Декабрь 1881 г.

I thank the Lord, who heard my prayer of repentance to extinguish my enmity against Archpriest Pavel V. Trachevsky for deducting money from me regarding the service of early mass for me by an outside priest; the archpriest expressed his hostility towards the guardianship in my person, ripping off money from me, as if I had gone to Moscow for my own needs. The Lord accepted my repentance, took away enmity from my soul and gave love and peace, meekness and kindness to my heart. Thanks be to the Lord, who extinguished the fire of charm in me when I looked at the girl. This delusion [barren], corrupting, absurd, insane, separating the soul from God, desecrating it, is similar to the delusion that happened to me in school and in the seminary. How long she lives and does not die! And in Moscow, at the Slavic Bazaar hotel, before visiting the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the devil killed me with charms and terribly disgraced and killed me internally, his poison spread throughout my entire being, and as soon as I begged the Lord to deliver me from it, to heal me, to cleanse me. Woe without service, without praise, with good food. I thank the Lord, who has repeatedly delivered me by His mercy from the impudent, murderous attack of the devil, who carried me away with carnal lust, a deadly poison that spread in my insides and deprived me of freedom, peace, boldness, and life. The prayer of repentance saved me from this trouble many times. How brazen and impudent is sin! How much flattery, abomination, shame, humiliation, darkness there is in it! Why don’t I one day hate him forever, reject him and completely cleave to truth and holiness, to incorruptibility, light, the world of God? Lord help me! Evening, eleven and a half o'clock. I thank the Lord for the speedy, sovereign, blessed deliverance of my lewdness from my passions, from anger towards the poor and from the movement of voluptuousness: in the first case, before visiting Evdokia Lukinishna Gulyaeva, in the other after leaving her; both times I brought deep repentance to the Lord. Are you looking for the only, true, eternal treasure, which is God, or are you looking for other, temporary, deceptive, corruptible or false treasures: money, rich clothes, honors, chosen foods and drinks, sweets, earthly love and other countless earthly treasures? If the latter, then you are on the wrong path, you are delirious in your sleep, you dream like an ardent, inexperienced youth, you experience constant ruin, languor, anxiety, and are amazed by countless blows. If you are looking for the only treasure - God, then you stand on the solid path of life leading to the eternal belly, you stand on a stone, and your peace is with you, you laugh at all the waves of life, the storms of vain, for your treasure is inalienable, comforting, sovereign, life-giving. Leave it to others to seek earthly treasures, at least earthly wisdom, as transitory as this world - you seek heavenly, true, eternal treasures, or, if you find it, then hold on to it tightly, with all the strength of your soul. Know, as much as a person can know, the greatness and holiness of the boundless Mother of God, Her truth, goodness, love for God and all His truth, love for people, the power of Her intercession and prayer for the world, especially for the Christian race, and, having loved Her with all your soul and reverently before Her sincerely, call upon Her unceasingly for help, glorify Her silently, heartily, with your whole being - then you will soon know Her power, Her mercy, Her incomparable grace. Know the value of all the saints of God, their inalienable grace, their boldness and strength before God, imitate them and call on them for help. Know the value for yourself, the grace given to you and living in you, as others have known it in you, and do not offend it with sins and passions, sinful inclinations and inclinations, so that it does not depart from you and do not remain in shame and disgrace from your sinful deeds, done once and nesting in your heart, but multiply it, increase it, strengthen it with deeds of righteousness, prayer, praise, abstinence, almsgiving and other virtues, may the Lord add to you the gifts of His grace and make you perfect, according to the Scripture: be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect [Matthew 5:48]. Evening. Until late evening after early mass, prayer service to the great saint of God Nicholas the Wonderworker. Just before Matins, through a fervent, hope-filled prayer of repentance for my malice and hard-heartedness towards the poor, the Lord delivered me from hellish oppression, fire and torment and snatched me from the very mouth of the dragon that had devoured me. Oh, how terrible was my condition, my torment, although it did not last long! What if it lasted! I couldn't stand it! However, the Lord creates with temptation an excess of some strength to endure it. Before the Gospel, my service was going quite well. But during the Gospel, while reading it, the devil completely confused and shook me at the thought of its length (from Luke: the appearance of the Lord to the disciples going to Emmaus) and supposedly I had to serve as soon as possible in order to be on time for many prayer services, and I missed a lot, not pronouncing it and somehow crumpling it up - complete defeat from the enemy! Again burden and shame! But in order to rise from the fall, I read the canons with the greatest zeal and energy, with the greatest animation. Release did not speak, he stole the words; He began to pray to Christ, the True Light and could not read it - the devil blatantly prevented him. He served Mass with a weak spirit and did not read all of the prayer behind the pulpit. Temptations and embarrassments, constant pressure from the enemy; On top of everything else, bad wine was served for the Sacrament, sour as vinegar. During prayers in houses throughout the day, temptations are most acute from an envious enemy. Only at Anna Gerasimovna’s did I serve a complete prayer service, with the Blessing of Water prayer! Thirty-five rubles were collected into the mug. Deacon - three rubles. Three rubles from Titkov, the rector’s debt to his wife. Hallowed be Thy name [Matthew 6:9], because the devil constantly tries to defile us and present other people to us in a nasty, perverted form, and indeed all things; Thy kingdom come [Matthew 6:10], for he strives in every way, through every sin, to reign and reigns in us; Thy will be done [Matthew 6:10], for he forces us to constantly do his nasty, destructive will, and often at the very time when we say these words, we persistently do our own and the enemy’s will, and not God’s - we are so accustomed to sin, we have become akin to it! Monday. Morning. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from sorrow and oppression and the deadness of sin through the prayer of repentance and falling to the holy throne before Matins and at the beginning of it (I ran away from the beggars, giving them four kopecks each, they asked for shoes). The Lord revived me, deadened by sin, and made me new, free, peaceful, and gracious. After tea (and milk - I sinned!) the Lord accepted new repentance for the newly committed sin (greed and envy) and delivered me from cramped conditions and sorrow, giving peace and space with boldness. Glory to His mercy and long-suffering! Eleven o'clock in the afternoon. Twice, by His mercy, the Lord delivered me for my repentance from the delusion of carnal pleasures (once at the parish school of care, another at home, this very minute). What is the purpose of disembodied enemies to arouse carnal lust? The one to transform 110 our soul, the law of God, to defile and corrupt the soul and body and remove us forever from God and combine with ourselves. Terrible! After this, how can you not hate all carnal pleasures! And we are so greedy, we want them! Oh, may I love with all my heart the only thing I need – God and His holy law! Three and a half o'clock in the evening. Now the Lord has honored me with the greatest deliverance from the heartache and distress due to some displeasure towards my wife, sister-in-law and guest Pasynkova. I prayed to the Lord sincerely, in repentance, and He had mercy on me. Glory and thanksgiving to the Lord! Grant me, Lord, to keep love - the essence of all Your law and not to fall away from love. On the night from December 7th to 8th, almost the entire Medvezhya Street, including part of Aleksandrovskaya Street, burned down, and our care homes also burned down. God protected our church houses because the wind was south. When I looked at our father, the rector, who was carrying out his treasures, of which he did not give to any poor person, and who was unkind to his guardianship, then I felt in my heart both malice and envy towards him for his complete earthly well-being, and when I went to matins and came to church to glorify and thank God, this malice and envy greatly tormented and embarrassed me; I sincerely and deeply repented, often falling to the holy throne, and the Lord had mercy and took away anger and envy from my heart. I asked the Lord to plant in my heart true love, which never falls away, sincere respect for the abbot, who personally did not offend me in any way and was generally distinguished by moderation and meekness, I prayed to the Lord to completely eradicate envy in me - the cause of malice and to plant sincere goodwill even to the enemies of the poor, who save their countless silver only for themselves and do not give anything to their neighbors. For they are more miserable than any man, and fiery hell is undoubtedly being prepared for them. Remarkable is the act of the God-inspired leader of Israel and the prophet of God, Moses, after his descent from the mountain to the people who had sinned by worshiping the golden calf. Moses reduced him to dust, threw him into the stream, and told him to drink from the stream. This is so that the Jews can see that they idolize dust, dust, and not God, as they thought, and clearly see their madness. This is also informative for us, who are often too seduced by the beautiful or brilliant appearance of some person or some thing, or by food and drink, or by external brilliant differences and almost idolize the creature or even idolize - what do we idolize? Dust. What do we cling to with our hearts? To the dust. Isn't this crazy? I thank the Lord, who delivered me through the prayer of faith and repentance from the nasty, murderous wave of Belial at a trusteeship meeting in the apartment of Pavel Evgrafovich Borisov, captain of the first rank, in the house of Tsepov. Regarding the answer of the seventh grade students about the Holy Spirit, let me remember my conversation about the actions of the Holy Spirit in people - in the apostles, martyrs and saints, in us sinners, especially during divine services. Why is it called Life-giving? Because it gives spiritual life to people: By the Holy Spirit the saints labored in passions and overcame them, subjugated the flesh to the spirit, became holy and pleasing to God; By the Holy Spirit, the martyrs courageously stood against their tormentors and overcame the terrible torment that numbed the imagination, and were crowned with martyrdoms; By the Holy Spirit, the apostles, saints, martyrs and saints orbited, writing Gospels and Epistles, expounding and clarifying the dogmas and rules of the faith, compiling many highly wise, comforting, sweet teachings, conversations, reflections, apologies that strengthen Christian souls and hearts; They theologized with the Holy Spirit at the Ecumenical and Local Councils and drew up definitions of faith and rules of Christian life; The Holy Spirit composed wonderful, wise, instructive, sweet liturgical hymns and prayers and, in general, the entire order of worship, which we have the happiness of enjoying and comforting, nourishing and strengthening our souls. With the Holy Spirit we also fight sin, passions and the ruler of the world and overcome sins and their culprits - the spirits of wickedness, impurity, malice, pride, envy, fornication, intemperance, fear, despondency, cowardice and others. By the Holy Spirit we are cleansed from corrupting sins, we are sanctified, renewed, strengthened, we are comforted in sorrows and sorrow about sins and our unworthiness; By the Holy Spirit we also gain wisdom for salvation, preach the word of God, perform divine services and the Sacraments that act for salvation; The shepherds and teachers of the Church still act with authority through the Holy Spirit; With the Holy Spirit we pray, glorify and thank God in the Trinity. The Holy Spirit encourages us to prayer, repentance and all virtue, enlightens and guides us to a life pleasing to God in our Guardian Angels and the holy saints of God, who sometimes appear to us and perform miracles; The Holy Spirit works miraculously through holy icons; The Holy Spirit gives every good thing, every virtue: love, meekness, humility, mercy, selflessness, purity, chastity, peace, patience, courage, boldness, countless blessings. Glory to the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son forever and ever. Amen. December 9. Holy, holy, holy are you, God, you have always had mercy on us through the Mother of God, and now you have saved us from the fire, and you are saving us from the burning fire of passions, you are giving us every good thing. Wednesday. I thank the Lord, who now (December 9, during Matins before the Six Psalms) delivered me from fierce demonic anger against the abbot; I thank the Lord, who trampled death and the deceit of the enemy in me and gave me true life, longed-for peace and spaciousness of heart. Glory to the Lord, who grants me to know the charm, absurdity, madness and mortality of all sin and leads me to holiness and perfection. Upon arriving home, another delight began to chill me - carnal sweetness. Grant me, Lord, the grace and wisdom to despise the flesh and sweets and to honor and love every person as a shrine of [Your] image and likeness, with pure love. How the devil perverts everything! How his charm reigns everywhere and in everything: we cannot look, nor step, nor think without charm. Plant Your truth in all people, O Lord, deliver them from delusion, destroy the fierce and evil deceiver who has corrupted Your creation. Man will not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God [Matthew 4:4]. Eating extensively on food and drink, my body is full, but my soul, while my body is full, is often hungry for grace; I always experience higher spiritual life only during fervent prayer, reading the Holy Scriptures, the Holy Fathers, sincerely drinking the Holy Mysteries, and soul-saving conversations. And Moses spent one hundred and twenty days on Mount Sinai without food or drink. Oh, what a heavy, deadly foot of sin! In the morning, after washing my face, I just put my hand on the head of the girl who was receiving God’s blessing through me, and my heart moved towards carnal love and began to indulge in the death of sin; Only through repentance and prayer did I get rid of the further effects of sin and was healed by grace. I thank the Lord for deliverance and salvation during Matins and before the litany for the deceased girl, the daughter of a customs inspector. Coffee and sweets generally relax the heart terribly. Oh, if only I didn’t drink coffee in the morning (and never) and fast until the evening every day! Help, Lord! Friday. I thank the Lord, who strengthened me through my secret prayer and through His great mercy to almost without fail perform two memorial services for the departed after fighting against the opposing forces of the enemy. Glory to the Intercessor and Helper God! Drinking sweet tea and eating a small bread today made my soul extremely relaxed, which became clear especially during the service of the lithium over the deceased John (in the basement of the women's gymnasium). No need to drink or eat in the morning. I thank the Lord and the Lady, who surprised His mercy through my living prayer with firm trust in the servant of God, the widow Evlampia Shlyapnikova, and her children, through admiration for the mercy of the servant of God Olga Afanasyevna Karpova, who gave money in exchange for five hundred rubles to E. Shlyapnikova for trade. Shlyapnikova was terribly poor and crying, not knowing where to get money; a shop for trade was bought, but there was no goods and nothing to buy, and nothing to live on, and so the Lord, through the prayer and intercession of the Lady, poured out His wonderful mercy. How great and strong is our God! How merciful is the Lady, who hears our heartfelt prayers! How wonderful is the knowledge of the Lord! Neither sooner nor later than after a bold, faithful prayer, a wonderful mercy was granted, for Olga had previously not even wanted to hear from me about borrowing money from her, but now she joyfully gave it. I thank the Lord, who showed me His help many times during the service of memorial services in different places and the all-night vigil with prayer services at Mr. [A...], when evil, crafty prodigal demons terribly attacked my weakness, outraged my heart with their filth and did not allow me to speak. Oh, demonic impudence! Oh, the powerlessness of my heart from incessant gluttony and carnality! Without deliberate service, in robes, in church or at home, I am extremely corrupted and weakened in spirit and filled with countless evils. But the service, especially the repeated liturgy, completely regenerates and renews, revives me. Glory to the grace of the Holy Sacraments! Morning. After confession and communion of Vladimir A. [P...]. Due to my sinfulness, due to my voluptuousness and selfishness, I reluctantly went to this sick man, who borrowed ten rubles from me without repayment and had no income from his family. When I came to him and, after kissing and talking a little, began to read prayers, my tongue, with the doubleness and passion of my heart, became confused, hesitated, stammered, I could barely speak, and I completely missed some prayers or expressions and words from the tightness of my heart and the strangulation of the devil; As soon as I finished the matter of confession and communion, it was so hard for me! Here I again became aware of my passion, my impurities of heart, my pride, voluptuousness, envy, suspicion, ill will, lust, greed, unfriendliness, guile, coldness and indifference to the plight of my neighbor, demonic fear, cowardice, despondency, impatience, murmuring, disobedience, disobedience. (The sin began with sinful jealousy and envy of the abbot, who, despite his perfect prosperity and great wealth, is indifferent and cold as a stone to the poor and to any virtue, apparently motionless, except for measuredness and stoic firmness and indifference.) I forget my greatest sins, killing my soul, and I am still jealous of the sins of the abbot, I want to have as much wealth as he does, and be indifferent to the poor, like him, I want his hard-heartedness, I envy, so to speak, his hoarding and failure to give to the poor - which means I myself want to be the same. And my heartfelt and carnal corruption! And my delicacy, satiety, anger, envy, cowardice, timidity! Oh, what a shame this is for me! Deliver, Lord, from the shame of passions! Before late mass and during mass after the Great Entrance, the Lord delivered me through intense prayer of repentance from extreme oppression, strangulation by the devil and death of sin; The Lord took away a whole mountain from my soul, revived me, who had been killed, comforted, relieved. Glory to His immeasurable mercy! And how Belial triumphed in me, how he tyrannized, oppressed, and outraged! And after communion of the Holy Mysteries, he found a vulnerable place in my heart and seduced me with the sight of a beautiful woman, pouring the deadening poison of sweetness into my soul, and I could not overcome him because of yesterday I had eaten modest soup and milk at home at dinner and at Galakhov’s after the all-night vigil at home, after drinking sweet tea with jam, wine, eating sardines, a few herrings... I myself felt satiety and extreme coarsening of the heart and therefore powerlessness in the fight against demons, who are subtle, for they do not eat or drink, like spirits. This race is driven out only by prayer and fasting [Matthew 17:21]. Why do we need to wish and ask that God’s will always be fulfilled by everyone, and not ours? Because the will of God is good, righteous and holy, perfect, life-giving, wise, and our will is evil, sinful, wrong, corrupted, insane; briefly: God's will is truth, and ours is sin. I thank the Lord, who gave me the grace to perform victoriously, without stumbling, Vespers and two baptisms (at Volkov and Pisarevsky). The most crafty and evil adversary the devil constantly curses at us and through us to God the All-Creator through our sins and various passions, to which we indulge in reason and not in reason, in knowledge and not in knowledge, willingly and unwillingly, especially curses in us the image of God through the desecration of it by various temptations and addictions of life. Woe to the world because of temptations [Matthew 18:7]! But believers and those who love God must constantly learn the truth of God and do sincerely, unceasingly the commandments of God. Last Saturday, after early mass, I was terribly tempted at Machigin’s memorial service (which I served without a deacon) through the watchman Prokopiy Kardakov, who put in an excessive amount of incense, which I smoked while walking around the altars and more. I was embarrassed and extremely upset and barely finished the funeral service. I felt sorry for the smoke of the renovated church, sorry for the waste of incense, and unpleasant for enduring the excess smoke. I barely begged the Lord to have mercy and pacify me, for I had greatly offended Him, the King of the world, through my grief and embarrassment. I had to keep the peace firmly and not be indignant at anything. Let me take my example from Father Pavel, the rector, eternally calm and peaceful, constant, true to himself. I thank the Lord, who surprised me with the mercy of His salvation, firstly, in church at the beginning of Matins and then, and secondly, upon returning home from the removal of Claudia Johanson, at which the adversary wounded me and killed my soul with his breath. I fervently, in repentance, cried out to the Lord, and He saved me. Evening. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the fierce malice of the devil during mass after communion of the Holy Mysteries: for the sake of the power of the Holy Mysteries, I was delivered. During Vespers, a terrible temptation befell me: the devil [attacked] me with all his might because of my fear of those gathered in church, whom I was afraid of because I came to church late and forced them to wait. This made me very confused. But why did I fear not God, but people, and lose the peace of God, and grieve the Holy Spirit, and grieve the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of the world? It is not the rain, it is said, in the confusion of your feet, below shall he slumber... below shall the guardian of Israel fall asleep. ...The Lord is a cover upon your right hand [Ps. 120:3–5]. I thank the Lord, who through the Holy Spirit stopped carnal passion when, after fervent prayer, I left the house, and until then it strongly resisted and killed me inside! Glory to the Lord, mighty in battle! I thank the Lord, who strengthened me to perform Matins victoriously, solemnly, with strength and great zeal. I thank the Lord, who has strengthened me to perform the Liturgy without stumbling, peacefully, and to partake of the life-giving communion of the immeasurable benefit of the most pure, life-giving Mysteries, and to let go of everything to say boldly, and to let go of the requiem for one and the other. I thank the Lord, who has strengthened me to celebrate Vespers with the greatest zeal and a triumphant spirit, without stumbling, life-giving. I thank the Lord, who delivered me from the feces of voluptuousness that killed me in the apartment of Mr. Smirnov, an accountant. I saw a very beautiful young maiden - and I was tempted, and desecrated my heart with fornication, and unworthily, insincerely, forcibly read prayers to the mother in labor and the baby, with stumbling blocks and omissions, and I did not read the entire troparion for the Presentation, and did not pronounce the dismissal - this is what devastation sin has caused in my soul, what powerlessness, what slavery, what death, what disgrace, shame! Sincere repentance returned to me God's grace and peace with boldness. Do not believe your antipathies towards a person, but think how imperfect you yourself are, how unclean your heart is, that it loves not everyone, according to the commandment of God, but by choice - those whom we, our corrupt taste, like, our voluptuousness, our self-interest, our vanity; We push people around, like we push around other things, and want them all to be to our taste, as if they were created by God for our taste. Mourn over yourself, man, for the impurity of your heart and try to love everyone as you love yourself, without partiality, for everything is in the image of God. Wednesday. Matins and cathedral (three of us) mass for Vladimir A. [P...] served the grace of God without stumbling, victoriously. Just before mass, the Lord had mercy - changed and cleansed my heart from the evil despondency towards Archpriest Paul, especially when he kindly allowed me to speak over the tomb of the deceased. Communion of the Holy Mysteries was wonderful, life-giving, renewing, peaceful. Glory to the Lord! After taking it out, I went to the Markovs and ate a hearty meal of salted sturgeon and fish soup with sturgeon and whitefish, washed down with quite a bit of wine, which is why my heart hardened, a fever rushed into my head, and in the gymnasium I felt not very good, not light, but heavy, foggy. From now on, I should never drink wine after mass, except for one glass. He served Vespers with fear, lest he become embarrassed and confused during the litanies, and therefore he skipped the great and petitionary litany, and spoke extremely rarely and in a drawling manner. At matins and liturgies, vespers there is a lot of salvation from the Lord. My adversary the devil fights terribly, subtly, strongly, destructively against me through carnal passions, through the womb, through partiality, especially through carnal voluptuousness, through vanity and pride, through addiction to clothes and jewelry, through anger towards others, through envy and so on. Once I came to the cathedral funeral service for V.V. Gordeev; the abbot, without waiting for me, began to serve; I soon came too, and I was offended by him for neglecting me, for not waiting (it was not six o’clock in the evening); or at the sexton during the service because of the most trivial incident (due to an incorrect variation in his voice, because of his cough or some kind of awkwardness, omission), I often become embittered as if he were my great enemy; or, while cutting the Holy Lamb for the communicants, I found that the dough was extremely liquid and airy, somewhat empty in other places, and I became embittered at the prosphora maker for her cunning (although the prosphora was large), and I couldn’t even look at the pretty face of a young girl or woman without painful temptation, I was embarrassed and stammered in the service, I couldn’t pronounce words due to the devil’s cunning. And if the Lord had not stood up for me with His grace, if he had not hastened to help me at my call and repentance, if he had not had mercy and saved me, then the adversary would have swallowed me up long ago, making me food and trash for himself. Therefore, my life, especially serving God in the church and at home, is my constant deliverance, help and salvation from the Lord, a constant blessing, the wonderful mercy of God. Glory to the Lord! We must mortify carnal passions by abstinence, vigil, humility, prayer, reading the word of God, the writings of the holy fathers. The adversary terribly offended me before communion and during the communion of my spiritual children - women on December 18, Friday, about the extreme looseness and almost emptiness of the Lamb, making me angry at the prosphora. Already after communion, through intense repentance and invocation of the name of the Lord and through hope in the all-redemptiveness of the Divine Blood, I got rid of the fierce, deadly sting of demons and was healed, revived, pacified, and confident. I thank the Lord, who has deigned me without stumbling to perform Matins with a triumphant, victorious spirit and liturgy outside the city in the Trinity Church together with the rector of the cathedral and to receive life-giving communion of the Holy Mysteries. This evening I got into big trouble with my wife because I accused her of forging the key to my desk and inner drawers and taking some things and money. Like an enraged lioness, she attacked me and was ready to tear me to pieces, she roared with anger, howled like mad, threatened to hit me on the cheek in front of the children, reproached women, that is, pious women who had spiritual communication with me in prayers, Sacraments, spiritual conversations and readings, she reviled me in the most dishonest way, but exalted herself. God! Let her go, I don’t know what she says and does. Give her reason, all darkened by the vanities and pleasures of life: fat 112, thick, wide: and leave God [Deut. 32:15]. What is the attitude of my wife and sister-in-law Anna towards my family? Above all inhumanity: ready, like gore sheep, to gore them, like snakes, to wound, to sting. However, they feel cheap sympathy for those who they like, who caress them, honor them, who are rich and noble, who do not need help, who please them. But let them go, they don’t know what they are doing out of sinful blindness. And how did my wife go berserk at the innocent, modest, honest, hardworking servant Evdokia? How did she scold her, how did she threaten to drive her away immediately because she told me the bitter truth about her? Terrible malice! Only she respects herself and loves her sister and her nieces, and ordinary people for her are not people, but working cattle! She always treated them rudely, arrogantly, and harshly. The Lord will reward her according to her deeds, may she learn humility, and may she not push poor people around. This is a woman pissed off with fat. I thank You, Lord, because after the storm at home You gave me peace and restful sleep. Grant me today to sincerely wish well to those who hate and disgrace me, to wish them correction and salvation, and not to be malicious or gloat. Grant us peace and serenity, King of peace and mercy of the abyss! Forgive and do not remember what has passed by, Lord. May the devil never rejoice over us from now on, may we not do his evil and destructive will in anything, but may we do exactly Your holy and saving will. Amen. Most Holy Theotokos, help us. Monday. God! I thank You that You did not put me to shame in the hope of Your mercy, when I begged You in repentance and heartfelt pity for an end to the enmity that happened in my house from my wife to me and my extreme grief towards her, for the softening of her obstinate and evil heart, for the establishment of peace and serenity. I prayed about this during Sunday matins and liturgy, when You gave me to enjoy the singing of the triple stichera (on the Lord, I cried, on the stichera and on the praises), and the reading of the canons, and the celebration of the liturgy, and the sermon of Chrysostom. You sent us as an angel of reconciliation our prudent sister Anna Konstantinovna Tsvetkova, who softened and enlightened her sister and my wife, and extinguished the enmity, and returned what was stolen by my wife to my box, to which the key was forged. Glory to Thee, Lord, for all this. On Sunday afternoon at three o'clock, when I went from home to the sea on the Merchants' Wall for a walk in the strong wind, I was overcome by devilish grief and anger at my wife and the hellish, depressing closeness, and for a long time, praying in secret, I fought with the hellish dogs that attacked me, and in the name of Christ I overcame sin and the evil dogs of demons, but I lost my voice, probably from a cold. Glory to the victorious name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Return my voice to me, O Lord, and never take it away, so that I may sing the glory of Yours and Your saints, and may I honor and sing Your great mercies towards people. Cleanse my heart from all defilement and plant Your holiness forever in my heart, for You are holy and rest in the saints. Amen. Morning. Five o'clock. I thank the Lord, who called me to serve the early liturgy, and who defeated in me all the machinations of the evil enemy, and who revived me with the communion of the most heavenly, wonderful, most pure, life-giving Mysteries. He served mass and the first requiem without stumbling with God's help. At the end of the second memorial service on dismissal, I was seduced by the excuse of the old beggar through the thought of a young woman I knew, Olga Mikhailovna, a tanner, and the crafty, unclean demon wounded and killed my soul, but the Lord had mercy on me for sincere repentance and delivered me from spiritual death. God bless! At home, the Lord again delivered me from the creeping impurity of my heart, which arose from a sensual glance at my wife’s face, for I sincerely repented. Glory to God the Savior, the only most beloved, all-sweet Giver of Life, the only incorruptible, life-giving treasure, the only incorruptible beauty and eternal beauty! We have sorrow in our hearts. How woeful is it for us, pre-zealous 113, to have hearts even during the accomplishment of the most heavenly things, when our hearts are tied, chained to the earth by thousands of earthly ties, by thousands of iron shackles of sin! How woeful it is to have hearts when they are saturated with all uncleanness, and God is most pure and holy! In order to stand with an exalted mind and a lofty heart during divine services, one must always prepare for it at home with prayer and meditation and putting aside all worldly worries and passions and sincere secret repentance for one’s sins. We must test ourselves: are we in faith [2 Cor. 13:5], do we have a mustard seed of the Kingdom of God in us, is there spiritual leaven of grace, put into three measures of flour [Matthew 13:33], that is, into the three powers of our soul: rational, feeling and desiring, or active? Is there in us the good seed of the Kingdom or only the tares of worldly passions and addictions and carnal wisdom? What is the land of our heart: road, or rocky, or thorny - or kind and pure? Yes, when we want to begin to serve the Lord God, then let us first prepare ourselves, as Scripture commands: if you begin to work for the Lord Your God, first prepare for yourself [Sir.2:1-2]. From December 20, from two o'clock in the afternoon until now (December 22, Tuesday), I have been suffering from a sore throat - a lack of voice that resulted from shouting at a beggar when I was by the sea on the Merchants' Wall in a strong cold wind, and the beggars were chasing me. Heal, abundantly merciful, invincible in mercy, Lord Jesus Christ, my God, for the sake of Thy Nativity, for the sake of Thy most philanthropic immeasurable condescension. Wake up! I thank the Lord, who completely reconciled my wife Elizabeth with me and kindled in her an ardent love for me after her terrible enmity over the scribe’s table. The holy saints of God all practiced active wisdom, in humility, self-sacrifice, mortification of passions, in fasting, vigil, prayer, lying on the ground instead of our soft bed, in unceasing praise, thanksgiving, and doing with our hands, but I only philosophize in words, but in reality I do not take a step forward, I even go backward in the active science of philosophy: I am lazy, fed up, angry, irritated, love money, cling to beautiful decay and to these like soap bubbles (I mean everything that attracts passionate gazes), hard-hearted, proud, envious, suspicious, disobeying my elders, falling into waywardness and stubbornness. Oh, when will I take up active Christian philosophy, when, despising the corruptible, will I strive most of all for the incorruptible, eternal, heavenly, Divine? Time is running out, summers pass quickly, eternity awaits, death is behind us. Lord, turn my eyes away from vanity and my feet from stumbling, and teach me to love You, the only one worthy of fiery love, with all my heart, with all my thoughts, unceasingly, completely, completely. God! Remember in Your Kingdom Your servants Walter with his wife and children (Maynard) and Alexander with his wife and children (Fishwick), who do much good to Your poor people and think well about alms and public assistance, for You have made them wise. Be wiser and more, Lord Lord! Amen. I thank You, Lord, who has given me this day - a day of joy and deliverance, peace from sin. We, blinded by sin, become attached to visible things and objects because we do not see with our intelligent eyes the word clearly written on all of them: corruption. Yes, every thing is perishable, every organic and inorganic body is subject to decay and destruction: a beautiful body will turn into corruption, every beauty of fabric will turn into dust, vessels, in general things made of gold and silver or even adorned with precious stones will turn to dust, every sweet food, every sweet or precious drink will turn into corruption, every utensil, every piece of wood, metals, minerals - everything will return to the dust from which it was created. Only one is eternal and unchangeable, eternally beautiful, eternally blessed, holy, righteous, wise, all-good, omnipotent - this is the Creator and Creator of everything, God, and from Him the intelligent Heavenly Powers, the countless ranks of heavenly spirits and human souls, created in the image and likeness of God, have already received immortal existence, although they have been corrupted by sin, but cannot lose their existence and through faith, repentance and virtue achieving blessed immortality by the grace of Christ. It is about our immortal souls that we must be diligent in all the days of our life, given to us in preparation for the bliss there, the beginnings of which we are already here privileged to often anticipate and rejoice in the Lord. I thank You, Lord, for once again you extended a helping hand to me, who sincerely repented in church (during mass at twelve o’clock), and delivered me from severe sins (when distributing alms to others) and sorrows, and gave me sweet peace, lightness and spaciousness of heart. I thank the Lord that He, called with faith, delivers us from the tormenting devil and omnipotent passions every day and all the days of our life, that our being is enriched with immeasurable mercy, the hope of life and immortality, the sinful is pardoned, the unclean is cleansed, the unclean is washed and sanctified (Baptism and Confirmation), the weak is strengthened, dishonored - honored with great honor, darkened by sins - enlightened by the Divine light of the grace of the Gospel, corruptible - immortalized, poor - enriched by the Divine, naked - clothed with the robe of incorruptibility, smooth - saturated, thirsty - watered with the waters of the Spirit, streams of grace, alienated - appropriated and received the promise of an eternal inheritance in heaven, sorrowful - consoled, violated from the devil - delivered from his violence by those who died for us on the cross, who descended into hell and crushed the power of the enemy for many years, those who were enfeebled by sins were healed, those who were orphaned without a Father again received through the Son their Only Begotten Father in Heaven. Glory to all God's unspeakable mercies to us. Second day of the Nativity of Christ. The devil contrasted every virtue with a vice similar to it: thus, he contrasted holy love for God and neighbor with the love of this adulterous and sinful, vain world, love for worldly amusements, customs, vicious habits, carnal love, corrupting the whole person - soul and body and separating from God; He contrasted a person’s desire for the honor of a heavenly title with the desire for earthly, vain, transitory glory, for honors and distinctions; [in contrast to] the thirst for acquiring the heavenly treasure of God's grace, truth, holiness, purity, incorruptible and eternal treasures of virtue: meekness, humility, gentleness, non-covetousness, purity, simplicity of heart, mercy, faith, hope, patience, dispassion for everything earthly - invested a passionate, unquenchable thirst for only earthly acquisitions, for profit money, property, shiny things that have only temporary significance or sometimes are completely unnecessary and constitute only luxury; in general, the devil tries to merge and mix everything: good with evil and evil with good, so that he can take away the price from the good done by someone, which is why the Lord teaches in the Gospel to do good so that evil is not mixed with it, for example, so that almsgiving should be secret, without vanity and pride, and so on. It takes a lot of caution, prudence, love of truth, zeal for virtue and hatred of sin in order to follow the right, godly path that leads to heaven, and yet we are passionate, lazy, careless, unreasonable, we do not think about the consequences to which sins lead, although small, but often repeated, we love sin itself and often turn away from virtue out of pride and other passions and therefore We constantly sin and move away from God, the Source of life, truth, peace, joy and bliss. At the board of trustees, propose the request of Gromovsky’s clerk, Ivan Ivanovich Martynov, to issue money of one thousand seven hundred rubles for the forest. The devil has made all the members and organs of our body into instruments of sin: the eye looks wickedly and seductively, and the ear passionately listens to sinful things, and the taste is passionate for sweets, intemperance and drunkenness, and the sense of smell [greedy] for pleasant odors, and the touch for soft, warm, youthful things, especially those that have animal warmth; therefore, all feelings and members must be mortified by rational, righteous mortification in order to make them dead and insensitive to sin, dispassionate, which is what the reverend fathers, martyrs, fasters, fools for Christ’s sake, truly wise in Christ, did gloriously. Therefore, in the painful state of sin, a person strongly desires and thirsts for a single stream of God’s grace, life-giving to soul and body, for sin deadens soul and body. I thank the Lord for His great and prompt help during the service of Matins and early mass on the Nativity of Christ, although under the grave temptations and obstacles of bodiless enemies who laughed at me when pronouncing well-known prayers, exclamations and dismissals. I thank the Lord, who two or three times delivered me from the slander of the enemy, from their malice that was instilled in me before the prayer service and during the prayer service in the cathedral on the occasion of the deliverance of Russia in the twelfth year from the invasion of the French. I thank the Lord, who saved me three times during Matins in the cathedral and at home from the effects of my passions and who gave me the grace to read and sing the canon of the Nativity and stichera with zeal and a triumphant spirit. Eleven o'clock in the evening. [...] The Lord has given me so many of His revelations, so much grace and mercy, so much enlightenment, so much purification and salvation, so many grace-filled powers He has shown in me, so much generosity of kindness, long-suffering, that to sin still would be the greatest insolence and ingratitude on my part, willful blindness and equal-hearted eyes of mine, O Lord, not when death has fallen asleep: not when my enemy says: be strong against him 114 [ Ps.12:4-5], for he has already become strong and often challenges me in my words and deeds. [...]. Resurrection. I thank the Lord, who has given me the grace to celebrate Matins and early mass with a triumphant spirit, in a loud, clear, joyful voice, and to deliver a brief sermon. He didn’t read the pulpit due to the devil’s embarrassment, he stole the leave, and didn’t say everything. I thank the Lord, who has given me the strength, in extreme bodily weakness, to cheerfully, unfailingly, loudly, heartily perform the funeral liturgy (from Burachka), and to partake of the Holy Mysteries without condemnation, and to serve the requiem mass cheerfully. Before the dismissal, the devil put into my heart the thought of a beautiful silk scarf, which I really like, and my heart died, and I could not say the entire funeral dismissal. Then, through repentance, he appeased the Lord and got rid of the devil’s poison. Tuesday. I confess the great mercies of God that were revealed in me during Matins in delivering me from secret anger (twofold) towards the rector, who was negligent in the church service (extreme haste allowed, omissions), and from his evil suspicion of fighting against God and trampling on the truth. And he is a measured and meek old man in general and not ill-intentioned, although not always, not always (trusteeship, the poor). I thank the Lord with all my heart for having mercy and delivering me from rage and anger at the beggars, who extremely persistently and demandingly approached me to ask for a lot of money. I spoke angrily, reproached, scolded, pushed one aside. I did not preserve the words of meekness and humility, the words of love for God and neighbor; filled with all kinds of goodness from God, I myself turned out to be ungrateful and evil, desecrated the image of God in me with malice - an immortal soul, saddened the Holy Spirit of the Comforter, grieved the philanthropic womb of my Lord Christ. But glory to the Lord that His infinite goodness overcame my and the devil’s malice and He had mercy on me, snatching me from the jaws of the hellish serpent, whose malice I had participated in. Wednesday. I was honored with the ineffable mercy and mercy of God in the evening at eight o'clock, when, on my way to Golubev's house, I got off the sleigh behind Isakov's house and went for a walk, and meanwhile one black beggar caught up with me, to whom I had already given alms, although small, before that. The fact is that I was extremely furious with him when he did not go to my request to leave me, but followed me and asked for money. I stopped and pulled him tightly by the hair, and then gave him ten kopecks. I myself became agitated and killed my soul with such hard-heartedness and anger, anger at my neighbor, a member of Christ and a fellow member of mine, who suffers need and, out of dire need, in every possible way catches me alone in order to beg for more. And he did not reject my small offer, but accepted and went silent, not crying, showing his meekness and patience, resignation and kindness. I recognized and felt my sin in this misfortune and began to beg my merciful and long-suffering Lord for mercy, admitting my insane anger, my hardness of heart, my greed for money, my ingratitude before God, who shows His rich Providence for everyone and for the poor (I received enough money for them). For more than half an hour I walked along Vladimirskaya and Pavlovskaya streets in repentance, with tears, and finally I truly felt in my heart that the Lord accepted my repentance, forgave my sin, giving me peace and boldness with space in my heart. I rose from the dead - so great and life-giving was the gift to me, killed by sin! I glorify the mercy and long-suffering of God, the good obedience, kindness and goodness of the Lord, who listens to me, His worthless worm that creeps on the earth, although I am honored in the image of God. After this, grant me, Lord, the grace to never be stingy with money and not to be irritated with the poor because of it, but to give with zeal and willingness to the best of my ability. Wednesday. After early mass: I sinned extremely, without number, by not restraining my anger and being angry with the poor, who demanded a lot, while many of them seemed unreliable to me due to their laziness and tendency to drunkenness; He sent some to hell in a rage, others he pulled out violently by the hair, impudently, with the hand with which he had just held the Lamb of God Jesus Christ. This rage exposes in me extreme self-love, pride, malice, lust, love of money, envy, lack of faith, lack of trust in the Lord, unloving, hard-heartedness, stinginess, untruth, suspicion, guile, self-will, impatience, effeminacy, unreasonableness, free madness. I have forgotten and am forgetting that the poor are in the image of God, like everyone else, that they are members of Christ, children of God, redeemed by the blood of His Son, like everyone else, that they are churches of the Living God, that by persecuting them, tormenting them, I persecute and torment Christ Himself (oh, horror!), of whom they are members, that, despising them, I despise Christ Himself! Oh, how grave is my sin! But there is no sin that overcomes Your love for mankind, O Lord, and these sins of mine will not overcome Your love for mankind. For the repentant, Lord, accept me and have mercy on me and grant me peace, Thy boldness! Return to me, O Lord, Thy mercy, Thy love, Thy righteousness, Thy holiness! Change me for good, my evil heart into good, oppressed into free, confused into peaceful, cowardly into daring, fallen into standing. (That is why, I think, I am especially angry because the temptation of fornication happened at night and I became irritated with my nerves and weakened.) I thank the Lord, who during mass repeatedly revived me, who had been killed by sins, and made me worthy, without stumbling, with feeling, to celebrate the liturgy and requiem mass with life-giving communion and the use of the Holy Mysteries. Yesterday, just before the prayer service in the apartment of Gulyaeva Evdokia in the house of Shlyakova, I was honored with the indescribably great and swift mercy of God, the quick obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ and His redemptive power through the prayer of repentance in my murmur against a society that has accepted many registered burghers and does not care about them, while they persecute me in the hundreds every day. Another time, the great mercy of God was with me before the service and during the prayer service in the Arkhangelsky tavern in the house of Ya. Murashov, then in Potekhina’s house in Malaya Ekaterininskaya Street before the prayer service and during the prayer service and communion of the young officer’s wife. Today, December 31, the Lord delivered me many times from demonic malice during Matins and Liturgy through fervent prayerful invocation of the name of the Lord; Then, during the communion of Sergei Ivanovich Palyanov, the Lord delivered me from the fierce, deadly machinations of ethereal enemies who had stymied me with selfishness. At home, when I arrived from Palyanov (at ten o’clock in the morning), the Lord delivered me from the very severe demonic agony that befell me as a result of anger at the beggars. For a long time I fell on my knees to the Lord with tearful prayer, and the Lord was merciful and delivered me from the underworld; then I lay down and fell asleep. Transformation (Church Slavic) – destruction, subversion. Faithful (Church Slavic) – with faith, sincere, true. Utyti (Church Glav.) – to become fat, to get fat. Pre-zealous (Church Glorious) – striving to the bottom, creeping on the ground. The prayer “Enlighten my eyes...” from the sequence of prayers for the sleep of the future.