Гордость

...You write that pride and arrogance sometimes bother you very much. Beware of these evil passions. From the example of the holy prophet and king David, it is clear that pride and arrogance are more harmful than adultery and murder. The latter led the prophet to humility and repentance, the former brought him to his fall, as he explains in one psalm, saying: I said... “I will not be shaken forever” (Ps. 29:7). After his fall, he said something completely different: I am a worm, not a man, a reproach among people and humiliation among the people (Ps. 21:7) (2, part 3, pp. 17-18). ...You wrote that from time to time proud and arrogant thoughts attack you, but in the same letter, describing your state of mind, you say that you are like a broken building without windows and without doors, etc. Remember this very thing when proud thoughts come, and say to yourself: “For a plundered, ruined woman, what is there to be proud of?” (2, part 3, p. 18). God Himself heals the proud. This means that internal sorrows (by which pride is healed) are sent from God, but the proud will not suffer from people. But the humble one bears everything from people, and will always say: “He is worthy of this” (1, part 2, p. 72). I advise you to look around and look at yourself from all sides with the light of the Gospel teaching, otherwise considerable pride is visible in you. You yourself should know that God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble (1 Pet. 5:5). Your mother abbess forbids you to give advice to your sisters in any cases, and you discuss this prohibition with proud indignation. It is better to humble yourself and submit in the simplicity of your heart to the prohibition of your mother abbess, as it is said: There is no authority except from God... he who resists authority resists God's institution (Rom. 13: 1-2). Let me also remind you that you were sufficiently punished for your untimely and inappropriate jealousy, and therefore you need to humble yourself and submit to the will of God, expressed through the lips of those in authority (2, part 3, pp. 41-42). ...You yourself admit that you often struggle with arrogance. Keep an eye on this and reject proud and all other thoughts that are contrary to God. All the saints considered themselves the worst of all, earth and ashes, which means that if anyone thinks highly of himself, he does not follow the path indicated by the holy fathers (2, part 3, pp. 139–140). From your letters it is clear that you are indulging in suspicion, so that you say that no one can convince you. This is not good. Perhaps you will say: you don’t need anyone to dissuade you from this. This means that you are very confident in the infallibility of your views and conclusions. And this is not a good trait, it is a sign of great pride (2, part 1, p. 88). You ask me to ask you for that grace from the Lord so that in full consciousness you consider yourself worse and more sinful than everyone in the monastery, and then you write that if you are given a cell room, you will leave, and that you prayed to the Queen of Heaven, if She wants you to end your life here, so that you are not given a cell room. But you yourself made this condition, you yourself decided. If you want to get rid of pride and conceit, then first of all you need to submit to the will of God. If you want everything to be according to the will of God, then endure everything and do not invent enemy conditions, do not climb into the enemy’s network yourself (2, part 3, p. 13). The enemy's noise continues to annoy you, and enemies manage in every possible way to hurt your soul with arrows of pride and exaltation. And you, understanding the cunning of the enemy and at the same time the destruction and harm of these passions, i.e. pride and arrogance, try to humble yourself before God and people and with self-reproach confess your weakness to the Lord, so that He may give you His all-powerful help and deliverance. The Lord Himself said: without Me you can do nothing (John 15:5). And through the prophet he says: If the Lord does not preserve the city, the watchman watches in vain (Ps. 126:1). And Saint Climacus on behalf of the passions, i.e. pride and exaltation, says: “If a person always reproaches himself sincerely and sincerely before the face of God, then he will despise us like a spider’s web” (2, part 3, p. 29). They spread a rumor about one monk that he was a saint. And everyone even said this to his face. And he kept calling himself a sinner and at the same time humbly bowing to everyone. But one day, as usual, he said to someone: “I am a sinner,” and he answered him: “I know that you are a sinner.” He perked up: “How? Have you heard anything about me? (1, part 2, pp. 49–50). But the proud and self-loving among us do not want to bend our necks under this easy yoke of Christ, but voluntarily harness ourselves to the heavy yoke of haughtiness and anger, and through this we ourselves become languid and embarrassed, and often confuse and burden others. The Holy Apostle Peter writes in his epistle: be all of one mind, compassionate, brotherly, merciful, friendly, humble in wisdom; Do not repay evil for evil or insult for insult; on the contrary, bless, knowing that you have been called to this, that you may inherit a blessing (1 Pet. 3:8-9). And the holy Apostle Paul... says: Try to have peace with everyone and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord (Heb. 12:14) (2, part 2, p. 122). Impatience and irritability reveal pride and considerable pride in our structure, and often stem from our self-indulgence and self-rule. In whose soul they creep and hide, from there peace and tranquility flee, and rebellion and confusion take root (4, p. 115). When you feel that you are filled with pride, then know that it is the praise of others that puffs you up (3, p. 213). Man is like grass (Ps. 89:6). He who is proud will wither like grass, and he who fears God will be shown mercy by the Lord (3, p. 219). Pride and disobedience give rise to lies - the beginning of all evil and disasters (13, p. 219). Pride did not help those who lived in heaven, but deprived the grace of God and cast it down 19, why do we, who want to raise grief 20, need to humble ourselves greatly 21 (14, p. 360). You might be interested in: