born of the Most Holy Virgin, to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20), that is, with each of us at all times, throughout all generations, at all times, throughout the entire earthly space, until the end of the age. I am in God, with God, before God, under God. He is my life. For bodily life He poured out air, water, grows food, and for my soul He Himself is everywhere and fills everything, He Himself is air, food, and drink. – I am constantly present, and walk, and sit, and sleep, and eat, and do things in the air: all the more, I am always and in every place in God. The first is the image of the other. – To breathe, you need to keep your mouth and sense of smell open; To live in the spirit, you need prayer. – In order for prayer to be sincere, to fully embrace the soul, to be concentrated, this requires attention to one’s heart, conformity or aspiration of the mind and heart to the one God, rejection from the heart of all lies, double-mindedness, attachment to earthly things. The greatest, constant delusion of our heart, with which we need to fight continuously - throughout our lives, in the evening, in the morning and during the day, is its secret thought that we can be without God and outside of God somewhere, someday, even for one moment. It is necessary to continuously confirm it in God, from Whom it constantly mentally turns away, and great success in the Christian life has been achieved by the one who can sincerely exclaim with Anna, the mother of Samuel: strengthen my heart in the Lord; my horn is exalted in my God; My mouth is enlarged against my enemies; We rejoiced in your salvation (1 Samuel 2:1). We must remember that God is a living God who revives everyone, that the Mother of God is alive, the Angels and saints are alive and that they hear us in God. Praying with the Holy Spirit (Jude 1:20). The Holy Spirit is air to the soul; Jesus Christ is life-giving food, which, however, is inseparable: both the Spirit and the Son; just as air and food are equally necessary and one is inseparable from the other, so the Holy Spirit and the Son are inseparable in themselves and in their actions in us; and God the Father, through the Son and the Holy Spirit, acts initially and benevolently, as Their Origin and Cause. Those who touched the Savior's clothes were healed. Why are those who still use holy water with faith being healed? – The cross, immersed in water with the prayer of faith, is, as it were, the life-giving Lord Himself. Just as the Savior’s clothes were imbued with His life, so the water into which the life-giving cross is immersed is itself imbued with life: that is why it is healing. There is nothing closer to us than God. - He is the God of hearts, the very hearts, and the heart, in turn, is closest to us - this is our being, our essence. I was going to matins. The sun was in the east and reflected in a lantern hanging on a pole. The reflection was so full and bright that it was impossible to look at it as if it were the sun itself. I thought: if the material, created sun is reflected with such fullness of radiance in transparent glass, then the mental uncreated Sun-God is not reflected in the heart of man, pure from sin (as a dark principle), is He not reflected brilliantly in His saints, for the sake of union with Him, for the sake of love for Him, who cleanse themselves here from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit and create holiness in the passion of God (2 Cor. 7:1)? Yes, it is magnificently reflected in the souls of His chosen ones, and these pure souls, these images of God, like transparent glass, shine like gold in the sun, like diamonds of the best water, but they shine for God and the Angels, without showing their shine to people, however, according to God’s dispensation, shining for them with the light of their faith, their virtues, as if necessary, like a candle placed on a candlestick in a room and illuminating the room with everyone in it. Also: if the created sun is reflected in a lantern, then isn’t that mental Sun reflected, all and essentially in His most pure flesh and blood on the altar of the Lord, by the action of the life-giving Spirit? - Yes, everything is reflected with all His light and with all His love, so that he who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in God and God in him (John 6:56): body and blood is the whole Christ. About prayer. Petition is against our proud flesh, which attributes everything to itself: thanksgiving is against the insensitivity of our flesh to the countless blessings of God; doxology is against the carnal man, seeking glory only for himself. Prayer is proof of my rational personality, my godlikeness, the guarantee of my future deification and bliss. I am created from nothing, I am nothing before God, as if I have nothing of my own, but I, by His grace, am a person, I have a mind, a heart, a free will, and with my mind and freedom I can, by turning to Him with my heart, gradually increase His endless kingdom in myself, gradually, more and more multiply His gifts in myself, draw from Him, as from an ever-flowing, inexhaustible Source, every good spiritual and physical, especially spiritual. Prayer inspires me that I am the image of God, that with a humble and grateful disposition of my soul before God, with my free will, I, endlessly multiplying the spiritual gifts of God, can thus infinitely improve and infinitely increase my Godlikeness, my heavenly bliss to which I am predestined. ABOUT! prayer is a sign of my great dignity with which the Creator has honored me. - But she, at the same time, reminds me of my insignificance (I come from nothing, and have nothing of my own - that’s why I ask God for everything), as well as of my highest dignity (I am the image of God, deified, I can be called a friend of God, like Abraham, the father of believers, if only I undoubtedly believed in the existence, goodness and omnipotence of my God and became like Him in this life by deeds of love and mercy). Always warm prayer leads us to the most sincere and firm conviction of the immortality of our soul and the bliss of that immaterial age: for man draws all the pleasures of prayer from God the Spirit; He borrows all his strength from Him, as well as, by His grace, from the Mother of God (She delivers our souls from troubles, gives peace, delights, revives), from Angels and saints. Do you not know that you are the church of God, and the Spirit of God lives in you (1 Cor. 3:16)? The raising of Christ from the dead will give life to your dead body through His living Spirit in you (Rom. 8:11). Be attentive and reverent, brethren, to the Holy Spirit who ever dwells in you and remember that the mystery and miracle of your resurrection from the dead will be accomplished by the same Spirit who now lives in you, by the grace and gift of Christ, for the sake of baptism with water and the Spirit, for the sake of repentance and especially the communion of His life-giving Mysteries. God is Truth: and my prayer must be truth, like life; God is Light: and my prayer must be offered in the light of the mind and heart; God is Fire: and my prayer, like life, must be fiery; God is all-free: and my prayer must be a free outpouring of the heart. What a wealth of the human spirit: just think heartily about God, just wish for a heartfelt union with God, and He is with you now: and neither the walls of the house, nor the rivets of the dungeons, nor the mountains, nor the abysses will hinder this union. God is with you now; so are Angels and saints: with God they are all before your eyes, near your heart, like your closest friends, like your relatives. Oh, the wealth of the human spirit! The Spirit is so simple that it passes through every spiritual and material being, through all rational spirits and through all irrational souls, heavenly bodies, the earth and all its organic and inorganic bodies, not being limited in any way by them, being always above them and animating them, like the Spirit of God, or conveniently every substance passes without animating it, like mountains, stones, walls of buildings, as if there were no substance at all. God exists as if there were no spiritual or material being at all: and that is why I can always say that I am always with God, or there is only, as it were, one God and me. Thou art with me, says the Psalmist (Ps. 22:4). I am with you, says the Lord to the Apostle Paul (Acts 18:10). Standing and praying fervently in prayer, or sitting, or lying down, or walking, and suddenly sometimes visited by the Spirit of God and hearing His voice, we notice that He penetrates the soul not through the mouth, and not through the nose, not through the ears (although the Savior gave the Spirit through word and breath, and although faith comes from hearing), but directly through the body - into the heart, as the Lord passed through the walls of the house to the Apostles after the resurrection, and suddenly acts like electricity and faster than any electric current: and then it becomes unusually easy for you, because suddenly your burden of sin is lifted, a spirit of contrition for sins, tenderness, peace, joy visits you. See how an Angel appears in a locked prison at night to free Peter: the doors are locked, the guards stand at the doors; but then an Angel suddenly appeared and in an instant the light shone in the church. Thus, the Spirit of God instantly visits the church of our soul - the body, and light shines in it. How do the saints hear us? They hear how they are one with us in the Holy Spirit - that they too may be one in us (John 17:21), as members of the one Church of God, headed by the one Christ and animated by the one Spirit of God. – The saints see and hear us in the Holy Spirit just as we see and hear with our bodily eyes and ears through light and air; but our physical vision and hearing are far from perfect in comparison with spiritual vision and hearing: at a far distance we do not see very many objects, we do not hear very many sounds. Spiritual vision and spiritual hearing are perfect: not a single movement of the heart, not a single thought, not a single word, intention, desire escapes them: because the Spirit of God, in whom the saints abide, see and hear us, is all-perfect, omniscient, sees and hears everything, because He is Omnipresent. The power of prayer: for example, opening and closing the sky, turning fire into dew. Whose prayer is especially powerful? Prayer to the Mother of God (with Your saints and all-powerful prayers) and the saints in heaven; on earth - the prayers of priests, as those placed by God Himself at His very throne - to pray for themselves and people - (about our sins and about human ignorance (Heb. 9:7)) prayers of the monks, hermits (I will receive his face (Job 42:8)) Laziness in the prayer of Christians - that is why the poverty of faith, hope and love: sins and iniquities, spiritual troubles and bodily. Priest of God! Believe with all your heart, always believe in the grace given to you from God to pray for the people of God: may this great gift of God, with which you can save many souls, not be in vain in you; The Lord soon hears your heartfelt prayer for people and conveniently bows to the mercy of people, like the prayer of Moses, Aaron, Samuel, and the apostles. Atone for every prayer occasion - in church, when you perform divine services or sacraments, in homes when performing sacraments, prayers and prayer services, everywhere and at all times remember the salvation of the people of God and you will gain for yourself the great grace of God. That you live every moment by the life-giving Trinity - be always as convinced of this as you are of the fact that you are illuminated by sensory light, are fed by forest and drink, and breathe air - these three are united into one for you. The substance of the world is like nothing; everywhere and in everything the Spirit of God, life-giving, supreme of all. When you pray to God, imagine that matter does not seem to exist and all creatures seem not to exist, and that there is only God, existing everywhere and one, for whom there is no place, who fills, embraces, builds and preserves everything with Himself. If you, too, are impartial to the material and practice fasting and prayer, then the spirit in you will, as it were, swallow up the flesh and you will be spiritual, and you will contemplate the Spirit of God everywhere in nature, while on the contrary, those who are partial to earthly things, especially to food, to drink, to money, are bodily, lacking in spirit (Jude 1:19), and in everything they see only the flesh, without contemplating the spirit, and even rejecting the spiritual side in objects. Where there is a substance under construction, it is certainly necessary to assume its Builder, because the substance, which in itself does not have any meaning and power, cannot organize itself, grow and bear fruit: obviously, every moment in life, it is ruled by the infinite Mind, the omnipotent Hand. Just as the material sun is reflected with its entire circle and radiance in countless transparent objects on earth, so the spiritual Sun God deigns to reflect Himself in countless beings in heaven and on earth - there in Angels, and here in people; and just as the light, even of the material sun, is not hampered by dense, although transparent bodies, but, passing through them unhindered, shines in the chambers of the house, locked on all sides from the external air, or in transparent objects facing it, so the light of the spiritual Sun is not hampered for spiritual beings, by any material barriers, neither by the walls of the house, nor by the dark walls and vaults of dungeons, nor by the huge mountains in whose caves God's servants hide themselves in the abysses of the earth; He penetrates everywhere and shines everywhere in every soul capable of receiving the radiance of heavenly truth. (Paul and Silas pray in prison, singing to God, and the Lord hears their prayer (Acts 16:25–26)). When we pray, then the ears of the Lord are in our prayer: He is also then, and indeed always, close to us, like the icon before which we stand, even much closer: He is at our very heart. His presence with us is clear, like a visible icon, and therefore the icon is, indeed, a visual representation of how close the Lord is to us, how He looks and hears us. – And the saints of God in the Holy Spirit are as close to us as the Holy Spirit is close to us, everywhere and filling all things, whose (Christ’s) house we are (Heb. 3:6; 1 Cor. 3:16, 6:19), and in the Holy Spirit they see and hear us as we see and hear people speaking to us. – After all, the Holy Spirit mediates in ordinary vision and hearing. You have seen that on the icons of saints the Lord Jesus Christ is written at the top with the orb in his hand and with a blessing hand. This is taken from the case itself. The Lord always looks down from heaven on those who struggle for His sake on earth, actively helps them, like the almighty King, in the fight against the enemies of salvation, blesses His ascetics with peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17), and grants them, after completing earthly deeds, the crown of life. – So, Christians, be strengthened all in faith and hope, looking at the Author of faith and the Finisher of Jesus (Heb. 12:2), Who always looks at you, at all your actions from the heights of heaven, as He looked at the first martyr Stephen, opening heaven and His glory for him, as He looked at Saul, later Paul, and also showed Himself to him in heaven, shining his light Yours and announcing it with Your voice. The purpose of our life is union with God: in this life - in faith, hope and love, and in the future - in all-perfect love. Look how the enemy and we ourselves distort this goal here. We unite our hearts with different objects, according to the difference in our passionate attachments. Sometimes, oh, horror! our love turns to silver, to food, drink, clothing, home, decoration, to people like us - to the point of oblivion of God. Sometimes we are proud, envious, hate, lie - and then we unite directly with the devil himself, who is the personification of malice, lies, pride, envy - and how we insult our Master, Who created us in His image and likeness, how we do not distort this image written by God and written by God Himself! But we think too little about this, too ignorant of what is essential for us - union with God! He who knows the constancy and viciousness of ethereal enemies over him will not become much despondent, although in every possible way they plunge his heart into despondency; he will not become irritated by everything, knowing that they in every possible way encourage irritability, in every possible way encourage him to be angry, envious, and cling to money and material acquisitions. The only necessary condition is that we must be attentive to ourselves, because the enemy often hides behind our pride, and, as it were, advocates for our well-being, while he himself positively destroys us. - Christian hope! how much the enemy harms her! – Let us remember voluntary strangled people, drowned people and those who commit suicide in other ways, then drunkards and so on. The Lord has spoken the word of promise, and His word will be fulfilled: He speaks, and will it not remain? – The Lord points to the laws of nature, their constancy and firmness, as proof of the faithfulness of His promises. You felt in your body during prayer, or while reading the Word of God and other books of sacred content (and sometimes secular books with well-intentioned content, for example, where some incident is described that represents the action of God’s Providence over people), or in pious conversations - a thin voice of coldness, so that electricity seemed to run through your body. It is the Lord who visits you. The voice of the cold is thin - and there is the Lord (1 Kings 19:12). When you pray to the Lady or any saint, firmly imagine that you are a member of the Church, in which the Lady is the main stone of the building, the Head of the mental building 30, and know that you are closely connected internally with all the inhabitants of heaven, like the stone of the building, although soft and not hard. Understanding yourself in this way, you will understand why prayers reach the saints so easily: for we are all under one Head, Christ, and are all animated by one Spirit of God. The Lord is the cause and constant support (power) of my organic bodily life, through the action of the lungs, stomach, heart, veins, muscles, and spiritual-organic life of the spirit - through the mind and thinking, through the illumination of the heart with His light. Wonderful is the power of faith! - a living thought about God, heartfelt faith in Him - and He is with me; heartfelt repentance of sins with faith in Him, and He is with me; good thought, and He is with me; pious feeling, and He is with me. But the devil enters me through thoughts of doubt, fear, pride, irritability, anger, stinginess, envy; This means that his power over me depends entirely on me: just be attentive to myself, and constantly keep in my mind the name of the Lord Jesus Christ with faith and love, and he will be powerless to do me any harm. Try to do everything opposite to what the ethereal enemy wants. He encourages you to pride, to self-praise and condemnation of your brother - you humble yourself to the ground and ashes and condemn yourself as harshly as possible, and praise your brother in your heart. If your brother, due to the action of the enemy, treats him proudly and viciously, you treat him humbly and with love. If the enemy encourages you to be stingy, be generous with goodwill. Do this in all such cases, and you will earn the great grace of God and you will see it with your own heart eyes. “You don’t have the inner strength to do this, the enemy is strong,” you say: ask the Almighty in prayer at all times and at every hour, and He will help you. To the extent that you begin to pray in spirit and truth before St. an icon, for example, the Savior, to the extent that the spirit of the one depicted on the icon is attracted to the icon - so that if your faith in the presence of the face written on the icon has reached the point that you see that face alive, then it really is there by its grace. An example is miraculous icons that spoke, exuded tears, blood, etc.; That’s why they all look unusually vividly and expressively. What is impossible for God, who can animate a stone and form a man from it? – He can also do this wonderfully with a picturesque image. – All things are possible to the believer (Mark 9:23), and the Most High miraculously descends to the believer. - He unites with the sign of the life-giving cross and works miracles. What is man if not the image of God artistically embedded in the earth, because the human body is earth? Do not be surprised that God appears in material images and even speaks through the mouth of the image, for all things are possible with God (Mark 10:27). When necessary, He spoke through a donkey with a human voice (Numbers 22:28). So picturesque and accurate, they sometimes say about any portrait; if a person is so able to revive a canvas, or a board, or paper with his art, then what is impossible for God? - Why not breathe life into His image, why not give it the ability to speak, if He pleases? “But he doesn’t say: you did everything as an artist, let the Lord finish it, and He will make the image speak.” There is a spiritual world; there are souls of deceased people; they see and hear us, and here is obvious proof: one woman, whose husband was sick and was lying in a room - 600 miles from her - one evening saw what kind of visitors he had, what he was doing: she heard what words he said. Isn't that how the saints see us? Isn’t that how they hear our prayers? Seeing the faces of others, I see my own face, for we are all as one, created by God, from one person, from one blood, and still in the image of God - and therefore we must look at everyone purely, unglamorously, not hostilely, not slyly, not selfishly, but with God’s pure love. – Also, seeing on the icons the faces of holy men, the face of the Mother of God and the God-Man Lord Jesus Christ Himself, I see myself in them, for they are also men, and Jesus Christ our God has clothed himself in all of me through the incarnation and incarnation, honoring humanity with immeasurable honor, expelling the stench of sin from believers and those baptized into Him and scenting them with the sanctity of the Holy Spirit, indwelling them through faith and baptism and communion of His divine Body and Blood. So see yourself in others, and others see themselves in you, love everyone as yourself; - also see in Christ, in His Most Pure Mother and in the faces of the saints, yourself and humanity, and appropriate yourself to God and the saints through imitation of their shrines - so that they will see themselves in you, how much you become like God and them, in virtue - and they will recognize in you their member when you appear at the world court, and they will take you to themselves as their own. I should rejoice in the fact that I have to very often carry in my mind and heart and pronounce with my lips the name of God, the name of the Lady Theotokos, St. Angels and St. saints of God, both by name throughout the year, and special ones mentioned in daily church prayers, or at water-blessing prayers. For, remembered sincerely, from the heart, the name of God sanctifies us, revives and comforts us, as does the name of the Mother of God, the all-powerful Intercessor; and the saints, our intercessors before God, pray for us when we call on them in prayer, and shine their virtues on us in many different ways. It is good to have an alliance with God and the celestials. Through prayer we atone for our sins. - He has forgiven you all the debt, because you have begged Me (Matthew 18:32). Experience says the same. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood remains in me and I in him (John 6:56). It is tangible and experience confirms this. Blessed is the person who, with faith, receives Holy Communion, is filled with life. Secrets, with heartfelt repentance for sins. – This truth is tangible, it is clear from the contrary. When, without sincere repentance for sins and with doubt, you approach St. More often than not, then Satan enters you and remains in you, killing your soul, and this can be extremely noticeable. “With God,” says the proverb, “everything is close.” It’s as if everything is close: all spiritual and sensory creatures, Angels, souls of the departed, all living people, all animals, all material worlds. – The Spirit of God passes through everything, the spirit is rational, pure, subtle and lives in every believing, pious soul. – As for the infinite Spirit, for God there is nothing remote, but everything is before Him, in full view. He is all everywhere and all is in Him. Everything lives and exists through Him. God and the created spirits and souls of departed people, as well as the living, are mental beings, and thought is quick and in some way omnipresent. - Think about them with all your heart, and they are inherent in you - God is always and necessarily, and others are by the gift and power of God. I remembered God and rejoiced (Ps. 76:4). Why? because He is with you and in you. When our heart is covered with satanic darkness, the darkness of passions, then it denies God, even though it should, as it should, deny the light of the heart itself; it has become darkened: therefore it has closed its spiritual eyes, it does not see God, and not that there is no God. The speech is foolish in his heart: there is no God (Ps. 13:1). Truly insane. The name of Jesus Christ, or the sincere thought of Jesus Christ, is associated with great power that drives away passions and calms the heart. Carry this over to the names of St. Angels and St. God's people, starting with the Mother of God, to the saints and righteous and Christ for the sake of fools. - Just sincerely call on their names, and by the grace of God, they will help you too. Icons of the Savior in every Orthodox home depict His omnipresence, His dominion in every place, and the images of saints depict the co-presence or closeness to us of saints, by the grace of God, as members of the one body of the Church, united under one Head, Christ. As You are the Father in Me, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us (John 17:21). This is why we need to pray to the saints: they are in God and God is in them, and that is why they hear us, that is, because they are in the omnipresent God. You are holy, O God, and you rest among the saints 31. For the sake of our faith alone, the mountains of the heart are moved, that is, the heights and heaviness of sin. When Christians lift the burden of sins in repentance, they sometimes say: thank God, a weight has been lifted from our shoulders. Prayer requires a sincere search for correction. Just as through an electric telegraph we quickly communicate with people distant from us, so through living faith, like through some kind of telegraph, we quickly communicate with God, with Angels and saints. Just as we fully rely on the speed of electric current and its intelligibility, so we must completely rely on the speed and intelligibility of the prayer of faith. – Send your request to God or the saints via the telegraph of faith and you will immediately receive an answer. The answering telegraph readings are simple, but the experienced feed them; The actions on the heart of God of spirits and all flesh and saints are simple, but the experienced understands them. O amazing proof of the omnipresence of God! For example, you were hurt, let’s say, by silver: you clung to it with your heart even for a minute, and your heart hurts; but only you will tell God with all your heart: You are my only Treasure; You are my silver and gold, food and clothing, and now it will be easy for you. There are many who pray who turn out to be worshiping God in vain. There are also such lazy and crafty pilgrims who, sensing a surge of nasty and crafty thoughts in their hearts and heads, immediately give up prayer and run away from the church, or from the home icon. If you want to pray life-giving prayer, first of all establish your heart in the Lord, lift up your horn in your God. Since the first man sinned, people have been so darkened by sin in the very center of their being (in the heart) that they very often do not have the consciousness and feeling of the omnipresence of God and think that four walls and a ceiling close them from the One who fills everything, who sees even the One who hides in the hidden place. If someone hides himself in the hidden, will I not see him (cf. 1 Samuel 2:1)? Do I not fill the heavens and the earth with food (Jer. 23:24)? Naked I am and hid myself (Gen. 3:10). But no! My soul is in God, like a fish in water or a bird in the air, surrounded by Him on all sides at all times; He lives in Him, moves in Him, rests in Him, has his spaciousness in Him. My thought, bright or dark; thoughts that condemn or justify; my heart, calm and joyful, or sorrowful and oppressed; the organization of my body, the organization of the worlds and the earth that we inhabit, with everything that is on it and around it, speak incessantly of the unceasing presence in me and with me and everywhere of my Creator and yours. May the dark and stupid thought always flee from me that my God has left me, that He is not always with me. May my soul always remember that God the Word, together with the Father and the Spirit, at every moment carries all the worlds with the word of His power (Heb. 1:3), including my little world - soul and body, and at every moment knows not only the number of my hair, but also the number and quality of my thoughts and movements of the heart, since everything exists and is accomplished before His clearest eyes. May my soul know that since everything came from God and exists in God, then the Lord God Himself, in the most perfect way, at every moment, knows about the existence and quality of each creature, and that every moment He supports, given from Him precisely by the laws of nature, its existence. – If we, having written any book, know about its entire arrangement and composition, about all the thoughts contained in it, and when others express a thought to us, especially the plan of our book, we say that this is our plan, our thought, then how can we take away from the Lord the omniscience of all worlds, all creatures, all things in the world with their qualities and states? -Are they not the book of God? - So, my soul, reverence your Creator at every moment of your life and know that He, at every moment, knows all of you, that He supports and lives you and gives you everything necessary for your existence and well-being! How would anything have remained if You had not willed it (Wis. 11:26)? People are ashamed to admit that they do not believe in their high dignity and destiny, in the fact that they are the priceless image of God, dear to God, who is destined and promised infinitely great bliss in heaven - in unity with God. Just as a poor man does not believe that he can become rich and a very noble person, so many Christians do not believe that they will possess the wealth of future blessings and will be seated in heaven in Christ (Eph. 2:6). We are amazed how, without any special merit on our part, such high honor and glory, such wealth awaits us. We are proud, selfish, stingy and do not understand how such endless Love, such a wise and selfless Father can exist; – we still don’t seem to believe that God loved the world so much that He gave His only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but may have eternal life (John 3:16). People are perplexed and, to tell the truth, many do not believe the honor that is promised to the righteous in the future life, because Satan has humiliated humanity in his own eyes. But such honor is real and must be hoped for: - man is the image of God - for this reason the Son of God became incarnate, to restore His image. In St. Scripture develops this idea. If you ever doubt God, or the dogma of the Most Holy Trinity: remember the brief church doxology: glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, always, now and ever, and to the ages of ages, and think about what you mean with people of all ages, of whom there are countless great and God-blessed minds, who all heartily and unanimously sent glory to the triune God. Since our Creator and God are one, He brings everything closer and unites, and for a believing soul there is nothing distant that He cannot bring closer by faith. Do you want to talk - I’m not talking with God, Who is everywhere - but with the highest premium Powers, Principalities, Archangels and Angels? Can. “They will, through your prayer, instruct you, enlighten you, and strengthen you in the faith.” Or with the departed saints? Can. “They are with you at your first heartfelt call, especially the Most Holy Virgin Mary, our Most Swift Intercessor. We unceasingly magnify You, who ineffably united the heavenly, Christ, the earthly, and made one Church of Angels and men. Chapter – Christ among Angels and Men. What is not close to us under such a Head? And how close is the Head Himself to us to hear us? “And we are convinced by experience that he hears, just as saints hear.” The Lord has complete respect for the nature He created and its laws, as the product of His infinite, most perfect Wisdom; Therefore, He usually accomplishes His will through the medium of nature and its laws, for example, when it punishes people or blesses them. Therefore, do not demand miracles from Him unless absolutely necessary. The Lord has high respect, especially for the works of His hands, gifted with reason and free will, that is, for the Angels and saints, and through them acts for our sanctification and salvation. Therefore, do not say: I always turn directly to God alone with my needs, with my prayer. Sometimes you need to turn to the saints, His instruments or organs. The Lord Himself does not want the holy churches of His grace, His divine Spirit, to remain idle in the work of our salvation. Like chicks under the wing of a kokosh, so the whole world is under the wing of the Lord, all angelic councils, all people, all unreasonable animals, all material worlds: He enlightens everyone and everything - some with intelligent, others with material light; warms everyone - some spiritually, others with material warmth; and just as the kokosh hears the squeaks and sighs of the chicks under him, so the Lord hears our secret sighs, our prayers, our praises, and sees all our needs. Cover us with the shelter of Your wing 33. It is good for me to pray for people when I receive communion worthily: then the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, my God is in me, and I have great boldness before Him. “Then the king is in me, as in a monastery: ask for whatever you want.” We will come to him and make our abode with him. Whatever you want, ask, and it will be done for you (John 15:7, 14:23). We need to have such a mood of faith during prayer so that even for one minute there is no secret doubt in the heart, or a secret thought that God is not listening to us, but so that throughout the entire prayer the soul imagines God before itself and talks with Him as with a king. If we sinners pray and entreat the Lord for ourselves and others; if, while living on earth, the saints pray for others and ask God for what they need, then even more so when the saints move into eternity and are face to face with God. By virtue of the great intercessory sacrifice of the Son of God, intercessions by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the prayers of the saints, especially His Most Pure Mother, have power. – This is a reward from the Lord for the merits of the saints. The basis of prayer is the desire of the image for the Prototype, as like for like. During prayer, have the thought that you are a steward of the most precious prayer heritage of the Church, and an unclean, unworthy steward at that, that your job is to open your heart with reverence and water your soul with these pure streams of the prayerful word, but do not philosophize about them in your own way. It’s wonderful - today I doubted - of course, because the evil one instigated - about one turn in one prayer, namely: I am the only one who has the power to forgive sins through the prayers of Your Most Pure Mother and all the saints 34, and I was ashamed in my wisdom: the enemy struck me down, stopped me, disturbing me at public prayer. What was wrong with my thought? – I thought: how! Does God have the power to forgive sins through the prayers of His Most Pure Mother and saints, and not Himself independently? – And without the prayers of others he has power, of course, one has power; but in order to honor the high virtues of the saints, especially His Most Pure Mother, who are His friends, who pleased Him to the last of their strength in earthly life, He accepts their prayerful intercession for us unworthy, for us who often have to stop our lips because of our great and frequent falls into sin. – Remember Moses, who interceded for the Jewish people and interceded for their life from the irritated Lord. Who will not say that even without Moses God could have spared His people - by granting them the continuation of their existence - but then the Lord would, so to speak, be unjust, granting them, unworthy of life, life, while He Himself determined to kill them; and when Moses began to intercede - a righteous, meek and humble man - then the eyes of the just God rested on the righteous man, on his love for God and for his people, and, for the sake of his merits, the Lord had mercy on the unworthy, for the sake of the righteous, on the unrighteous. – So now, through the prayers of His Most Pure Mother, He has mercy on us, who in themselves, for great and frequent sins and iniquities, would be unworthy of His mercy. “If Samuel and Elijah stand before Me, my soul will not go to them (Jer. 15:1), says the Lord to Jeremiah about the Jews. From this it is clear that the Lord accepts the intercession of the saints for unkind people when the sins of these latter do not exceed the measure of God’s long-suffering. The Lord, knowing the weakness of our nature, darkened and burdened by sin, difficult to rise to God by faith, deigned to condescend to us to resemble our being, to take on the form of a slave, human flesh: such is love. - But since He could not remain forever in a human body on earth, but it was necessary, according to the plans of the economy, to ascend with him into heaven: then for the weakness of all future human races, and for a reminder of His eternal love for them, of His suffering and death, He transubstantiates with the Holy Spirit simple bread into His body and simple wine into His blood, and into this body and into this blood He is completely indwelt by His Spirit, so that in the species bread and wine is entirely found in the Life-Giver Christ Himself - the Lord. O love ineffable, truly divine! The Lord used His infinite wisdom, His infinite power entirely for our salvation! Our weakness not only sees the Lord by faith, but also feels Him with the tongue, especially with the heart and with all the soul. – Glory to the Lord, who loved us so much!.. May God grant that our fraternal union with our deceased relatives and those we know does not cease beyond the grave, so that love does not go out even after death, but burns with a bright flame - and the ever sincere memory of the deceased always remains in us until our death. With the measure we measure, it will be measured to us (Mark 4:24; Matt. 7:2) Taking St. Mysteries, be also undoubtedly sure that you accept the body and blood of Christ, just as you have no doubt that you breathe air every minute. Say to yourself: just as it is certain that I constantly breathe in the air, so it is certain that I now, together with the air, accept into myself my Lord Jesus Christ, my breath, my belly, my joy, my salvation. - Before the air, at all times of my life, He is my breath; before words, my word; before thoughts - my thought; before all light is my light; Before all food, this is my food; before any drink is my drink; Before any garment, my garment; Before every fragrance is my fragrance; before all sweetness is my sweetness; before my father, my father; before my mother, my mother; Before the earth - the solid earth that bears me, never shaken by anything. Since we, the earthly, forget that at all times we breathe, live, move and exist in Him, and we have dug for ourselves broken treasures (Jer. 2:13), then He revealed in His Mysteries - in His blood - a source of living water flowing into eternal life, and He Himself gives Himself to us as food and drink, so that we may live by Him. As always, evil spirits are close to us and very quickly and conveniently act on us: so close to us and incomparably closer to us are the Lord God, the Most Pure Mother of God, St. Angels and holy men of God can act on us even faster and more conveniently; for evil spirits act on us only by God’s permission, but the Lord God independently, with the highest freedom, and as He is everywhere and fulfills everything; The Most Pure Mother of God, St. Angels and men are as one with Him by His grace. Thou hast given wealth to those who fear Thee, O Lord (Ps. 60:6). God has given Himself as an asset, a property, to those who fear Him. - What a gift! Prayer is based on faith: I believe that there is a God before whom I weave my prayer; there is the Almighty, who holds all creation in His hand and has given different kinds of voices to creatures for their internal communication with each other, and He Himself does not need any voice; - I hope that my prayer reaches Him, or more precisely, it goes straight from my heart to His ears. Likewise, the correspondence of a son with his father or mother, with brothers and sisters, father with children, friend with friends distant from each other is also based on faith. They are sure when they write letters that the persons to whom they write exist and are alive; They hope that the written conversation will reach them, produce in their souls ideas, thoughts, and feelings corresponding to the letter, and they will respond to the letter in a manner similar to its outline. So in life we ​​are guided in many ways by faith and hope: even more so in relation to the spiritual world, we must walk, until the time comes, by faith and not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7). When in any place - in a house, on a ship, in the open sky, you doubt the presence of God in that place, then present to your heart the following proof of the undoubted presence of God in that place: God contains everything in His power, including me with soul and body, and every solid substance, and every liquid and transparent substance; Thus He contains the air in which I am and which I breathe, He contains every particle of it - that is why He is called the Almighty, as He contains all creation, even the smallest, with His hand. How can He not be somewhere, in some place? – How can there not be somewhere the truth of things, the reason for their existence? – When you say such words to yourself internally, the heart, struck by the apoplexy of doubt, will immediately revive and calm down, which also provides the strongest proof of the omnipresence of God, especially in our souls. - Glory to You, Almighty King, that You do not leave me in the darkness of the devil, but always send Your light into my darkness. You are my Lamp, Lord, and enlighten my darkness. Whether you pray, sit, walk, lie down, think, talk, rejoice, grieve, whether you are healthy or sick, whether at home or away, on land or on water, - be constantly in full confidence that God sees you clearly, clearly, in all perfection, with all your thoughts, desires, deeds, in all your states, at every moment of your being, - hears better than any subtle hearing all your inner movements, all your words, although He Himself does not have eyes and hearing, these separate and complex, and therefore imperfect organs of cognition (although for us they are perfect), being Himself in His being all vision - which is why the Greeks called Him Theos - and all hearing, or more precisely, all light and vision. Remember constantly that the light of your soul, your thoughts, your heart is from Jesus Christ: He is the Light of the eyes of our heart - not like this one, which comes from the sun, appears and disappears, does not penetrate through opaque matter and leaves much in the dark, unable to enlighten a single soul in the darkness of sin. He is the Light that enlightens every person (that is, the main part of his being, the soul) coming into the world (John 1:9). Yes, the light of Christ enlightens everyone, even the pagans: light revealed by the tongue (Luke 2:32). He shines even in the darkness of sin; but sinful human darkness, or people living in the darkness of sin, do not understand Him, are not embraced (John 1:5), do not realize that the light that is in their souls is from Christ, and think that it is their natural light, that they, with their natural mind, their sharpness, prudence, have reached a certain truth, or have accomplished a certain deed; They do not think that only in the light of Christ do they see all light - the light of every noble science, noble art, every cause. We have inside us a spiritual eye, with which we see a million times more than with bodily vision, which is only an instrument of our spiritual eye, a conductor through which the soul either thinks or cognizes all visible objects. What are the objects of contemplation of this spiritual eye? Phenomena of the spiritual world. In addition to the visible world, there is God, the infinite Spirit, the infinite Mind, who has created and is creating everything in the material world, which is the realization of His thoughts (ideas), and there is a spiritual, angelic, countless world, living in constant contemplation of the Divine and all the works of His omnipotence and wisdom. Our spiritual eye relates most of all to the Lord, and in this case His action is called contemplation and contemplation of God; this contemplation and thought of God can extend to infinity, just as God Himself is infinite, and has the property of cleansing the soul from sin, perfecting it and bringing us closer and closer to God, the Source of our light, or our thought and our life. Then we contemplate the angelic ranks, according to the measure of God's revelation, and their spiritual luminous nature, their spiritual kindness, their love for God and among themselves and for our race, their protective actions in relation to our earth, to its elements, to human societies, to sacred and other places, and to each Christian in particular. The spiritual eye also turns inside the person himself, and then his activity is called self-examination, self-knowledge, self-deepening, sacred wakefulness or sobriety over one’s thoughts and desires. Just as the Spirit of God lives in the multitude of Christians and in all of them entirely with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ, and at the same time He is all everywhere - in heaven and on earth - so the Lord Jesus Christ is in every part of His body and blood, all completely in all Christian churches and at the same time all everywhere in heaven and on earth; like God, He is all everywhere and there is no place where He is not all. – I take one particle of communion: He’s all here, I take another – He’s all here; the third and so on, but in all there is one and the same Christ. Mental denial of any of the three beginningless Lights is equally death for the soul; In this way and in practice, God shows us that each of the three Persons of the Divine is our belly - belly and bellies. The enemy is easily recognized by the denial of the Faces of the Divine, by the burning of his lies in our hearts, by the darkness and tightness of our souls. Just as in the light of the sun we see air, and earth, and water, and everything that is in the air and on the earth, so in the light of the mental Sun in our heart we see the world of spirits, Angels and saints of God, the Mother of God, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, saints, martyrs, saints and all saints. We also see them with the eyes of the heart (by faith), just as we see objects of the sensory world with sensory vision. Thus, a simple and pure heart also sees, for example, the Mother of God with its inner eyes, just as natural vision sees Her image or some other visible object. A sign of the mercy of the Lord or His Most Pure Mother towards us, after or during prayer, is peace of heart, especially after the action of any passion, which is characterized by the absence of spiritual peace. By peace of heart and some kind of holy bliss of heart, we can easily recognize that our prayer has been heard and the grace we asked for has been granted. The success of prayer is also recognized by the spiritual power that we internally perceive in doing the things of our calling, and by the inner light that clearly comes into the soul. The whole world is a web compared to the soul of a Christian man; nothing in it is permanent or reliable; it is impossible to rely on anything reliably in it; everything is torn. There is no need to attach your heart to anything except the one God who spreads this web, contains and animates it. Whatever you become attached to except God, it all stings and oppresses the heart; To Him alone, complete attachment is life-giving. What is the life of a Christian? In order to have nothing and have Christ in the heart, or so that, having earthly blessings, not be attached to them in the least, and cleave to Christ with all your heart. Although God knows our needs, prayer is needed to cleanse and enlighten our soul. It’s good to stand in the sun: it’s warm and light, and in prayer before God, our spiritual Sun, you warm up and become enlightened. You need to wash yourself from dirt, and prayer is a wash from spiritual dirt, that is, from sins, especially tearful ones. That is why you do not receive from God what you ask for, because you do not abandon the abomination of idolatry: serving the belly. You ask the true God, but to God you work in your belly. A man cannot work for two masters (Matthew 6:24). Stop serving the idol - the womb and then hope to receive what you ask from God. You ask for the true God, but you serve a false god. Ask him if he can give it. Or are you working for the demon of covetousness, and therefore the true God, neglected and abandoned by you, does not fulfill your prayers. Or you work for the idol of pride and vanity, and this idol controls your heart, like those idols: and so the Lord does not bow to the prayers of an idolatrous heart. You left the Source of living waters, the Lord, and dug up broken treasures for yourself (cf. Jer. 2:13), well, drink from these treasures - dead water, dark, like the dark water in the clouds of the air (Ps. 17:12). Instead of the tree of life, there is the bread of life; instead of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil - the same life-giving bread of life. Then it was said: touch not, lest ye die (Gen. 3:3), now it is said: taste, and ye shall live (cf. John 6:51, 58). Then Eve and Adam believed the deceiver and died; now, on the contrary, we believe the words of the Lord of life: this is My body, this is My blood (Matthew 26:26, 28; Mark 14:22, 24), and we are quickened; as we fell, we rose again; fell through unbelief in God, disobedience (unbelief), rose up through obedience to faith. There we agreed with the devil against God and united with him - a liar - to our own death; Now we wholeheartedly agree with the Truth itself - God the Savior and with a true heart we unite with Him - for our own life, for peace and joy. Ole terrible sacrament! Ole the mercy of God! How I partake of the Divine Body and Blood of clay and become incorruptible 35! You dream that you are praying, but you gave up prayer a long time ago: the so-called prayer you call is just vain sounds without meaning for your heart. You speak words, but your heart does not sympathize with them; you are deceiving God and yourself. When praying, you definitely need to listen to your heart and the words of your prayers, to feel their truth and power. Now we stand and fall (in faith and virtue), but we hope for such a time and such a state in which we will no longer be able to fall, we will come to a state of complete safety from falling, like the Angels, who are now adamant to evil, and will forever be established in holiness. Fight sin and hope that the time of complete victory over sin and over death, its offspring, will finally come. The last enemy will be eliminated - death (1 Cor. 15:26). Now even the righteous man falls seven times (Proverbs 24:16), and as he falls he sighs and says, “I am a wretched man: who will deliver me from the body of this death?” I myself work with my mind on the law of God, and with my flesh on the law of sin. But the time will come when the sinful law that is in our lives will be abolished (Rom. 7:23–25), and the one law of God will be established. Now we seek lasting bliss and do not find it; the pleasures we invent are not durable, false, vain, short-lived; but if a Christian behaves worthy of his calling, he will receive as an inheritance such bliss that is true and lasting, because it is eternal, and will completely satisfy the needs of our soul. When we hear bad reviews about some person, then internally comparing him with ourselves, we say in our hearts: I am not like that, I, in comparison with him, am perfect, and dreaming this way about ourselves, and internally condemning others, we enjoy our superiority over others. This is satanic pride, this is the stench of a carnal, sinful man. May such thoughts flee from your soul! May we consider ourselves the worst of all people! When they speak ill of someone, let us sigh and say to ourselves: we are worse, a hundred times more sinful than this person, and from the bottom of our hearts we will pray for our condemned brother. What an honor to my nature: in my small cell that makes up my home, or in my heart, I can talk with Him who contains heaven and earth in His right hand, Whom the heavenly powers serve with fear, with Him Who is infinite Love! According to our corporeality, the Lord binds, so to speak, His presence and Himself to materiality, to some visible sign; for example: in the sacrament of communion, He Himself completely inhabits the body and blood; in repentance, acts through the visible face of the priest; in baptism - through water; in anointing - through myrrh; in the priesthood - through the bishop; in marriage - through a priest and crowns, he crowns himself; in the consecration of oil - through oil; binds His presence to the church, to the images, to the cross, to the sign of the cross, to His name, consisting of articulate sounds; to holy water, to consecrated bread, wheat, wine; but the time will come when His body and blood, as well as all other visible signs, will not be needed for us, and we will partake of Him more precisely, precisely in the non-evening days of His kingdom 36; and now - everything through the body and through images and signs. If I pray to my God with heartfelt, living, perfect faith, then I am close not only to Him, like a son to the Father who lives in the same house with him, but also to all the supreme heavenly Powers, to all the saints who reign in heaven: and they are no further from me than my icons, before which I pray. Therefore, it is a wonderful habit for us to have in our homes icons of the Lord, His Most Pure Mother, the Archangels, and the Guardian Angel, and saints, and to pray before them: their closeness to our physical gaze means even greater closeness to their spiritual gaze, armed with undoubted faith. Proximity: there is joy in heaven over a single sinner who repents (Luke 15:7, 10), just as in a parent’s home brothers rejoice when their brother, who has offended his father, repents of the insult inflicted on his parent by unkind behavior. It is common for the One God, eternal, omnipotent, having life from Himself and in Himself, to have no hope, but for us, one-day creatures who have received life and all gifts with life - from God, we, criminal creatures before the Chief of life, who have not preserved and do not keep the commandments of life, we are creatures rebellious against our Creator and Lord, hope is left to us, by the grace of the Lord Himself alone, who intended the means to return to the life of us who have fallen from eternal life into eternal death. We all know that we carry spiritual death in our hearts, gradually preparing for physical death. Meanwhile, our heart, created for eternal life, although it has tasted death, but, being not completely struck by it, strives for life and bliss. It is this lost bliss that the Son of God Jesus Christ returned to us, and it is ready to be revealed to those who believe in Him in the last time. Now, the hope that we will receive the promised bliss in the name of Christ is Christian hope. Throughout our earthly life, God, for the sake of His Son, for the sake of us who became human and took upon Himself all the sins of the world, cares about our salvation, leads us to it, as if by the hand, by His Holy Spirit, Who is the guarantee of the inheritance of future blessings - through worship, preaching, the word of God and the sacraments of the Church, through conscience and the testing of our insides - and, finally, will lead us into the inheritance of the promised blessings. Trusting in God means entrusting your life, your destiny, your entire future to Him and confidently awaiting the fulfillment of His promises. Hope comes from faith, like a plant from a seed, like a stream from a spring. We believe that the Lord is good and merciful, that He loves us like a Father; therefore, He wishes us every good and true happiness. He is wise and omniscient: therefore, He knows better than we ourselves what is necessary and useful for us. He is omnipotent: and so He always desires to fulfill what He has promised. He is holy and righteous: and therefore all His words are truth, His promises are unchangeable. We see the highest proof of God’s love for man in the fact that He did not spare His only begotten Son for us, but gave Him up to suffering and death. Having strengthened our soul with the thought of the boundless goodness, wisdom, omnipotence and holiness of our Creator and Provider, we can walk the course of our earthly life - without fear and confusion, like a child in the arms of a mother, like a ship with a reliable anchor. Therefore, blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and the Lord will be his hope (Ps. 2:12 ; Jer. 17:7; Proverbs 16:20). The Lord is my Helper and my Protector (Ps. 17:3). I will not be afraid of those people (Ps. 3:7)… However, with hope, we should not be careless and idle. Christian hope, in its essence, is a living, active and constant striving for the Highest Good and the Source of all good things - God, with an insatiable desire to get closer to Him and receive from Him and in Him the kingdom of heaven, prepared before the creation of the world. In the same way the trees desire the springs of water, so my soul desires Thee, O God. My soul thirsts for the mighty, living God; when will I come and appear to the face of God (Ps. 41:2–3)? We are invited into the community of Cherubim, Seraphim, Thrones, Dominions, Angels and Archangels - instead of fallen, proud spirits. - These became proud and said to God within themselves: somehow You will make up for our lack, which is unbearable and palpable for You, as for the Wise One, who does not tolerate lack of anything and disharmony in His world? – And the Lord, in response and shame to the devil, deigned to create man from dust and with dusty creatures to fill the lack of angelic worlds, due to the falling away of proud spirits; and this endless shame is an infinitely great punishment for the proud; That is why they use all the powers of hell to destroy people. – For a greater demonstration of His love and for a greater shame of the devil, the Lord Himself put on the earthy body of a man in order to snatch him from the power of the devil. When you are very young, or live the life of a sinful world, then you know both Christ the Savior and the enemy of God and man, the all-evil Satan, by just one name, and you think that Christ is far from you - in heaven, and the devil is somewhere, but not close or near you, and although you hear that he is angry, you think that his anger does not concern you; but when you are in mature years and enter into an ascetic life, when you serve God with a clear conscience, then you will experience on your heart both the good yoke of the Savior and the heavy, unbearable yoke of Satan, who mercilessly insults us. The devil takes a huge part in the sins of people: therefore, in prayers before confession, sinful people are condescendingly condemned for their sins before the Lord, as deceived by the devil. - Therefore, no one consider yourself an outcast, even if you are a great sinner: the devil is largely to blame for your sins. – Remember Jesus Christ immediately and turn to Him immediately for the forgiveness of your sins. – He is the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29). This is why He is the Lamb of God, to take upon Himself and cleanse our sins. A dark, evil force often comes between me and God, between me and my neighbor. I know this from experience, right, logically. The devil achieves important consequences through insignificant means. - Christian! be strong and believe with all your heart in Christ; you are a sure prey of the devil if you are absent-minded and lazy. This latter uses all his strength to prevent you from believing in Christ in your heart. And woe to you then when you lose faith. Whose wisdom manifested itself in the structure of your body and 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 look for traces of Your goodness, Your wisdom and Your omnipotence? Oh! These traces are so clearly visible in me. 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. Try to achieve childlike simplicity in dealing with people and in prayer to God. Simplicity is the greatest good and dignity of man. God is completely simple, because he is completely spiritual, completely good. And let your soul not be divided into good and evil. The love of our Divine Savior Jesus Christ, God the Father and the Holy Spirit is so great and immeasurable for us that before it it becomes insignificant, or as if all human dislike, enmity, and hatred towards us disappears. Because of this immensity of God’s love for us and the insignificance of human enmity, the Savior commanded us all to love our enemies, bless those who curse us, do good to those who hate us, and pray for those who commit misfortune (Matthew 5:44). We are in the love of God; Is it a big deal that people are not kind to us? What can they do to us when God has loved us so much? In the church of God, good, simple, believing souls are like in the house of the Heavenly Father: so it is free for them here and easy, easy. Here true Christians anticipate the future kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world, future freedom from all sin and death, future peace and bliss. When do they look forward to it? Sincerely turning your soul to God, fervently praying to God, taking a decisive intention to devote your life to God - and outside the church, committing acts of virtue in your very deeds. Christian hope is our hope for life in Christ. We were created for life, but we fell away from life and fell into spiritual and physical death, and if not for the Lord, we would perish forever, but could not be destroyed. God is true to Himself. Having created godlike, eternal spirits, He is faithful to His eternity in them, and to destroy them means to renounce His eternity, and He cannot accept the fallen, sinful, and uncleaned into communion with Him: otherwise He would have to renounce His holiness and His immutability. - That is why may the steadfast love of God the Father for us be glorified forever and ever, for the redemption and cleansing of us sinners from sins, which did not spare His only begotten Son, who gave Himself to death for us, not only may it cleanse us from all filth, but may it also sanctify us and present us to the glorious Church, not having any filth or vice, or anything from such, but may it be holy and blameless (Eph. 5:27). – I live, and you will live (John 14:19). It is in Whom that all our hope rests. “I live,” says the Lord, and you will live, you will pass from death to life. – The entire Gospel confirms our hope for life. (Resurrection of Lazarus, conversation with Martha and Mary, speeches of the Savior on the occasion of the establishment of communion in the Gospel of John). Jesus Christ rose again and came out of the tomb with its doors closed, without damaging its seal. Thus He was born from the Most Holy Virgin, Her keys unharmed by His birth 37 . Thus He enters the souls of believers through their bodies, passing through them invisibly, always freely. Thus He enters into the homes of all, and no walls or barriers hold back His boundless, unlimited presence. In the next century, our bliss will increase from surprise - to suddenly see the holy and beautiful Angels of the Lord, their countless myriads, their orderly ranks, their hierarchical order, from surprise - to see all the saints, good, simple people of God from all ages: prophets, apostles and all others, and most importantly from the contemplation of God in the unapproachable light, from our own inner enlightenment and most perfect bliss, unclouded by any sin, no fear, no care and sadness. Christian hope is our hope for union with God in the next century. In our present Christian situation, everything corresponds and is directed towards this union: both material and spiritual blessings: the grace of God in the Church, Divine services, the sacraments, conscience, God's inner testing and purification, prayers, the fruits of prayers, sorrows that cleanse the heart, illnesses (he will take up his cross (Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34.)). The present union in fervent prayer, in the sacrament prepares for heavenly union communion: this is the guarantee of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of Christians. For the same reason, any other connection of the heart, except for God and not for God, is strictly forbidden to us. For the same reason, we must guard ourselves from carnal lusts, from all sin. By honoring the Angels, we become aligned with that life-giving conviction that there is another world of rational beings, completely pure, simple, incorporeal, and that, therefore, the existence of our soul after death is not only a possible matter, but also a real, existing one. And by honoring the saints, we again get used to the idea that there is life for us after death; that virtue and holiness are rewarded after death, which means that if we live virtuously, we will also be rewarded; that evil is punished, as it is presented in the gospel story about the rich man and Lazarus, this means that we will also be punished for the evil that we do here. In general, the veneration of Angels and saints does not reflect any polytheism, it is completely in our nature and leads to significant, spiritual benefits. In the work of God's providence for people and at the request of reason, there must be intermediaries between people and God from the spiritual world (since people occupy the middle between the spiritual and material worlds), who guide us to the heavenly kingdom, namely: Angels. The Lord has amazing gradualness and order in all his affairs; everywhere with Him the lower ones are guided by the higher ones: this is the need for Guardian Angels for Christians redeemed by the blood of the Lord. In addition, the Angels themselves are filled with love for us and rejoice over the conversion of one sinner; but love is active, and the Lord gave all freedom to this noble and useful activity, as we see from the Word of God. – Guardian angels are necessary for people because of the insidiousness of evil spirits over people: people do not see them themselves. People are very weak for spiritual life. In addition to the grace of God, you also need a person filled with this grace, wise, strong by nature: and such are the Angels. In addition, after leaving life there must be witnesses about the deeds of men against demons. From our own experience of living, heartfelt prayer, we can know that the saints are accepted into closest communion with God. And from our own experience we know that in communication with God through the prayer of faith, our mind is unusually enlightened and takes on the most extensive dimensions of action: at this time it sees what it does not see in its ordinary state. From this it follows that the saints, being in communion with God, and, moreover, pure, detached from the body, have the brightest, far-sighted minds and hear our heartfelt prayers, and if they are pleasing to God and useful to us, they will certainly fulfill them. The presence of a Guardian Angel with every true Christian is necessary because the bodies of Christians are, according to the testimony of the Word of God, temples of the Holy Spirit, and Christians themselves are members of the body of Christ, sanctified by His suffering on the cross and death, sealed by His sacraments, in which the grace of the Holy Spirit is communicated to us; especially because we partake of the very body and blood of Christ in the sacrament of communion. The dignity of a person - a Christian, as a member of the body of Christ and the temple of the Holy Spirit, certainly requires the presence of a Guardian Angel with him, as our elder brother and friend, who guides us to the common Lord of all in the kingdom of light and bliss - If there is joy in heaven before the Angels of God about a single sinner who repents (Luke 15: 7, 10), then one must judge by this what strong participation they take in Our salvation is the Angels of the Lord. Remember that during prayer the Lord completely corresponds to us, as our personal prototype, and responds to our every word, to every movement of the heart. Worshiping icons, I, firstly, honor in them God, who created His Son without beginning - His living Image, who gave material existence to the infinite thought of God the Father, creating the worlds and all creatures that were in the thought of God, and man, created in the image and likeness of God; secondly, I honor the image of God incarnate; thirdly, I respect myself, my image of an immortal, god-like man, called to be a partaker of the divine nature, one with the Lord, the temple of the Holy Spirit. I am also involuntarily moved to venerate icons because I see the saving power of God manifested through them for the faithful and the punishing power for the unfaithful, just as I see and feel this same power in the image of the Cross of the Lord, which by its miraculous power is called life-giving. For all these reasons, icons replace for me the very faces whose names they bear. – The faces of the saints on our icons represent to us the closeness in spirit of the saints of God, who are all alive with God and in the Holy Spirit are always close to us through our heartfelt faith and prayer to them. For what could be remote for the Spirit of God, who is omnipresent and fills everything and passes through all intelligent (gifted with reason), pure, and subtle spirits (Wisdom 7:23)? There is joy before the angels of God for the one sinner who repents (Luke 15:7, 10). This means that the dispositions of our soul are revealed not only to God, but also to the Angels. Standing before You and before Your terrible and holy Angels, I offer my wicked and lawless deeds, reveal these and expose them 38. Prayers! Is it not enough for you to give labor as a man, and how much labor do you give to the Lord (Isa. 7:13)? Is it not enough for you to see powerlessness in people: how do you still want to see powerlessness in God Himself, and secretly think that God will not fulfill your request? – Even though many things are difficult for people, many things are impossible, but how do you consider anything difficult for God? Is there anything difficult or impossible for Him? Everything is possible and easy for Him. All things are possible with God (Mark 10:27). So, when you pray, be firmly confident that everything is easy for the Lord, He can do everything in an instant. Do not attribute your own inability to do anything, to help yourself or your neighbor in any way, to God. Almost everything is difficult for you, as for weak, insignificant creatures: you have experienced this on yourself and on others a thousand times; But is it not enough for you to give (attribute) labor to people, that you also give the Lord’s work - to the Lord, Who created everything with thought and word? For Him, remember, nothing is difficult: ask for everything boldly; hope to get everything. – Whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive it as a believer (Matthew 21:22). The Holy Angels and other heavenly Powers are filled with whole, holy life, indestructible peace, indestructible cheerfulness, eternal courage and strength, indescribable beauty, light, high intelligence, the purest love for God and people, mutual friendship, insight and enlightenment. Such are our holy guardian angels. Wonderful angelic nature! But Christians who are worthy to reach the future age and the resurrection from the dead will be equal to the Angels, according to the word of the Lord Himself. Let us diligently strive for that age that has no end, unshakable, serene. Christian! you will copulate with the Angels, Archangels, all the heavenly Powers: imitate the Angels, despise the earthly, love the heavenly, eternal, spiritual, avoid worldly addictions, do not enslave the belly, the demon of the love of money, be kind, meek, quiet as an angel, pure as an angel, simple, holy like him. Look at the divine principle in a person - the soul, which is in the image and likeness of God, and for the sake of this principle, always respect and love a person from a pure heart, without hypocrisy. The most common thing is for a word to come true. We speak in articulate sounds: what is this if not the embodiment of the word? We draw words on paper: what is this if not the embodiment of the word? What is faith? Confidence in spiritual truth, in Being or in God, in the existence of the spiritual world with its properties, just as we are confident in the existence of the material world and its accessories. To be confident in the reality of the spiritual Universal Principle and the spiritual world with all its properties and accessories, just as we are confident in the existence of the material world with its objects and their properties, means to believe. For example, I am undoubtedly sure that God is eternal, all-good, wise and omnipotent, and I do not think that He is not eternal, not all-good, not wise, and not omnipotent; this means that I believe firmly and undoubtedly; I believe that God, as Goodness, will give everything you ask of Him, and I will not doubt it; that means I believe. The name of God is God Himself. Therefore it is said: You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain (Ex. 20:7; Deut. 5:11). Or - the name of the God of Jacob will protect you (Ps. 19:2); or: Bring my soul out of prison, to confess to Your name (Ps. 142:8). Since the Lord is a simple Being, a simple Spirit, He is in one word, in one thought - completely and at the same time everywhere - in all creation. Therefore, call only on the name of the Lord: you will call on the Lord, the Savior of believers, and you will be saved. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (Acts 2:21). Call on Me - My name - in the day of your sorrow, and destroy you, and glorify Me (Ps. 49:15). The whole person, consisting of soul and body, is called in one word, for example. John - meaning that a person is brought into being by the Word of the Lord, which is simple. The name also means that our soul is also a simple being. One name hides such richness and depth of the human spirit, such a multitude of divisible parts of matter. This is truly the image and likeness of God and at the same time a small world. In a person’s name is the soul of a person, for example. in the name Ivan is the soul of Ivan. So to the call: Ivan Ilyich, his soul recognizes itself in this name and responds to it. Thus, in the name Jesus Christ, the whole Christ is His soul and body, united with the Divinity. God is an infinite Spirit. What is this infinity? In the infinity of being, life and wisdom, goodness and love, omnipotence, righteousness and holiness, in His omnipresence in all mental, spiritual and wordless creatures, as well as material ones. Everywhere and in everything, God, existing above all, is not contained by any creature, and not a single thought, no matter how fast and bold, can get ahead of Him, always circling only in Him. Jews ate the meat of sacrificial animals; this was an image of our spiritual food: we now eat not the bodies of sacrificial animals, but the most pure Body and Blood of the Lord throughout the entire earth. Because whoever frequently receives Holy Communion The mysteries of the body and blood of Christ - one does not need to eat animal meat. Why do I need animal flesh when I taste the most pure Body and the most pure Blood - these life-giving Mysteries of my God? – Isn’t it enough for me to get life, peace, joy, strength of mind and body from them? Can't I be content with plant or fish food, which is much easier for me? Is it surprising that the Lord offers you His body and blood for food and drink? Who gave you the flesh of the animals He created for food, finally gave Himself for food and drink, Who fed you with your mother’s breasts, He Himself finally undertook to feed you with His flesh and blood, so that, just as with your mother’s milk you would suck into yourself the known properties of your mother, her spirit, so with the body and blood of God the Savior you would suck in His spirit and life. Or, just as before in infancy you fed on your mother and lived on her, her milk, so now, having grown up and become a sinful person, you feed on the blood of your Life-Giver, so that through this you would be alive and grow spiritually into a man of God, a saint; in short: so that, as then you were the son of your mother, so now you would be a child of God, raised, nourished by His flesh and blood, and even more so by His Spirit (for flesh and blood are His spirit and life (John 6:63), and become an heir of the kingdom of heaven, for which you were created, for which you live. Children! remember that Jesus Christ loves you so much that he convenes you several times every year to His divine and life-giving meal, at which He gives you His divine, most pure Body for food, and His divine, most pure, life-giving Blood for drink - so that you are alive and healthy, not only here, temporarily, but also in heaven, forever, without end, and very, very thank Your Creator and Savior for His immeasurable love for you, and for your parents, and for your brothers and sisters, and for all people. The very words show that Christian hope is our hope in Christ and in the eternal bliss promised to us by Christ. He is the end of our desire: He will save His people from their sins (Matthew 1:21). “I would be glad to go to heaven, but sins are not allowed in,” say many Christians who have no idea about Christian hope, as if sins are some kind of unbreakable wall. No: I will say that our Savior Jesus Christ destroyed it with the cross and death and opened the paradise of God to the repentant. This is where we stand to teach how to hope in Christ, because not every hope is Christian, true, saving. We will show the properties of Christian hope: its solidity, firmness and completeness, and those signs by which one can know whether there is Christian hope in us; Let us show that Christian hope breathes through prayer like air, is supported and strengthened by the life-giving Mysteries, reading or listening to the Word of God and the writings of St. father, by everyone's own good deeds. Here we will reveal that since a Christian is a free and rational being, created in the image and likeness of God, but also fallen (by his own will) or removed from God through iniquity, he must himself, through faith, hope and love, approach his Prototype. We advise every Christian to carefully consider what in him actually constitutes a god-like and immortal person; we ask him to pay attention to his heart, listen to its demands, which very often appear before a person’s consciousness, and satisfy them without delay. Our heart requires faith in God and union with Him, in Whom it finds peace and bliss, but it is also seduced, through the action of the dark spirit and innate corruption, by all earthly blessings, which do not constitute its peace, life and bliss, but only sorrow and torment. To unite this heart with faith and hope with Christ - this is our last desire when talking with you about hope; to interrupt your hope for earthly blessings - for people, for honors, for wealth, for the pleasures of sensuality, that is our only desire. We drown in sins and often become discouraged, despair, and perish from their multitude; to turn everyone's eyes to our hope - Christ the Savior - in all sins, in all sorrows, in all the vicissitudes of life, happiness and misfortune, to show that He is the God of the repentant and the Savior of those who sin - this is our desire. To show in Christ our life, our bliss, our light, our wealth, food, drink, everything, and throughout our lives to teach everyone to strive for Him as the end of all our desires, this is what we desire most. Jesus is the Source, always living. I would like to bring you to the point where each of you from the heart calls Jesus your Jesus, your Savior. God forbid that we should have to exclaim: Lord! Who believes our hearing and opens the arm of the Lord to whom (John 12:38; Isaiah 53:1)? The Lord is the Truth: everything He said is the pure truth and does not allow a shadow of doubt. And so there is hope that God will come again to judge the living and the dead, that there will be life in the next century, the bliss of the righteous and the torment of sinners. Christian hope can be characterized as follows: pray and hope, strive and hope, strive to enter through the strait gate. Be patient in prayer, watchful in it with thanksgiving (Col. 4:2). Who comes to St. More often than not, with some passion in his heart, that Judas comes to flatteringly kiss the Son of Man. Prayer hopes to get everything. Tri-radiant Love, have mercy on me! I don’t know how a sane person can waver in any divinely revealed truth, revealed by Jesus Christ, witnessed by the apostles, sealed with the blood of a countless host of martyrs, preached by saints, saints and all saints - life-giving for the heart. And yet, there are unfortunate ones who hesitate, really hesitate, shaken by some kind of heavy as a stone, gnawing like a viper, killing like the devil, internal suggestions, seduced by some unknown, invisible flatterer, merciless killer. What does this mean? Why then am I so senseless, stupid, ugly and, on top of that, gloomy and despondent? Oh, I know why. Know them by their fruits (Matthew 7:16). From such terrible consequences in my soul I conclude the cause, and from the traces of the murder I find the murderer. This is what my enemy, the devil, does. Murderer! - He kills my soul with doubt and unbelief, torments me. But I am also unreasonable, allowing myself to obey the suggestions of a liar, a murderer, an opponent of God and men. When you notice in yourself any mental resistance to God, doubt about the Trinity of Persons of the Divine and their relationships, and the like, believe that you are an enemy of God and man. You have long believed in the holy consubstantial, life-giving and indivisible Trinity, you have long enjoyed Her mercies, Her life, Her peace and all the benefits, and stand for Her until death against the common enemy. Faith calms and delights, unbelief worries and stings. When praying, do everything wisely. When you add oil to the lamp, then imagine that the Giver of Life, every day and hour, every minute of your life, supports your life with His Spirit, and, as if daily through sleep in the physical sense, and through prayer and the Word of God in the spiritual sense, pours into you the oil of life, with which your soul and body burn. When you place a candle in front of an icon, remember that your life is like a burning candle; will burn out and go out; or that others make her burn faster than she should through passions, overeating, wine and other pleasures. Since our first teacher of prayer is the Church, which is taught to pray beautifully by the Holy Spirit Himself, since we ourselves do not know what we should pray for as it should be (Rom. 8:26), then it is the duty of every Christian to know the language of the mother of his Church. It is a sin for him who does not know enough; a sin especially for those who, having learned foreign languages, did not want and do not want to learn the language of the Mother-Savior. In general, everyone needs to understand and learn the Slavic language. Means that affirm Christian hope: prayer, especially frequent, sincere prayerful confession of one’s sins, frequent reading of the Word of God, especially frequent communion of St. the life-giving Mysteries of the body and blood of Christ. Our leaders in Christian hope: the Lord Himself, His Most Pure Mother, all the saints, prophets, apostles, martyrs, saints, saints - they all flowed to God with the hope of salvation and no one was ashamed, everyone was saved. Hope will not put you to shame (Rom. 5:5), says Scripture, and it will not put you to shame. The expression of Christian hope in relation to earthly life is the forgiveness of sins in which we live all our lives: if anyone sins, the imams intercede with the Father... and He is the cleanser for our sins (1 John 2:1-2). In relation to the future life: we will see Him as He is (1 John 3:2)... They will be enlightened like the sun (Matthew 13:43)... Where I am, my servant also will be... I go to prepare a place for you (John 12:26; 14:2)... Our life is in heaven, from where we also wait for the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, likewise. will transform the body of our humility (Phil. 3:20–21)... Another source of hope: now passions are approaching the heart; their flow is strong, it is difficult to resist, not to succumb to them; but have hope in Christ and you will overcome them. Say: passions fight me, Master, but stand up for me and save me, my Savior. Since my youth the enemy has been tempting me, burning me with sweets; But by trusting in You, O Lord, I overcome this 39 . The misfortune of Christians comes from the fact that they do not have Christian hope. Here a person has a sinful tightness in his heart, melancholy, sinful boredom; if there is no Christian hope in his heart, then what does he do? He resorts to artificial means to drive away cramped conditions and boredom, to criminal entertainment, and not to Christ, whose yoke is good for our hearts and whose burden is light (Matthew 11:30), - not to prayer, not to repentance for sins, not to the Word of God, which is useful for teaching, reproof, consolation (2 Tim. 3:16; fn. Rom. 15:4). This is how it is done for the most part. Hence the need for secular people to have theaters and many other entertainments. They resort to suicide. The experience of receiving what one asks for greatly contributes to the affirmation of hope in the heart of the person who prays. And those who are attentive to themselves will easily notice these experiences. The one who prays must hope to beg the Lord for all sins: I have forgiven you all your debt, since you have begged Me (Matthew 18:32); there is no sin that overcomes God’s love for mankind. The blood of the Son of God cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7) (Mary of Egypt). If anyone sins, the imams will intercede with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous (1 John 2:1). Hope presupposes the expectation of some good that we do not have. Without seeing Him we hope, but we wait with patience (Rom. 8:25). But since our greatest good is sinlessness, and we do not have this good and suffer daily from sins that can destroy us forever, then Christian hope should be turned to Christ as the Deliverer from sins and our Savior. Just as we receive everything necessary for physical life from earth, air, fire and water, so we receive everything necessary for spiritual life - all bright, kind and saving thoughts and dispositions of the heart - from God, although we do not notice it, due to the invisibility of thoughts and heart movements. The Spirit breathes wherever it wants, and you hear His voice (John 3:8). We are not content to think that we are from ourselves, but from ourselves, but our contentment is from God (2 Cor. 3:5). When you receive the Life-giving Mysteries, firmly imagine Christ Himself in the forms of bread and wine; make a mental inscription on them: Jesus Christ, and with this mental inscription (and there is a sensory one), send it mentally to the depths of the heart, and there mentally place the Life-Giving Guest. If so, with such faith you accept the Holy Mysteries, then you will see what they will produce in you: the deepest peace of spiritual strength; Everything will be incredibly easy for you. According to the measure of our faith, the Lord benefits us; to the extent of heart readiness, the Body and Blood turn out to be a life-giving coal on the heart of the believer. – Church is heaven; the altar is the throne of life, from which God descends to nourish and revive the believers in the Holy Most Pure Mysteries. Wonderful are Your works, O Lord (Rev. 15:3)! You prepare us in advance for the contemplation of the throne and Him who sits on it, by the vision of the earthly throne in the Church and by the contemplation through the eyes of faith of Him who sits on it. When you ask God for spiritual gifts, for example, wisdom, faith, hope and love, meekness and humility, then remember that you are the image and likeness of God, that your soul is, as it were, some imprint of the Divine, and all the wealth of the soul lies in God, as in a treasury (Treasure of the Good), from which we can draw every spiritual good through the prayer of faith and patience and cleansing ourselves from all filth. Speak to the Lord: my limited spirit has come from Your boundless, all-perfect Spirit; Here I am poor, my Lord, in wisdom and reason, or faith, hope and love, meekness and humility: look at the desire of my heart and grant me Your wisdom, unashamed faith, unchanging hope, unfeigned love 40. Obedience to the Church of her children must begin with complete trust in her prayers, sacraments and rituals, and end with the actual fulfillment of all her laws. With the eyes of your heart you see clearly how the Lord always keeps you in obedience to Himself by the laws of conscience. Those who go to the Divine Service having eaten, voluntarily impose unnecessary and harmful burdens on themselves and drown their hearts for prayer in advance, blocking access to holy thoughts and holy sensations. It is extremely necessary to be careful not to eat before the Divine service. We must remember that the kingdom of God is not food and drink (Rom. 14:17), that is, God cannot reign in a heart that is burdened with food and drink. The Lord is so close to everyone, especially the holy Christian, that his heart and body are the temple of the Holy Spirit. What convenience for prayer anywhere! The word of prayer, or God, to whom you pray, is near in your mouth and in your heart (Rom. 10:8). Sin closes the eyes of the heart; the thief thinks that God does not see; the fornicator, indulging in filthiness, thinks that God does not see him; the money-lover, the glutton, the drunkard think that they are hiding their addictions. But God sees and judges. Naked I am and hid myself (Gen. 3:10). This is what every sinner says through his actions, hiding from the omnipresent God. That the Lord is always with us, obvious proof of this is His divine, life-giving Mysteries: here He allows us to touch Himself, to put the hands of our hearts into His nail wounds and to put our fingers into His side. No matter how many times I prayed with faith. God always listened to me and fulfilled my prayers. For the most part, we live in doubt, lack of faith, unbelief, having eyes and not seeing, having ears and not hearing, having a heart of stone (cf. Mark 8:17-18). We must beware of the whitening of the heart. Man is the image of God - the living image of the living God; in the soul of a person, especially a believer and a virtuous one, the radiance of the Divine, His perfection, is reflected. Be holy, for I am holy, the Lord your God (1 Pet. 1:16; Lev. 19:2). The soul of the first man is from God, and all the souls of subsequent people are from Him; everything is the breath of His divine Spirit, everyone must be His children, all as one. For You, Father, are in Me, and I am in You, the Savior prayed to the Heavenly Father, that they also may be one in Us (John 17:21). This is our high origin and purpose! – Through Jesus Christ we must be one with God, and where He is, there we must be. Where I am, my servant will also be (John 12:26). Since our souls are from God, then, of course, He is always close to us, just as parents are close to their children. Just as parents know their children, so the more the Lord knows people, His grace-filled children in Christ. Mine know (John 10:14). In ordinary human knowledge, once you know a subject well, you often know it well for the rest of your life, without clouding your knowledge of it. But in faith it is not so; Once you have known, felt, touched, you think: the object of faith will always be so clear, tangible, and loved for my soul; but no: a thousand times it will darken for you, move away from you and, as it were, disappear for you, and what you first loved, what you lived and breathed, to which, from time to time, you will feel complete indifference; and sometimes you have to clear the way for yourself with sighs and tears in order to see him, grab him and hug him with your heart. This is from sin. The word in our mouths is already creative, forming articulate sounds; with the word comes the living spirit of man, not separated from thought and word. You see, the word, by its nature, is creative even in us. Why are we of little faith and distrustful of the creative power of the word, for example, in prayer, that it - this verbal service - will certainly bring down the mercy of the Master to us? So the word constantly creates flesh for itself: articulate sounds and writing, or our books, is it not the flesh in which the word is clothed? But we listened to this and looked closely at it so much that it seems to us that it does not deserve special attention at all. Not only the nature of the Divine, but, by His gift, the nature of created animate creatures is creative under God’s guidance: grow and multiply (Gen. 1:28). The souls of living creatures grow bodies for themselves, under God's guidance (spider, bee, worm). Thus, with the power given to them by God, people are still growing and multiplying on the earth; This is how people and animals create for themselves everything they need for life, especially man - this is the most inventive creature who amazes with his endless creativity in all types of art. Since the Word, the Creator, is omnipresent, His creations are spread out everywhere, although not to infinity, and everywhere He creates, and if necessary, transforms. God is such a simple Being that He is faster than lightning, faster than thought, and imperceptibly visits our soul. That is why he says: the kingdom of God will not come with observance: for the kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:20-21). There is, that is, it is impossible to even designate the moments of the arrival of the kingdom of God into our soul: he rejected sin from the heart, and it is in the heart, and you will not notice how and when; the moment of the complete rejection of sin from the heart is the moment of its perfect reign in us: for God reigns in us as we are cleansed from sins. And the life-giving Mysteries, according to the measure of faith, instantly cleanse, sanctify and beautify the house of the soul. – So the devil and the spirits of evil, as simple beings, although far imperfect in their simplicity and greatly limited, act on the soul quickly, instantly, like lightning, like quick thought. An instant feeling of attachment to earthly things, or an instant inclination of the heart to sin, an instant doubt in the truth - and he penetrated into the heart, he also produces in an instant some kind of passion in the heart, and then, as we sympathize with it, takes possession of us and drags us wherever he pleases, like prisoners bound hand and foot. If we resist him, then he tries, through strong clouding of the mind and heart, to destroy our efforts towards heartfelt faith and pious thoughts and feelings. To defeat him and drive him away from your heart, you need to create in your heart perfect faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and remember that the enemy is active in you, that your thoughts or the dispositions of your heart and will are sinful and repugnant to God. Then resolutely reject these thoughts with all your heart, break, so to speak, with all your heart from sinful bonds, like Sampson, entangled with bowstrings, and break the hellish bonds, like a thread, by the power of Jesus Christ and the grace of the Holy Spirit. During prayer, we must remember that we are members of each other and must pray for everyone, just as the Lord’s Prayer does. The apostles are an example of this, as are all the saints. If you remember this and pray for others, then the holy angels will pray for us, as members of one kingdom of Christ, one Church, one body. When you measure according to measure, it will be measured back to you (Matthew 7:2). The Lord is my life, my breath, my strength, my light, peace, joy, my food and drink: what will I bring to such a Benefactor, or how will I repay Him? - I will reward, with His assistance, by obedience to His will, by fulfilling His commandments. If you love Me, He Himself says, keep My commandments (John 14:15). - I will try to please Him by seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and by counting earthly blessings as nothing compared to heavenly ones; I will not attach my heart to anything earthly. Oh my God! You Yourself grant me the strength to fulfill this. Strengthen me with Your right hand: My strength, do not leave me. Grant me to place my hope only in You, my Nourisher, in You, Who has never left me. Life is a life-giving force. Therefore, God, the first and imprecise life, is the infinite, life-giving Power; That’s why Angels are also called heavenly powers, and the human soul is power. Angels and men are forces animated by the first Belly, carried, guided and supported by the first Power in intelligent and free service to the first Belly. Death is a killing force. The first such power in the kingdom of the living God, who created everything for life, appeared in the person of the devil, and from him passed on to people and other creatures of the earth, for the creation itself submits to the slavery of corruption for the obedient (Rom. 8:20) man, who submitted to the first killing force - the devil. Since the devil is an intelligent force, he uses the power of the infernal mind to act on our mind, which was initially damaged by his breathing, and separates us from the Life-God with doubt, distrust of God - the omnipotent and unchangeable Force in its properties; separates from God-Love by the spirit of enmity, malice, envy; separates us from God the Spirit by the strong attachment of our heart to earthly goods. We notice that in the sinful, unnatural affections of our heart there is a force that mortifies our soul, as well as in anger, in doubt and in all sins, in despondency, despair and resistance to God’s commandments. The Lord God also appears in our soul as a power, primarily of love: strong as the death of love (Song 8:6), the power of all virtues, overcoming all obstacles opposed to the soul by the forces of hell. One must always approach prayer, in front of icons or without them, with full hope of receiving what one asks for, for example, deliverance from sorrow, mental illness and sins, because before a thousand times we have received clear mercy from the Lord or the Lady, and not to hope for receiving what one asks for, or to doubt the hearing of a prayer would be extreme madness and blindness. If someone asked you why you pray to soulless icons, what good do they do you? - say that we receive incomparably more benefits from our icons than from the kindest and most charitable person; say that from icons always comes grace-filled power and help to your souls, delivering you from sins, sorrows and illnesses, especially from the icons of the Savior and the Mother of God; that one heartfelt view of them with faith, as if they were alive and close to us, saves us from fierce sorrows, passions and spiritual darkness; that if touching the vestments of the Savior and the scarves of the apostles made the sick healthy, then all the more powerful are the faces of the Savior and the Mother of God to heal believers from all sorrow, through faith in the Lord and the Mother of God. My soul can imagine millions of faces, for example, of the one and the same Mother of God, and my hand can artistically draw as many of Her faces as I like, and they will all be venerable faces of Her, like She Herself. Thus, the all-essential and life-giving Unity conceived and created through His creative Word, and through the Holy Spirit sanctified countless intelligent images of His - the heavenly powers; in the same way, the Father conceived, and the Son, Himself the living image of the Father, created, sanctifying by the Holy Spirit His sensory-intelligent image - man and from him alone, to our constant surprise, to this day he creatively makes such images; and all living, beautiful, godlike, abiding, eternal. So, no matter how many icons I depict, they are all true, venerable icons for me, which I will undoubtedly honor with worship, if only they correspond to real, living, holy images (icons) of God. What prevents us from having as many faces, for example, of the Savior Christ, as there are individual Christian faces? Each face of the Savior is His most venerable Face, shining in the soul of every true Christian. It is a wonderful and God-loving custom among Christians to have the image of the Savior and pray to Him. This is a crying need of our soul. The Lord Himself, with the love characteristic of Him, desires to be imagined in us, as the Apostle says: My children, with whom I am sick again, until Christ is imagined in you (Gal. 4:19); or let Christ dwell in your hearts by faith (Eph. 3:17); but how can I imagine Christ in my heart if I do not first depict Him sensually and imagine Him before my eyes? – And here we have the image of the Savior, the Mother of God and a friend. The love of Christians for them, who always wants to carry their images in their thoughts and hearts, our very sensual-spiritual nature, has necessitated the need to depict them with icons, to place them in the most honorable place at home, as in our hearts, or in the homes of our souls, to give them the most honorable place and to honor them with worship first of the heart, and then of the body. – And how in accordance with God’s intention is our veneration of icons! – Heaven answers us in icons, as from the purification of ancient times the Lord in the Jewish tabernacle; many of them shine with miracles. Behold, I stand at the door and talk (Rev. 3:20). This means that the Lord constantly stands at the door of our heart, which is locked or blocked for Him by sins or various addictions. Here I stand. You pray, and He stands at your very heart and listens to your every heart movement and feeling. God! give me a simple, kind, open, believing, loving, generous heart. When speaking with a person, we are sure that he hears us, despite the distance separating us, sometimes very significant: - we are sure because we receive appropriate answers from him, and my words produce in his heart the same concepts and dispositions as in me. Or we speak in a large assembly and are sure that the whole assembly hears us at once, and if our words come from the heart, then they also fall on the hearts of the listeners and produce in them good thoughts and dispositions of the soul. Thus, when talking in prayer with God or with the saints, we must be sure without the slightest doubt that our speeches, uttered from the heart, are heard (not talking about God, who knows everything everywhere, even our very heart), not only in the same way as our words are heard by living people, but also much more conveniently, due to the simplicity of the spiritual world, and answers to our prayers are also given with greater convenience and are more wise and useful than the answers of earthly persons to ours. requests, due to the same simplicity and divine enlightenment of the celestials. This should be considered a truth that does not require proof, a very ordinary matter. Just as in the first case everyone is confident that others will hear our words from experience, so it is here. God and the saints also hear us in prayer, just as people talking to each other hear each other, or as people standing in a church hear a preacher, or soldiers hear the voice of a leader - they hear it even incomparably better and more perfectly; because we hear the words of another, but we do not know what is in his heart and thoughts, and it happens that another says one thing, but has something completely different in his heart. God and the saints are not like that: they see what is in our thoughts and hearts - God Himself with His omniscience, and the saints by the grace of the Holy Spirit, in whom they eternally abide, and they notice whether our words correspond to the heart, and if they completely correspond to the heart, and the heart, in turn, is a believer, contrite and humble, burning with love and zeal (as we diligently resort to You) and the desire to receive what we ask, then they they kindly bow to our prayer and give us what we want. God and the saints want us to imagine them in prayer as alive, inherent in ourselves, so that we can see them with the eyes of our hearts. God lives; There is no God of the dead, but of the living: for to him all live (Luke 20:38). Everywhere on earth you see the wise Artist-Spirit, rejoicing in the fullness of joy in creatures and revealing His infinite wisdom in the works of His hands. Everywhere you see the Life-giving Spirit, like an artist or like a potter, forming many different inanimate vessels. You see Him especially in holy people, as in His majestic, beautiful churches. But in unfaithful and wicked people you see at almost every step the works of the evil spirit - all the passions, indignations, enmity, resistance. God is the being and life of everything that exists. That is why He is called the One, as if the only being, the first, uncreated being, or as the Head from Whom all being is. Therefore the Apostle says of Him: In Him we live and move and we are (Acts 17:28). We live by God, move by His power, exist by His will, command and omnipotence. You do not understand the image of the Lord’s indwelling in the life-giving Mysteries. It's a mystery; It is also a mystery, just like the mystery of how the immortal spirit is infused into your body, reviving, beautifying and strengthening the body. The Lord is a simple Being, completely opposite to matter, simple, like a simple thought, or an instantaneous movement of our heart or spirit; - is also a mystery, like the mystery of how He inhabits your heart entirely without the mediation of any matter, through one living thought about Him, living faith in Him, or obedience to God’s Word. According to His perfect simplicity, He is necessarily all everywhere - He is everywhere and fulfills everything 41: I do not fill the heavens and the earth with food (Jer. 23:24)? - and cannot share, dividing Himself into everything and communicating to everyone truly and truly in various gifts, - He Himself is One and Indivisible, constantly creating an infinite and varied multitude of creatures, being inherent in every creature, the very last and smallest of all ciliates. All air is permeable to the light of the sun, transparent, and it all, so to speak, dissolves with the light, although the latter, due to its subtlety, can always leave it. Spring water, crystal and glass also penetrate and dissolve with light. Many bodies capable of reflecting and refracting rays of light are bathed in or shine with the light of the sun or the light of fire and receive its warmth into themselves. In clothes embroidered with gold or silver, each sparkle especially sparkles with the light of the sun. Thus, the chosen human race or the souls of the righteous pass through the Light of the intelligent God and shine with His light, merging with Him. So every particle of the life-giving Mysteries, becoming the Body and Blood of the Lord Himself, is all light, radiance, warmth, life; not a single most inconspicuous particle remains untransformed into the light and life of the Divine. Notice how the Lord is always with you in every place, in His image and likeness that exists in you; You think in the Father, you speak in the Word, you act in the Holy Spirit. What air and light are to the body, so is thought or God the Father to the soul; As food is for the body, so is the Word for the soul; like breath and warmth, that is the Holy Spirit. Have you seen how bees adhere to the queen bee, or how ants adhere to the king ant? – So intelligent and verbal beings should adhere to God. Or do you know how the smaller planets adhere to the larger one and revolve around it? So intelligent and verbal beings must adhere to the God of all. Accordingly, look for more. Just as, in a conversation with people, the mediator between our word and the word of another is the air, which is everywhere and fills everything, and through the air the words reach the ear of another, and without air it would be impossible to speak and hear: so, in a spiritual sense, in communication with incorporeal beings, the mediator is the Holy Spirit, who is everywhere and fills everything. We do not fully understand how others hear our words through the medium of air, sometimes at a great distance, but we know that they hear; We do not understand the same way as we hear in the Holy Spirit. Angels and men cry out from our hearts, but we know that they hear. Just as there we make sure that others hear our speech from the answers, so here we make sure from the answers. There we see with our bodily eyes the face with whom we are speaking, here with the eyes of our hearts: an image appears to the eye, an invisible face or an invisible spirit appears to the eye of the heart. For corporeal beings there is distance, for the Holy Spirit it does not exist. Imagine the Angel of God in the image of a human soul, that is, an Angel as your soul. That is why Angels appear in human form, that is why they have a nature similar to the human soul - only sinless, holy and higher. Soon God hears the prayer of two or three who pray together from the heart. - Experience. The intention towards us of our Lord Jesus Christ is to drive out lies (flattery), pride and the devil’s malice from our hearts, and instead implant his truth and love, meekness and humility. If on every line of space we depicted the face of the Lord, and then we would not do anything superfluous, because the Lord really is all in every smallest and greatest space; if we were to anticipate the Lord everywhere, then there would be no need to wish for anything better; we would act no more than justly: for God is always at our right hand, wherever we are. The Holy Spirit is called the Comforter by His essence, which is peace, joy and endless bliss, and by His action on the souls of believers, whom He comforts, like a mother, in their virtues, in their sufferings, sorrows and illnesses, in their deeds for the faith; - is also called the Comforter in contrast to the evil spirit of despondency, which often attacks our souls. Every phenomenon has a cause. So, having done some good deed, you rejoice and find consolation in your soul. Why? - Because the Comforter Spirit is in you, He fills you everywhere, a Treasure of good things, Who comforts you. On the contrary, having done something bad, or not having done anything bad, you sometimes feel a murderous despondency in your soul. Why? - Because you allowed the evil spirit of despondency to take control of you. For example, you stand up for prayer and despondency takes possession of you, whereas before prayer it was not there; or - so you start reading some book of spiritual content, for example St. Scripture: You, too, are overcome by despondency, laziness, doubt, lack of faith and unbelief. Why? – Because you are being tempted, the evil spirits of despondency, doubt and unbelief are treacherous over you. You are in church at the service: and you are bored, hard, lazy - despondency has attacked you. Why again? - Because the evil spirits of despondency and laziness are playing tricks on you. Or you take up spiritual writing, for example, a sermon: there is darkness and coldness in your heart, in your mind, and relaxation throughout your whole body. Why? - Because invisible enemies are treacherous within you. - It’s easy to prove: - just don’t do all this, and it will be so easy and pleasant, there will be such space in your soul and heart - where everything will come from. - Therefore, the Holy Spirit is absolutely necessary for all of us in all our good deeds: He is our strength, strength, light, peace, consolation. Vegetation provides clear evidence of the omnipresence and providence of God. Where is it not on the globe? It covers the plains, climbs the inaccessible steepness of stone mountains, makes its way in deserts, establishes its roots in the waters and among the waters - on uninhabited islands. And who grows it and decorates it with a wonderful variety of species and colors? – Lord God: God dresses like this. But if God dresses the grass so carefully, will God leave, even for a minute, forget man? If the hay of the village is swept into the oven today and in the morning, God clothes it like this: how much more than you, you of little faith (Matthew 6:30; Luke 12:28). If God revives the grass every minute and does not leave it with his life, will he stop reviving me? - No: if He dresses the grass and revives it, then He lives in me constantly, as in a church, if I do not voluntarily remove Him with my sins. Do you not know that you are the church of God, and the Spirit of God lives in you (1 Cor. 3:16)? By the way, note about the church: the apostle calls a Christian a church, because the Spirit of God lives in him; This means that God constantly lives in Christian churches. The sanctity of the church. Reverence for him. The tangible effect of God dwelling in the church on the hearts of people turning to Him in prayer. He will call upon Me, and I will hear him (Ps. 90:15). Oh, words full of love! Oh, words that breathe the most living hope into the one praying! Until now you have not learned to love your neighbors. You respond to people's dislike of you with your dislike. Do the opposite: respond to others’ dislike of you with affection and love; The more you see dislike towards you, the more you love. Lack of love is a disease, and one must feel more sorry for the sick person, show him more care, and show him more love, precisely because he is sick. “Don’t you know that the disembodied enemy is treacherous over everyone, infecting everyone with the poison of hatred?” - And you are not exempt from his deceit. Do not serve him, the spirit of hostility, but serve with all your zeal the God of love. Remember that God the Word died for your brethren. As rivers flow to the sea, so do the souls of people flow to God. Spiritual and physical life diverge and do not agree; That’s why sometimes you feel great in your body, but not in your spirit, in your heart. Start praying and you will see that your heart has become white, your lips have become thicker, wider, and you have forgotten God (Deut. 32:15), and it is hard for you to pray, although you are healthy and strong in strength; If you stop praying, it will be easy again. But this is sinful ease. Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also (Matthew 6:21). Know what those praying in the church are thinking about. Whoever is devoted to something with his heart thinks about it. If the heart doubts about the Life-giving Spirit, then there will be no life in us, but sorrow and distress, and by deeds: because life comes from the Life-giving Spirit. Sorrow from doubt is a sure sign that the wisdom is a lie and comes from the murderous devil. Until now I have lived by God (thought, felt, fed) and henceforth I will live by Him. I put aside all restless worries and rely on my hope, on my breath - Christ. How should one believe in Christ who does not allow himself to doubt for a moment the truth of what He said in St. His Gospel - what His Church teaches from the meaning of the pure bride. “We must acquire in faith such firmness of heart that, by our free will, it does not waver even for a moment with double-mindedness, inclination to the opposite side, so that a Christian does not become a sea turbulence, which rises with the wind and then is scattered again. – Our faith in Christ is true and amen; it rests in Him Himself (2 Cor. 1:19–20). Remember that by believing heartily and firmly in Christ, we will be saved into eternal life. Remember as St. The Church did not destroy any of its faithful followers, but saved everyone by the grace of God. The works of the Savior and the Church over believers speak for themselves. – Matters of doubt and unbelief in a person’s soul, which kill his soul and body, also speak for themselves. Since the Spirit of God is the formidable power, fear and torment of demons, then the demons with all their hellish machinations resist the Spirit of God and blaspheme Him. Since the Spirit of God is a saving spirit, a spirit of unity, love and peace, they resist by all means the unity, love and salvation of people. Because of them, there was a division of the Churches - into Eastern and Western - note: because of the dogma of the Holy Spirit, the division occurred; because of them, the further division of the Roman West - Lutheranism, Calvinism and Anglicanism; because of them there is a schism in our Orthodox Church. (By the way: is it necessary not to make necessary, beneficial transformations in the church because of schismatics? - We must do it: otherwise the demons will laugh at us; will we really allow ourselves to be overcome by their malice? Yes, it won’t be. And so it is necessary to translate the Bible into Russian. How many millions of people are deprived of its wealth because it is in an incomprehensible Slavic language! 42. Demons are also trying in every possible way to tear out and have torn out from the hearts of Christians faith in the Gospel and in the Church of Christ - which is also blasphemy against the Holy Spirit; - they are trying by all means to plunge Christians into carnal affairs and into carnal defilements, so that the Spirit of God does not dwell in people, as in the antediluvian people - and don’t we see that people are given over to the love of money, gluttony, drunkenness, and debauchery on an enormous scale? -What kind of corruption is this? ABOUT! it will be bad for us, and maybe very soon... Spirits of evil also attack the Spirit of God in the thoughts and hearts of individual people; they shake their faith in Him: woe to us: let us not blaspheme the life-giving Holy Spirit of God, the Spirit of unutterable love, who intercedes for us with groanings that cannot be uttered (Rom. 8:26); May we know all the time of our lives to worship Him and glorify Him, as we worship the Father and the Son, as we glorify the Father and the Son, with inseparable and equal honor. Let us honor the universal creed - this is a saving guide in faith for believers of all times and places. Let us not offend with a single thought the doubts of the Spirit of God who lives in us and quickens us - this womb of God which endlessly loves us, like the Father and the Son. Let us drink of one Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13). You see, the Spirit of God, like water or air, surrounds us on all sides. – Fill the world with the Spirit of the Lord (Wis. 1:7). Faith is given to us by the Spirit of God: to another faith is given by the same Spirit (1 Cor. 12:9), says the apostle; the love of God is poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5), as the same apostle says. How good it is to conquer passions! After a victory, you feel such lightness in your heart, peace and greatness of spirit! Does not the soul eat more food (Matthew 6:25)? Oh! immeasurably, infinitely more. The image of the invisible God, the Creator of everything, shines in the soul. I must not spare not only anything material, but my soul, my life, for the benefit of my brother, material or bodily, especially spiritual. By lovingly serving my brother's benefit, I am serving God Himself. ABOUT! I feel in my heart the lofty, great truth: since you alone created these least of my brethren, you created for me (Matthew 25:40). Why is this so? - Because, firstly, that every person is the image of God, and secondly, because Jesus Christ is both God and man and the Head of the body of His Church, so that we are members of Him, of His flesh and of His bones (Eph. 5:30), that is, we are members of Christ. Do not believe your flesh, which threatens you with failure during prayer: it lies. If you begin to pray, you will see that the flesh will become your obedient slave. Prayer will revive her too. Always remember that the flesh is deceitful. He who believes in the Savior and feeds on His flesh and blood has eternal life in himself: and this is the reason why every sin produces severe illness and confusion in the heart. Those who do not have an eternal life in themselves drink iniquity like water and do not get sick: because there is no eternal life in their hearts. Glory to the Spirit of God, who comes from the Father to give life to every creature and fills the whole universe. Glory to Him, who gives life to angels and men and every creature. Glory to Him, our Strength, our Shrine. Glory to Him, coeternal Father and Son! My bodily nature requires an image. We make images worthily and righteously and worship them. Man himself is what else if not the living image of the living God? – The Son of God Himself is a diverse seal, showing the Father in Himself. If we ourselves are images of God, consisting of soul and body, then why don’t we honor the saints of God in their hand-made images? Naming a name on an image means a lot to a believer. This name, as it were, serves him instead of his soul. Call on the name of the saint with all your heart, he will hear you and in the image will reveal his miraculous power. The name of the Savior, called upon with faith, does miracles, casts out demons, extinguishes passions, heals diseases; By the grace of the Lord, the saints, called by name with faith, also perform miracles. - And what’s surprising? They are all in the Spirit of God, and the life-giving Spirit of God fills everything everywhere and everything, and with the Holy Spirit the saints all do miracles, because the one Spirit of God is the Spirit of miracles. Man is a small world. As the soul is in the body, so is God in the world. The soul will leave the body: and it is now disintegrating. The Spirit of God will leave the world, and it will immediately fall apart. The soul is everywhere in the body, but especially in the heart, and God is everywhere in the world, but especially in heaven and in the church. – And so, at every step, recognize the presence of God. Glory to you, all-holy, life-giving soul, proceed from the Father and rest ever in the Son, inseparable from the Father and the Son! Glory to Thee, Son of God, in the Spirit of God you cast out demons and through Him build our salvation, sanctify, make us wise, strengthen us! Glory to Thee, Father, always be pleased with us in the Son by the Holy Spirit! Indivisible Trinity Unity - have mercy on us! Children, the images of father and mother, are close to the hearts of parents; people, especially Christians, are even closer to the images of God, to the heart of God. – The external similarity of children to their parents, and often also the internal, reminds us of our internal similarity to God. Every place is a place of God's presence and God's dominion; hence there is no doubt that the Lord looks at us through the eyes of icons, and through the lips of icons, as if through His own, He can speak to us. Because the Lord is in every place, His cross works miraculously, His name produces miracles, His icons are miraculous and, in any case, places of His gracious presence. My thought freely penetrates buildings with their walls, mountains, seas, sky and earth, and according to my thoughts, man is the likeness of the Divine, which is the infinite Spirit and exists everywhere. Doesn’t God permeate everything and fill everything, as the Creator of everything? Hope breathes in prayer, and prayer without hope is sinful prayer. Does everyone have guardian angels? There are and there should be. The nature of the spirit is unusually active and cannot help but act; we see it in our souls. The nature of a good spirit necessarily seeks activity and expansion of the circle of this activity, the spread of the kingdom of truth and goodness; how, on the contrary, the nature of the evil spirit seeks corresponding activity and expansion of the kingdom of lies and all evil. That demons are trying in every possible way to spread the kingdom of evil - we feel this within ourselves, and St. Scripture testifies to this: the devil walks around roaring like a lion, looking for someone to devour (1 Pet. 5:8). How can one not allow, even at the request of common sense, the truth that Angels act everywhere in the world, try to spread the kingdom of goodness and seek human salvation! Oh, the word is true that there is joy in heaven for one sinner who repents (Lk. 15:7), and just as the devil is with every person, so a good Angel is also with every person; We clearly feel both the presence of that and the presence of that, although, out of pride, we are accustomed to attributing all good thoughts, feelings, dispositions and intentions to ourselves, and not to the Guardian Angel. – Will there be enough Guardian Angels for every person? - Enough, and in abundance. When the Apostle Peter rushed with a knife at the bishop's servant - to defend his Teacher and Lord, the Lord said to him: or do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He will send Me more than twelve legions of Angels (Matthew 26:53)? – This means that the Lord always has enough of them in abundance to protect every person (Elisha, Jacob), and especially for the Son of God incarnate. It is also known that the Guardian Angel appeared to the Savior in the Garden of Gethsemane to strengthen Him; The angels came and served Him (Matthew 4:11), after forty days of fasting and temptation in the desert; The Guardian Angel of the Infant Savior appeared to Joseph in a dream and controlled his movements. Holy Soul, living, personal, lordly, living connection between the Father and the Son - have mercy on me! Holy Soul, life-giving and uniter of all creation, especially rational creatures, the power of all creation - have mercy on me! In prayer, let a person put aside all worldly worries and only care about the salvation of his soul. We must rely on the Lord in all temptations, in all bleak states of the soul: the Lord will deliver. What a unity of beings in the three Persons of the Divine! The Son does nothing without the Spirit, just as the Spirit does without the Father, and the Father without the Spirit and the Son, but everything is together. “That’s not what happens to a person: he sometimes works with his mind without the participation of his heart, and his work is often soulless; this discord is a consequence of sin. (Three strangers, Abraham: two do the will of the third). I think how all-perfect the Divine is, what an endless fullness of life in Him! God the Father gave birth from Himself to the creative Word and brings forth the creative Spirit: and They dominantly fulfill the will of the Father, just as the hands of a person do what the head thinks about, what the heart desires. Marvelous are You, our God, who created everything with Your hypostatic Word and accomplished everything with the Hypostatic Spirit! What fullness of life! Both the Son and the Spirit are equal to the Father - the Author, and the Son and the Spirit are equally omnipotent, just as the Father and the Son are one goodness and love, one will, one power, one Divinity and kingdom! What fullness of life! Both the Son is the Creator and the Spirit is the Creator. – Thy hands (Son and Spirit) create me and create me (Ps. 119:73). What unity! Neither the Son without the Spirit, nor the Spirit without the Son does anything, but together they fulfill the will of the Father, being Three - one Being. Therefore, where do you hear the Son active? There the Spirit certainly acts with the Son, and there the Father certainly does, from Whom and to Whom They are raised. – I glorify the Father and the Son, the power and the Holy Spirit, I sing the power, the indivisible, uncreated Divinity, the Trinity of one essence, reigning forever and ever 43. This is your divine greatness, Lord the Savior, that the life of every creature is in You, as the hypostatic Life, so that everyone honors You as they honor the Father; This is your greatness, Holy Soul, life-giving, that you sanctify everyone, strengthen and live together with the Father and the Son, so that everyone honors you as they honor the Father and the Son; This is your greatness, Holy Soul, that the only begotten Son of God, as one in essence with you, has created powers and miracles through you, and through you sanctifies, strengthens and leads us to His Father. Thus the imams bring in one Dus to the Father (Eph. 2:18). Even blasphemy against the Spirit will not be tolerated by man (Matthew 12:31). Whoever rejects the personal existence of the Holy Spirit, especially who has been a partaker of the Holy Spirit many times, blasphemes Him and if he does not correct himself from the blasphemy, he will not be forgiven either in this age or in the next. Holy Soul, life-giving, Soul of grace, have mercy on us! People who pray little have a weak heart: and so, when they want to pray, their heart relaxes and weakens their hands, body and thoughts, and it is difficult for them to pray. We must overcome ourselves: try to pray with all our hearts, because it is good and easy to pray with all our hearts. Trust in the intercession of the Mother of God, Angels and saints is a type of Christian hope; they are strong in interceding for us by the grace of the same Christ and their virtues. – It is not in vain that we pray to them: through their intercession we hope to receive mercy, forgiveness of sins and salvation, and temporary blessings, for example: health, good air, deliverance from disasters and sorrows. – Pray in the Spirit and the Holy Spirit to the Savior, the Father, the Angels and all the saints, and your prayer will be fiery, and tears will stream from your eyes, sweet and light tears. Glory to the Comforter Spirit! And what a consolation He is to the soul! The Savior and the Comforter are two Divine Persons: one always saves from sins, the other comforts the one being saved. The names are taken from the case itself, and are always justified in reality. - It consoles! He consoles, just as Mother consoles someone, so does the Holy Spirit comfort a believing soul. God sovereignly transforms ordinary bread and ordinary wine into the life-giving flesh and blood of His Son by the Holy Spirit. From this we clearly see that He is both the Author and Nourisher of our bodily life, and that our bodily life is far from being as important as our spiritual life, because ordinary bread and wine, which nourish and strengthen our bodily nature, are transformed into better bread - into the bread of spiritual life and wine - into spiritual drink. The Spirit of God is everywhere: sweep your mind throughout the whole world, you will see His works everywhere. It revives people with a higher life, animals, birds, fish, plants. Everywhere the body and blood of the Savior perform miracles equally; Everywhere the Sacraments have power, and their power is the Holy Spirit. On the veneration and invocation of saints in prayers (on St. Nicholas Day). Base. They are in God; they are rich in spiritual gifts; They are in the land of the living and in the land of plenty, but we are in the land of death and spiritual famine. God took them to Himself for our life. “For life, God sent me to you (Gen. 45:5), Joseph says to his brothers. - Abraham. Noah. The rich man asked Abraham to go to hell and let Lazarus follow. Noah is the deliverer from the flood. Blessed is he who has a tribe in Zion and tribes in Jerusalem (Isa. 31:9). I rejoice and admire the infinite perfection of the Divine; I rejoice and admire that the Divinity in three Persons and each Person independently is the all-perfect God: - that the Father is omnipotent, the Son is omnipotent, and the Holy Spirit is omnipotent. Omnipresent is the Father, also the Son, also the Holy Spirit; life Father, life Son, life and Holy Spirit; love Father, love Son, love and Holy Spirit. I rejoice in God the Father, I rejoice in God the Son, I rejoice in God the Holy Spirit - the one Godhead, the one nature and power - the one God the Savior who loves us. I rejoice that each of the three Persons of the Divine, like God, is assigned special lordly actions - the Father’s intention and good will, the Son the implementation of the father’s thought and good will, the Holy Spirit’s accomplishment, revival and implementation. The devil sometimes acts in the head as a restless interrogator about the incomprehensible, as a daring encroacher on the inaccessible secrets of the three Persons of the Divine, on their mutual relationships. One must think with reverence and extreme caution about the trinity of the Divine. Prayer, like the outside air - the body, refreshes the soul and enlivens it: - in it you feel more cheerful and cheerful, just as, after taking a walk in the fresh air, you feel both physically and mentally more vigorous and fresh. All that the Father has is Mine (John 16:15). Everything that has the Spirit is also His essence, except for the procession; speak equally about the Son and the Father, just separate the personal properties. Due to Their consubstantiality - communication of properties. Learn to pray, force yourself to pray: at first it will be difficult, but then, the more you force yourself, the easier it will be; but first you always have to force yourself. Saint, Father Nicholas, pray to God for us. On what basis do we ask the saints to pray for us, and do they really pray for us, and is their prayer effective for us? God Himself directly expressed His will to some people who had no closeness to Him, mostly sinful people, so that they would ask the people of God to pray for themselves; eg. Abimelech, who took Abraham's wife, was commanded to ask Abraham to pray for him; Job prayed, according to a clear revelation of the will of God, for his friends; Moses, Samuel, Elijah, and all the prophets prayed; The Lord Himself, according to His human nature, prayed to the Heavenly Father for Peter and all the disciples. The saints deserve to be intercessors for us to God according to their virtues, according to their merits, as His saints. If on earth justice requires that a famous person close to God pray for others (for example, a priest for people), then why not in heaven? All the saints are alive with God and for us: seeing our needs in God, they sympathize with us, and are ready, through our prayers, to help us. Why according to our prayers and not otherwise? In order to confirm us in faith and the feat of prayer. Moreover: why do the living want others who need their help to ask them? Just as the devil instantly wounds the soul by attacking the heart with some illegal desire or unrighteous thought, so God and His Guardian Angel revive with an instant influx of holy desires and thoughts. We must be attentive and grateful to the Lord for His spiritual gifts of light. What does it mean to call upon saints every day - different ones every day - throughout the whole year and throughout life? This means that the saints of God, like our brethren, only perfect, are alive and not far from us, hear us and are always ready to help us, by the grace of God. We live with them together - in the same house of the Heavenly Father - only in different halves: we are on the earthly, they are in the heavenly, and for us and for them there are means to penetrate each other; for us it is a prayer of faith and love, for them it is their spiritual nature, always ready for active help, out of the love with which their souls are imbued. Faith is given to a person by the Holy Spirit, which is why no one can speak of the Lord Jesus except by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:3). – The Holy Spirit was revealed to us by Jesus Christ, who was conceived and born by the Holy Spirit, who grew and strengthened by the Spirit, who cast out demons by the Spirit. Risen by the Holy Spirit. – The apostles, martyrs, saints, saints preached about the Holy Spirit, and very many sealed with their blood the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. I am weakness, poverty, God is my strength. This conviction is my highest wisdom, making me blessed. My life and my true sweetness are one, my food and drink is Christ. So say this to the enemy who seduces you with the sweetness of the meat and who spares them for others. According to Macarius, one should rejoice that they are destroyed by others: through this there is less burden on the soul and it is easier for it to ascend to heaven. When Christians come to church to pray to God, it turns out that they have not one, but many gods and many idols (and thus sin against the first and second commandments): one or another idol of self-love: where one’s treasure is, there is his heart (Matthew 6:21; cf. Luke 12:34). Just as you borrow your breath from the air and release it into the air again, so that you are always in the air and surrounded by it and it penetrates you: so your soul is from God and returns to God again, so that you are always in God and surrounded by Him on all sides and filled with Him internally, like air. That is why it is said: be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18). Just as every minute you breathe air, so every minute you are mentally either with God or with the devil, depending on what your inner disposition is. What the air is to the body, the Spirit of God is to the soul: just as from the air you inhale the principles necessary to nourish your body, so from the Spirit of God you inhale into yourself good dispositions and thoughts. I read the Gospel: it is not I who speak here, but the Lord Himself; He, He Himself in these words, After all, He is Spirit, wisdom or endless hypostatic thought; It is He, He is in these wonderful thoughts and words of the Gospel. Only the word is ours, human, or better yet, the word is His: and the thought, His essence, the truth is the Lord Himself. Just as accurately, I see, for example, the image of the Savior, or His cross: again here He Himself is my omnipresent Lord, in this face, or on this cross, as in the word of the Gospel; His image on an icon or on a cross is only an appearance, but the essence - He Himself - appears everywhere and in everything and through everything, especially through images and signs on which His venerable name, or His very image, is named. So in the priestly blessing of the cross He appears with His power and, as it were, blesses. The priestly hand blessing is very important. And our ordinary sign of the cross also has the power of God, just do it with faith. – So everywhere the Lord can be found and touched. If he falls this time, and repents this time, saying: I repent, leave it to him (cf. Luke 17:4; Matt. 18:21–22). The Lord knows, as the Knower of the Heart, that people are prone to very frequent falls, and when they fall, they often rebel, and that is why he gave the commandment - to often forgive the fall; and He Himself is the first to fulfill His holy word: as soon as you say from the bottom of your heart: I repent, He immediately forgives. The whole Gospel is the gospel of the kingdom, to which Christians are destined and, as it were, one promise (all parables, all prophecies, miracles); The apostolic epistles reveal in more detail the promises of Christian hope. May Your kingdom come, that is, Your perfect reign in our hearts. My body is earth and ashes, but my soul lives and rests only in God. He is the lightness of my thoughts and the strength of my heart; in fact, I am nothing. The saints fulfilled the word of the Lord; The Lord fulfills their word; They did for Him, He did for them. Measure with due measure, the Lord Himself said, it will be measured to you (Matthew 7:2). That is why the Lord quickly fulfills the prayers for us saints. In prayer, you need sincere regret for your sins and sincere repentance; - listing the sins indicated in prayers, say them, feeling them in your heart, as if your own. – You also need a fiery desire not to commit the same sins in the future. Intending to talk about Christian hope, I must reveal to you God’s promises to us and those intrigues with which the enemy of Christians entangles in order to distract their eyes and hope from priceless hope - the flattery of wealth, earthly pleasures, honors. - Speaking of hope, I must reveal to you the treasury of blessings promised to us in Christ, show you the inexplicable, infinite goodness and countless bounties of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Father - our hope, the Son - our refuge, the Holy Spirit - our protection. - My God! I see the infinity of benefits promised to Christians, and at the same time - the endless inattention of Christians to the promised benefits, lack of faith and, finally, the unbelief and coldness of Christians, trampling on the blood of the Testament, not caring about the sacrament of salvation. But may the Lord grant me lips and wisdom, may I speak with tongues of fire, may I kindle the fire of hope, hastening the Lord in cold hearts... The Book of Immutable Covenants! Tell us about God's promises to the righteous and the sinful. Hope in God after committing sins, whatever they may be, that is, for reconciliation with Him, after a quarrel, in despondency, melancholy, in passions. Nowhere, it seems, is the sinner’s hope for forgiveness of sins and salvation expressed so clearly and strongly as in the prayers for communion and in the canons to the sweetest Jesus, the Mother of God, the Guardian Angel and in the canons of the day. Hope also requires a life consistent with hope. Those who have hope do not have to live like others who do not have hope (1 Thess. 4:13) - For now we have the promises, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit (2 Cor. 7:1). The word about your hope (1 Pet. 3:15) is what I ask of God. Where I am, my servant also will be (John 12:26) - with Me on My throne (Rev. 3:21); We will be caught up in the clouds... we will be with the Lord (1 Thess. 4:17) - this is our hope! Take away from everyone from visible things what he loves most: ask or take away money from the money-loving person, sweet food from the satiated person, some of his advantages from the ambitious and proud, call him by a bad name - and you will see what constitutes everyone’s hope, what treasure he has, what passion! Oh, what shameful passions one sometimes encounters! Sometimes a person becomes attached with unclean love to a person of the other sex, breathes, feeds on him, so to speak. Oh, shameful hope! O vile heart that has departed from the Lord! O man who has strengthened his carnal, weak muscle on an insignificant person like himself! I'll show you who you need to love! “Your hearts are aggravated by gluttony and drunkenness!” I will show you who should fill your hearts! - Lover of money! I will show you from whom to buy kindled silver; passionate about entertainment, about honors - seek the honors of a high title; before your clothes - in a robe of white (righteousness) and put on (Rev. 3:18; cf. Ps. 131:9). – Sins that are contrary to hope: despair, despondency, self-conceit. Punishment for sin and peace of conscience after repentance clearly prove that there is one Judge, Life-Giver and our God, who can save and destroy us, who gave us life and the laws of life and punishes for violating them - and that He is unchangeable. The soul is called by St. the prophet David with his eye (my eye is troubled (Ps. 6:8, 30:10)), hearing, tongue, hand, leg or feet (do not let your foot be troubled (Ps. 120:3); my tongue will rejoice in Your righteousness (Ps. 50:16)). – The eye of the soul does not close even at night. Captivate me, Master, into the sweet captivity of Your Holy Spirit, so that, like streams in the south (Ps. 125:4), my words will flow to Your glory and to the salvation of Your people. Grant me this sweet and powerful inner urge to express freely on the charter half the sweat of spiritual visions and feelings. Let my tongue be like the reed of a scribe (Ps. 44:2) - the All-Holy Spirit. Feeling poverty, crying about the existence of evil, a thirst for salvation are found in every straight and humble soul. The ringing of bells is a call for children to have a conversation with God with the Father, a call to appear before Him. What do we love more than anything in the world? Life and health. Who is our life and health? Jesus Christ. Therefore, if you want to be alive, and eternally alive and blessed, believe in Jesus Christ and please Him by living according to His Gospel. Love is God. If you love God, God abides in you, and you in God (cf. 1 John 4:16). Evil is the devil. For a moment you become angry with your neighbor - and the demon in you will enter like a needle and try to become a mountain in you - so it expands and so heavy it is! And so constantly love God and your neighbor. Do not allow anger to reach your heart even for a moment, considering it a demonic dream. - Amen. Love is patient and merciful (1 Cor. 13:4), but anger is impatient, quick to anger, and exacting. Anger is quick to retaliate, but love is quick to indulge and forgive. Love looks at its own shortcomings and is reluctant to notice them in others; malice is alert to the slightest shortcomings of its neighbor and blind to its own great shortcomings. We see knots in our neighbors, but we don’t see logs in ourselves; and this is often and very often, despite internal admonitions from God. Fear malice like fire; Do not allow it to reach your heart for any plausible pretext, especially because of something unpleasant to you: malice is always malice, always a fiend of the devil. Malice sometimes comes into the heart under the pretext of zeal for the glory of God, or for the good of others; Do not believe your jealousy in this case: it is a lie or jealousy not according to reason; be jealous that there is no malice in you. God is glorified in nothing so much as through love that endures everything, and in nothing is he dishonored and insulted so much as through malice, no matter how it is covered up by appearances. Under the guise of caring for the poor, Judas, hiding his anger at his Lord, betrayed Him for 30 pieces of silver. Remember that the enemy is vigilantly seeking your destruction and attacks you when you least expect him. His anger is endless. Do not be bound by pride and lust, lest they conveniently captivate you. Vog is inexhaustible for people in His gifts. For 7370 years 44 He has abundantly nourished all creatures. Contentment and joy are visible everywhere, only the greedy rich people grab too much into their hands and hold back in their treasures the gifts of God, which could abundantly feed hundreds and thousands of poor people. - Human! Believe firmly in the inexhaustibility of God in His gifts and willingly crush your bread to those who are hungry (Isa. 58:7); The more you give, the more God will send you. This is God’s law: if you measure according to the measure, it will be measured back to you (cf. Matt. 7:2). Learn to remember and pronounce the name of God always with great faith, reverence, love and a grateful heart. Never say it lightly. Speak and do all the truth without doubt, boldly, firmly, decisively. Avoid doubt, timidity, lethargy and indecisiveness. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love (2 Tim. 1:7; Rom. 8:15). Our Lord is the Lord of hosts. Breathe with faith (certainty in God’s truth), trust in God and love for God and neighbor. How can this be helped? Disbelief in the strength of everything earthly; lack of trust in earthly goods - food, drink, money, wealth, earthly connections; dislike, indifference to everything earthly, perishable, not to cling to anything with your heart, not to have attachment to anything. Be wise above, not on earth (Col. 3:2). God is love, and I am the image of God, which means I must be all love. God is the simplest good, alien to any shadow of evil. I am the image of God: that means I must also be completely good, without even a shadow of evil. - If the enemy bothers you with food or drink, tell him: here is my food and drink - the Body and Blood of my Lord, they are inalienable from me; As long as I am a priest, I can receive them every week, and for the most part several times a week. In addition, if I seek within myself the kingdom of God by trusting in Him, my Lord, then everything on earth that is necessary for me will be added, according to the scripture: seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness: and all these things will be added to you (Matthew 6:33). My God is faithful. Everything is God for me. These words are rooted deeply by reflection. Don’t be embittered by anything, conquer everything with love: all sorts of insults, whims, all kinds of family troubles. – Know nothing but love. Always blame yourself sincerely, admitting that you are the culprit of the troubles. Say: I am guilty, I am a sinner. Remember that just as you are weak, so is your neighbor, and weakness for weakness is destroyed, and there is nothing to blame for the weak and sinners if they admit their weakness. The devil, strong in evil, must be blamed. The Heavenly Father cares so much about me, about my life, about my salvation, that He did not spare His only begotten Son for me and sent Him into the world to suffer and die, and feeds me with His flesh and blood; Could it be that He did not take care of me in less important matters, or deprived me and my companions of sufficient food? – This has not happened before, and will not happen. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all this will be added to you (Matthew 6:33)... For you, all the chief hairs are numbered. Do not be afraid (Matthew 10:30–31). My life is the infinite Lord, the Almighty; I'm completely immersed in this life. Who is above all, and in all, and through us all (Eph. 4:6). I am always before the face of God, I am always in God and He is in me. Will I rely on food and drink, on money, on a person? Will I be blind then? Truly God is my hope, He is everything to me. We must remember more often the words of Savior: unless you humble yourself and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 18:3-4), and the Apostle: like newborn babies, you will love verbal and unflattering milk, so that through it (them) you will grow into salvation (1 Pet. 2:2), (unflattering - undeceptive, unfeigned, true). Be especially meek and patient in illness and in various unfavorable circumstances: for then we are especially prone to irritability, pampered by contentment, health, happiness and peace. The happy ones among us are those who have no attachments to anything, because they are not bound by stinginess. When you pray, always remember that you are talking with God, the Father of generosity and all consolation, unchangeable, never tired of our petitions, and Who is always infinitely good, wise, omnipotent, Whose infinite goodness, wisdom and omnipotence is always so convenient to fulfill your requests, as it is easy for you to think about them and sincerely wish them, as it is easy to pronounce the words of petitions, and even endlessly easier. Remember this and never lose heart in prayer. Abraham My servant will pray, - Job My servant... Moses... Samuel... Elijah (Job 42:8; fn. Gen. 20:7, 17; Jer. 15:1; 1 Kings 18:36; Ps. 99:6). The prayers of the saints for us are pleasing to the Lord, as faithful servants of God. The devil constantly lies in our hearts against God, especially against His omnipresence: forget God, turn away Your face; for justice: he will not demand (Ps. 9:25, 32, 34); to being: there is no God (Ps. 13:1). For this reason, God wants us to always turn to Him in prayer, so that we, who have become wild with sin and His children moving away from Him, can be drawn to Himself, cleansed and embraced in the arms of His love, in order to show us how He always has good for us. This is what good parents do with their evil children. When you hear what God says, imagine His word as a deed, either accomplished, or being accomplished, or about to be accomplished. Saturation - deprivation of faith, heartfelt tenderness and prayer, cold insensibility, powerlessness of the heart for any spiritual work, nakedness from grace, a source of pride, loss of humility, rejection of heavenly help, a source of blasphemy against God and the saints, an insatiable thirst for great things, dissatisfaction with what you have - deceitfulness of the heart: let me not be satisfied, I will lie. – If you asked: why are there so many people who are unbelievers, who do not pray, who do not live Christianly, and who are given over to all sorts of vices? – The answer is ready: from serving the belly-god. Prayer is living water with which the soul quenches its thirst. When you pray, then imagine that there was only one God before you, the Trinity in Persons, and besides Him there was nothing. Imagine that God is in the world, like a soul in a body, although infinitely higher than it and not limited to it; - your body is small, and everything penetrates it, your soul is small, but the world is great. God is infinitely great, and throughout all creation God fills everything - He is everywhere and fulfills everything 45. What does the appearance of three strangers to Abraham mean? It means that the Lord, the Trinity in Persons, constantly, as it were, wanders on earth and supervises everything that is done on it, and He Himself comes to His servants who are vigilant, attentive to themselves and their salvation and those who seek Him, stays with them and talks with them as with friends: we will come to him and make our abode with him (John 14:23); - and wicked people are burned with fire. The Lord is so merciful that He never disdains our prayer, but graciously accepts it and corrects what is imperfect, as long as we turn to Him sincerely and do not forget Him. We, preachers, only need to help God’s actions on human hearts, catch their ready dispositions to repentance and strengthen them. The Word of God is the same as God Himself. Therefore believe without doubt every word of the Lord; the word of God is deed: and your word must be deed; therefore, having given your word, be sure to fulfill it; therefore, in prayer, our words should be action and truth, and not lies, not pretense, not flattery. So it is in all life. High is the dignity of man as the image of God. Why can a person who has living faith perform all sorts of miracles and be, in some way, a god for nature? - Because he is the image of God, because through faith there is one spirit with the Lord. Why did God send His Son as the Savior of the world and give Him to die for the sins of people? – Because people are the image of God. Why such unspeakable promises to people, and such blessings, which no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no one has ever sighed in the heart (1 Cor. 2:9)? - Because they are the image of God. What should be our respect for people? What should be the hope of Christians? - Friends of my God! - Be wise on high (Col. 3:2). Jesus looked at Peter, and (Peter) went away weeping bitterly (Luke 22:61–62). And now, when Jesus looks at us, we weep bitterly for our sins. Yes, our tears in prayer mean that the Lord has looked upon us with His all-reviving gaze, searching our hearts and wombs. Oh! How sometimes our soul becomes entangled in various sins, like a bird in a net! Sometimes you don’t see a way out of your sins, and they torment you: sometimes your heart feels terribly sad because of them; but Jesus will look: and streams of tears will flow, and with tears, all the tangle of evil in the soul will turn into nothing: and you cry and rejoice that such mercy has suddenly been unexpectedly sent to you; and what warmth there is in the heart, and how easy it is: I would have flown away then to the Lord God Himself! I thank the Lord with all my heart, who cleanses all my iniquities! Our soul is called a soul because it breathes the Spirit of God, that is, it is so called from the life-giving Spirit. Jesus Christ, distributing food, first looked at the sky, thanked, blessed, then broke it and served it. The Apostle Paul is also on the ship. So we should thank God for food and drink and for all material blessings, but especially spiritual ones. The Holy Spirit is the Treasure of all goods or spiritual wealth. Look how wonderfully rich the souls were, in which the Spirit of God dwelt, with what light of knowledge, with what fragrance of virtues! The soul of a righteous man becomes a rich spiritual treasury; eg. Paul, Peter, John the Apostles, Chrysostom, Basil led. Gregory the Theologian. A good man brings forth good things from the good treasure of his heart (Luke 6:45). This is where the true treasure is. It is not at all what the world values. If you want to see Christian hope in all its greatness: read church prayers, observe Christian worship, especially Sunday and holiday services. There you will see the endless wealth of benefits promised to believers. A spiritual man plunges his mind and heart into God and in Him finds a treasure of knowledge and wisdom, truth, peace and joy about the Holy Spirit, and a carnal man plunges into an adulterous and sinful world, or into material nature, not seeing God in it, and in it he seeks food for his earthly myopic mind, his self-love and pride. About the meaning of the heart in hope. Blessed are those who are pure in heart (Matthew 5:8). Cleanse your heart and hope to unite with God for endless ages. In prayer, we must strive most of all for the fervor of the spirit, the fervor and sincerity of repentance for sins. Ananias, Azariah and Misail, the prophet Daniel (before the appearance of the Archangel). A prudent robber. The priest is a servant of God, invested with His authority and power (in repentance); power of the cross priestly blessing. Sincere Christians always pray, because we always sin; constant thanksgiving, because every day, every minute we receive new mercies of God, and there are countless old ones; constant doxology, because we always see the glory of the works of our God in us and in the world, especially the glory of His endless love for us. In the most sorrowful, joyless moments, the Lord is with us. I am with him in sorrow (Ps. 90:15). But we think that no, that God has abandoned us. Oh, the unspeakable power of our God over our hearts! A mother cannot completely attract our hearts into her love, but the Lord attracts us with holy mysteries and prayer. In good deeds there is hope for reward: your reward is much in heaven (Matthew 5:12)... Let us not be discouraged when we do good, for in our season we will reap (Gal. 6:9)... there is prepared for me a crown of righteousness (2 Tim. 4:8). May Thy mercy be upon us, O Lord, as we trust in Thee (Ps. 32:22). Respect yourself as the image of God; remember that this image is spiritual, and be zealous about fulfilling the commandments of God, which restore the likeness of God in you. Be extremely careful not to violate the slightest commandment of God; this violation destroys the likeness of God in us and brings us closer to the likeness of the devil. The more you break God’s commandments, the more you will become like the devil. Learn to suppress your passions by the power of the name of the Lord and your will, at a time when you suffer most from an impulse of pride, when you are ready to smash and break everyone and everything. I have a Teacher who gives me life: every word of Him is a word of life and, therefore, truth. I believe in Him in everything, but I don’t believe everything that I hear that is contrary to His word—in my thoughts and in my heart, or from people—and consider it to be a lie, death to the soul. The All-Holy Spirit, by the grace of the Father, revives all creation, heavenly and earthly. Everything material, we see, is smoldering, starting with food and clothing; Sins, we all notice, also corrupt souls and bodies. This should revive in us the hope of the imperishable, the everlasting. You who eat sweets, you who boast of clothes, houses, wealth - what are you doing? Playing with soap bubbles. Everything that breathes breathes air and cannot live without air; all rationally free beings live by the Holy Spirit, as if by air, and cannot live without Him. Every soul is alive by the Holy Spirit 46. Know that the Holy Spirit is in the same relationship to your soul as air is to your body. At night, our soul is free from the vanity of the world, and therefore the spiritual world can freely act on it, and it can freely receive its impressions, so that the thoughts and dispositions of a person’s heart are good thoughts and dispositions, if the person is righteous; and vain, evil thoughts and dispositions, if he is an unrepentant sinner. The miraculous image of the Savior is the Lord Himself on it. I cry bitterly and as if involuntarily; By the grace that pours out upon me abundantly from Him, I shed streams of tears that cleanse my soul from sins and bring peace and joy to my heart. The devil has a habit of attacking us in difficult circumstances. If any thought is life for the heart, then it is true; if it is languor, death of the heart, then it is a lie. Our Lord is peace and life - and rests in peace and life in our hearts. A Christian who awaits eternal peace and joy in heaven, should not in this life generously and joyfully endure all sorrows, labors, illnesses and untruths, all torments, all kinds of troubles? Truly. Otherwise, what will future repose mean? What rest is there for him who rested here without enduring anything? Where will God's truth be? – Through many sorrows it is fitting for us to enter the kingdom of God (Acts 14:22). The nature of our earthly life is a constant expectation of God’s call from this life to the next. We are not our own, we are God’s servants, as the Church beautifully calls us, and slaves should expect from hour to hour that the Lord is about to call. Push: and go. Yes, the one who pushed the door will be opened to him (Luke 12:36). What about us? Yes, we have completely forgotten that we are God’s servants, we think that we are our own, and we arrange our lives not according to God’s commandments, but according to our will: how we want to live, so we live. And that is why our life is filled with countless sins. Look at human life, and you will see that everything in it is vanity of vanities, all kinds of vanity (Eccl. 1:2): fashions, theaters, cards, evenings, masquerades, albums, magnificent furniture, etc., etc. - all on yourself, but not on your neighbor, like no: go naked, die of cold and hunger. Contempt for creation also applies to the Creator; so don’t you dare say these and similar words: I don’t like this man’s face, although he may be a good person. This is the devil’s hatred of God’s creation, the devil’s desecration. Remember that every person is the image of God and all his glory is within, in the heart. Man looks at the face, but God looks at the heart. Remind yourself more often that evil is in you, and not in people. With such a completely true conviction, you will protect yourself from many sins and passions. Our trouble is often that we attribute our evil to others. The saints of God are great merchants, enriched with all spiritual treasures, all virtues - meekness, humility, self-control, patience, rich faith, hope and love. That is why we ask their holy prayers, as rich beggars, so that they help us in our spiritual poverty, so that they teach us to pray and succeed in Christian virtues, so that they, as those who have boldness before God, pray for the remission of our sins, and protect us from new ones. We go to earthly merchants in their shops to buy their goods: how can we not turn to heavenly merchants with fervent prayer, as if in silver and gold, how can we not buy from them their intercession for us before God, forgiveness of sins and various Christian virtues! It seems very natural. Why do you need to thank God and good charitable people for everything? More for our own benefit: so that the feelings of our soul are gentler, more subtle, the feeling of our dependence in everything on God and on good people, grateful love for them, and the feeling of our insignificance without God, the feeling of our weakness to do without the help of good people. When reprimanding subordinates for their faults, carefully refrain from zeal, irritability and embarrassment, and be meek, loving, sedate and calm. If the person subject to correction is offended, meekly notice to him that you do not at all have the intention of offending and irritating him, but sincerely wish him good and order in his business, that it is not him that disgusts you, but the disorder that he creates. Do not insult his pride and human dignity by elevating yourself in his eyes and humiliating him; if you have this weakness (pride), it is better to stop correcting others and heal yourself first: first take the plank out of your spiritual eye, and then see to take the mote out of your brother’s spiritual eye (Matthew 7:5). Otherwise, you will only irritate your neighbor and will not bring him any moral benefit. Be meek and condescending to others when making comments about their shortcomings, remembering that you yourself have shortcomings, and great shortcomings. You accuse another, let’s say, of drunkenness, but if you yourself drink, or if you don’t drink, you feast on food, indulge in gluttony, become satiated, because you sin, just like him. Correct yourself from gluttony and then you will speak strongly against the drunkenness of others. You accuse another of negligence in service, and perhaps you yourself are also negligent. Tell the doctor to heal yourself (Luke 4:23). Do not have malice in your heart against anyone, for any reason, do not despise anyone for any reason. Be diligent in loving one another; for love covers a multitude of sins (1 Pet. 4:8). If you encounter inattention and disregard for yourself from any stranger, do not be offended, do not be offended by this, but tell yourself: I am worthy of it; Glory to Thee, Lord, for Thou hast vouchsafed me, because of my deeds, to receive dishonor from fellow men like me. Always declare love for everyone, especially your own, sincerely, diligently, whole-heartedly, loudly, and not coldly and sluggishly, lazily, feignedly, reluctantly, in a low voice. Don’t eat until you’re full, don’t sleep until you’re full, work with zeal, pray with all your heart; Be obedient to your parents and bosses from the heart, be kind to everyone, be pleased with everyone, and you will be satisfied with yourself, healthy and happy. The life of a Christian should be constant attention to himself, that is, to his heart, because every minute invisible enemies are ready to devour us; Every minute evil boils in them against us. You, who so much in this life avoid the suffering of the body and the sorrows of the soul, who so cherish your flesh and please your soul, that you do not care about avoiding the eternal fire, a thousand times more fierce than the earthly elemental fire? Why don't you try to avoid eternal sorrows? Poor people, please contact us. To her! It will be unbearable. Is it not for the beauty of your home, like beautiful furniture, like decoration, that you hang rich and picturesque icons in your house, without treating them with heartfelt faith, love and reverence, as if they were a shrine? Ask your heart, is this true? Icons in a house or in a church are not for show, but for prayer, for veneration, for edification. The faces of saints should be our home and church teachers. Read their lives and seal them on your heart, and try to conform to their lives. Love your neighbor as you love yourself (Mark 12:31). Everything should be common to us, like the sun, air, fire, water, earth, common to all of us; food, money, books and, in general, all the gifts of the Lord, given in common to everyone and readily shared, should also be a common part. For we have nothing of our own, but everything is God’s. And it is unfair that rich people keep their surpluses in their treasuries, while there are many poor people in need of necessary food and necessary clothing and housing. However, to industriousness the surplus justly belongs, and the idle justly suffer poverty and misery. Therefore, if we know about some that they are poor from idleness and laziness, we should not give away from our labor surpluses to such people. If anyone does not want to do it, says St. Apostle Paul, below and eat (2 Thess. 3:10). But in the case of glaring poverty, which comes from old age and exhaustion, from illness, from fruitless or little-rewarded labor, from a truly difficult situation, from a large family, from a failed grain harvest, one must always rush to the aid, especially of rich people. We must be guided by the history of the apostolic times, by the example of the primacy of the Church. With the words in your heart: all things are possible to him who believes (Mark 9:23), strive for everything that is good and praiseworthy. Always have faith, no matter what good deed you intend to do. Preserve in every possible way the simplicity of your heart, the simplicity of faith, hope and love, meekness, humility, and kindness. Every good thing comes from God, and God is every good thing for us: here is the simplicity of faith, hope and love! We must lay down our lives for the Lord and our neighbor, and not spare it, but we even spare food, drink, clothing, housing, money, books and other things - this earthly dust. Our crafty and evil flesh seeks the slightest pretext for pride, greed, and seizure. What a wonderful, calm, safe thing it is to leave the sins of those who sin against us or those who offend us! Forgave: and calm. Were you hurt? So what? This is how you should cause grief to your carnal, old man: self-loving, proud, irritable, envious, lazy, stingy, who causes so many offenses to God. It is good that he is measured at least somewhat from people with the same thing with which he measures to God. It is not the sun that shines, the Lord shines with His incomparable kindness, with His ineffable light. If He gave so much light to the sun, then of course He Himself has infinitely more of it; if he gave so much light to the sun, then in the next century he will certainly give incomparably more light to the righteous, and this sun is insignificant in comparison with the rational soul of man. So, if a substance, a created light, shines dazzlingly, then how does the original, true, uncreated Light God Himself shine! – Analogy of the material world (from the sun to the blade of grass) with the spiritual world. When your brother sins against you in some way, for example. will slander you, or maliciously convey your words to another in a distorted form, and slander you, do not be embittered at him, but look for the good sides in him, which undoubtedly exist in every person, and dwell on them with love, despising the evil he has woven against you, like dirt, not worth attention, like a demonic dream. Thus, gold miners do not pay attention to the abundance of sand and dirt in the golden sand, but stop at the golden grains of sand, and although there are very few of them, they value the little and wash it out of the abundance of unsuitable sand. God does the same with us, patiently purifying us. He who knew no sin (it is said about Christ) commit sin for us, so that we may be the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. 5:21). “After this, will you be ashamed to admit to any sin, or to accept the accusation of a sin you did not commit?” If the Son of God Himself was guilty of sin according to us, although He was sinless, then you must also accept the accusation of all sins with meekness and love, for you are truly sinful of all sins. But if you are not a sinner, accept the accusation with humility. Be bold and resolute for every good thing, especially for words of affection, tenderness, participation, and even more so for deeds of compassion and mutual help. Consider despondency, despair, in any good deed, as a dream. I can do all things, speak of Jesus who strengthens me (Phil. 4:13), although I am the chief of sinners. All things are possible to the believer (Mark 9:23). It is necessary that the words be indelibly inscribed on our hearts: love your neighbor as you love yourself (Mark 12:31), and that they always serve as a guide for the heart when meeting a neighbor anywhere and at any time: whether he will come to us, whether we will come to him, whether what work needs to be done for him, whether to give him what he needs, when talking with him. So, carry in your heart the words: love as you love yourself and constantly wage a mental war for the observance of these living words of our Lord. Force yourself to mutual love, deliberately disturb, disturb, torment the worm of pride and malice hiding inside, crucify it, defeat it in the power of the fortress (cf. Eph. 6:10) of our Lord Jesus Christ. When you pray for the repose of the soul of the deceased, force yourself to pray for it with all your soul, remembering that this is your essential duty, and not that of the priest and cleric alone. Imagine how much the deceased needs peace and how he needs the prayer of the living for him, being a member of the single body of the Church - how demons dispute his soul with the Angels and how it trembles, not knowing what fate will befall it forever. The prayer of faith and love for the deceased means a lot before the Lord. Imagine also how necessary peace is for you when you are bound captive by the Falls, and how earnestly, with what sincerity, fervor, strength, you pray to the Lord and the Most Pure Mother of God, and how you rejoice and triumph when, after fervent prayer, you receive deliverance from sins and peace of mind. Apply this to the soul of the deceased: his soul also needs prayer - now yours, because it itself cannot pray fruitfully; and his soul needs peace, which you can ask for for him with warm prayer, with charity in favor of his soul, and especially with the offering of a bloodless sacrifice for him. Drunkards, adulterers, gluttons, thieves, molesters, lazy, idle, gamblers, theatergoers, dancers, idle talkers, scoffers, tell me: why did the Son of God come down from heaven, preached the Gospel of the kingdom, performed countless miracles, suffered, died and rose again, and sent apostles throughout the world to preach about the kingdom? Tell me why? Is it so that you overeat, drink, commit fornication, steal, bear false witness, spend your time in idleness, idle talk, cards, theaters, dancing, gossip? Oh, how dearly you will pay for your anti-gospel life if you do not repent and correct yourself! In defeating evil with good, the priests of the Lord should be especially skilled, as they rest on the law of God, as they know countless examples of the kindness of the saints of God: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Noah, David, Moses, Samuel, especially the God-man Jesus Christ, Who is our purest image; the apostles Peter, Paul, James, John, etc., the first martyr and archdeacon Stephen, etc., as often strengthened in the sacrament of communion from the very Source of goodness of the Lord Jesus Christ, as teaching others to overcome evil with good (Rom. 12:21). From a priest, if he has not learned meekness, humility and gentleness, and has not learned to overcome evil with good, he will be exacted more strictly than from a layman: for the priest is raised to heaven by the mysteries of God and has received great powers for piety. If he acts dishonestly, then he dooms himself to eternal fire through his unrepentance, imprudence and incorrigibility. Lord, forgive me my sins and teach me to do Your will. Priests should not be soft to the point of indulging sins and passions where it comes to eradicating passions and bad habits - they should act boldly and persistently, without fear of the malice of others and completely despising it, although in this case their actions should be of the nature of meekness and love and a sincere desire to correct their neighbor. If nothing affects him, then do not pay attention to his anger and whims and do his job with firmness, without being indignant at the antics of anger. It’s a bad world with sinners who turn every good remark, every request into a bad side, and want to see only attacks of malice in everything. Not seeing the light themselves, they think that others are blind too; being evil themselves, they do not want to see good in others. When someone, out of his kindness, praises you to some people, and they pass on praises from your neighbor to you: do not consider them a due, fair tribute to yourself, but attribute them solely to the kindness of this person’s heart and pray for him, so that the Lord will confirm him in a good heart and in all virtues, and recognize yourself as the greatest sinner, not out of humility only, but in the very essence of the matter, as someone who knows his bad deeds well. May the infinite love and mercy of the Master triumph, as a result of our sincere recognition and confession of sins, and may the sinful flattery of the devil, who teaches us to hide our sins and not confess to them, be put to shame in the end; May all the networks and connections of the devil be dissolved through repentance, like a cobweb. The devil wants us to hide our sins, and the more conveniently and more in the darkness we indulge in them; and here too we will destroy his machinations, we will confess our sins, so that we and everyone else can see what abomination we are indulging in or have indulged in, and so that the more conveniently, based on the awareness of the abomination, we can correct ourselves in it. Verb, it is said, your iniquities, and do not remain silent about them, so that you may be justified (cf. Isa. 43:26). Say: I have nothing of my own, everything is God’s. Ours is the dream of our sinful flesh. Everything is common - these are the words of a renewed man! - Byahu is all common to them, and not a single verb said that it was his own (Acts 4:32). God! Yours is dati mi this. Brethren! get ready to unite with God: give up earthly vanity. Engage in the great work of self-purification and self-improvement. Love the progress of faith and virtue, and not the progress of this age. We are preparing on earth to see the Artist of every creature, visible and invisible, the Beauty of everything - there in eternity. For the pupils. “You are my children, for I gave birth to you and am giving birth to you with the gospel of Christ Jesus; my spiritual blood - my instructions flow in your veins; I have given you to drink and drink, as if from a mother’s breasts, with the milk of words. You are my children, because I always have you in my heart and pray for you. You are my children because you are my spiritual children. You are my children, because I am truly like a priest, a father, and you call me father. Children! This word is very, very disliked by the devil, the culprit of dislike, malice and hypocrisy, but I, who help God, will not obey him for a minute, and I will especially call you as children, for you are truly children by faith, by the Church of God and by the instructions and paternal guidance received from me. You can say sincerely to strangers’ children: children, only with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth and love. Where you expect strong temptations from the enemy, arm yourself firmly with all the weapons of God, namely, faith, hope and love. Keep in your heart the words: all things are possible to him who believes (Mark 9:23), and abound in the hope of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 15:13). I do not doubt or despair about anything good, although you, my enemy, are trying to sow doubt and despair in me regarding every good thing, especially the supreme good - love. The God of love himself is with me - the God for whom we are all children. I bear the image of this Father unworthy. Your essence and you gave them to Me (John 17:6, 9). Those who do not read the Gospels. – Are you pure, holy and perfect, without reading the Gospel, and you don’t need to look into this mirror? Or are you very ugly mentally and are afraid of your ugliness? Come to Him and be enlightened: and your faces will not be ashamed (Ps. 33:6). Don’t worry about money: if you need it, God will pour it out to you like manna, or bring it to you like quails. For the earth and its fullness are the Lord's, the universe and all who live on it (Ps. 23:1). Seek first the kingdom of God, the salvation of people, their confirmation in the faith, the correction of their morals; affirm your faith, purify your heart, conscientiously fulfill your rank, carefully correct all your duties and everything - money, food, clothing, etc. will be added to you. O Trinity, our God! simple Being, who created our soul in Your image, so that in You we have our life and peace! O Trinity, our Nourisher and Hope! Give us in You alone to always place our hope, in You alone to find life and peace. About the Trinity! You, like a mother, carry us all in Your arms, and You feed us all from Your hands, like the most tender mother! You will never forget us: for You Yourself said: even if a wife (mother) forgets someone, I will not forget you (Is. 49:15), that is, to nourish, preserve, protect, deliver and save. You Yourself also said: the imam will not depart from you, the imam will leave you below (Heb. 13:5). Why do we worry about food, why are we greedy, satiated, and regaled? Why do we feel sorry for our neighbors? O damnation! oh blindness! Oh dirty pride! O dislike for God and neighbor! After all, God is in our neighbor—and we begrudge God Himself His gifts. Remember how generously the spirit-bearing prophet Elisha rewarded the Somanite woman, who received him with all her heart into her home and sincerely entertained him! He asked God the Son for her, and then, when the son died, he resurrected him. Our life is vain, that is, in vain, in vain, in vain, for nothing, the days of our life are wasted for eternity; We think little about earthly, everyday worries; we think little about eternity. We do not imagine the future of the Last Judgment, the future of torment and the future of bliss, the end of those who do not have it. We all live in some kind of spiritual fog; the flesh and carnal passions have overcome everyone; the spirit is oppressed, crushed, strangled. But behold, the Bridegroom of our souls comes at midnight, and blessed is His servant who will find him vigilant, but he is not worthy again, but he who will be found when he is despondent from the cares of this world. Take care, my soul, not to be burdened with sleep, lest you be given over to death and the kingdom be shut out, but arise, calling: holy, holy, holy art thou God, through the Mother of God have mercy on us 47 . Believe that the prayer of one friend of God, especially a holy priest of God, can work miracles in a significant part of nature, like the prayer of the prophets Moses, Elijah, etc. Live especially God-pleasing, you are a priest of God: be holy, pure, meek, humble, merciful, self-controlled, hardworking, patient, and your prayer will always penetrate heaven and will be heard and fulfilled. Always pray with all your heart, and most importantly, with a pure heart. The angel was given a lot of incense, so that he would give the prayers of all the saints to the golden altar that exists before the throne. And incense smoke came out through the prayers of the saints from the hand of an angel before God (Rev. 8:3–4). And this incense was given to you. The censer with incense should constantly remind you of this, that is, the convenience and acceptability by God of the prayers you send for yourself and about human ignorance (Heb. 9:7) and the falls. You give glory to God with words, but you don’t give it with deeds. Glorify God more through deeds: abstinence, hard work, love, mercy, humility and patience. Do not doubt any truth; You of little faith, why did you doubt (Matthew 14:31)? The trouble comes from our doubt and conceit. The sacrament of consecration of oil is spiritual honey, life-giving drink. What a wealth of hope! What prayers! An extract of the entire Gospel. How little is needed for a person, and how abundantly the Lord gives us His gifts for the nourishment and drink of our brethren. We give one ladle from the river, and that is God’s - not ours. And with all this, we are stingy, we huddle, we shake, we become embarrassed, as if we were in danger of being deprived of our lives. O lack of Christians! O vain, blind hope for food and drink! O deceit of the flesh! O lack of Christian simplicity! He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me and I in him (John 6:56). Just as a baby carried in the womb lives entirely by it, so a Christian, partaking of the body and blood of Christ, abiding in Christ, like a baby in the womb, lives entirely by Jesus Christ. As I live for the Father’s sake, and he who eats Me, will also live for My sake (John 6:57). Clear. What else do you trust in, besides your Christ, a communicant of God’s Mysteries, and especially you, a priest? What are you clinging to? Where else are you looking for your life? Was it the money that drove Judas to the point of being strangled? Is it in food and drink? But here is your incorruptible food - the body of Christ, which you so often receive. Whatever I have in heaven and whatever I desire on earth from You, O God of my heart (Ps. 73:25–26). The anger of the enemy. The more pious someone is, the more the devil forces us to become embittered, like Saul against the pious David; whoever is more holy, brings great blasphemy against him, like Pope. to the Most Honest of the Cherubim and the Most Glorious without comparison of the Seraphim; Induces one to rise above the simple-hearted, despises the simplicity of their faith and even the very objects of their faith and reverent worship. The Word of God says: do not get drunk with wine (Eph. 5:18), but you, tavern tabernacle workers, say: get drunk with wine, and you have set up darkness for the taverns to seduce your brethren. And also go to church, sing and pray at home, with your tongues flattering. God judge them, let them fall away from their thoughts, because of the multitude of their wickedness, I will rid them of them, for I have grieved You greatly, O Lord (Ps. 5:10-11)! Everything is good for me and the Lord is in me; I myself am a moral nothing, and moreover evil, as my Lord says: without Me you can do nothing (John 15:5) (the Lord says this to every saint). But if the Lord is all that is good for me and in me, then it is also in the saints, for they are people like me. Eg. the saints pray for us according to the grace given to them by God (Apocalypse). If the Lord had not given them the grace to pray for us, they would not have been able to do this. Undoubted faith, undoubted hope, undoubted love. Root these words in your heart and show them in your life. Be one in this world, in mutual love and service, with everyone; and with you will be one - all the Angels and holy men, and God Himself, both here, and even more so there - in the future age, when God will be all in all (1 Cor. 15:28). Achieve, man, unity: avoid spiritual division in every possible way through self-love, pride, envy, love of money, doubt, and lack of faith. That they all may be one, as You are the Father in Me, and I am in You, that they also may be one in Us (John 17:21). Unity is God. Division of the devil. The division of churches is the work of the devil; heresies and schisms are the work of the devil. If you greedily eat and drink a lot, you will be flesh, and if you fast and pray, you will be spirit. Do not get drunk with wine, but rather be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18; cf. 1 Thess. 5:6–8). Fast and pray, and you will accomplish great things. A well-fed person is not capable of great things. Have simplicity of faith and you will accomplish great things: for all things are possible to him who believes (Mark 9:23). Have diligence and diligence, and you will accomplish great things. If there is joy in heaven for a single sinner who repents (Luke 15:7, 10), then what a joyful time for the good Angels of God is our Great Lent, and in particular the days of repentance and communion: Friday and Saturday? – And how much the priests contribute to this joy, carefully and fatherly confessing their spiritual children! But on the other hand, for demons there is no sadder time than the time of fasting, because they become fierce with special force during fasting and with special cruelty they attack priests who promote sincere repentance for the sins of the people of God, and with special force they attack pious Christians in church and at home who are zealous for prayer, fasting and repentance. Which of the pious priests and laity does not know the demonic rage directed at them during the very performance of the mysteries of repentance? - The slightest oversight on the part of the priest-confessor, the slightest unrighteous movement of the heart, and they, with all their demonic cruelty, enter the heart of the priest and torment him for a long, long time, if he, with the most fervent prayer of repentance and living faith, does not soon drive them out, the uninvited guests. The fast of Moses was for the intemperance of the Israelites. The suffering of the saints for our effeminacy; their fasts and deprivations are for our intemperance and luxury; their prayers are fervent - for us who are lazy to pray. The fast of our Lord Jesus Christ is for our intemperance. The stretching out of His hands on the cross is for our stretching out our hands to the forbidden tree and to everything prohibited by the commandments of God. The sanity of our prayers for others is to justify those for whom we pray; the responsibility of our deeds and virtues for others, for example. prayers and alms for the dead and for the living. Thus, Augustine’s mother’s prayers with tears for her son saved Augustine. When confessing, do not feel sorry for yourself, do not rush, do not get excited, do not be angry with the children who come. Tell yourself: it is my pleasure to confess in detail my spiritual children, the sheep of my Lord. By this I make a most pleasant sacrifice to my Lord, who laid down His soul for us, and I bring great benefit to the spiritual children themselves, and to myself, because I voluntarily perform my important work and have a calm conscience. Why did the Almighty create the world not suddenly, but in six days? In order to teach a person to do his work gradually, slowly, with reflection. If you pray, pray slowly; do you read eg. Read the Gospel, or generally sacred books, or secular ones, slowly, with reflection and a true view of things; If you are teaching a lesson, do not rush to finish it as soon as possible, but go into it thoroughly and discuss it; What other work will you do? Do it slowly, with reasoning, and calmly. And the world was not created instantly, but in six days. The Lord shows us an example in everything, so let us follow His footsteps. The character of people of the 19th century, the second half - self-adoration, self-law (autonomy), materialism in life and spiritual skepticism (unbelief). I promised you the life of angels, the bosom of Abraham, enlightenment like the sun, and you despised My promises, the words of My mouth, in which there was no lie forever. Why will people give an answer for every idle word on the day of judgment (cf. Matt. 12:36)? Because every idle word brings harm both to the soul of the idle talker and to those who listen to his idle talk, for it removes them from God the Word, Who is simple. That is why we ask the Lord during fasting so that our ears may not be interrupted by idle words. Do not give me the spirit of idle talk 48. Endure with obedience to the will of God all sorrow, all illness and infirmity, all labor, all insult and trouble, saying: Thy will be done (Matthew 6:10; Luke 11:2), and knowing that the goodness of God leads everything to the best for you, and that the Lord can conveniently transform any trouble into happiness and joy. Health and the belly are those idols, especially among the people of this century, from whom I am a great sinner, for which we live and which we constantly serve, to the point of neglecting the affairs of our Christian calling, for example. reading the Word of God, which is sweeter than honey and honeycomb, prayer, this sweet conversation with God, and composing sermons on the Word of God. Walking a lot for health and to stimulate a better appetite, eating with appetite, these are the objects of desires and aspirations of many of us. And because of our frequent walks, because of our addiction to food and drink - you look: this is irretrievably missed, and this is not done, and this does not come to mind; – because after a delicious lunch or dinner, is there anything serious to do? And he would get busy with work, but his belly, filled with food and drink, pulls him away from him, forcing him to rest; you doze off at work. What is this matter? The only thing left to do is, if after lunch, go to bed to rest; if after dinner, after praying somehow (if you’re full, you can’t pray as you should), go to bed and sleep, a pitiful consequence of burdening your belly, until the next morning. And in the morning, you look again, the sacrifice to your womb is ready - delicious tea. He stood up and prayed, of course, not with all his heart - with all his heart we only know how to eat and drink, go for walks, read novels, sit in theaters, dance at evening parties, show off in our favorite outfits - so I prayed out of habit, carelessly, kept the form of prayer, one form, without essence, without living faith, without strength, without fervor in asking, praising and thanking the Lord God for His countless mercies, and Come quickly for food and drink. You've eaten, you've drunk, and now, barely moving, you can go to work, unless the work is rather idleness, for example. to trade in some kind of everyday vanity, with an excess of godliness, lies and deception. In this way, for many, many, real life passes, our days disappear in vanity (cf. Ps. 77:33), and we care little about the most important matter on earth - the salvation of our souls. Our life passes mainly in the worship of two fragile idols - health and belly, and then - clothing; Some, however, have more clothes, because many, because of dress, because of the worship of fashion, sacrifice health and food, and go to the other extreme; further - to money, this great god, this Jupiter of this age; For this idol many sacrifice their health, for it they sometimes spend nights in insomnia, for it they swear falsely, violate the rules of friendship, show coldness towards their relatives, just to collect more money by any means. There are money lovers who, if it were possible, would turn everything into money and live with it, like Judas Iscariot, who wanted to turn into money that precious ointment with which the pious woman, who loved her Lord with all her soul, anointed His feet and then wiped them with the hair of her head. Christian! You need to worry not about health and belly, not about clothes and money, but about love for God and neighbor, for these are the two main commandments of God. He who loves abides in God, and God abides in him (1 John 4:16). All things are possible to the believer, because the believer is one spirit with the Lord. If on earth everything is possible for a living believer, although he is not completely perfect, then much more for one who lives in heaven in close union with God and is most perfect. For the saints, everything is God, so the saints are true gods. Az (God Himself – Whose word is truth) rekh: you are God (Ps. 82:6). Watch every movement of your heart; see whether it is pleasing to the Trinity and whether, on the contrary, it is not the movement of your old passionate man. The works of the Lord's hands - the visible and invisible world - testify to the existence of the Lord, to His wisdom, goodness, and omnipotence. That is why it is often sung in church: Bless all the works of the Lord, the Lord (Dan. 3:57). How then do some reject the Lord, not seeing Him in His works? Believe and firmly always remember that wherever you appear with the cross of the Lord - at prayer services or on other occasions - it always sanctifies the air and everyone who touches it. Believe also that during all prayers, molebens, especially during church services, and even more so during the liturgy, the Lord quickly pours out His blessings, through the prayer of you or other priests, on all those who sincerely pray, and has mercy on them with His Divine, royal mercy. Even if you 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). Priests praying on earth for people are a sign and testimony of the heavenly Church praying for us in heaven, and of Christ God Himself, the Intercessor. The saints are kinder than we think, and sooner than we think they come to our aid through our prayer. Reluctantly, with cowardice, murmuring and blasphemy against the Lord, we endure the fierce sorrows of our hearts, not seeing the benefit that should come from enduring them complacently and obediently. We do not want to see that our heart has become white and infected with various passions, that it is proud, and adulterous, and evil, and crafty, and partial to earthly things, and that most of all it can be cleansed, and humbled, and made good and obedient to God, as through fierce, fiery sorrows, as through great oppression. Establish, God, strengthen, God, help, God. - Oh, Lord, save me! Oh, Lord, hurry up! You care about human opinion, about human glory: - take action to heal this mental illness. Think and be jealous only of the glory of God. Reduce human dishonor to nothing. When you need to honor a poor, or uneducated and rude father or the same mother, or a relative, or a friend, or an acquaintance before the noble and educated of this age, or to stand for some truth in the circle of those who mock the truth: then keep in mind the only God and His commandments, and parents, a relative, a friend or an acquaintance and the truth of God, and stand for respect for them firmly, without cowardice and shame, not ashamed of no less than all the upcoming and neighboring or co-questioners. About trust in God's Providence. Will the wife (mother) forget to have mercy on the offspring of her womb? Even if the woman forgets these, I will not forget you, says the Lord (cf. Isa. 49:15). Who is more tender and caring than a mother about her children? What mother forgets to nourish the offspring of her womb? - But let there be among people such mothers who leave their children, but I, says the Lord, not as other carnal mothers do, will not forget and will not leave you. What trust, what trust the Lord inspires with these words in God’s Providence, which constantly takes care of us and never abandons a single one of us! You sometimes worry about what to eat and drink and what to wear, and you cause great pain to your heart if you part with your money with regret, with sorrow, when you need to give it to someone else, while you have a significant balance, and you put your trust in the dust of the earth. Why are you worried that you cling to the dust? Cling to the Heavenly Father: He will not forget you and will not leave you; let the dust leave you; the easier it should be for you without him: for the more money you have, the more of this rubbish clung to your heart, the heavier, the more sorrow your unearthly heart will experience. There is a saying among people that money does not interfere, no matter how much we have. Not true. They greatly prevent our soul from ascending to the mountain, or philosophizing about the mountainous fatherland, and the more of them, the more they pull our soul to the earth, and encourage it to do various earthly undertakings: buildings, rich decorations in the home, rich clothes, luxurious food and drink, and thus take away both holy zeal and precious time from our soul, which here must redeem itself for eternal bliss. The human soul lives in its body as if in a small world. Just as once upon a time, for the iniquities that spread across the earth, the Lord brought forth punishment from the midst of the world itself, and the water that was in its places came out of them and drowned the whole earth, so in order to punish each person for his sins, He brings out the punishment from himself, commanding streams of blood or water (dropsy, bleeding) to rush out of their places and drown the small world of the human body. At any moment, punishment from the Master is ready for us, and our own body, like the soul, hides within itself many executions for violators of the commandments of God, the All-Creator and Judge. – This is how God punishes us for our sins through ourselves: punishments of this kind include sorrow and illness. In the image of those who sin, they suffer (Wis. 11:17). When you pray to the Lord, look with the eyes of your heart inside yourself, at your soul: the Lord is there, in your thoughts and in the movements of your right heart, as well as outside you and in every place. He is near you, in your mouth and in your heart (Rom. 10:8), and not only in heaven or in the abyss. Empty speeches, or, as they say, pouring from empty to empty with guests takes away living faith, fear of God and love for God from the heart; guests are a plague to a pious heart. I mean precisely those guests who can only pour or pour from empty to empty. But respectable, religious guests are a different matter. Satiety takes away faith and fear of God from the heart: one who is satiated does not feel the presence of God in his heart; heartfelt, warm prayer is far from him. You have built yourself a house or renovated your apartment - it looks more comfortable and spacious, cleaner, brighter and more fun to live in; you have become rich or at least prosperous, the whole environment of your life is beautiful, it pleases your soul. If only, it seems, you can live and get along in peace; but no: as soon as you began to enjoy the fruits of your earthly cares, an unprecedented source of sorrow opens in your soul, which powerfully strikes you, suddenly depriving you of the peace of mind and consolation so desired for you, everything ceases to occupy you, everything becomes as if non-existent; – you feel under the burden of heavy grief and murderous melancholy. What does it mean? What evil, envious forces are rushing at us when we just begin to live for our own pleasure? Why does our soul grieve and collapse precisely when, in our opinion, it should have fun? Listen to me, a disciple of Christ: - you thought to live on earth in peace and pleasure, while the earthly path should be regrettable and cramped; you thought to find your peace and pleasure in perishable things, and not in Christ, Who alone for our souls is peace and eternal bliss - and now the Lord, who does not want us to live here in peace and coolness and thereby not forget the only thing needed - the salvation of our souls and our heavenly fatherland, but who wants us to seek peace and bliss in Him alone - allows your and God's enemy - the devil tempt you, strike your soul with sorrow and melancholy, while your entire external environment calls you to pleasure, consolation and peace. You will learn by experience that all earthly pleasure is vanity and ruin of the spirit, and that without God, despite all the conveniences to an external happy life, we are poor and pitiful people; that Christ in the heart is our wealth, our beautiful bright home, our decoration, this is our peace and our consolation. So, bear your sorrow with patience and learn with your heart more firmly the lesson that the Lord teaches you through your sorrow. Do not be faint-hearted and do not despair of God’s mercy: for a little while there will be sorrow and then joy will shine again. For the Lord is abundant in mercy and remembers that we are dust; that the days of a man are like grass, that he is like a flower of the field - so he fades away (cf. Ps. 103:14-15), and the Lord will not allow us to be tempted more than we can, but in temptation he will leave for us an abundance of strength so that we can endure (cf. 1 Cor. 10:13). Believe heartily that whatever the life-giving Spirit of God touches, worshiped and glorified with the Father and the Son, He can revive and spiritualize everything (animate the earth, wheat, bread, wood, stone). So he creates from bread and wine the most pure Body and the most pure Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, taken out in the Father and Spirit of existence. Since the Spirit is simple, uncomplicated, all-perfect, then He, like a thought, in a single moment, and more quickly, inhabits a person or what He pleases, and there is no such small thing, or an atom, that would be too small for Him: for Him, both the infinitely great and the infinitely small in creation are equally insignificant. There are in the life of a Christian hours of joyless sorrow and illness, in which it seems as if the Lord has completely abandoned and abandoned you, for there is not the slightest feeling of the presence of God in your soul. These are hours of testing the faith, hope, love and patience of a Christian. Soon times of coolness will come for him again from the presence of the Lord (Acts 3:20), soon the Lord will again rejoice him, so that he will not fall under temptation. On great holidays, our enemy and envious devil insults, saddens and plunges us into extreme despondency, either with bodily illnesses, depressing and suppressing the spirit, or with his spiritual kindled arrows, or with extreme insensibility and coldness. It will soon become clear that the enemy has been treacherous in you, and not that the cause of your sorrow and illness was a gloomy natural disposition of spirit. The more the external state of the pious increases, the more Satan becomes fierce against them and arms himself with temptations (wiles) against them, as against Job. Therefore, lovers of God, when the wealth of your house increases, expect strong attacks from Satan: now he will rush at one, now at another in the family and torment him. In prayer, do not allow yourself to be overcome by the flesh and the enemy working through it; – do not deceive with your tongue, but speak the truth in your heart (Ps. 14:2-3); So think and feel yourself, as you say in prayer, and not so that there is honey on your tongue and ice on your heart: once the enemy wins, then you will have to defend yourself, your freedom from him, like a piece of land conquered by the enemy, and your heart will retreat from the Lord. Do not neglect anything in your spiritual life, do not consider anything small, not worthy of greater attention: through small sins the devil leads to great ones. The main thing: try to always be true in your heart. When it is more difficult to fight the flesh, then show your strength, then do not become weaker in the fight, like a good warrior of Christ. When you feel in your heart that the Lord creates Himself to go further from your heart, from your thoughts, then compel Him, the Merciful, saying sincerely: lie with me, for the evening is and has bowed down the day of my spiritual life, and the garments will come with you (Luke 24:28-29): for He is merciful and allows Himself to be forced. Do not sit down at the table with your spirit outraged by any passion, so that the enemy does not turn your food and drink into harm, into illness and not into health: for the enemy is cunning through everything and seeks to harm a person. Always sit down to a meal in peace, thanking the Lord, and food and drink will be for your good and health: because the blessing of God rests both on food and on you! Whoever desires to save his soul will destroy it (cf. Matt. 16:25), i.e., whoever desires to save his old, carnal, sinful man will destroy his life: for true life consists in crucifying and putting to death the old man with his deeds and putting on the new one, renewed in the image of Him who created him (Col. 3:9-10). Without the mortification of the old carnal man, there is no true life, no eternal bliss. The stronger and more painful the mortification of the old man, the more perfect his renewal and rebirth, the higher his purification, the more perfect his life and the higher his bliss in the next century. Mortify yourself and you will come to life. Oh! I myself feel that when I am completely healthy and do not bother or exhaust myself with labor, then I die in spirit, then the kingdom of God is not in me, then my flesh and the devil have possession of me. Because of the weakness in the faith of your heart, do not weaken the omnipotent power of the cross of the Lord, much less the life-giving Mysteries of the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ: they are always the same life-giving power, for they are Christ Himself, the eternal power that created everything, contains everything and gives life to everything; likewise, the cross is always strong by the power of Him Crucified on it, always life-giving for the sake of the Belly, which was hung on it. Let carnal sweetness be to you as bitterness, loss as gain, dear as cheap, healthy and nutritious, as unhealthy and unnutritious, because it can conveniently be unhealthy and harmful to the soul. May your only sweetness be Christ, your only hope – He, who created everything from those who bear it. Oh, if only we could all land safely on the shores of our heavenly fatherland! She left the wilderness and idolized Him (cf. Matt. 4:20). The apostles did not regret leaving their lands for the sake of the Lord, perhaps their only property, precious to them, because it fed them; and we must for the Lord leave behind everything that prevents us from following Him: all the numerous obstacles with which the enemy entangles us in this life. But it is not enough to leave, we must follow Christ, just as the Apostles left and went. And whoever wants to follow Christ and come where He came, must deny himself and take up his cross (Matt. 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23), like Christ and the apostles, and follow Him, Christ God, according to His commandments, not sparing himself for exploits for the glory of God and for his salvation. Applying this Gospel story about the abandonment of the land to us, you involuntarily imagine everything earthly, starting from our body to the last thing that occupies us, as a land conveniently torn apart. One cannot help but marvel at the simplicity of heart, impartiality to earthly goods of the Galilean fishermen and their unconditional submission to the voice of the Lord. A few words from the Savior - and they leave their treasures, their only wealth, their best treasure, and follow Him without reasoning - where or for what. What simplicity! what detachment from earthly goods! what childish obedience! what easy access the word of the divine Messiah has to simple hearts! No sooner said than done! Such are many of the simple people who live in labor and low lot; but the rich are not like that: what do we see in one of them, to whom the Lord offered to sell his property and follow Him? He did not follow Him, but after his wealth... He left, it is said, grieving (Matthew 19:22). It is good to place candles in front of icons. But it’s better if you sacrifice to God the fire of love for Him and your neighbor. It’s good if both happen together. If you light candles, but do not have love for God and your neighbor in your heart: you are stingy, do not live peacefully, then your sacrifice to God is in vain. Do not be indignant at the malice of others, but always triumph over it with the greatness of your spirit; let her bow down and fall to the dust before you, and not you before her, as you should. “Evil is a fall in itself, and ridiculed virtue, although it is ridiculed, always stands at its height—only it would not itself fall, defeated by evil.” When we smell something unpleasant and unhealthy in the air, we try to get out of this unhealthy environment, or somehow destroy these harmful principles that have entered the clean air: exactly, when you feel in your heart something that confuses or constrains it, then try to immediately remove this harmful principle that confuses our soul, for example. passion, knowing that it is from the abyss of hell. Bodily and spiritual life have many similarities, and a wise Christian has a spiritual sense as sophisticated as a carnal man has bodily senses. Yes, and it’s ridiculous to refine bodily feelings in every possible way, and leave spiritual feelings in disdain. The spiritual sense or sensibility is located in the heart. It is necessary to refine and purify it in every possible way so that it turns away from the slightest stench of sins and passions, instantly removing them from itself. Do not be afraid of people's gossip and ridicule about yourself. This is the fear of the devil, but think about what the Lord God says about you, what the Angels and saints say about you. When encountering and dealing with people, keep the word “love” in your heart and, listening to it, talk to everyone with love and goodwill in your heart. Never let this word out of your heart when you encounter a neighbor: it greatly contributes to strengthening the heart in love. Of course, this love must be carried in the heart not separately, not on its own, but together with heartfelt faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. You, sinner, who has fallen into the depths of evil, when you imagine the multitude of your sins and fall into despair and bitterness, remember that the Heavenly Father sent into the world for your salvation from sins and from eternal condemnation for them, His only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Flow with faith to this Intercessor of God and men, begging Him from the depths of your soul to wash your iniquities with the all-cleansing blood shed for us on the cross - flow diligently to repentance, saying before His priest, as before Himself, your iniquities, so that you are justified - approach the Holy Chalice, if the minister of the sacrament finds you ready and your sins They will be cleansed: and your peace will be like a river, and you will be the son of the Heavenly Father, who was dead and is alive, who was lost and is found (Luke 15:24, 32). Do not be irritated against someone who has a grudge against you and often insults you with various fault-findings, but have compassion for him, love him, saying: it is not he or she who is angry with me, but through them the devil is becoming furious with me, and they, the poor, are deceived; The deception of the enemy will pass and they will be good again. We are all often pitiable instruments of an ethereal enemy. We must feel sorry for humanity, which is so heavily persecuted by the enemy. Sometimes there is such a petrified insensibility in the soul that you don’t see or feel your sins; You are not afraid of death, or the Judge, or the terrible judgment; everything spiritual is, as they say, trin-grass. O wicked, O proud, O evil flesh! It is not without reason that the saints complain: I am possessed by a slothful slumber and a sinful sleep weighs heavily on my heart. For the souls of you, it’s time to repent, shake off the heaviest sleep of laziness and quickly wake up 49 . Sometimes there is such terrifying laziness and insensitivity in your soul that you are overcome by complete despair - to drive away this laziness and despair. It seems better to be sick than to feel lazy. Thy will be done. For example: when you want to be and are trying hard to be painless and healthy, but meanwhile you remain sick, say: Thy will be done; when you undertake something, but the enterprise fails, say: Thy will be done; when you do good to others, and they pay you evil, say: Thy will be done; or when, for example, you want to sleep, but you have insomnia, say: Thy will be done; in general, do not get irritated when something is done not according to your will and learn to submit to the will of the Heavenly Father in everything. You would like there to be no temptations with you, but meanwhile, the enemy torments you with them every day: he inflames you, oppresses you in every possible way - do not get irritated, but say: Thy will be done. An impatient person is irritated by everything, angry, when the smoke from a candle blows over him, he is irritated by this too, because he is very selfish and cares a lot about the well-being of the carnal man, whom it would not hurt for him to crucify more often in various ways. The soul is sometimes smoked by sins and passions, seeing it does not see, knowing does not know, feeling as if it does not feel; and as the face smokes, it will immediately notice and take, God knows, where the sensitivity, self-pity comes from, although there is nothing to worry about at all, because the smoke does not hit, does not hurt, does not annoy, but blows over the face like a light breeze. If you want to live long on earth, do not rush to live in a carnal way, to be satiated, to get drunk, to smoke, to commit fornication, to indulge in luxury, to luxuriate: in the carnal way of life there is death, which is why our flesh is called in the Holy Scriptures dead or the old man, decaying in delightful lusts (Eph. 4:22). If you want to live long, live in the Spirit: life consists in the Spirit: if you put to death the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit, you will live (Rom. 8:13), both here and there in heaven. Observe moderation and simplicity in food and drink, maintain chastity, do not recklessly waste the balm of your life, do not pursue wealth, luxury, try to be content with little; keep peace with everyone and do not envy anyone, honor and love everyone, especially try to always carry Christ in your heart - and you will live in peace and prosperity for many years. Zealous for piety, brother and sister! You will have to hear, and maybe often more from your family; that you are a difficult, unbearable person; you will see strong dislike towards yourself, hostility for your piety, although the hostiles will not express what exactly for piety they are hostile against you - do not be indignant at this and do not fall into despair: because the devil can actually exaggerate to enormous proportions some of your weaknesses, from which you are not free as a person, but remember the words of the Savior: a man’s enemies are those in his own household (Matthew 10:36 ), and correct your shortcomings, but hold fast to piety. Trust your conscience, your life and your deeds to God, who leads our hearts. However, look at yourself impartially: in fact, are you not heavy in character, especially for your household; maybe you are gloomy, unkind, uncommunicative, taciturn. Open your heart to sociability and affection, but not to indulgence; in reprimands, be meek, non-irritable, gentle. Let all love be with you (1 Cor. 16:14), said the Apostle. Be patient, do not reprimand for everything, tolerate others, pass by in silence, and turn a blind eye to them. Love covers all things and endures all things (1 Cor. 13:7). Sometimes, due to an impatient reprimand, enmity arises, because the reprimand was made not in the spirit of meekness and love, but in the spirit of a self-loving claim to the other’s submission to oneself. Sometimes people who are younger than you, or equal, or older, give you hints of instructions that you do not tolerate, being annoyed with your teachers. We must endure and listen with love to everything useful from anyone. Our pride hides our shortcomings from us, but others can see them better: they notice us. Remember that we are pleased with each other (Eph. 4:25), and are obligated to mutually correct each other. If you do not tolerate instruction and are annoyed with your mentor, it means that you are proud, it means that you really have that shortcoming from which they are hinting at you to improve. Since God is an all-righteous Spirit, His laws and commandments are the same as He Himself: they express His truth. That is why the Lord says: if anyone loves Me, he will keep My word (My commandment). Do not love Me, he says, and do not keep My words. If you love Me, you will keep My commandments (John 14:15, 23, 26). Pray for the departed as if your soul were in hell, in flames and you yourself were tormented; feel their torment in your heart and fervently pray for their repose in a brighter and greener place, in a place of coolness. Call upon the saints with unashamed faith and unfeigned love if you want them to hear you and fulfill your prayer. Remember: like seeks like. The saints themselves pleased God with faith and love, and they want the same from you. Combine with faith and love the reverence due to them. A proud person feels sorry for himself for the benefit of others. And he feels sorry for the larynx for teaching others, if he is a teacher or a priest; and he feels sorry for him with all his heart, because he, so to speak, serves his neighbors with half his heart, and often without a heart at all; and I feel sorry for his physical strength, he is as timid as a hare: he is afraid that he will get sick from his work, and he is at peace. Faith in the Lord as Being is the source of life for the soul. How to imagine the Being? – Consider everything visible and invisible as nothing and imagine that there is only one Lord. To ask a king or any noble person, or anyone else, you need to reach him, see him and stand face to face. – But here there is often a distance of faces, a distance of space: sometimes there are a lot of faces to go through, a lot of distance. In order to reach the King of Heaven, or the Queen of the Mother of God, or the Angels or saints, we must pass by and eliminate the crowd of unbelief, we must rid our souls of passions, take living faith, zeal and love as companions: and then we have reached them and can boldly ask the Lord or the Most Pure Mother of God or the Angels or the saints. There is no mental work without a previously drawn up plan, in the likeness of the Lord All-Creator, who first conceived the world and its plan and then created the universe through His Son and completed it with the Holy Spirit. – Writing an essay without a plan is presumptuous. “Whoever wants to build a house from you, won’t he first consider it, if he has enough to do it (Luke 14:28; fn. Matt. 7:24). You must first see your entire work with the intelligent eyes of your heart, with all its main thoughts. – To do the opposite means to walk along an unknown road, voluntarily blindfolding yourself. Pray to the Lord for the repose of the departed forefathers, fathers and brothers every day in the morning and in the evening, may mortal memory live in you and may the hope for a future life after death not fade away in you, may your spirit be humbled daily by the thought of your fleeting life. Also call upon the glorified saints daily in prayer, may they enlighten your paths with their prayers, may they intercede for you for forgiveness of your sins, and may you remember that after death there is eternal glorification and bliss for good deeds and eternal condemnation for evil deeds. During prayer, sometimes you feel some kind of rejection of God and despair, you don’t need to get carried away by this feeling: it is from the devil, but you need to say in your heart: I do not despair of my salvation, the accursed one, daring in Your immeasurable compassion, I come and cry: if there is hope for salvation in me, if Your love for mankind overcomes the multitude of my iniquities, be with me Savior 50. When, during oral prayer, the devil undermines the words with a rain of subtle thoughts, say: the sovereignty of the Savior is in every word and sound. Thou hast not known that the Father is in Me, and I am in the Father (John 14:9–10). Don’t you know that during prayer the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are in you and you are in Them? When, during the reading of canons and akathists to the Savior and the Mother of God and the canon to the Guardian Angel and when reading prayers, the devil will whisper in the heart: untruth is untruth, stretching is stretching, and will steal from the heart the power (truth) of the words of prayer, then be deaf and not hear - a riot and a fool (cf. Ps. 37:14; 1 Cor. 3:18), neither not for a moment agreeing with your heart to the lies of the enemy and not philosophizing with his hellish lying wisdom, and firmly believe in the truth of all the fullness of church prayers and hymns, knowing that this is the broadcast of the Holy Spirit, through the mouth of holy men, proclaiming the praises befitting the Savior, the Mother of God, the saints - and our weaknesses and damnation. Remember that the Church is the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15). Each priest is an apostle in his village or parish (or in a city church) and must go from house to house, preaching the good news of the kingdom of God, instructing the ignorant, the careless, the careless, inciting those living in passions and lusts to Christian life, encouraging and encouraging the pious and sober with future rewards, strengthening and comforting the unpeaceful. Processions of the cross on holidays should especially have this purpose. We usually drink and eat while walking with the cross. This is not the point. We must preach the gospel in our hands with a cross - that for this reason the high God came down to earth, so that he will lead us to heaven 51 and that we should not become attached to anything earthly, that we must value time in order to acquire eternity: cleanse our hearts from all filthiness of passions and do as many good deeds as possible. My purpose is that I may do the will of Him who sent Me and complete His work (John 4:34). What does the heavy sleep of laziness and the stony insensibility of the heart mean during prayer, or when composing a sermon, when teaching the Law of God? This means leaving us with the grace of God, according to the wise and good intentions of God, to strengthen our hearts for our own free spiritual activities. Sometimes grace carries us like children, or leads and supports us, as it were, by the hand, then half the battle is for us to do deeds of virtue, and sometimes it leaves us alone with our weakness, so that we do not be lazy, but work and through labor earn the gift of grace: at this time we must, as free beings, voluntarily show our correction and our zeal for God. To grumble at God, at depriving us of grace, would be madness: for when the Lord wants, then He takes His grace from us fallen and unworthy. At this time we must learn patience and bless the Lord: the Lord gave His grace, the Lord took it away: as the Lord willed, so it was. Blessed be the name of the Lord (Job 1:21). With laziness and hardness of heart, sometimes people, out of cowardice and impatience, become familiar with God in prayer and allow themselves various oddities in their voice and movement, meaning: impatience, discontent, grumbling and even insolence towards God. Beware of this in every possible way and overcome your laziness. We must defeat the enemy and our passions. If you want to be humble, consider yourself worthy of all malice and hatred of others and all slander; and do not be irritated or bear malice against those who are angry with you and slander you, or falsely reproach you. - Say: Thy will be done, Holy Father! Remember the word that the Lord said: there is no sick servant of his Lord; If the world hates you, know that it hated Me before you (John 13:16, 15:18). If the world hated the Most Righteous, the All-Good, then what is surprising if others hate you, a sinner and an evil one? When you ask the Lord to enlighten your mind and warm your heart in order to compose a sermon or a letter to your parents, relatives, acquaintances, and the Lord apparently does not hear, and you remain in darkness and coldness, do not be faint-hearted, do not be discouraged, do not be indignant, do not complain about the Lord’s lack of attention to you: the Lord tests your patience, your faith and hope, your devotion to Him, the Almighty. Remember that it is easy for Him to illuminate you in an instant, and in a few minutes you can write a wonderful sermon or letter, warmed by a warm feeling, filled with light and sublime thoughts. We want to come to you once and twice, and Satan forbid us (1 Thess. 2:18). You see, who prevents us from sometimes seeing or corresponding with our relatives, friends or acquaintances is Satan. How weak man is in himself! How limited he is! Not only does God not allow one to do what a person wants to do, but Satan also forbids it. Carnal bliss, petrified insensibility towards everything spiritual, sacred, is the oppression of the enemy, although the carnal man does not consider it to be constriction, because he favors it; but those who want to live spiritually consider it to be cramped, because it does not allow God to reach our hearts, it does not allow the grace of God to be poured out in the heart, reviving and enlightening our soul, it makes our soul barren with deeds of faith, hope and love. You become somewhat carnal and lacking in spirit. Oh, how many different persecutions there are! How you grieve from your heart over this petrified insensibility, how you cry before the Lord: it will pass; and the heart will warm and soften, and become capable of spiritual contemplation and holy feelings. When you pray loudly or silently for others, for example. for your family or for strangers, although they did not ask you, pray for them with the same warmth and zeal as you pray for yourself. Remember the commandment of the law: love your true self as yourself (Matthew 19:19, 22:39; sn. Lev. 19:18). In all cases, observe this, i.e. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. Do not be deceitful before the Lord, who searches hearts and bellies (Jer. 11:20; Rev. 2:23; Ps. 7:10), lest He despise Your prayer as vain and false. Love does not tolerate self-justification, does not exalt itself, is not proud. When we read any prayers for the first time or infrequently, then, upon hearing them, we read them willingly, with great feeling, but then the more often we repeat them, the less eager we feel for them; they cease to interest us and we can hardly overcome ourselves to read them with the same feeling. Against this, regarding prayers, this is what is needed. We need to imagine that for the first time we are reading the beautiful prayers to which we are accustomed and which occupied us so much at first, when we began to read them; ponder every word with your heart and cherish every word. This phenomenon in our soul is a consequence of original sin - a consequence of our initial instability in the truth. And until now we cannot unshakably establish ourselves in the truth: we will only stand up, and then soon we will waver in it. This often happens with regard to prayer, and this also happens with regard to faith, friendship with people, love of God and neighbor, and virtue in general: everywhere we find ourselves unstable in the truth. It also happens during prayer that our heart is disgustingly ashamed before people of the words of the prayer or the Lord God Himself, sluggishly, uttering the words of the prayer not from the heart. We must trample under foot this ungodly, man-pleasing, devilish shame and fear, and say prayers from the heart and loudly, in the simplicity of the heart, imagining before oneself the one God and considering everyone as if they did not exist. 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 when he comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels (Mark 8:38). If you consider anything visible to be great other than the Lord God, and you neglect His only existence, the only great one, then you are the most accursed proud person. Consider everything as nothing in comparison with the Lord and cleave to Him alone. Man is dear to the Lord, the whole world is submissive to him; The Son of God Himself came down from heaven to earth to save him from eternal torment, to reconcile him with God. All kinds of fruits, various animal flesh were given to him as food, various drinks were given to him to delight his taste - but not for addiction, not for his only pleasure. A Christian has great, spiritual, divine pleasures; These are the pleasures of the flesh that must always be subordinated, moderated or completely stopped when they interfere with spiritual pleasures. This means that food and drink are forbidden not to sadden a person, not to restrict his freedom, as they say in the world, but in order to give him true pleasure, lasting, eternal, and that is precisely why modest foods and wine drinks (during Lent) are prohibited, because man is very dear to God and so that instead of God his heart does not cleave to the corruptible, which is unworthy of him. And a person damaged by sins conveniently cleaves to earthly pleasures, forgetting that his true pleasure, his true life is the eternal God, and not a pleasant irritation of the flesh. For those who pray carelessly, not with all their hearts, little by little the hearing of the heart and its intelligence become dulled; Seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not understand (Luke 8:10) the words of prayer. They hypocritically pray for the wrong reasons and, poor people, do not think that for multiplying their words they will receive additional condemnation (Mark 12:40). Do you not laugh at your neighbor’s shortcomings, do you despise him, or do you harbor hatred towards him because of them? Love covers everything. Remember this and cover your brother’s shortcomings and sins, and God will cover yours too. Endure the weak ouds; we are all one body in the Lord. Experience with your heart the words of Spasovaya’s prayer to the Father: as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that these also may be one in Us (John 17:21) - and strive in every possible way to unite with God and unite others with Him; support mutual pious unity by all means, sparing neither yourself nor anything of your own - to maintain the unity of love: for God is our almighty Life-Giver and all-good Giver of everything; He will support our life in our work for the good of our neighbors, if necessary, and will give us everything we need if we squander our property to maintain mutual love. Just as in every smallest part of the body and blood of Christ there is the whole Christ, so in every thought, in every good word there is the whole Christ. If you truly want to be humble, then thirst for all sorts of insults and oppression, like a hungry person hungers for food: for by the truth of God you are worthy of it. If you want to be truly humble, then consider yourself lower than everyone, trampling on everyone: for every day, every hour you trample on the law of the Lord and, therefore, the Lord Himself. When your heart is struck by the enemy nesting in you and causing confusion, crampedness and loss of spirit in you, then do not preach, so that instead of benefit it does not bring temptation, instead of spiritual nourishment it does not cause spiritual dizziness and nausea; Do not give reprimands at this time: they will only irritate and not correct. In general, when the enemy nests in the soul, then we must remain silent, for then we are unworthy of the word, which is the gift of the Hypostatic Word. Drive away the enemy, bring peace to your heart and then speak. One simple Spirit in three Persons, one Wisdom in three Persons, brought everything from non-existence into existence. The One Trinitarian Wisdom is God. Some put all their well-being and service before God in reading all the prescribed prayers, not paying attention to the readiness of the heart for God, to their internal correction; for example, many read the rule for communion this way. Meanwhile, here, first of all, we must look at the correction and readiness of the heart to receive the Holy Mysteries; if your heart became right in your womb, by the grace of God, if it is ready to meet the Bridegroom, then thank God, although you did not have time to read all the prayers. The kingdom of God is not in words, but in power (1 Cor. 4:20). It is good to obey the Mother of the Church in everything, but with prudence and, if possible, to be able to accommodate, long prayer, may it accommodate. But not everyone can comprehend these words (Matthew 19:11); if prolonged prayer is incompatible with fervor of the spirit, it is better to say a short but fervent prayer. Remember that one word of the publican, spoken from a warm heart, justified him. God does not look at the multitude of words, but at the disposition of the heart. The main thing is the living faith of the heart and the warmth of repentance for sins. Severe frosts and a sudden strong thaw clearly show in a small way that the Lord put everything together, the entire universe, and He can put everything apart whenever He pleases. It also shows the covering of seas, lakes, rivers with ice and their opening; also - the flowering and growth of earthly plants in spring and summer and decomposition in autumn; also the birth and death of a person. The Lord folded us, and He also decomposes us. The prayer of a priest for people has great power with God, if only the priest sends it to the Lord with all his heart, with faith and love. God grant that there be more priests praying to God with a burning spirit: for who will pray for the sheep of words to the Lord with such power, if a priest who has received grace and power from God Himself does not pray? When you tearfully pray with love for the sheep of the Lord, and your thoughts begin to praise themselves to you, then tell them: it was not I who prayed for the people of God, but the Spirit Himself in me interceded for them with groanings that cannot be uttered (Rom. 8:26); and the Spirit captivated me at that time into the sweet captivity of His love and heartfelt tenderness. That this is true is evident from the fact that sweet prayer and love can very soon leave me. Christ Himself vouches for the truth of the Mysteries of Christ. Truth is the visible and invisible worlds created by Him and standing in existence, the cleansing of sins, peace and joy of the heart after communion. Love is not irritated (1 Cor. 13:4-5), but you are irritated. Look: the enemy is treacherous over you, for in the heart, with anger, faith in God goes out and boldness before God is lost. The images of everyday vanity, which we looked at with complete pleasure and compassion of the heart, pamper, relax and confuse the soul; deprived of purity of heart and boldness before God; Therefore, it is good not to go to theaters, not to attend secular, cheerful, magnificent meetings, not to see dances whirling in a whirlwind, not to look at worldly spectacles that represent the multifarious vanity of this world. It is good to continually cleave with your heart to the one God; and there are so many lures in the world that the eye of vision cannot be satisfied. Hallowed be Thy name! This is our first desire and first request, that the name of God may be sanctified in us and through us. Let us remember that we were created in the image and likeness of the Lord God, in the likeness of His holiness - but alas! - we have sinned, lost holiness, and now we are born in sins and iniquities, we live in sins and iniquities, as adulterers, and not as sons (Heb. 12:8). What concern should we have now in our fallen state, if not to become like the Heavenly Father, our Prototype? The Lord himself demands this: be holy, for I am holy, the Lord your God (1 Pet. 1:16; Lev. 19:2). This should be our first desire and the goal of our entire life. The second petition is an explanation of the first. Our heart dies a spiritual death every day. Warm, tearful prayer is his revival, his beginning to breathe. If you do not pray daily with spiritual warmth, then it is easy to die spiritually soon. When praying, the mind boils over the words of prayer and they do not fit into it because of its carnality and deceit; but the words of the prayer are spirit and truth, kindled silver, which came from the burning flame of faith and love of the soul, purified by the sevenfold on the tempted earth; Iniquity walks around them (cf. Ps. 11:7, 9), but they will not enter into their depths. The inability of the heart to feel the truth of the words in prayer comes from heartfelt unbelief and insensibility of one’s sinfulness, and this in turn stems from a secret feeling of pride. As his feelings during prayer, a person learns whether he is proud or humble; the more sensitive and ardent the prayer, the more humble he is; The more insensitive, the prouder. If he keeps the whole law, but sins in one thing, he will be guilty of all (James 2:10) - this is both in a moral and dogmatic sense. He who teaches all truths sensibly, but sins in one, is guilty against everyone or against the one indivisible Truth in his being, against the Lord Jesus Christ, who says: I am the truth (John 14:6). Why? Because God is a simple, albeit infinite Being. An abomination to the Lord and one unrighteous thought (Proverbs 15:26). He who sins in the truth of dogmas sins against the One who said about Himself: I am the truth. Never despair of God’s mercy, no matter what sins you may be bound by the temptation of the devil, but pray with all your heart with the hope of mercy, push through the door of God’s mercy - and it will be opened to you. I, a sinful priest, am an example to you: no matter how I sometimes sin through the action of the devil, for example, sometimes you treat your brother with enmity because of something, even because of a just cause, and you become all upset, and turn your brother against yourself, and perform the holy sacrament unworthily, not due to voluntary neglect, but due to unpreparedness and the action of the devil, however, out of repentance, The Lord forgives everything, everything, especially after worthy communion of the Holy Mysteries: like snow or a wave, you are convinced by the blood of Christ; heavenly peace will dwell in your heart; and it will be easy, easy on your heart, you will become blessed. You will forget all the disturbances, worries and oppression of the devil, you will become completely new and as if you will rise from the dead. Do not despair, brothers, no matter what sins you have committed, just repent with a contrite heart and a humble spirit. Glory to Your mercy, Lord! Glory to Your long-suffering, Lord! Love one another diligently from a pure heart (1 Pet. 1:22). Remember these words of the apostle and act on them. Forgive your debtors and know that just as the enemy confuses you and arms you with hostility against others, so he confuses and arms them against you. Love and pity all your enemies as erring ones; Do not repay evil for evil, annoyance for annoyance; on the contrary, bless, knowing that you have been called to this end, so that you may inherit the blessing (cf. 1 Pet. 3:9). Be moderate in all religious matters, for virtue in moderation, according to one’s strengths, the circumstances of time, place, and previous labors, is prudence. Okay e.g. to pray from a pure heart, but as long as there is no correspondence of prayer with forces (energy), various circumstances, place and time, with previous work, then it will no longer be a virtue. Therefore, the Apostle Peter says: show understanding in virtue (i.e., do not be carried away by your heart alone), but in understanding is self-control, and in self-control is patience (2 Pet. 1:5-6). He who does not gather with Me, says the Lord, scatters (Luke 11:23). We must move forward in spiritual life, ascend higher and higher; increase more and more the stock of good deeds; if we stand at one point of moral perfection, at one step on the ladder of Christian ascent, then it’s the same as going backwards; If we don’t collect, then it’s as if we’re wasting. To burn before the Lord during prayer, do not spare a wax candle: remember that you are burning it before him who lives in the unapproachable light and enlightens you with His Light. Your candle is like a burnt offering to the Lord; May it be a gift to God from a perfect heart. May she remind you that you yourself must be a burning and shining lamp. He is, it is said about John the Baptist, a lamp of grief and light (John 5:35). The Lord, with His infinity, is such a simple Being that He is all found in one name, Trinity, or in the name Lord, in the name Jesus Christ. Which mortal is worthy of the Lord? The one for whom everything is insignificant except the Creator, for whom the Creator is everything. - Oh, man! may your heart not be attached to anything other than the Creator. Cling to Him in simplicity of heart. “Neither food, nor clothing, nor the face of man, nor wealth, nor the comforts of life, nor the glory of this world, let nothing worldly deceive you. I bring material light to the Lord, the Lady or the Angel and the saint, so that the Lord will give me gracious, spiritual light through their prayers, and may lead me from the darkness of sin into the light of the knowledge of God and virtue; I bring material fire, so that the fire of grace of the Holy Spirit will kindle in my heart and may the fire of passions exhaust in my accursed heart; I bring a lamp with a desire, and I myself will be a lamp burning and shining to all who are in the church of the church. This is why I put candles in front of icons, this is what I think about when I place a lamp on the candlestick. I admit, I put candles in front of the icons with the hope of receiving spiritual benefits from those saints and all-holy faces who are written on the icons, I admit to my spiritual self-interest. However, this is the law of reciprocity - to expect a gift for a gift: measure according to measure, it is said, it will be measured to you (Matthew 7:2). I am a weak, carnal, sinful person, and I am glad for what I am rich with; Not always being able to bring to my Lord, or His Most Pure Mother, or an Angel of God, or a saint a heart burning with faith and love, I will bring at least, as a carnal, material person, a gift to heaven and a material gift - a burning candle. May the Lord look down from heaven on the small gift of my zeal and may he give me more in return: He alone is rich and enriches all, and I am poor; He is rich, I am poor and poor; He is in the unapproachable light, I am in darkness; I have little faith: may he give me the gift of faith; I am poor in love: may my heart be enriched with this priceless heavenly treasure; I am powerless for all good: may He give me strength. – On my part there is a desire for heavenly blessings, and there is a material pledge; May the Greatly Gifted Lord grant me, through the prayers of His Most Pure Mother, His Angels and Saints, all the petitions for salvation. When someone criticizes the imperfections and shortcomings of your deeds, humbly recognize the justice of these reproaches and say: yes, it is true, I am sinful and sinful, I do not do my deeds with due diligence and diligence and willingly. Pray, brother, for me - (tell the one who blames) - that the Lord will enlighten me and help me with His grace to fulfill my title with due aspiration and willingness and fulfill the work of public service entrusted to me. If they blaspheme your abilities, say: I did not give myself these, and not other abilities: they are God’s gift: to blame my abilities means to blame the Creator who gave them. When they reproach you and expose your weaknesses to the ears of others, tell them: yes, I am exactly like this, but it is of no benefit to you that I am exactly like this and that you will revile me and laugh in front of others: - to laugh at the weakness or weakness of your neighbor is reckless and inhuman, it is better to cover up the weakness, because my weakness is your weakness, my shame is your shame: after all, I am your member, and you are not without weakness; Let us pray that the Lord will heal our infirmities: for we are all infected with the leprosy of iniquity. Love, it is said, covers everything (1 Cor. 13:7), and does not expose weaknesses to shame. Our negligence and laziness in prayer are great: we are always inclined to pray and often pray haphazardly, just to finish our work as quickly as possible, we are in a hurry, we jump to the top, but we do not look into the depths of our hearts. That’s why our prayer is like the wind: it makes a noise, it blows by, and that’s it. When the darkness of the damned covers you - doubt, despondency, despair, confusion, then call only with all your heart the sweetest name of Jesus Christ, in Him you will find everything: light, confirmation, hope, consolation, and peace, you will find in him the very goodness, mercy, generosity, you will find all this in one name enclosed, as if in some rich treasury. I have received and am receiving everything from the Lord: how can I not turn to Him alone in prayer for everything I need? How can I not hope to receive everything from Him alone? I received life and everything from Him. He alone can give me everything I need for my temporary and eternal well-being. His business, so to speak, is to give me everything I need: His being is good and generous. Believe strictly and hope to receive from the Lord everything good for the creation of your neighbor or everything that can lead to salvation. Don’t hesitate and don’t doubt for a moment that you can get what you ask for. All things are possible for the Lord, and all things are possible for him who believes, and hope does not put him to shame (Matthew 19:26; Mark 9:23, 10:27; Rom. 5:5). Only unbelief, lack of hope in our hearts shames us. The father cried out to the children, saying with tears: I believe, Lord, help my unbelief (Mark 9:24). What a grief! It’s crowded everywhere and I feel sorry for my son, and there’s no faith in my heart: I can’t help but cry. And now with tears he says: I believe, Lord, help my unbelief. So it is with us: trouble threatens, but there is no faith in the heart to avert trouble; How can you not cry with your double misfortune! And many have a heart of stone and do not feel the need for faith to deliver them from trouble. He became decrepit in words, and went away mourning, having acquired much (Mark 10:22). Just as we often become decrepit in heart and body from one word with which they ask for our donation of the kingdom for the sake of the heavenly one, and until then how cheerful we are! Why is I Believed before the Transubstantiation of the Holy Gifts sung? Why is the priest in the altar reading I Believe to himself at this time? In order for those present to believe and remember that in the transubstantiation of the Holy Gifts the Holy Trinity participates and that the mystery of the Eucharist is the work of the Holy Trinity, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; so that the priest, without condemnation, with undoubted faith in the goodness and omnipotence of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, would perform the holy sacrament and then in due time partake of it, for at this especially time great faith is needed for the priest, since at this time the enemy intensifies to strike the mind and heart of the priest with coldness and unbelief, or to outrage with doubt. It’s a miracle of miracles that my Lord and Creator recreated, transformed, transformed my nature, which had been corrupted by sin, just as He turns bread and wine into His blood, like He turns fire into dew. To whomever you want to pray, first ask in your heart that he will be worthy to bring him heartfelt prayer, praise or thanksgiving, for we can only pray when strengthened by the Holy Spirit, strengthened by those saints. saints through whom we want to pray to the Savior. Raise your heartfelt voice to Him, before prayer and praise, so that He will grant you the grace of sincere prayer, so that He may lay His good yoke and His light burden on your heart, so that the devil’s arrogance and rebellion of mind and heart will dissipate. If you want to pray to the Lady, call on Her from your heart, so that She will grant you to offer Her prayer or praise and thanksgiving with all your heart without hypocrisy. If to an Angel: - cry to the Lord, may he grant you the dignity to offer him a prayer, or to sing of his goodness, the lightness and goodness of his nature; if to a saint: - call upon the Holy Spirit, by Whose holiness they are sanctified, so that you may worthily call on him or sing praises and thanksgiving to him, - for all of us only when strengthened by the life-giving Holy Spirit can worthily and life-givingly pray. The saints of God are the pure breath of the Holy Spirit: Wherever the Spirit wants to breathe (John 3:8) (i.e., in whatever soul it wants, in that it breathes). The Holy Lady is abundantly sanctified and purified by the Holy Spirit. Angels are sanctified by the Holy Spirit and live and breathe through Him, just as we in the flesh live and breathe air. Prayers in their true form are nothing more than the breath of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit Himself, it is said, intercedes for us with groanings that cannot be uttered (Rom. 8:26). Nowadays, learned people have erected and are erecting a huge idol and order everyone to bow, and they themselves bow to it. This idol is negative literature; the unclean spirit that moves us is a proud, ungodly, unbelieving mind. The devil is cunning - oh, how cunning! He also invented subtle idolatry in Christianity, in accordance with the direction and spirit of the age, and with the degree of its mental development. What an evil cunning man! How he turns on poor humanity, who have wandered away from heartfelt faith in Christ! How strongly it draws people to hell, with a twisted and constantly woven rope from the very same people! My God, my God! With our mind, which was supposed to lead us to the living, eternal God, he destroys us! With our scoop, he scoops up the dead water of everyday, spontaneous, vain wisdom for us, and gives it to us and other people to drink instead of the living water of the Word of God! And we drink and drink, not suspecting that it is dead water. Remember that man is a great, dear creature to God, but this great creature, after falling into sin, is a weak creature, subject to thousands of weaknesses; love him, honor him, but also endure his infirmities, weaknesses, passions, and actions. – Love your sincere sinner as you love yourself (Matthew 19:19). – Bear the infirmities of the weak, and thus fulfill the law of Christ (cf. Rom. 15:1; Gal. 6:2). These words are great: think about them more deeply. They also mean that the words of the Lord’s Prayer: we forgive our debtors. Great and honorable is the body of the Holy Church, of which Jesus Christ Himself is the head. Remember that in this great and venerable body you are an insignificant, weak member, and that you receive everything from the head of the body of the Church - Christ and are animated by His Spirit. Remember that in the body of the Church there are millions of strong members who have received from the Holy Spirit great and varied spiritual gifts, each according to his worth and acceptability. Respect in every Christian a member of Christ’s Church and the temple of the Holy Spirit; do not, out of pride, consider anyone ignorant of the truths of faith, deprived of the gift of the Spirit: for Christ is all and in all (Col. 3:11), and the Lord inwardly reveals Himself to everyone, enlightens everyone according to the acceptability of each, and bestows His gifts on everyone without partiality. “And say this to yourself: I am a small member in the great venerable body of the Church.” I must treat all other members with love and respect as beloved, dear members of my Christ. When we are reproached for something, this should not irritate us and despondency, but humble us as if we were morally insignificant, and turn to God with fervent prayer, so that He would heal what is weak in us and fill what is lacking with His grace. To be irritated especially when we are reproached for real weaknesses means adding illness to illness, passion to passion; means to suffer from the voluntary blindness of pride, which does not want to see its dark sides and voluntarily dies. It is completely foolish to be discouraged: for a Christian, with the help of God’s grace, if he wants, can always change for the better - and for this, the Lord sends us accusers, so that they open the eyes of our hearts, so that we see the ugliness of our deeds, and seeing them get better, and not in order to plunge us into despondency. Despair is a sin and the work of the devil. Reproofs should produce in us sorrow for God, which produces unrepentant repentance for salvation (2 Cor. 7:10), and not the sorrow of self-love. Akathist to the Sweetest Jesus, Kontakion 8. Akathist to the Most Holy Theotokos. Prokeimenon at Vespers (taken from Ps. 60:6). Prayer to the Most Holy Theotokos at Compline. Akathist to the Sweetest Jesus, Ikos 10. Akathist to the Sweetest Jesus, Ikos 5. Prayer of the priest at the Liturgy before the Cherubim. From the 4th prayer for Holy Communion. Irmos 1 song of the canon to the Nativity of Christ. Magnification at Matins on Fomino Sunday. Easter Canon, Tone 1, Canto 6. Troparion of Venerable Mary of Egypt. Orthodox Catechism. Saint Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna. Akathist to the Most Holy Theotokos, Ikos 10. Canon Archangel. Song 9. Irmos. Prayer of Great Compline; Ps. 60:5. 3 Prayers to my wife who gave birth on 1 day. Canon for Holy Communion, Canto 8, Trinity Canon of Easter, Song 9, troparion. Canon of Easter, Song 6, troparion. Prayers before Holy Communion, Prayer of Symeon Metaphrastus. Antiphon 1, Tone 4 and 8. Prayer of the 8th Priest at Matins. It was written when the Russian translation of the Holy Scriptures had not yet been published by the Holy Synod. The verses are resurrected, Tone 3, on “I cried to the Lord.” Antiphon for Matins, 4th tone. Troparion for Matins of Passion Week. Prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian. Canon of St. John the Baptist. Follow-up to Most Holy Communion, Prayer of St. Simeon Metaphrastus, 4th.