Раздел 1

Penance [to me]. Meditate daily on faith, hope and love, especially God’s love for us. What will I spare for a lamb redeemed by the Blood of the Son of God. Behold, we have left everything and followed You [Matt. 19.27; Mk. 10.28]. Priest's motto. Resist... and he will flee from you [James. 4.7]. Justice has been proven by experience. Pay attention: the devil uses to his advantage all the infirmities of the human body in order only to defile or internally torment a person. Mother Feodora’s birthday is on February 11th. [On the same] day Grandfather Vlasiy is commemorated. Ille – caput domi, tu – eius filius... 1 If you come very often, receive him as kindly as possible. Human flesh and human heart; about their significance in human life. Venite rarius et mihi svaviter accipere vos erit. 2 Be extremely careful about the coincidence of two foods - porridge and pancakes: it is very harmful to the stomach. Eat more vegetables and fluids. Don’t eat black and white bread together: it makes your stomach feel bad and causes a rush of blood. Dream. I was in the bell tower. Suddenly a huge wave of water carries like a storm: closer and closer; It has already risen to land and is climbing up the bell tower; I (my soul) climb up the steps, look out the window at the sea: a terrible storm and flood are producing terrible phenomena everywhere: a roar, a ringing in the bell tower, everything is drowning - houses, ships, people. The bell tower is my body; a rush of water is a rush of blood in the body. And now I feel unwell from this rush. Don't eat meat in the evening. Do not eat tasty food, but coarse and harsh food, and not much. Keep a diet. Book: A reminder to the priest of his duties when performing the Sacrament of Penance. Prayer is the living water of our soul. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. May I be healthy in spirit and body, may I be kind and cheerful, may the demon of pride and malice [run away] from us and may no one come to us; and heal my fierce passions and healing inconveniences. May this book be filled with intelligent 4 light for the glory of the Triune God. Amen. I owe you an infinite amount. All my wealth and all my heart are at my mother’s service. Initially I spoke this village language. Archimandrite. If you drive more quietly, you will continue. Remember this proverb when you say and do anything. Morals - especially. Experiments and observations - especially. ...By faith let Christ dwell in the hearts [Eph. 3.17]. The peace of my heart is in the heavenly and spiritual, and not in the earthly and material. My heart has experienced this a thousand times. Countless times my heart taught me through my torment, which came from regretting things that are worth it, to despise and consider everything worthless to be rubbish, and with my peace and bliss from clinging to things above, to value everything that is above and spiritual, to regret parting for a moment with everything spiritual and holy. Grant me, O Lord, to philosophize everlastingly and to completely reject worldly wisdom. I hope for Your goodness. I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains, from nowhere 6 will my help come [Ps. 120.1]. Pray often like this: grant me, Lord, to love You with all my heart, and with all my strength, and with all my thoughts, and my neighbor as myself. Let everything serve love. See love everywhere. Having uprooted anger from your heart, you will snatch a sharp knife from the hands of the murderer (the devil), who is always pursuing you. Dream. An evil killer with a knife chased me and drove me into a place where it was impossible to go either back or forward (bonfires), and in this extreme situation some kind person (Angel) protected me, and I snatched the knife from the hands of the killer. Dejection is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Your Heavenly Father knows that you need all this [Matt. 6.32]. Christ is the living bread. I am the bread of life [Jn. 6.48]. Nothing matters if there is no love. If... I do not have love, it does me no good [1 Cor. 13.3]. My life is Christ, not money, not food. For 7 I trample on food; I will love the one Christ. In the spirit of unlove - the devil: know and remember always. Mental agitation from displeasure always entails damage to the blood and a painful rush of it to some extremity of the body. If here for a few minutes of sin you pay for a whole day (days and nights) of internal torment, then how can we undoubtedly conclude from this that for a whole, or not a whole life of iniquities, it will be necessary to pay for an entire eternity of torment. ABOUT! How sure! So, punish me, Lord, mercilessly in the present age, but free me from eternal torment in the future! Here the degree of torment for sin is not the same: sometimes you suffer joylessly, sometimes it is more joyful. So it will be in that century: the torments of some will be extremely fierce and joyless, others will be more joyful, others will be even more joyful, depending on the deeds of each. The same should be said about the bliss of the righteous. And here sometimes the inner bliss is higher, sometimes lower; sometimes you jump, play from inner heavenly delight, sometimes you just calm down in your heart and feel light and pleasant without enthusiasm. So it will be in the next century. Everything begins here, and from what is here we can partly judge the future. For everything that will happen in the next century, the foundations and pledge are laid here. You. Do you have meekness and lowliness of heart? Give this your full attention. Parents are goodness embodied. Let the living water of the Holy Spirit fill my heart, and let rivers of living water flow [Jn. 7:38] from my heart for the glory of God and the salvation of God’s people. At night, do not drink more than one glass of milk, and then with a bun. Beware of drinking especially with soft black bread. If you listen, okay, if you don’t listen, God is with you. I did my job. I can't answer. But I will say that, in my utmost understanding, I want to be useful to you. The voice of the shepherd to the parishioners. Pay attention to their faith and life. How they believe and how they should believe; how they live and how they should live. Provide details. Explain faith in detail and apply it to their situation; show the meaning of the life of a Christian and, in accordance with this, show the rules of life determined by their position. I advise you most of all to know Christ with your heart. Know your Life-Giver - God the Father, His Only Begotten Son and His All-Holy Spirit - Three Persons in one Being, and know that there is such close communication between Them, like the communication between our thought, word and breath. Just as a person is not a person if he does not have any of the above three - thoughts, the ability to speak or breathe, so the Lord God cannot be imagined without any of the Three Persons - such is His Being: that is, One - in Three Persons. Love prayer and always pray with all your heart, with all your being; especially try to love each other from a pure heart. Remember Who commands you love - He Who Himself loved us to the cross and death and is the motivation and example for us in this. Avoid passions by all means, namely: inclinations to pride, voluptuousness, drunkenness, anger and irritability, theft and deception. You know the commandments given by God to the ancient people who lived before the birth of Christ: do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not steal [Ex. 20.13–15] and others. The Lord demands that these commandments, given to the ancients, be certainly fulfilled by us, and, moreover, better, more perfectly. You have heard what was said to the ancients... But I say to you... [Matt. 5.21–22] and so on. Be afraid to indulge in passions, especially because, if you are spouses, you pass on your passions to your children. If you were prone to drunkenness, adultery, gluttony, and stinginess, you will pass this on to your children. Historical examples and observations show that this happens almost always. Have pity on your future tribe; Do not prepare for them in advance either destruction or a strong struggle with the passions you have passed on to them; remember that in your loins there are embryos of future living beings, similar to you in everything, which now exist only in the possibility of being. (Disassemble each passion one by one and then say the motives.) Do this so that you will not be responsible for the death of children. Pride and ambition often also pass over; and the neighbors, seeing later the proud son of a proud father, say: what a proud man such and such is - he takes after his father: his father is just as proud. And this can be applied to almost any passion. Without this, the dominion of sin and the devil is great - do not spread it even more with your passions, and do not grieve the Heavenly Father God, His Only Begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit - our life, our peace of heart and joy. God is the Author of all good things, the Author of our life, our contentment, mental and physical, and all our pure joys of life, and we are the culprits of sorrow for the Lord: we constantly sadden Him with our iniquities, which He extremely does not want to see in us, abhors them as if they were a disgusting stench, and in every possible way wants to cleanse us from them in order to unite us with Himself and bless us for endless centuries. Remember also that there will be an unfeigned Judgment for everyone; God the Father gave this Judgment to His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, as He is the Son of Man, so that we would be judged not only by God, but also by man: in this is joy for the righteous and despair for unrepentant sinners. The first will rejoice in hope that the Son of God, who has taken on our nature, has been tempted in all things like as we are, yet without sin [Heb. 4.15], will not require from them for eternal bliss the highest virtues, but only those that could be accomplished by the forces of human damaged nature; the latter will despair - because they did not create those virtues that could have been conveniently accomplished by the forces of human nature, which, as an example to us, the Judge himself performed when he was on earth and lived with people. Expect undoubtedly the resurrection of the dead and the life of the next century. (Put here: Creed; prayer; gospel beatitudes and ten commandments: collect everything.) Go to confession and Holy Communion annually: conviction and motivation. Honor all the Sacraments as acts of God’s greatest, invaluable mercy to us, in which God gives us His Divine grace that revitalizes us, and be present at them with all attention and reverence. Listen to the prayers read by the priest and to the actions he performs, and if you don’t know, ask about their meaning. During the Sacrament of Marriage, do not pay exclusive searching attention to the bride and groom, but stand facing the holy icons, knowing that the church is not a spectacle; otherwise, for the sake of the bride and groom, you forget God and insult Him with your inattention and neglect in His very house, where His heart and eyes are always. Do not get carried away by the spirit of the present age - the spirit of unbelief, extreme pride, self-interest, worldly benefits, life's comforts, commitment to the earth and oblivion of heaven, of eternity. Offer also instructions on prayer - in general and separately. Responsibilities to the Guardian Angel. Teach your children first and most of all the Law of God, faith, prayer, the commandments of God, than playing instruments and languages. Just as the human word reveals what is on the mind and heart of a person (it opens the mind - invisible, sovereign, creative), and through the word that opens the mind or thought, breath comes from a person, so, somewhat similarly, the Word of God reveals to us the Father - this great Mind that created everything, and through the Word the Holy Spirit, the Life-Giving One, eternally proceeds and appears to people from the Father, Who is the power of the Most High (the power of the Most High will overshadow You [ Luke 1.35]). Now the words of the Savior are clear: no one knows the Son except the Father; and no one knows the Father except the Son, and to whom the Son wants to reveal [Matt. 11.27]. Do you see? Only the Son reveals to people the Father, like our word, our hidden thoughts in the soul. This is the closest unity between the Father and the Son! And each Person is characterized by dominion and His own, so to speak, business. Therefore the Savior says to the disciples: for if I do not go, the Comforter will not come to you; and if I go, I will send Him to you [Jn. 16.7]. No one has ever seen God; The Only Begotten Son... He revealed [Jn. 1:18 ]: we rely in the knowledge of God on the Son of God - tell the devil. Glory to You, Son of God, who revealed to us the Mystery of the Most Holy Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Your word is truth; each and every one of us we live by Your words. They are our sweetness, peace, life; especially the words about the Comforter. Today I cried out with faith at home to the image of the Savior for forgiveness of sins and weakening, and the Lord had mercy on me: it became easy, easy. Strengthen yourself in the undoubted calling of the Comforter of the Spirit: He is very well known to you. You so often call on Him for the Holy Gifts, and He, through your prayer, always offers and transubstantiates them - and you yourself taste the fruits of His Divine actions many times over. Always carry Christ in your heart, in your memory and on your tongue - and you will love everyone, as He loved everyone before the cross and death. One is the Life of all, Christ God, have mercy on me! Speak thus over the Blessed Sacrament. My Lord Jesus Christ lives: He saves me constantly. Oh, my soul will live and praise Thee: and Thy destinies will help me [Ps. 118,175]. Warmly beloved, Jesus! Heat me! A man of the heart, they say, not a man of thought. He will take up the word from their hearts [Lk. 8.12]. Reason is fireworks. The heart is the core of the fireworks; reason - fragments scattering in different directions from the core; trunk - soul. I called on the God of my home, in church and in the open air, and He listened to me favorably and had mercy on me, my Mercy. Prayer must be placed on the heart, the power of words [it]. God is my Thought, that is, the Thought of my thought. These are your fathers, your mothers, your brothers and sisters in the Holy Church, in its successions. Their spirit lives there. Don't rush to start your prayer. Confirm in advance the faith in your heart that God exists, sees and hears, peace in the heart. As you continue your prayers, you must enter into the essence of the words with your thoughts and place them on your heart. Desire to be corrected from the heart. Why do you have to endure a lot in this life? Because freedom has been given to good and evil, or good and evil, and they must show their inclinations; let the holy one be sanctified still... let the unclean one still be defiled [Rev. 22.11]. Say more often: God is the rock of my heart and my portion forever [Ps. 72.26]. My closeness! Hope breathes prayer like air and feeds on good deeds like food. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy [Matt. 5.7 ]; judgment without mercy to him who showed no mercy [Jas. 2.13]. About hope: Romans, [ch.] 8, last verses. 8 Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world [1 Jn. 4.4]. Christ apparently always defeats the devil in me, as long as I sincerely believe in the Lord in the Mysteries. May 9. But how can we call upon Him in whom we have not believed? [Rom. 10.14]. If in worldly affairs their success requires constant attention to them and keeping the mind and heart from being clouded by passions, then even more so in spiritual matters. Just as in worldly affairs, for example in war, the most skillful sometimes lose in one hour because they allowed passions to darken their minds, so in spiritual matters, sometimes in one minute we lose very great successes in virtue because, through oversight and spiritual drowsiness, we allowed passions to darken our heart. Take heed how dangerously you walk [Eph. 5.15]. It is a strange circumstance that intelligent, educated people often do not consider prayer an essential duty for themselves and do not pray, or pray, but in such a way that the impartial view of reason would not approve of such prayer. How gratifying and comforting it must be to obey the Church, the most faithful, wisest guide to eternal salvation. She saved millions; will save you and me if we are faithful to her. It is gratifying because its Head, Christ, is a great mystery; I speak in relation to Christ and to the Church [Eph. 5.32] – and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has made you overseers... [Acts. 20.28]. Do you not know that you are the church of God, and the Spirit of God lives in you? [ 1 Cor. 3.16]. Remember that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit living in you [1 Cor. 6:19] and that you cannot do without the Holy Spirit when you pray to Christ. No one can call Jesus Lord except by the Holy Spirit [1 Cor. 12.3]. He will not drink wine or strong drink, and will be filled with the Holy Spirit... [Lk. 1.15.) How much it means not to drink wine and strong drink! Not drinking is closely related to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The Body and Blood of the Savior means that He is always with us in the Mysteries, tangibly, as in other cases - by grace. Icons in churches are necessary for the success of prayer: they are necessarily required by our being. When we pray, we naturally strive to vividly imagine in our souls the image of the Person to whom we pray, and without a living vision there is no success in faith and prayer - we want to see the Face as it is with the eyes of our hearts [1 John. 3.2]. And the Church only helps this requirement of our nature when it offers us icons. What does washing your feet mean? The holy writers underfoot mean the soul. To direct our feet into the path of peace [Lk. 1.79]. He will not let your foot be moved [Ps. 120.3]. This means that washing the feet is, as it were, washing the soul. You are pure, but not all [Jn. 13.10]. The greatest virtue and holiness and the greatest abomination of sin and wickedness are closely related by reason of human freedom. And through the bread of communion, Satan sometimes enters the soul, and after fervent prayer a person can fall into grave sin. Treat everyone meekly even when they are guilty before you. Train your spirit to meekness and humility and for this, try to restrain impulses of irritability when others do you injustice. Try to do everything with meekness. The parable of the sower and the seed can be applied to those praying. Just as fire cannot burn without air, so the soul cannot think, feel, or act savingly without the Holy Spirit. The greatest triumph of the word of our Lord lies, among other things, in the fact that He clearly foretold the successes and failures of His word and, as a punishment for those who did not heed His word or did not follow Him, He predicted the greatest misfortune, that it would not bear any fruit in them, just as He predicted the greatest bliss for those who listened, that it would bear in them the thirtieth, sixtieth, and hundredfold fruit. In this Gospel, beloved brethren, one of the most wonderful instructive parables of the Savior was read about the sower and the seed, which is why He concluded it this way: whoever has ears to hear, let him hear! [Matt. 11:15, 13:9; Mk. 4.9]. (Hearing, ears - soul: give joy and gladness to my hearing [Ps. 50:10]). In this parable, as in all the teachings of Christ the Savior, we clearly see God, seeing through the heart of every person or, as the Holy Scripture says, testing our hearts and wombs [Ps. 7.10; Jer. 11:20], everything that is hidden in them, all their spiritual twists and turns, all the untruths or truths thereof. I inform you in advance, beloved brethren, that this parable will condemn some and strike, as it were, completely, plunge them into shame and disgrace, while others will praise and bring peace and the blessing of God into their hearts. So, take heed. The knower of the heart looks at you and expects fruit from His word, through me, humble and sinful, preaching to you. This word should serve as a guide for you in the future when listening to the word of God in church. Why do the head nerves quickly become irritated and tired when you work with tension with just your head, but when you bring spiritual activity down to the heart and immerse yourself in it with your mind, then spiritual or mental activity is easy and life-giving? Is it not because our heart, or our insides in the chest and below, are the seat of our soul? Why is the mind darkened when the heart is inflamed with passion? Why is it that when there is peace and tranquility of the heart, the mind is clear and freely carries out its work? Because the heart is the soul, the center of our life. Yes, if the mind arbitrarily separates itself from the united action together with the heart, then it suffers severe punishment in its organs - the brain and head nerves, which it affects with extreme pain, but if it descends into the heart and acts together with it, then it acts easily and evenly. To the maintainer of my life, my Reviver, my Enlightener, do not leave me. Christ bears me like an eagle chick, carrying me with all things by the word of His power [Heb. 1.3]. A priest should behave in such a way that he can truly, from the heart, say to the Lord: Who is in heaven for me? and with You I want nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart faint (from filling it with You): God is the rock of my heart and my portion forever [Ps. 72:25–26]. God! Behold, I am entering a new summer of my life, and Your goodness. Grant me to be renewed in my spirit and from the old man-sinner to become new, renewed in Your image. In prayer. Dream. I dreamed that I was sitting at the same meal with the students of the district school, where I am a teacher of law, and they poured me milk, which I gladly ate. This means that I am their parasite: I bring them little benefit, but I receive a sufficient salary. If I eat tune 9 with pleasure from them, then how can I prevent others from enjoying my meal? Equal for equal. With the measure you use, it will be measured to you [Matt. 7.2]. So in everything, whatever you want people to do to you, do so to them [Matt. 7.12]. He who loves Me will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make our abode with him [Jn. 14.23]. Do you see? Woe when the soul is separated from God by doubt or unbelief; It is good when we are united with Him by faith. October 20. This day an evil demon scorched and pressed me with doubt that God is always present in every person; but as soon as I took communion, he disappeared like smoke: I came to life, rejoiced, and rested in Jesus Christ. Where is Your image, Master, there, of course, You always rule for every hour and moment; where Thy creation is, brought into being from non-existence and carried and existing by the verb of Thy power, there, of course, are You; but everywhere Your creation is everywhere and You are inherent in every creature. In every place of God's dominion, bless the Lord, my soul [Ps. 102.22 ]! In any case, my father is always taller than me, both as a father and as an elder - the image of God the Father, the Ancient of Days [Dan. 7.13]. Almost the face of an old man, and fear the Lord your God [Lev. 19.32]. It’s hard to do God’s work for money. Since the time the enemy persuaded the first people to sin with sensual goods, he has, as it were, seized into his power silver and gold and all the pleasures of sensuality and with them he captivates and holds in his power all the unwary. He does not give his property freely to pious people, but the greater the material reward they receive for the work of God, the stronger he fights against them internally, the stronger he fires his arrows against them. Especially woe to us from the devil because of our dead, for prayers for which we receive retribution: the more unrepentant and sinful the dead person is, the more we endure heartache when praying for him, as if for his sins. In prayer there is always a place for self-compulsion, because the flesh is always lazy, there is always some reluctance to pray, at least at first. Rational knowledge is imperfect, but the knowledge there will be perfect: then we will know the very essence of things, whereas now we skim more with our reason on the surface. Reason, as something imperfect, will be abolished; that which is in part will cease [1 Cor. 13:10], and the perfect will come (Holy Scripture) 10. How beautiful are both the soul and body of a holy man - [the home] of the Spirit of God. When I look at the body being destroyed immediately after separation from the soul, then I think: what a wonderful creature our soul is, how wonderfully it revives and beautifies our body! But at the same time, it also comes to my mind how little we, sinners, care about the soul during our lives and how much care we put into this corruptible, stinking body. It also occurs to me that just as the body with the soul is beautiful, slender, blossoming, bright, so the visible world, with the presence of the Spirit of God in it, is also beautiful, slender, blossoming, and bright. But if the Spirit of God leaves the world, everything will fall apart. Mother and child. The mother teaches the child, and the child obeys and does not doubt her lessons, being sure that the mother knows better than him what she teaches. Christian and Church. Prayers, following the Sacraments, worship services. Who keeps me within the law every minute? Isn’t it my Lord who exists everywhere in every place? Who rewards internally? Who punishes and pours mercy on the soul in an instant when it sincerely repents? - Lord. The Lord is in the world as a soul in a body. He speaks to us with every creation. ABOUT! You can always find and touch it, our mercy, our joy. How worthily will I sing Your life-giving Mysteries, Most Humane-loving Master! How we will tell miracles from them in my soul! About my life, Jesus! O my light burden, Jesus! May we see the miracles of Your Mysteries more clearly, more palpably; You hand us over in Your righteousness for our sins to the soul-suppressing torment of the devil, and while nothing delivers us from him, from his murderous weight, Your Mysteries accepted inside instantly drive him away and wash away our sins, whitening our souls more than snow and consigning the Fall to the oblivion of God. Oh, wonders of the wonders of Your Mysteries! And all this is due to our faith alone! ABOUT! How great, infinitely great - how infinitely great You are - Your mercies to us, unworthy! I am John, and John means the grace of the Lord. This means that if the Lord gave me my existence - the greatest and invaluable gift, then all the other blessings that I need will be given even more so, so there should not be the slightest doubt about it. Ask, and it will be given to you [Matt. 7.7; OK. 11.9]. But every person is the grace of the Lord. You see that a life of thoughts, feelings, intentions is invisibly boiling inside you, and only an insignificant part of them is expressed in language or expressed in practice. Thus, in the invisible, bright, kind world, the most perfect, most blissful life is in full swing. The most evil life is also in full swing in the world of evil spirits! The closed door revealed Jesus. This means that Jesus Christ enters unhindered into the house of our soul - into the heart - and the barriers of the body do not hinder Him. We breathe and think with God. Not because we ourselves are capable of thinking something from ourselves, as if from ourselves... [2 Cor. 3.5]. The power of my Lord is always upon me. Let's move on from here. The Lord dwells in churches, but sometimes leaves them because of the iniquities of people. My eyes and My heart will be on him 11 always [1 Kings. 9:3]. Distinguish, brethren, between the body and the soul and the needs of both; the body has its own demands, sinful, disastrous; the soul has its own - saving, life-giving. Your relative has died. You cry for the deceased: cry not because his corruptible body is being destroyed and stinks, but because his soul is incomparably stronger and more disgustingly stinked by the deeds of the flesh. Remember that all the time of his life a person has a heart that sought peace and pleasure for itself, but in the wrong place, it was deceived, languished and, tired, restless, went into eternity, where it thirsts even more for its peace, because there are no illusory pleasures of the present age, their lies were exposed there for the soul clearly, and only emptiness, nakedness and darkness remained in it. All earthly, and now heavenly, prayer books, who prayed to the invisible God and passed into the Kingdom of Heaven for the feats of prayer, mortification of the flesh and love for God - reprove me, the one of little faith. Prayers! Prepare for temptations that the Lord will allow to test the sincerity and firmness of your prayer. The humane womb of my Savior is always before my eyes: as soon as I look into it with undoubted faith, I immediately receive healing of my sorrows. Good, warm, easy. These are the signs of God's presence in us. About the Chalice. When you begin to receive the Holy Mysteries, let your attention be focused on the Holy Chalice and what is in it; do not for one moment tear your thoughts away from the Chalice and from the Body and Blood of Christ contained in it; in Christ may your thoughts and hearts be confirmed at this time by faith. Hold fast to the Church...the pillar and ground of the truth [1 Tim. 3:15], - and you will be saved; outside of it you will perish, because outside of it is the flattery of the devil. The gates of hell did not prevail against the Church (apostles, saints, martyrs, saints): see that you also remain invincible. Everything is from Your Spirit, and everything is in Your Spirit. Food is for the belly, and the belly is for food; but God will destroy both... God raised the Lord, and He will also raise us by His power [1 Cor. 6:13–14]: for He is the Resurrection and Life and Peace of our souls. He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood abides in Me, and I in him [Jn. 6.56]. Notice that the one who receives communion abides (constancy) in Him, and the Lord in him. In every place of His dominion [Ps. 102.22]... The eyes of the Lord are in every place [Prov. 15.3]. Can a person hide in a secret place (for example, in caves) where I would not see him?.. Do I not fill heaven and earth? [Jer. 23,24]. Cavemen. The saints in monasteries, in cells and caves, and also in forests were saved by invoking whose name? - Jesus. He appeared sometimes. I am a parasite with God and often with people; Can I be indignant at my parasites? When you speak a word in church about fulfilling any commandment, be careful and try to be the first to fulfill it. The Lord will not hesitate to send you - in the manifestation of His truth against the bodiless enemy - an opportunity to fulfill it. Then strengthen your heart to show in action that you yourself are the first to obey the commandments of the Lord. The enemy rushes at you with his charms 12 to force you to violate what you cried out for in the church, and thus laugh at both you and the words of the Lord. Look: to the extent that you triumph over the enemy, to that extent will the people of your flock triumph; As you fulfill God’s commandment, so will they. In this case, intelligent sheep have some kind of instinct: whether the shepherd himself does what he preaches or not; Probably, the same evil spirits secretly let you know about the preacher’s failure to fulfill what he preaches. Yes, the enemy tries by all means to laugh at the preacher himself and plots against him so that he would be the first to break God’s commandment and thus be like a lie: he would speak and not do, like the scribe and the Pharisee. I find myself in your position, dear brother, disturbed by the frequent arrivals of uninvited guests, to whom you yourself either do not go or very rarely. Do not mourn about this, on the contrary, accept them with a cheerful look; do not lose your reward, which the Lord wants to prepare for you in heaven. He says in His Gospel: And if you love those who love you, what gratitude do you have for that?.. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what gratitude do you have for that? for even sinners (pagans) lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount [Lk. 6,32–34]. But you, My followers, He says, love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing; and you will have a great reward, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He is good to the ungrateful and the wicked [Lk. 6.35]. You see: we are no better than the pagans if we give each other only equal for equal, if we show love to others in order to receive mutual love from them, if we do good in order to receive gratitude or mutual kindness from them. As Christians, we must, following the example of the Heavenly Father, do good to the ungrateful and evil and not expect equal retribution for ourselves. Look, frequent guests come to you, but you don’t visit them, or very rarely; or they are ungrateful, they do not feel the good you show them. And do not expect anything from them - give them your bread in return, without expecting anything - more than that: always be kind and affectionate to them, just as the Heavenly Father is good to the ungrateful and evil. They will not thank you in the same way as you, but in that century the Heavenly Father will thank you with the highest blessings. He who lives according to the commandments of God has God within himself, and with Him all heaven; and whoever breaks the commandment of God drives out of his heart the Lord of the church of his body, and with Him all heaven. Most people voluntarily carry the satanic burden in their hearts, but are so accustomed to it that they often do not feel it and even increase it imperceptibly; sometimes, however, the evil enemy increases his weight in them tenfold, and then they become terribly despondent, faint-hearted, grumble, and blaspheme the name of God. The usual means of driving away heartache among people of this century are evenings, cards, dances, theaters. But these remedies then further increase boredom and languor of the heart. But if, fortunately, they turn to God, then the heaviness falls from their hearts and they see clearly that previously the greatest burden lay on their hearts, although they often did not feel it. ABOUT! How many people have forsaken the Lord, the Fountain of living waters, and have hewed out broken cisterns for themselves that cannot hold water (living) [glory: and dug up broken treasures for themselves that cannot contain water] [Jer. 2.13 ]! People have a lot of these broken wells, almost everyone has their own. The treasures of brokenness are our hearts. About the final fate of the human race. What can I say about this subject? The chosen ones of God trembled at the last fate [of man], and so that it would not be ill-fated for them, they left the world, went to mountains and dens, inhabited deserts, so that in silence, contemplation of God and self-purification, they would work for the Lord, the future terrible Judge. They left us monuments of their extreme trepidation: their charters, watered with tears at a vivid representation of the last fate of the human race and written, it seems, with tears, and not with ink. What a contrast we are compared to them! Carefree, carefree, fearless! When you see shortcomings and passions in your neighbor, pray for him, pray for everyone, even your enemy. If you see a proud and obstinate brother speaking proudly to you or others, pray for him, so that God will enlighten his mind and warm his heart with the fire of His grace. Say: Lord! Teach this Thy servant, who has fallen into the pride of the devil, meekness and humility, and remove from his heart the darkness and burden of satanic pride! If you see an evil one, pray: Lord! Do good to this Thy servant by Thy goodness! If you are money-loving and greedy, say: Our incorruptible Treasure and inexhaustible Wealth! Grant to this Thy servant, created in Thy image and likeness, to know the flattery of riches and like all earthly vanity, shadow and sleepiness 13 like grass is the day of every man or like a spider [Ps. 38:12], and as You are our only wealth, peace and joy! When you see an envious person, pray: Lord! Enlighten the mind and heart of this Thy servant to the knowledge of Thy great, countless and unsearchable gifts, which they have received from Thy innumerable bounties: in the blindness of my passion I forgot Thy rich gifts, and impoverished myself to be imputed; He is rich in Thy blessings and for this reason he looks with delight 14 at the goodness of Thy servants, in whose image, O most innumerable Goodness, one has afflicted everyone who is contrary to his strength and according to the intention of Thy will. Take away, O All-Good Master, the veil of the devil from the sight of the heart of Your servant and grant him heartfelt contrition and tears of repentance and gratitude, so that the enemy will not rejoice over him, captured alive from him into his will [2 Tim. 2:26], and let him not be torn out of Your hand. When you see a drunk, say with your heart: Lord! Look mercifully upon Thy servant, seduced by the flattery of the belly and carnal joy; grant him to know the sweetness of abstinence and fasting and the fruits of the spirit that flow from it. When you see someone who is passionate about food 15 and who places his bliss in them, say: Lord! Our sweetest Breath, which never perishes, but abides into eternal life! Cleanse this Thy servant from the filth of gluttony, all flesh created and alien to Thy Spirit, and grant him to know the sweetness of Thy life-giving spiritual food, which is Thy Flesh and Blood and Thy holy, living and active Word. Pray in this or a similar way for all who sin and do not dare to despise anyone for his sin or take revenge on him, for this would only increase the ulcers of those who sin, and correct with advice, threats and punishments that would serve as a means to stop or keep evil within the boundaries of moderation. The word of the apostle is deeply true: we have the mind of Christ [1 Cor. 2.16]. The more I confirm myself in the Savior, the clearer my mind becomes, the more heavenly; my [mind] becomes the mind of Christ. On the wall: let us commit ourselves, each other and our whole life, with all cases and circumstances, to Christ God. Christ is in all things and in all [Col. 3.11]. It is necessary to share God's gifts with others. Let meekness guide all movements of your heart, all thoughts, words and actions. Always have the spirit of Christ, the spirit of meekness and humility; remember the words of Christ God: learn from Me... [Matt. 11:29] and: if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His [Rom. 8.9]. The deep peace of spiritual strength that comes from sincere and diligent prayer shows that prayer is the most necessary need of our soul, its life. A week about the widow Nainskaya. Revive my sin-killed soul. A holy work (for example, prayer) is holy and must be done worthy of it, and not with negligence, not in any way: for cursed is the man who does the work of the Lord with negligence [Jer. 48.10]. The One from whom you learned. Be your soul always united with the Savior, just as the body is united with the air through the nostrils, lips and lungs. Otherwise, the ethereal villain, connecting with your heart, will torment you. Jesus, my breath, do not leave me. Without reconciling with someone who has something against you, do not pray to the Lord, do not tempt Him, so as not to suffer cruelly from the enemy for this. Prayers! Prepare for temptations that the Lord will allow to test the sincerity and firmness of your prayer and your devotion to God. Jesus is the beloved warmth of my heart. So, Jesus is in me when there is a beloved warmth in the heart; He is with me even when she is not in me. By faith may Christ dwell in your hearts [Eph. 3.17]. You see, Christ dwells in the heart. Let us come to him (the believer) and make our abode with him [Jn. 14.23]. 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. Can a person hide in a secret place [glory: if someone hides in the hidden], where I would not see him?.. Do I not fill heaven and earth? [Jer. 23,24]. I am naked and hid myself [Gen. 3.10]. An - no! The Jews were bitten by snakes in the desert as punishment for the fact that they voluntarily allowed themselves to be bitten by the spiritual serpent. That is why the Lord commanded to hang a copper serpent on the cross, as a sign that the Lord would win on the cross and erase the head of the serpent. Having taken away the strength of the principalities and powers, he imperiously subjected them to shame, having triumphed over them with Himself [Col. 2.15 ]! Looking at the hanged serpent healed from being bitten by ordinary snakes; looking with the eyes of faith at the Crucified One healed from being bitten by spiritual snakes. My soul in God is like a fish in water or a bird in the air—it is surrounded on all sides at all times by Him: it lives by Him, it moves by Him, it rests in Him, it has its spaciousness in Him. My thoughts (bright or dark), thoughts that condemn or justify, my heart (peaceful 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, speaks incessantly about the unceasing presence in me and with me 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, including my little world - soul and body - and 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 happens before His clearest eyes. May my soul know that since everything came from God and exists in God, then the Lord God knows in the most perfect way at every moment the existence and quality of every creature and that at every moment He supports its existence precisely by the laws of nature given from Him. And we, having written a 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. How can we take away everything from the Lord - the knowledge 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 every moment of your life and know that at every moment He knows you completely, that He supports and lives you and gives you everything necessary for your existence and well-being! And how could anything remain if You did not will? [ Prem. 11.26]. Sometimes prayer is easy and successful by the grace of God, and sometimes it is extremely difficult, with extreme sorrow and heaviness, when the Lord tests our faith and patience. Thanks be to the Lord, who gladdened me beyond words with the communion of His Holy Mysteries on October 10, 1860 (Early - requested mass.) The day before, I was in great distress internally all day. It’s a wonderful thing: when you are mired in the depths of sorrows and cannot see their outcome or end, then the grace of God comes to our aid. Just as we are deprived of grace, we feel extraordinary heaviness and sorrow in body and soul, and the weight of one increases the weight of the other, so, sprinkled with the dew of grace, we feel light, light both in soul and body, and the grace of the heart makes the sorrows of the body seem invisible. For Christ's sake it has been given to you not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for Him [Phil. 1.29]. Rejoice, beloved, when sorrows of the heart oppress your spirit, when the evil spirit torments you with an influx of dark thoughts and one another of the darkest feelings and movements of the heart, when it pours into your heart the poison of doubt, unbelief, blasphemy, and murmuring. Fight hard - these are the hours in which your faith, devotion and love for God are tested and after which you must emerge victorious. Cherish these hours: the sorrows that were successfully endured at that time will later bring down upon you new mercies of God, new strengths for success in faith and virtue. The fact that sorrows befall us after some good deed shows that they are a special mercy of God towards us. When you begin to receive the Holy Mysteries, let your attention be focused on the Holy Chalice and what is in it; do not for one moment tear your thoughts away from the Body and Blood of Christ; May your thoughts and hearts be established in Christ at this time. If not, woe to you: the enemy will hasten to sow the poison of his lies into your heart. In a little sorrow, Your punishment is for us. The Lord does not leave us for long in severe sorrows. Wonderful thing! When any passion darkens our soul, we lose faith and the feeling of the omnipresence of God! How grateful we are to the doctor when he treats us diligently and especially when he cures us of an illness! But does the Heavenly Physician, our Lord Jesus Christ, a Physician of both soul and body, come into any comparison with an earthly and physical doctor? How many times has He healed and is healing us from mental illnesses, sometimes in one day and even an hour! Just pray from your heart, with fervent faith, and healing is ready. How grateful are we to such a good, wise and all-powerful Doctor? We shower the earthly doctor with words of gratitude and money, but nothing with the Heavenly one - because He doesn’t take anything? But He seeks our love for Him, our heartfelt appeal, our gratitude to Him, He even accepts money from us in the form of the poor. As an extremely unclean person, all my life I must deeply humble myself at all times, everywhere and before everyone. When you enter the church, remember that there are always the eyes and heart of the Lord and His most pure Body and His most pure Blood, filled with His Divinity (in Him dwells all the fullness of the Divinity bodily [Col. 2:9]) - and stand and pray with faith, reverence and fear. Again and again I received great mercy from the Lord today (June 14): bound and burned by the spirit of malice and stinginess, He gave me permission and gave peace to me, the fallen one. Turn, sinning brethren, quickly, without laziness, with living trust to the Savior - and He will always save you. May the commandment of my Savior be higher for me, higher than all my benefits, higher and dearer than my life. This is how a Christian should dispose his heart when he has the opportunity to fulfill the commandment of Christ the Savior. About the Secrets. Even a minute is terrible for me without faith in Your Body and Blood. Standing up for faith in the Mysteries, I stand up for the peace of my soul. If I insincerely ask the Lord for non-judgmental communion, [then] He will punish me. When you stumble in your words in church, do not be at all embarrassed, but remain calm. About the rude faces of the villagers. These rough facial features, this blackness of the face, the blackness and roughness of the hands are the imprints of hard, daily work, sometimes in the scorching heat of the sun. This dullness of the eyes is a trace of frequently shed tears about the poverty of one’s situation. Oh, how much preferable to me are these rough, black faces of ordinary villagers - gentle, white faces; and these rough, black hands are the gentle and white hands of city dwellers, accustomed to spending time more in idleness and absent-mindedness or in light, compared to rural, labors. From the action in our heart of two opposing forces, of which one strongly opposes the other and forcibly, insidiously invades our heart, always killing it, and the other is chastely offended by all uncleanness and quietly moves away from the slightest heart impurity (and when it acts in us, then it pacifies, delights, enlivens and delights our heart), that is, two personal opposing forces, it is easy to be convinced that the devil undoubtedly exists as an everlasting murderer, and Christ, as the everlasting Life-Giver and Savior. One is darkness and death; The other is light and life. Therefore, lover of God, if you sometimes notice in your mind and heart extreme darkness, sorrow, melancholy and crampedness, and unbelief as a force that strongly opposes the faith of God, then know that in you there is a force hostile to Christ—the devil. Thus, this dark and killing power, having crept into our heart through some sin of the heart, often prevents us from calling on Christ and the saints and hides them behind the darkness of unbelief. For what? In order to torment a person, because faith saves us from his wiles. But this is what she proves that there is a sovereign power of Christ God that is contrary to her, to which she does not allow us through the abomination of unbelief and which, through our faith, crushes her and contains her herself in the bonds of darkness for future judgment. Therefore, then it is necessary to make every effort to call on Christ the Savior with faith. I am nothing before my mother. Glory to Your name, Lord, great, strong and formidable, driving away demons and healing our hearts from the fierce torment of passions! Glory to Your honorable Cross, depicted by Your name! He is also strong and terrible in Your name. (July 17, 1860 Experience.) The mercy shown to a brother is credited to us as a merit of love and will be rewarded. Not a single sacrifice made on the altar of love will be forgotten by God, Who is Love. Therefore, everyone should be zealous, one way or another, in loving his brother, condescending to him in his weaknesses, and God, seeing your love, although shown in a small measure, will love you a lot and forgive you your weaknesses. The one who bothers your old, carnal, sinful, passionate person, you always love as yourself: he is a scourge, your corrector by God’s grace; and besides, if you love those who love you, what grace (reward) is there for you? And the publicans and the pagan women do the same [Lk. 6.33]. Your wisdom, as a Christian priest, should always stand incomparably higher. You should not be self-loving and, out of love for yourself, despise and leave the commandment of Christ unfulfilled, but always put it above yourself, above your very life. By the grace of God, often one word hidden in the heart strengthens it, makes it adamant towards evil and thus frees it from inner tightness and languor. So it is in prayer, so it is in life. [Hide about words] 16. For every Christian to acquire the skill of hastily turning to God with a request for everything (like weakness - to the Source of all strength and all good): ask with thanksgiving (give thanks for everything [1 Thess. 5:18]) and with doxology, in the likeness of the Angels crying out 17: Alleluia! If you want God to listen to your prayer, first listen to it yourself with faith, say it in your heart. Dream. One peasant or tradesman, who does not have and is not worthy of the trust of his brothers, asked me, as a person who is respectable and trustworthy, to beg for him a loan of two thousand rubles. I began to ask, and the shoemaker Andreev gave me the money right away, only not all in full, but less, because he saw the impossibility of paying on the part of the person in whose name I asked and whom I took responsibility for. What does this dream mean? This means that if people, out of trust in us, fulfill our requests for others, so much the greater the Lord God. And I asked in the evening about the sick Ekaterina (Lebedeva). Every sin, passion, vice, unclean thought, unclean desire exists under the condition of a whole kingdom of evil spirits as a stinking ocean of evil. Our sins are streams from this mental, stinking, dead sea. Why was the Dead Sea formed on the site of the fallen lawless cities of Sodom and Gomorrah? Indicative of the fact that the inhabitants of these cities were a dead spiritual sea during their lifetime. You need to listen to your heart every moment. Otherwise, moral improvement is impossible: smart or spiritual thieves will often steal the spiritual wealth of the soul. Mother, being poor, raised us, grieved and hurt her heart for us, rejoiced at our well-being and our arrival at her house. Who can list the blessings of parents? A picture of your parents’ good deeds, always paint yourself before me! If you go to someone on some business or visit, go with a spirit of humility and love, but not with a spirit of hostility and pride. In the first case, you will be greeted with a cheerful face, in the latter - with displeasure. With the measure you use, it will be measured to you [Matt. 7.2; Mk. 4.24]. Souls sense each other. When you go to another, firmly confirm in your heart the commandment of God: love your neighbor as yourself [Matt. 22.39]. Money lovers, like thieves, are extremely afraid that others will find out and say that they are rich - and they certainly are thieves, because they steal the gifts of God from the poor. They get offended and irritated when you remind them of the fullness of their money purse. You, servant of God, when the enemy bothers you with worries about unnecessary expenses in the house, tell him: I don’t want to think about it as [a trifle]. My whole thought is God, my soul, my salvation and others. Passions come upon the soul and darken it quickly, like the sun running by clouds, but they pass slowly and difficultly, they are reflected in confusion of the soul, and every sin is reflected in confusion. Peace is God's gift, and it belongs to virtue. Peace be with you [Lk. 24.36; In. 20.19]. Take care of peace most of all: peace is fruitful for family and social life, it is necessary for all activities. The embarrassed person does the wrong thing or cannot do anything. Guide our feet into the path of peace [Lk. 1.79]. We are one body of many: for we all partake of one bread [1 Cor. 10.17]. This is the kind of relationship we should have with others—the character of unity in everything. The dying Pushkin said: it’s funny for this nonsense to overcome me (meaning the anguish of my heart and the pain of my whole body)... I don’t want to. This is what I should say when any passion presses upon me. Nothing will be spared for anyone who comes. This is required by my peace of mind, my goodness, worthy passage of the sacred title; This is required by God as a deed pleasing to God. All excuses gone. Ignore the food; imagine that all of these are gifts of God, common to everyone, that you are only an assistant. Some are only able to pray after others; others are not able to pray for others and indulge in an incomprehensible indifference and coldness in prayer: sincere prayer is alien to their hearts, unfamiliar, distant. Mikhail Izmailovich [G...] with calm firmness and constancy of prayer looked to God and did not pay attention to anyone, being above everyone else while reading prayers (he read them himself) and commanding everyone. It is strange that one official, who stood behind him and spat on the floor during prayer, listened to his reprimand with respect and stood calmly in front. Such is the greatness and command of the spirit in people who are firm in their faith! Always keep in mind the law of gradual (gradualis 18) action of the laws of nature and remember that your language is subject to the same law: there is no need to rush when speaking. Thought, like a child of the spirit, is fast, fluent, instantaneous; but the tongue, like flesh, is sluggish and clumsy: we must remember its weakness. Don’t go at full speed where it’s crowded from other ships: you will crash and go to the bottom and drown those who were with you on the ship (Church). Quietly, slowly. My Lord is inexhaustible in His gifts - tell the demon of stinginess. Kronstadt is a city of unrighteous bribes, a city of drunkenness, debauchery, robbery, gambling, a city of all demonic amusements (manager, governor, secretary of the Duma, solicitor, architect, governor - not to mention others)... Powerless, dead money capital! He who possesses you still considers himself poor, is still afraid of becoming poor, and still desires and seeks more and more; he even directly calls himself poor sometimes! O soulless silver, O stupid passion! How you yourself prove your lifelessness for the human heart [...] stone heaviness. For the glory of the three Wanderers who appeared to Abraham, accept three brothers 19 - full brothers, note this, just as the Three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity are completely related and, being in each other, belong to each other. With my own eyes I saw the Novgorod wonderworkers, saints, saints and Christ for the sake of fools, glorified by incorruption and miracles, who were saved in the faith I professed - through the prayers and Sacraments of our Church; I kissed them myself with my nasty lips. Remember that the slightest attachment to perishable goods is a severe illness of your heart, and you will calm down. Completely surrender to the Lord in all circumstances of your life, even when guests visit you: they visit you by permission or by the will of Providence, and the Lord will certainly reward your spending on them three times more. Experiences clearly noticed on me and others! When sin creeps into your soul with gentle pleasure, strengthen your heart with pure love for God. Why do we love with our hearts? Grace to strengthen the heart [Heb. 13.9]. The benefits of prayer. Through morning and evening prayers a beautiful building is built and raised to perfection, the whole life of a Christian is strengthened. This also includes public worship. But it is only necessary that these prayers at home, this going to the church of God, be sincere and reasonable. ...Despise the flesh, it passes away - your very flesh, not only material goods. My soul! Learn to despise matter and respect the spirit and its spiritual needs. Embrace your natural dignity, your power over matter. God! Grant me to walk in simplicity of heart regarding material goods, without paying special attention to them. God! Grant me to have due respect for every person who often visits my house, to have trust in everyone’s conscience. Give us this day our daily bread [Matt. 6.11]. This petition means that we should not worry too much about the means of life, and if God has given these means for today, then thank Him and continue to hope in Him, in His Providence; not to be stingy, not to tremble, as they say, over everything, especially when guests or beggars and strangers come, but to receive them with good will and simplicity of heart, treat them or give them alms. The basis for this: God did not leave me with the means of life during all previous times, but gave them in abundance; will not, therefore, be left for the future. In your brothers-in-law you should see the amiable features of your beloved wife, as if she herself. In order for you to sincerely love every person, pay attention to how the Lord loved everyone: He became poor for us, laid down His soul for us - and feeds us with His Body and Blood. Glory to Thee, benevolent Master! I called to You, and You heard me and You spread me out in sorrow [Ps. 4:2], and Thou hast granted to rejoice with my guests in Thy name at the table of Thy gifts. August 28th day 1860 [Postels] and Maria Kazimirovna. Be proud, feeding the bodies of immortal human souls with perishable food. Stinginess is devilish stupidity. Woe to you who are now satiated! for you will hunger [Lk. 6.25]. Feed others diligently from your table. This will destroy your excess saturation with the blessings of the earth and bow on that day to the mercy of the Lord! Lend without expecting anything [Lk. 6.35]. Nourish others, give them money without expecting retribution. It is not you who will speak, but the Spirit of your Father who will speak in you [Matt. 10.20]. The apostles spoke and wrote everything by the Holy Spirit. John Chrysostom and other teachers too. The Lord is everywhere (he is everywhere and fulfills everything) and, called from the heart, soon comes to the rescue. He is everywhere in nature - there is no place where He is not: plants, animals, revived by Him at every step; He operates in all the laws of nature. He is in the icons, and in the power of the Cross, and in the most pure Mysteries of His Body and Blood, and in all the Sacraments; His Spirit breathes in the sacred readings and hymns of the Church: He is the life of all - the Lord. After yesterday’s devilish flame, inflamed by the sting of money for the cab driver’s troika, I think we can completely give up any regret about the loss [...], whatever it may be. The Lord, every day and throughout our lives, solely by His goodness, nourishes and has mercy on us, the unworthy, in every possible way; and we, sinners, evil-willed, are afraid, truly afraid, charmed by Satan, to feed our brethren for several days in a row! Incomprehensible madness! What’s more amazing is this! “The Lord feeds me daily with the wondrous, unspeakably great and precious food of His Flesh, but I feel sorry for the ordinary, low-value, perishable food found everywhere and trampled under foot for my brethren, for them to eat for several days in a row. Judge me - what am I, what kind of monster am I? I regret and repent, I hurt and regret; I regret, I hurt and I repent. Some kind of terrible, painful darkness sometimes covers me, and I find myself in infinite stupidity; I pray to the Lord to deliver me from this joyless situation and, as a result of the most sincere prayer, I get rid of it, go out into the light of God and then I see all the recklessness of my heart’s passion - I know because of what stupidity my heart grieved and ached. God! You are infinitely good and generous; we are infinitely evil and stingy at times. Our virtues are small, insignificant, momentary! The greatest gift of God, which we most need and which we receive very often from God as a result of our prayer, is peace of heart, as the Savior says: Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest [Matt. 11.28]. And rejoice and consider yourself rich, having everything, when you have received the world. Let everyone constantly remember that he is God’s soul and body and in all the needs of the soul and body depends on God at every moment of his existence - and therefore he turns to Him every time he feels a need for something (mental and physical), when, for example, his mental or physical existence is embarrassed, that is, when he is struck by sorrows (spiritual illnesses) or passions, illnesses (physical), when the elements threaten him inconstancy (fire, water, air, storm), also when he undertakes to do something (may he then remember the one Creator, who created everything from nothingness and gave His creatures various powers to do many and various things). When you enter the church, say: I worship You, the Lord my God, who dwells in this church. Thy will be done [Matt. 6.10]. How much we are often subjected to anxiety and useless troubles so that our will is fulfilled, although fulfilling it, in all likelihood, does not bring us spiritual and eternal benefits, but only material, temporary ones. About prayer. It is hopeless and uninteresting to pray if you do not hope to receive what you ask for. But many approach with a crafty heart, not at all wanting what they ask with their lips, but out of habit, pronouncing memorized words that only beat the air in vain. Rejoice when you and your family are oppressed: this is a sure sign that you are on a narrow path that leads to the stomach. The ethereal enemy is simple in nature - that is why he is strong in attack. We must reflect it just as simply, that is, with a simple, believing heart, about the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. The devil enters our heart with a moment of thought; with a similar moment - negative, that is, a word that suddenly expresses the opposite of the inspired thought - to drive him out. For a long time God allows the enemy to tempt and oppress us during prayer in order to make it sincere and firmer, and finally gives us the grace to pray in peace, without distraction. Those who always sincerely pray to God have a face illuminated by the light of God and have an extraordinary pleasantness and attractiveness. Do not give communion to those who do not say anything or turn away due to satanic stubbornness. Man by himself is poor in the abundance of good and bright thoughts - they come to him from outside: pray to the Lord, and they will fly in like krastels 21 and fill your head in countless numbers. The heart of this people has become hardened [Isa. 6.10]. We are accustomed to attribute this only to the Jews, but these words also apply to us; as well as the words: and with difficulty they hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes [Isa. 6.10] (that is, spiritual ears and eyes). Dream. I saw a bridge over the wide black abyss of the river; not very wide, but smooth, sloping, slippery and with various unusual steepnesses. Many walked along it, and some crossed to the other side of the river, while others found it extremely difficult and were in danger of falling into the river; I crawled while lying down, but almost curled up into the river, and others behind me prevented me from crossing freely due to the multitude of people. I was almost hanging with my body above the abyss; my heart was already skipping a beat; Finally, by some lucky chance, I ended up on a narrow bridge, where there were very few people walking, and here I flew unhindered and quickly almost over the only plank that made up the bridge: the obvious danger and the fear of drowning in the abyss gave me strength. A narrow bridge is a narrow path to the Kingdom of Heaven. ...Spiritual, without spirit [Jude. 1.19]. There are still many of these today. Miraculously, my Lord was conceived and born of a Virgin, worked miracles as God on earth and, like a miracle-working God, rose from the dead and ascended into heaven; called by us as God and man and, as the omnipresent Lord of all, comes to our aid; It is wonderfully offered even now for food and drink through the action of the God-Fatherly Spirit. Let the children come to Me and do not hinder them, for to such is the Kingdom of God [Mk. 10.14]. In relation to your parishioners, this means: leave them to come to church for His image and in the procession of the cross to take Him into the house to consecrate their house, and do not be upset with them when they do not properly reward for this, especially since you do not know who can give how much; and zeal, in any case, for the Savior is commendable, and one should rejoice about it. Whoever takes any image from the church to take home is like a simple child: he sees in the image by faith the Face that is written on the icon, and believes to receive great grace from Him. The wise ages of this age consider it foolishness to take images from the church and take them home. Sin has a long and heavy tail. When you sin and the sin oppresses and burns you internally, then glorify the truth of God and say: glory to Thee, O God, my Righteous Punisher, be glory to Thee for everything - glory also for Thy punishments to me, a sinner; glory to You, for you do not leave me to live in sins, but, punishing my heart with fiery arrows, take away my sins from my heart. Today I took communion with faith - and my sins, like wax, melted away from the Holy Mysteries. Ivan Mikhailovich Nikolsky is a remarkable personality from the clergy: his deep piety, complete impartiality to earthly things, sincere love for people, meekness and extraordinary humility; Those who offended him always had one answer from him: God save you! He walked around the children and took care of them, like a mother, with great tenderness, constancy and prayer. Ask as if you are in great need. Death works in us, but life in you [2 Cor. 4.12]. It is a great blessing from God when an ordinary person is born. But God’s good deed is infinitely great when the future Mother of the Son of God is born. Our zealous Intercessor before God was born. Through Her the Lord of hosts was with us, and through Her we came to know the Son of God and were made worthy of His most pure Body and Blood. Note: the whole series of miracles of God’s goodness and mercy to us, which the Christian faith has brought and continues to bring, began with the birthday of the Mother of God. All the spiritual benefits of faith that we now receive, we receive through Her. ABOUT! The unspeakably great goodness of God in the Nativity of the Mother of God. Christian world of all ages! You are a witness of Her continuous good deeds! Praise Her without silence. You glorify Her in the person of the Church. This heaven and the church of the Divine have appeared. But you also are the church of the living God... [2 Cor. 6.16]. Your responsibilities, your purpose. (Through You the Lord of hosts was with us and we were made worthy of His most pure Body and Blood.) List all the blessings She has shown to the Orthodox at different times. Catch the invisible enemy in the eyes of others and do not be upset at those who have momentarily become his tools: the evil one conveniently attacks everyone. Finally, recognize the great dignity and purpose of your spirit and cleave with all your heart to the Lord - the Infinite, Life-Giving Spirit, and despise the flesh and everything carnal as corruption, as dust, as nothing, or as a disease, as sorrow, as the fetters of the soul. Look at the writings of spiritual men, saints, and notice how their spirit strives into infinity; their writings are in some way an image of the infinite Spirit - the infinite wisdom, goodness, holiness and omnipotence of God. Look how limitless the flight of their spirit is. My Spirit will not forever be despised by men, because they are flesh [Gen. 6.3]. The flesh is everything that cleaves to wealth, pleasure and the glory of the world. It is good for me to cleave to God [Ps. 72.28]. A Christian should cleave to God to such an extent and neglect everything material (sensual), that if God deprived him of all his property, he should not grieve, but say: My Lord is my only treasure, my life, my peace, my bliss, my wealth. He is the Creator not only of all flesh, all matter, but also of all spirits, which, in turn, as the image and likeness of the Creator, themselves possess the gift of creativity (Angels create flesh for themselves temporarily; people create many things). He took my property, but He can give it again, like Job, like very many others, and moreover, in abundance. For Him, matter is insignificant - our godlike spirit is dear to Him; He can return the lost substance in abundance, but the spirit, if we lose it without permission, He will not return. The Mother of God stands at the highest degree of likeness to God and is therefore called the Most Holy and Most Pure. When praying with the faithful in church or interacting with them in a hostel, imagine that you came from the same Heavenly Father; that they are your true brothers in God, especially in Christ Jesus, who became our brother in humanity; that they have the same needs of soul and body as you; that they are completely one with you, which means you need to love them just like yourself, wish for them what you wish for yourself, do the same as yourself, treat them the way you want them to treat you. Whoever, with God's help, strives to renounce attachment to earthly goods, over time receives from the Lord the grace of indifference to earthly life, which is the greatest of earthly blessings, and wants to live only in order to please the Lord more in a corruptible body and sow more seeds of good deeds for a richer harvest in the next century. He looks at his body as such a perishable thing in visible nature, which throughout its entire life carries within itself the seed of corruption, dies every day, constantly instilling in us the idea of ​​its mortality, until it finally dies completely. He does not cherish him, does not satisfy his lusts, knowing that these lusts are a filth for his rational and immortal soul, that the body is a dangerous domestic enemy, which, in case of a mistake in the soul, is ready to destroy its heavenly beauty and life. September 8, evening, 12 o'clock. Glory to the Lady, who delivered my heart from the enemy - the tyrant who did not let me sleep. He was driven away - and I fell asleep soundly and sweetly. 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 Church’s most precious prayer heritage, and, moreover, an unclean, unworthy steward; that your job is to reverently, opening your heart, to water your soul with these pure streams of the prayerful word, but not to philosophize about them in your own way. It’s remarkable: today I doubted, of course, because the evil one instigated me about one turn in one prayer, namely: You alone have the power to forgive sins through the prayers of Thy Most Pure Mother and all the saints - and I was ashamed in my wisdom: the enemy struck me down, stopped me, disturbing me at public prayer. What was wrong with my idea? I thought: how? – God has 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 to the last of their strength pleased Him in earthly life, He also accepts their prayerful intercession for us, the unworthy, for us, who often have to stop their mouths due to their 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 the Lord 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, whereas He Himself determined to kill them; and when Moses, a righteous, meek and humble man, began to intercede, 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, and for the sake of the righteous he had mercy on the unrighteous. So now, through the prayers of His Most Pure Mother, He has mercy on us, who in themselves, for their great and frequent sins and iniquities, would be unworthy of His mercy. Even though Moses and Samuel appear before Me, My soul will not bow to them [Jer. 15:1], the Lord spoke 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 patience. My task will be to teach you to pray. How to achieve this? - Having shown the shortcomings of existing prayer, shortcomings that are caused by those who pray themselves, and then showing how it is necessary, what and when to pray - in spirit and truth, and not physically and falsely; about what the Lord indicated and the Church teaches daily and on special days (on holidays, on the days of the Sacraments, during fasting) - always, because we always sin (we must ask for forgiveness of sins); We always take advantage of God’s mercies (we need to thank); We always see before our eyes the glorious deeds of God, involuntarily calling us to praise (we must always praise). But just as the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak [Matt. 26.41] and we are dust [Ps. 102.14], then at least at certain times in the morning and evening, before lunch and after, before dinner and after. First of all, let's talk about the great dignity, purpose and benefits of prayer (about its names); about the participation of the heart, about its location (people seek pleasures of the heart in games, amusements, in food, drink, in honors); the testimony of Holy Scripture about the importance of the heart: the heart is pure [Ps. 50.12 ]; about faith - what it consists of in relation to prayer; about the church as a special place of prayer: the eyes and heart of the Lord are in the church; about the inner, heart cell. In view of all earthly blessings, may your heart's good be Christ alone; in view of wealth, honor, pleasure, let your wealth, your pleasure, your greatest honor be Christ; before Christ let all earthly blessings be insignificant; Let not your heart be moved to desire anything more than Christ; let him not become attached to anything perishable even for one moment; may Christ, the Treasure of our heart, its King and Lord, not be offended. Give to the poor without thinking that you will become poor: the giver does not become poor. Do not calculate with a stingy and crafty heart the amount given to them, otherwise the evil one will stop you in your good deed, presenting a lot of money being distributed. Let's go, as they say, blindfolded. God! You are my Skudelnik 22, my Artist! God! You are endlessly generous to me. Truly, I too must be generous to my brethren. A son who loves the Father must imitate the Father and be generous with His gifts to others. While praying, we must not forget that the evil spirit insidiously works over us especially during pious activities: it entertains our thoughts with earthly everyday objects, it sows doubts, it blasphemes, it deceives us. Yesterday, preoccupied with buying books, I was depressed and troubled in spirit; but, having come to church and clinging with my heart to God, and fixing my mind and heart on Him, I calmed down and rejoiced. Truly, our life is not in acquisitions, but in God. September 11, 1860. Morning. If we, sinners, pray and beg the Lord for ourselves and for 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 will be face to face with God. By virtue of the great, intercessory sacrifice of the Son of God, intercession through the grace of the Lord Jesus 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. 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 [Mk. 10.27]. When necessary, He spoke through the donkey with a human voice. The Lord, knowing the weakness of our nature, darkened and aggravated by sin, difficult to rise to God by faith, deigned to condescend to us to resemble our being, to take on the image of a servant [Phil. 2, 7 ], human flesh - such is love. But since He could not remain forever in a human body on earth, but, according to the plans of the economy, it was necessary to ascend with him into heaven, then for the weakness of all future human races and to remind them of His eternal love for them, of His suffering and death, He transforms by the Holy Spirit simple bread into His Body and simple wine into His Blood, and into this Body and into this Blood the whole is infused with His Spirit, so that in the forms of bread and wine, Christ the Lord Himself, the Giver of Life, is entirely present. Oh, inexpressible love, truly Divine! The Lord used His infinite wisdom, His infinite omnipotence 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! Prayer should naturally, without the slightest coercion, haste or slowdown, flow into our soul (like a stream from a big river) from the prayer book. We need to have such a mood of faith during prayer so that even for one minute there is no secret doubt or secret thought in the heart that God is not listening to us, but so that throughout the entire duration of prayer the soul imagines God before itself and talks with Him as with the King. Be constant in reverence and love both towards God and towards man, because man is His image. There is a spiritual world; there are souls of deceased people; they see and hear us - and here is obvious proof of this: one woman whose husband was sick and was in the clinic - six hundred miles from her; One evening she saw what kind of visitors he had, what he did, heard what words he said. Isn’t this how the saints see us, isn’t this how they hear our prayers? Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets... but to fulfill [Matt. 5.17]. As the Executor of the Law and the Prophets, Moses, the representative of the Law, and Elijah, the prophets, appear to the Savior from the spiritual world (according to the humanity of the Savior), and they console Him in the coming suffering. So you, man, try to be a fulfiller of the Law and the Prophets, and the saints of God will appear to you as active helpers. 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 it must be hoped for: man is the image of God; This is why the Son of God became incarnate, to restore His image. This idea is developed in the Holy Scriptures. Reveal it to the parishioners. God help! For one reason, one should not become attached to anything earthly, because because of this attachment one loses one’s boldness before God – the Giver of Life, the Giver of Peace, our Joy, our Bliss. Experience. Attachment of the heart to earthly things is an abomination to the Lord. The heart suffers from this attachment. But the clinging of the heart to the Lord is a fragrant sacrifice to the Lord, and blessed is the heart from this clinging. It is not natural for the human heart, which is spirit, to cleave to earthly things: how can flesh and spirit be combined? One is eternal, the other is temporary; one is infinite, the other is finite; Just like poles, spirit and body are opposites. Why are you sleeping? stand up and pray so as not to fall into temptation [Lk. 22.46]. Brethren! Why are you carelessly sleeping the sleep of sin? Stand up and pray that you will not fall into temptation. I subdue and enslave my body, so that, while preaching to others, I myself may not remain unworthy [1 Cor. 9.27]. That's your motto. You must write these words down as a keepsake and for guidance on your wall. About prayer. You, beloved, are a small expert in spiritual matters, and especially prayer: for what will you pray, do not weigh yourself 23 - but the saints of God, spiritual people, are great experts in these matters - the works of prayer; inspired by the Spirit of God, they saw what needed to be prayed for, and they composed prayers adapted to the spiritual needs of a Christian, they composed them beautifully. But they developed these prayers through the labors of their ascetic life, not just: their prayers are the fruit of sorrows and struggles with themselves and with the invisible and visible enemies of salvation. Therefore, one must deeply appreciate their works as the products of souls tested in the crucible of temptations and troubles, which shone like gold, as pure temples of the Holy Spirit, who deigned to dwell in their pure souls and bodies. The Lord reveals His constant omnipresence, divine rule, justice and mercy in the fact that He punishes sinful movements of the heart with spiritual death, and rewards us with an abundance of life for the movements of the heart towards the true, good and beautiful, or when He has mercy on those who repent and sheds consolation in the heart. All this proves the presence of His Divine Spirit in us sinners. God for us is God for salvation; in the power of the Lord Almighty are the gates of death [Ps. 67.21]. The Spirit breathes where it wants, and you hear its voice [Jn. 3.8]. God is all Eye, or Sight??? (???????) 24 . Water is transparent, air is clearer, light is even clearer (the thinner and lighter the substance, the more transparent it is); the created spirit is even more transparent and sees for itself. The Uncreated, Creative Spirit is all Light, and in Him there is no darkness [1 John. 1.5], and sees everything, penetrates everything. My heart lives and can live only by the Savior - Christ. And my heart is my soul. On the wall: But when you pray, go into your room and, having shut your door, pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you openly [Matt. 6.6]. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good [Rom. 12.21]. The Apostle speaks with confidence that in good there is sufficient power to defeat evil. Just be unfailingly kind and you will overcome the anger of others. There have been cases in Christianity that murderers were treated to someone they wanted to kill and who knew about their intention to kill him. God punished you today, when you gave a prayer to the mother in labor, because you thought evil about your brother. Revengeful! Say to the Lord from here: Lord! From now on, I wish not to be angry or angry with anyone, but to pray for those who offend: God save them! God! Let them go, for they know not what they do [Lk. 23,34]. If you are not angry, but others are angry with you, there is no need for you to be indignant, but you must be at peace: the evil is not yours; but if you are angry, and not others, you must quickly correct yourself through repentance. The duty of a priest is to pray for everyone. It is unexcusable for a priest to indulge many times in the movements of pride and self-interest - he must be selfless: let him deny himself [Matt. 16:24], says the Savior, that is, to fulfill the will of the Savior, let him turn away from his carnal will. Be constant in prayer, watching in it with thanksgiving [Col. 4.2]. During your conversation with your guests at your meal, be attentive to yourself and see that the enemy does not throw a spark of disdain and hatred towards them in your heart - for the sake of pitying your material wealth! What an abomination this stinginess is! How it degrades the stingy in the eyes of his own and others, and how it unworthily forces others like us to look at them. With tasty food, especially plentiful food, the heart becomes relaxed for spiritual exploits, especially for prayer, it becomes plump and fat. Take heed to yourselves, says the Lord, lest your hearts be burdened with gluttony and drunkenness [Lk. 21.34 ]; This means, by contrast, hearts are light and spiritual when a person fasts. Indeed, experience speaks to this. How fruitful our heart becomes with rich and sublime contemplations and feelings from fasting! Pay attention to the words of fasting preachers: they are spirit and strength, and precisely because the preachers, through fasting and prayer, themselves turned, so to speak, into spirit! But read the words of people who are busy with everyday worries and do not strictly observe fasting: their words are carnal, weak, like flesh. If we repent in the good, 25 to the Lord, what grace we have, but if in the evil, 26 then we are worthy of grace, as if we have accomplished a feat. To the extent that you begin to pray in spirit and truth before a holy 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 as if alive, then It, indeed, by His grace is always there. Miracle-working icons spoke, exuded tears, blood, etc. That is why miracle-working icons look unusually vivid and expressive. What is impossible for God, who can animate a stone and form a man from it? It can also do this wonderfully with a picturesque image. He is all in the Mysteries. All things are possible to him who believes [Mk. 9:23], and the Most High miraculously condescends to the believer. He unites with the sign of the Life-giving Cross and works miracles. It’s so picturesque and accurate, they sometimes say about some kind of portrait, whatever they say. 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 the image for Him, why not give it the ability to speak, if it pleases Him? Just doesn’t say: you’ve done everything, let the Lord finish it, and He will make her talk. Just as in prayer the enemy encourages you to hurry and indulge in impatience, so in school when teaching boys. Be against it. In the Life-Giving Mysteries there is the closest, most obvious and tangible contact of believers with their Lord. Oh, how great is the love and mercy of the Lord towards us! You use what God gave me and what I prepared for you in education. You enjoy the fruits of my labors - and why don’t you thank me, how fervently don’t you pray for me? Mom's voice from beyond the grave! 27 The Savior hears you in prayer. Proof. Every time you felt at ease in prayer, when the burden of sin fell from you, the Savior Himself touched your heart; His is this: come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest, for My yoke is easy and My burden is light [Matt. 11.28–30 ]; He kept His promise to you; Every time in prayer, looking at the image of the Savior, tears of tenderness flowed from you, when unearthly joy embraced your heart, then the Savior touched your heart, then He came to you and made a home in your heart with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted [Matt. 5.4; OK. 6.21] (that is, the Savior: He wipes away every tear from the eyes [Rev. 7:17, 21:4]). Kingdom of God... righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit [Rom. 14,17]. You see, if you have peace and joy in your soul, then the Kingdom of God is in you, the Tri-radiant Lord God Himself is in you. How do saints hear our prayers? 1) They are in God, and God is omniscient. 2) They are spirits, and pure spirits see far and see a lot; a pure heart - we know here too - is extremely far-sighted and clear-sighted, like an immaterial spirit. 3) Our Guardian Angels and the saints, without a doubt, have a communication with each other: thus the Angels carried the righteous Lazarus into the bosom of Abraham. Not praying is extremely dangerous: the heart becomes spoiled, overgrown with wild grass of iniquity, more and more tares of the devil, and there is nothing with which to cleanse it: the blessed fire of prayer does not penetrate the heart and the Holy Spirit is not attracted by the prayer of faith. Although, by His mercy, God acts on the heart of a sinner through various circumstances, it is easy for a person who is inattentive to his heart to ignore them. In order to plunge a person into any evil, the devil has a sure way to distract that person from prayer. If you want to be a servant of God and an imitator of God, do not rush in anything; The law of God’s actions is gradualism, slowness, and yet marvelous firmness! The devil is hasty because he has no peace within himself, and haste inclines him to every sin, because in haste there is no wisdom. I think, I love, I am the image of God, I am God. I think: this is enough to believe that God is always with me. For this purpose I was sent [Lk. 4.43]. I preach; I serve; I fulfill the requirements: I was sent for this; I have to live in this and spend time in this. This is my duty, this is my title. If I ever feel burdened by this, God save me! From now on you will catch people [Lk. 5.10]. Man is a strange thing - a subject of capture. The apostles are fishers of men in the net of faith and eternal life. Why is this so? Because there is an opposite fisher - the devil with his minions; he traps with disbelief in eternal destruction. And since a person is free, one can freely attract him to one side or the other, presenting him with the attractive truth of spiritual life or the seductive lie of sensuality. Christ and the apostles do just that; the devil does his thing: he spreads seductive forms of sensuality - amusements, shameless and nasty faces of women, food, drink, clothes, and so on, so on. And in this life, it is easy for the gaze of a spiritual observer to distinguish between the blessed captives of Christ and the unfortunate captives of the devil. Some joyfully rush into the courtyards of the house of their God - others joyfully go to satanic amusements and turn away from the Church; some were combined with Christ, others with the devil. His methods of capture: anger, envy, stinginess, hatred. The devil shows noticeable traces in unbaptized infants: as soon as you bring the sign of the cross, he immediately turns his eyes wildly, wanders strangely, opens his mouth, cries from the action of the devil hidden in the heart, who does not tolerate the sign of the cross and is forced to leave the terrible sign of the cross. The Lord knows the movement of every atom in nature: everything is done with His knowledge. Therefore, do not complain about the weather, about the illnesses of your body. You should see the mania 28 of your Creator everywhere - and thank and glorify Him for everything. How does a person begin in the womb? From the heart. In the male seed the whole man is contained in miniature, but only in possibility (potentia 29). The mother, under her heart and with her heart, warms, revives and nourishes the embryo of the future person through a fleshy tube that goes from her heart to the seed of the embryo and is closely connected with it. After the heart, all members begin to form: but in this seed, in this embryo - in its very heart, the evil and unclean spirit already nests, which was grafted into the heart of the first man through sin and from him successively passes on to everyone through the male seed. As a person develops, the power of evil also grows in his heart, which, like the soul, needs the material tools of the body to bring itself into action, and the more developed these tools are, the greater the strength and convenience it receives for its destructive manifestation. Look at a fresh egg - at its yolk, which contains the most essential parts of the future chick. How does the kokosh hatch its chicks from it? Everyone knows that through incubation - that is, what does this mean? That is, he imparts his vital warmth, if one can say his soul, to the egg yolk through the knot located at the top of it. A person’s navel is located opposite the very place where the spiritual heart is. ...So that they may be freed from the snare of the devil, who has ensnared them in his will [2 Tim. 2.26]. You see, many are caught in the devil’s net and are under his will. Where we need to elevate our thoughts and hearts, the enemy tries to confuse us with the trifles of material life. Behold, we have left everything and followed You [Matt. 19.27; Mk. 10.28]. On the wall. It is extremely necessary to leave all material goods in your heart and not have an attachment to them. The cruel tightness of the heart and the whole person, resulting from the slightest attachment to them, loudly cries out about this necessity; conscientious fulfillment of one's duties also inevitably requires this: one cannot do any business well with a mind darkened by passions and a constricted heart. God help me! Strength, a good yoke, a light burden of my heart, Christ, help me. Be as if you were insignificant, so that you may contain everything 30, according to the Apostle. Let there be all contentment in my house. May my winepress 31 overflow, just as the Lord does in His land, which is filled with all kinds of gifts in abundance. Treat every person as straightforwardly and sincerely as you would with God Himself, the Knower of the Heart. Speak the truth, every one of you, to your neighbor, for we are members of one another [Eph. 4.25]. The more a person falls into sensuality, the more he becomes a lack of faith, until he finally becomes an unbeliever. In Him we live and move and have our being [Acts. 17.28 ] every moment of life. On the wall. Having had my fill, I will lie. True. It’s a strange thing: a well-fed person becomes deceitful in his thoughts, desires, words, and actions! I will be zealous about fasting, lest I become like Satan. If you do not have the simplicity of faith and you cannot pray in prayer with such sincere faith, with such simplicity as the apostles, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Anthony, Euthymia the Great, Paul, Anthony, Barlaam, Sergius and others prayed, cry about the lack of simplicity of your heart and faith and pray to the Lord that He, through the prayers of His saints, gave you the simplicity of faith. My job is to diligently cast the net of doctrine with the prayer of faith - in church or in school; and to enlighten the minds and hearts of people is the work of the Lord. Without a doubt, throw in 32 prayers - and you will gain forgiveness of sins and peace to your soul. Without a doubt, throw the hook of the Cross - and with this small hook you will pull out the evil leviathan 33 from the depths of your heart to the shore. The Lord does everything and everywhere with us, and we are obviously only His instruments. And He, the Merciful, the All-Powerful, is everywhere. When the evil spirit of doubt whispers inside you and with this doubt presses your heart, tell him: I don’t know you, the stranger, on which side you are; We know that you are a murderer from time immemorial; You are killing me even now with doubt; Do not let me give faith to you, a murderer, but as a dark and unknown stranger, I despise you and with all my heart I believe in the truest and living words of the Giver of Life and my Savior. We know him from where we are - I believe in His spirit-bearing apostles and in all the holy Orthodox-Catholic Church, instructed by the Holy Spirit and ever-invisibly governed by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Get away from Me, Satan [Matt. 4:10, 16:23; OK. 4.8 ], fiery serpent! Prayer, by the way, should be vigorous, and not relaxed and lazy. Just as the sufferings or labors of Christ (for Christ’s sake) abound in us, so our consolation abounds in Christ. Experience. The Spirit of God was carried on top of the water (abyss) [Gen. 1.2]. And now He covers the world like an eagle covers its chicks. Judging by the fact that many people avoid prayer, one must think that it is difficult for them - it is difficult for their hearts, it does not fit either in their thoughts or in their hearts. 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, are in me, and I have great boldness before Him. The king is then in me, as in a monastery: ask for whatever you want. Let us come to him and make our abode with him [Jn. 14.23]. Whatever you wish, ask, and it will be done for you [John. 15.7]. People are ashamed to admit, but must admit, that they do not believe in their high dignity and destiny, that they are the priceless image of God, dear to God, who is destined and promised endless, 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 ] tune. We are amazed how, without any special merit on our part, such great honor and glory, such a wealth of blessings await us. We are proud, selfish, stingy and do not understand how such endless love, such a Generous and Selfless Father, can exist; We still don’t seem to believe that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in Him... [Jn. 3.16]. On the wall: Where can I go from Your Spirit? [Ps. 138.7]. Do you not know that you are the church of God, and the Spirit of God lives in you? [ 1 Cor. 3.16]. You see, God is always with us. And how can He not be with us when we are His breath? Angels and Christians who cleanse themselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit are His most acceptable and most fitting churches. God is always with us, because we are now dying internally when He rejects us from His presence and takes His Holy Spirit from us. We then call out to our hearts in the desert, and no one hears us: there is an enemy within us to God and to us, and when we cry out to God with our hearts, he resists this and torments us more. ABOUT! Then we will realize that without God we are lost - it’s hard to live without Him for one minute. If my wife has reasons to suspect me of insincerity in my love for her, then won’t God test me in the sincerity of my love for Him? Shouldn't a heart-reader visit me with temptations in order to test my heart: does it love Him or not? But it is not deep, it is not fundamental in love. God! You weigh this! The life of my soul, the life of my heart, the soul of my soul, the heart of my heart is Christ. God! Grant me to be Christopher, or Ignatius the God-Bearer m 35! If an evil spirit is always with me, then isn’t it even more so that a good Angel, my Guardian Angel, is always with me? Is evil really stronger than goodness? Living water of my soul, Christ, do not leave me. The source of my life! Don't leave me. The warmth of prayer in your heart testifies that you have the Holy Spirit within you, with whom we pray and sacredly learn true prayer. Every good thought presupposes a good higher principle in us, sacredly teaching our soul. This is obvious from the fact that often all goodness seems to be hidden in us somewhere, and we try in vain to contain in the heart what was previously, as it were, its property, because in the heart there is almost only evil. How true are the words of the apostle: What do you have that you did not receive (every bright, good thought, all natural gifts)? And if you received it, why do you boast as if you didn’t receive it? [ 1 Cor. 4.7]. We notice in ourselves the struggle of faith with unbelief, of good power with evil, and in the light of churchliness - with the spirit of the world. We see the same thing in entire societies. There, in spirit, you will clearly distinguish two opposite sides - the side of light and the side of darkness, good and evil; churchliness, religiosity - and secularism and unbelief. Do you know what this is from? From the struggle of two opposing forces: the power of God and the power of the devil. The Lord works in sons who submit to Himself, and the devil works in sons of disobedience (the spirit now working in sons... [Eph. 2:2]). This is everyone's responsibility. Yes, and I often feel within myself a struggle between two opposing forces. When I begin to pray, sometimes an evil force presses painfully and [sinks] my heart so that it cannot ascend to God. People pray to the Most Illuminated Deity in some kind of heart fog, rarely in the light. Why did the Lord often teach peace, saying: peace to you [Lk. 24.36 ]? So that you know that when you have peace in your heart: whether during prayer, after it, or after confessing your sins and partaking of the life-giving Mysteries, then the Lord is with you. The Lord is with you most sincerely in the Mysteries: grab hold of the Cup as if it were His feet, and pray to Him for everything you need. 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 unto ages of ages - and think what you mean with people of all ages, of which there are countless great and God-blessed minds who wholeheartedly 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: Cherubim, Seraphim, Thrones, Dominions, Authorities, 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 Theotokos, our Most Swift Intercessor. We unceasingly magnify You, who inexpressibly united the heavenly, Christ, the earthly, and made one Church, Angels and men. The head is Christ, among Angels and men. What is not close to us under such a Head? And how close is the Head Himself to us, so as to always 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 Angels and holy men, and through them He acts, and through them, as through worthy instruments, He acts towards 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 His holy 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 wings 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 with spiritual, 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! Biased thinking about something everyday, especially during divine services, as at any other time, outrages, overshadows and oppresses my heart. Experience. Do you thank the Lord God daily and fervently? In the Christian faith, you have been granted the greatest, infinite benefits. The Lord daily through the Church and His direct influence on your heart arranges the conversion and salvation of your soul; For you, a bloodless sacrifice is made daily on the altars of Christian churches and is ready to be taught to you - to renew your corrupted nature, to unite you with the Source of life, to strengthen you in the hope of eternal life. For you, all spiritual benefits are in worship and the Sacraments; all the gifts of nature are for you; the sun rises for you, the moon and stars shine for you; for you the good winds blow, for you the early and late rains; for you, seas, lakes, rivers provide their backbone or deliver you their treasures and roll you from end to end; The power of vapor serves you, the fiery current helps you; - for your pleasure - he takes you into his upper bowels and the air, if you are dissatisfied with the soaring of your thoughts into infinity! For you, the earth is dressed in luxurious greenery and covered with fruits. The bowels of the earth, gold and silver, are given to you. Do you thank the one infinitely great Benefactor and Creator of all? Give thanks, beloved, be sure to give thanks, every day, every hour, give thanks unceasingly and remember that all of these are pledges, deposits of future, infinitely higher blessings. Such is the Creator’s love for us! And when? Then, as we are constant transgressors of His holy will, His life-giving commands. Judge after this, shouldn’t we plunge into eternal fire upon our departure from this life because, every moment of our life, having been endlessly blessed by our Creator, we not only did not thank Him, but all the time of our lives we angered Him and violated all His commandments? - Truly! You, man, a freely fallen being, corrupted by sin - this is where the strongest motivation is for your turning to God, for unceasing prayer. You receive every minute the greatest mercies from God - an incentive to thanksgiving; you see the works of omnipotence, wisdom and goodness of God - an incentive to glorify. Oh, how little faith you are, Christian! This is the greatest strangeness and incongruity. We very often believe in strangers, unknown people and do not trust the great saints of God, the Church of God, God Himself. What is this? These are the wiles of the devil. Hold firmly to the council of the wise fathers, or the Holy Church of God: it is the pillar and foundation of the truth [1 Tim. 3.15]. And in me the Lord constantly reveals His creativity: He creates everything and everywhere for me - both in my soul and in my body; How I sometimes doubt that He does not create everything outside of me; How can I doubt that He does not work miracles outside of me, when He is the God of miracles? Truly, man is a lie [Ps. 115.2]. Hold on to the Church and its entire order, everything that it contains: it faithfully leads to salvation, it has saved millions into the Kingdom of Heaven, and it will save you too. Nothing, it seems, is so little valued and so easily forgotten by man as the spiritual, priceless gifts of God given in holy faith. Take a look and see for yourself. If your voice is good, clear, ringing, do not enjoy yourself internally, but recognize it as God’s gift and offer it in your heart as a sacrifice to God. My nurturer, my educator, my cherisher, Triune God, have mercy on me! September 28. The Lord honored me with wonderful peace and tranquility of heart after receiving His Holy Mysteries for my faith. The day before, He punished me through an ethereal executioner for my lack of faith. And now he consoled me for the grief I had suffered. Who set forth the blood of your body and moves these inner rivers of yours? Who, without your labors or even your knowledge, gave you the eyes, hearing, tongue, and sense of smell that you need so much? Do you thank the All-Wise, All-Good Benefactor for giving you your beautiful, wisely, omnipotently designed body? Do you still thank Him for the pure, greatest pleasures of the mind and heart, for their harmonious activity that delights your earthly life? - Thank you. We regret the shortness of the service. Brew (together) in your heart what they sing and read. When you have contained it and cooked it well, then ask for more; and if not, there is nothing to wish for more and worryingly tell everyone that the service is short and a lot is omitted. The infirmity of the people forces us to reduce service. Worship truly is food. Heart - stomach; The weakness of Christians cannot endure or digest prolonged worship. Monks have a stronger spiritual stomach: it is strengthened by constant contemplation of God and prayer. Be afraid to eat a lot when you do little or no work. This is parasitism and suicide. But don’t hesitate to eat a lot when you work hard. This is necessary to strengthen your strength. What kind of stupidity of mind and heart is it to excuse my doubt and lack of faith by the fact that I do not see the object of faith? Is it because I don’t believe that I don’t see? I don't see air. But he is in the room. I don’t see my soul, but nevertheless it exists. So I don’t see the Lord, but He is with me and in me and in every place. How long will my heart and mind be so coarse that they will be guided only by coarse, earthly, perishable feelings, neglecting the invisible eye of the immortal, eternal soul? Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God [Matt. 5.8]. Cleanse your heart and you will conquer your feelings and be able to do it through faith. This is where the secret of undoubted faith is! The raising of hands greatly contributes to the liveliness and sincerity of prayer. Look how the Mother of God and the saints of God are written: they are written either with both hands raised, or with one. Demons run from a man with his hands raised in prayer. When you stand up for prayer and feel heavy and unable to complete the prayer rule, do not believe yourself, but overcome yourself - and you will fulfill it willingly. A person shows love for God especially gloriously when he is not faint-hearted in sudden sorrows and illnesses, but thanks and glorifies the Lord for them. Whoever sincerely glorifies the Mother of God and the saints, according to the law of God's truth, will have a share in their glory in the next century. Therefore, blessed are the hymns of the Mother of God and the saints: they will certainly be worthy of crowns of glory; who sincerely brings the angelic greeting to the Mother of God: Rejoice! - he himself will rejoice forever. The germs of death lurk in every living human organism: only if the Creator moves them to the center of life, death will be certain. The surer and stronger the means that unites us with God, the more destructive actions the enemy of God and ours direct against it, who uses everything for this: our body, which is disposed to laziness, and the weaknesses of the soul, its attachment to earthly goods and worries, doubt, which is so close to everyone; lack of faith, unbelief, nasty, evil and blasphemous thoughts; heaviness of heart, darkness of thought - everything is directed in those who are inattentive by the action of the enemy to falter in prayer, on this ladder that leads us to God. That is why there are very few sincere and zealous prayer books; That is why Christians very rarely fast, repent and receive communion, and perhaps half of them would not fast if civil law did not command everyone to attend confession and holy communion every year. Those who have experienced know all this. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture says, out of his belly will flow rivers of living water [Jn. 7.38], that is, the living word. Yes, the Lord, who rests in my heart through faith, is truly the Source of living water. Experience. The rivers overflowed, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house [glory: and questioned that church]; and he fell [Matt. 7.27]. It can be accepted both literally and figuratively. In our own: when rain clouds thicken in the air and, driven by the wind, rest on our body, then it becomes difficult for us - both soul and body. In figurative terms, we mean the temptations of the enemy. If a boy, well known, taught us the truth of God, then we should listen to him with humility, with attention and with deep respect. All people who speak the truth are nothing more than heralds of God. But look what happens: if a young man, well known to us, speaks the truth, we often neglect his words and deprive him of respect for the truth because it is in his mouth. Beloved brothers! In today's Gospel we read a very moralizing parable of the Savior about talents. Incline your ears with reverence and listen to her interpretation. The Lord Jesus Christ, having said that each of us must be awake in soul for prayer and good deeds, because none of us knows either the day or the hour in which He will come for our soul, continues further this way: for He will act like a man who, going to a foreign country, called his servants and entrusted them with his property. And he gave to one five talents (the weight of silver), to another two, to another one, to each according to his strength, and immediately he set off. The one who received the five talents went and put them to work and acquired another five talents. In the same way, the one who received two talents acquired the other two. The one who received one talent went and dug up the ground and hid his master’s money. After a long time, the master of those slaves comes and demands an account from them... The master who entrusted his property to the slaves is Jesus Christ. Slaves are us. Our soul with its abilities, with its strength, our body with its health and strength, everything that we have, except sin, is the property of the Lord. To the participants. All the people sought to touch Him, because power emanated from Him and healed everyone [Lk. 6.19]. History of the text. And now, as can be seen from this meeting, the people are seeking to touch the Savior in His Mysteries. But is everything voluntary? Is it not out of necessity for some, or out of habit for others? Is it with living faith? Is it with a simple heart? Is there not a lack of faith and deceit nesting in the hearts of Christians who want to begin the Mysteries? Are they not approaching this with cold indifference? Do they properly understand what they are starting to do? Do they intend to firmly protect the accepted Holy Place with a good life? Be careful, brethren, - once a year you approach the greatest, most life-giving Sacrament; concentrate all your spiritual strength towards the worthy acceptance of Christ the Savior into your heart. Here, in this Chalice, He Himself, and from Him, for all who receive communion worthily, power comes into the heart and heals everyone - it washes away all sins, all the filthiness of the heart, and renews the heart of everyone corrupted by sin. The unity of the laws of the mind and heart of all people, the unity of the aspirations of the heart towards the Invisible God, most strikingly proves their origin from the One All-Perfect Spirit of God and from the one pair of first people. All people are like one person. And this is where the basis is to love everyone as yourself. God is like a tree and people are like leaves. The tree stands firm and unshakable, and the leaves fall every autumn. I am the vine [Jn. 15.5]. Truly the Lord is present in this place; but I didn’t know! [ Gen. 28.16]. I know your works [Rev. 2.2]. My soul lives for Him [Ps. 21.30]. Warmth of the heart is a sign of the presence of the grace of the Holy Spirit. Because you begged [glory: begged] me [Matt. 18.32]. The All-righteous One allows Himself to be belittled, to bow down to our prayer as [a] feat. As You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, so may they also be one in Us (through communion) [Jn. 17.21]. This is the greatest Sacrament of the Christian faith, this is its final goal, this is its triumph! Protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary. When praying to the Mother of God or the saints, you sometimes think: does the Heavenly Queen hear you? Here is an example that She hears and appears at the place of prayer. Common prayer especially inclines Her to mercy and moves Her to intercession. Life of Constantine 37. But it also descends on private heartfelt prayers. Sergius of Radonezh. Where there is fiery prayer, there is heaven and there is God with the heavenly Powers and with His saints. Example: The Protection of the Mother of God, which appeared in the church with the heavenly powers and with the saints. Call upon, Orthodox, undoubtedly the Lady of all. She hears everywhere. Our job is to calmly act according to ready-made rules, but God, as if playing, accomplishes everything with His delusion. So a man throws his seed into his girlfriend, like a farmer throws seed into the ground, and how the seed sprouts [glory: vegetates] and grows, he does not know [Mk. 4.27 ]; When it vegetates and produces fruit, abiye 38 The Lord of nature sends the sickle, because the harvest has come [Mk. 4.29]. Man, as everyone knows, does not at all participate in the development and formation of the seed in a woman, as well as in the birth itself - the Lord does everything without us through His delusion. So when performing the Sacraments, the priest reads prayers, performs certain visible actions, and the rest - invisible, the main thing - is performed by the Lord Himself with His urgent desire. For example, in Baptism, the priest reads ready-made prayers, performs the acts of incantation, baptism, confirmation, tonsure, and the Lord does everything that the priest prays for: drives demons out of the baby, gives him another, spiritual birth, confirmation in the Orthodox faith and deliverance from the evil one and all his endeavors. An important person is a priest, especially a worthy priest. I, a sinner, am not worthy of this high rank. The same must be said about the greatest Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. The priest, according to ready-made prayers, prays and performs certain actions, and the Lord, as if amusing himself 39 with His omnipotence and His immeasurable love, in the most ordinary way for Him, creates from bread and wine His Most Pure Life-Giving Body and His Divine Life-Giving Blood for the cleansing of our sins and for sincere communion with us, whom He loved so much. His word is the very work. He said, and it was done; He commanded, and it appeared [Ps. 32.9]. Cornelius!.. Your prayers and your alms have come as a memorial before God... So send people to Joppa and call Simon, who is called Peter... he will tell you the words by which you and your whole house will be saved [Acts. 10.3 – 6 ]. Cornelius gave alms - and God showed mercy to him; Cornelius gave material alms - God sent him spiritual mercy; Cornelius - temporary, God - eternal; Cornelius gave alms to many - for this reason the Lord saved his whole house: you and your whole house will be saved [Acts. 10.6]. What a treasure is almsgiving! What rich mercy she attracts from the Lord! Yea, blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy [Matt. 5.7]. Amen. You give alms, and God prepares eternal mercy for you. Who does not strive with zeal for works of mercy? – By grace, obtain mercy from God. Food 40 cannot the hand of the Lord save? Or has the Lord turned away His ears, so that He would not have mercy? The Lord is always omnipotent. Why are you faint-hearted? Be patient with courage. The Lord gives you over to the devil and leaves you to yourself so that you know your spiritual poverty without the grace of God, without which you cannot fulfill even the easiest, natural duty, according to Scripture, to love your parents. Learn to resort to God’s mercy in everything and always be sure that without Him you have no spiritual strength, and you are all but weakness and suffering; there is no bright and holy thought, no feeling of good, no will to do good, and you become a spiritual dead man. Know the greatness of God and your insignificance. Beware of the shadow of pride. Be humble. A Christian sometimes notices with horror how evil in his heart grows and increases in gigantic proportions, how his soul is drowned by a river of evil, and prays: deliver, Lord, my soul from the evils and cruel perceptions that co-increase with it; save me for the sake of Thy mercy alone, that where sin abounds, Thy grace abounds [Rom. 5.20]. But even in these fierce days there is no need to despair of God’s mercy. The enemy, as you can see, sometimes rushes at us with all his might, by God’s permission, to admonish our pride and to test whether we will fall into despair. My God, My God! Why have you forsaken me? [Matt. 27.46]. God! Grant me from now on to lay the good beginning of all virtues. Impartiality towards earthly goods. Love . (June 8th day 1860.) This same generation (the devil) is driven out only by prayer and fasting [Matt. 17.21; Mk. 9:29], - it’s true, we must fast so that it does not nest in our insides. Remember. What is the Angelic world? – The play of Divine goodness and wisdom and the Divine unapproachable, abundant light. What is the material world? – The game of Divine wisdom, omnipotence and goodness. God rejoiced in creating the universe [Prov. 8:31], says the wise Solomon. If during prayer your faith becomes impoverished and your heart becomes powerless, do not try to obtain it on your own - this is the pride of the spirit, but humbly bow your head before the Trinitarian God and pray to Him to humbly look upon your unworthiness, so that He will grant you the great treasure of faith. Every perfect gift is from above [Jas. 1.17]. And faith too. The yoke is my good [Matt. 11:30] - that is, My presence is good for the human heart; This means that when you feel evil in your heart, it is the yoke of the devil; and My burden is light [Matt. 11:30] - that is, the human heart is easy from Me; This means that when the heart is heavy from the rapid attack of evil upon it, then this is the burden of the devil. Understand what I say. Having stood in prayer, steer well the ship of your soul in order to steer it towards a quiet and peaceful haven - God; set the boat of your heart straight and firm; set a helmsman - reason, and watch that he is completely calm and vigilant; then spread the sails 42 of your mental ship, that is, the heart - faith, hope and love, and thus, in the peace of the heart, in the light of the mind, proceed to God on three sails, quickly lifting the soul to God. When I remember the good things that God has prepared for those who love Him [1 Cor. 2.9] in the next century, what do all the treachery of the invisible enemy mean over our souls and bodies, with which he tries to stop us on the path to salvation? The priest must in every possible way avoid despondency after unworthy communion (due to doubt). Dejection in itself is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and, moreover, it has no basis in the priest’s sin itself: the cure for sin is sincere repentance, and not despondency; and despondency is the work of an evil spirit. I will make you fishers of men [Matt. 4.19]. Good fishers are apostles of Christ. The entire universe was caught in its net. True, this catch cost the apostles a lot of work, and even their heads; but there was something to work for, there was something to lay down their heads for: they collected the fruit not in this temporary belly, but in the eternal belly, and they themselves, having despised their life in this life, preserved it in the eternal belly; he who reaps receives his reward and gathers fruit into eternal life [Jn. 4.36 ]; He who hates his life in this world will keep it to eternal life [Jn. 12:25] - says our Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, wonderful catchers! Wonderful catch! The Eternal Fisher has caught the earthly fishers into His blessed eternity; and the fishers called by Him caught their brethren there - people, snatching them from the mouth of the mental wolf - the devil, who destroys the careless in his abyss. For this, eternal glory to both the catchers and those caught, eternal peace to both. But we, brethren, also fell into the apostolic net. What will happen to us? Will we all inevitably be in the Kingdom of Heaven? - Highly doubtful. So it must be said that good and pious Christians will be accepted into the Kingdom of Heaven, and the evil ones will be cast out into utter darkness. On what basis am I speaking? – based on the words of the Savior Himself; and His word is as good as the deed itself. This is what He says: the Kingdom of Heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and captured fish of all kinds; when it was full, they pulled it ashore and sat down, collecting the good in vessels, and throwing out the bad. So it will be at the end of the age: the angels will come out and separate the wicked from among the righteous, and throw them into the fiery furnace: there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth [Matt. 13,47–50]. You see, brethren, what awaits very many of us: they will be thrown out of the apostolic or church net and thrown into the fiery furnace. So, no one should boast that you are a baptized person, that you hold the Christian Orthodox faith: what if you have a corrupt, nasty heart, filled with every abomination and you do not care about correcting it; what does it mean that you are an Orthodox Christian, when you have no Christian affairs, when you rarely go to church, and even when you come, you stand absent-mindedly; when you sometimes don’t go to confession for several years in a row, you don’t partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, which would at once wash away all the impurity of your heart if you confessed properly and partook of them worthily? Look: your salvation is in great doubt; rather, it is more certain that you will be thrown into the fiery furnace, and this will certainly follow if you do not correct yourself. Brethren! May God grant that all of us may pass directly from the apostolic net into the Kingdom of Heaven, into eternal life. Amen. (On the Sunday of All Saints. It is also possible on the day of the Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called. November 30.) Always approach the performance of divine services and the Sacraments with firm faith and perfect calm, as the most ordinary, most faithful, most fruitful thing for your soul and those who listen to the divine service or receive the Sacraments with an open heart. Be always firm and even in serving the Unchangeable. Remember that our faith is firmer and more unshakable than the world itself, and sooner heaven and earth pass away than one line of the law disappears [Lk. 16,17]. Not one jot or one tittle will pass from the law until everything is fulfilled [Matt. 5.18]. Cowardice, hesitation in a priest are stupidity and humiliation of the spirit: does he not serve the omnipotent, but the powerless God, that sometimes he becomes completely weakened in spirit while serving Him, hesitating with the charming devilish (from the devil induced) doubt? Is His God a changeable, and not an unchangeable Being, that His priest changes so often when serving Him and takes upon himself, so to speak, thousands of colors, that is, spiritual dispositions and states? You must have an even, strong and courageous spirit, conquering everything in the name of the omnipotent God. Why are you faint-hearted, tell me? Have you sinned? Is there sorrow and tightness in your heart? But for the Lord God the most common thing is to forgive our sins. Just pray about it from your heart. Does the greatness and extraordinaryness of the Terrible Sacrifice, the performer of which you, weak, sinful and insignificant, have been appointed by God, frighten you and lead you to bewilderment? Stand firm, do not be afraid: is this the only thing that the Almighty God does through our weakness? For Him it is [like] the most ordinary thing to feed us with His Flesh and Blood, although the crafty enemy inspires distrust of the truest words of the Lord Jesus as something extraordinary; as the most common thing - to give those baptized a restoration through baptism with water and the Spirit, to absolve them from sins in the Sacrament of Repentance, and so on. It’s time for you to broaden the horizon of your spiritual vision and look at the deeds done by God with God’s eyes, and not with human ones. And what prevents this? You constantly taste the fruits of the invisible, miraculous works of God! How do the tsar’s associates view the important state affairs he undertakes and accomplishes? - With the power of attorney that he, as a powerful king, having in his power enormous material resources and the numerous strength of the people, will easily complete the undertaking. Isn’t it even more so the Almighty King, the Creator of everything visible and invisible? Those who have repeatedly experienced God's salvation often call God nothing other than the God of their salvation, and say: God, the God of my salvation [Ps. 50.16], or God of our salvation. God... save [Ps. 67.20 – 21 ]. So speak more often with your heart and lips. With this you will give glory to God for His countless salvations of your soul. Let us rejoice in your salvation, and in the name of the Lord our God we will be magnified [Ps. 19.6]. So involuntarily I often rejoice in the salvation of God and am magnified, boasting in the name of the Lord my God - my Savior. In order for you to call upon the Holy Comforter Spirit with boldness and great faith, look with your mental eyes at the holy people of God: see how good and meek the Spirit filled [them], but at the same time majestic and strict; with what generous gifts He dwelt in them. Pray: His bounty is ready to pour out upon you according to His wealth. Take, eat: this is My Body, which was broken for you for the remission of sins. Drink of it, all of you, for this is My Blood... which is shed for the remission of sins [Matt. 26.26–28; Mk. 14,22–24]. If the most pure Mysteries leave me with sins, then it is also true that they contain the Body and Blood of the Savior. If the effect is true, then so is the cause. The life-giving Mysteries truly cleanse my sins, calm and revive my soul. If I say that they do not cleanse, do not rest, do not revive, then I will be like the devil - a lie. But I must say loudly and I say that they give peace, they revive. And the Lord Himself says that the Spirit gives life [Jn. 6.63]. Rest, O Lord, our departed forefathers, fathers and brethren, as You give us rest after worthy communion of Your Holy Mysteries; warm them, revive them with Your love, grant them weakness, lay Your light yoke on them. About prayer. What does earnest public prayer do? Examples of the Apostolic Church. From the lives of saints. Sinners! Pray in hope: for the Lord has mercy and much redemption, and He will deliver us, the new Israel, from all our iniquities. About the Trinity. Christ Himself vouches for the Mystery of the Holy Trinity. True. My mother is a simple and meek lamb. Looking at her, simple, uneducated, poor, ignorant, silently glorify from the fullness of your grateful heart the Lover of Mankind, the Lord, who surprised you with His great mercy, and highly honor your mother. About prayer. It is extremely necessary to be wary of mental turmoil during prayer. Sacrifice. It is extremely wise, or, better yet, with complete faith and simplicity, with complete zeal, to make a sacrifice to the All-Good and All-Perfect, whatever it may be. For our inability, for our lack of skill, our enemy will immediately attack us and torment our souls with his kindled arrows. The Lord enlightens my face [Ps. 26:1], says David. Exactly, He also enlightens or brightens the appearance of my face. And without Him, when that is, He is not in my heart, the appearance of my face is gloomy. When they call you to give communion or unction to a seriously ill person, keep your spirit from lack of faith and confusion and strengthen it in undoubted faith: we are changeable, but God is always the same. So during all the Sacraments, behave calmly, with faith. There is one and only peace and peace in my life, Savior, at every moment of life - glory to You. Amen. May 7, 1860. Life-giver! Grant me to always sincerely thank You for the material means of life! Goodness! Grant me to see the gifts of Your boundless goodness in all material blessings. God! Grant me from the material gifts of Your goodness to generously do deeds of goodness and mercy! My mercy! May I not be forgotten, burdened with the good and light burden of Your mercies. When you depict the sign of the cross on yourself or on someone else, or on something else, be always mentally, in your heart, lower than it and reverent before it, as before the power of God, which protects you too and gives its wondrous and great strength to your weak forces and drives away from your soul or others the opposing hostile forces and sanctifies everyone who depicts it with faith or who accepts it with faith from the priest. You see how angry and angry you are: can you judge others for being angry and angry? Look how the devil twists you, knowing your cowardice. When you pray for the sending down of the Holy Spirit to you and for His indwelling in you, then have the absolutely firm hope that you are asking the Lord for the most common gift of the Lord among Christians, like daily bread and water; Do not be embarrassed by the greatness of the Spirit of the Lord, Life-giving, breathing wherever He wants, and believe with all your heart that He will come and dwell in you for the sake of the fact that you are a member of Christ, redeemed by His Blood and sanctified by receiving into your heart the Most Pure Mysteries of His Body and Blood. Do you not know that you are the church of God, and the Spirit of God lives in you? [ 1 Cor. 3.16]. When you depict on yourself the sign of the Cross of the Lord, then you seem to be repeating in memory His crucifixion for you, His suffering and death, you are depicting the main act of His redemptive actions; and if you do this with living faith, then you bring great sanctification to your soul and freedom from the devil’s actions on your soul, as well as freedom from all passions, you bring peace and wonderful, easy Christian freedom to your soul. Experience. When you pray to the Lord to grant you a heavenly, blessed resurrection and the Heavenly Kingdom with the saints, pray about this in the same way as about the most ordinary thing for the Lord, although for you it is unspeakably great and although you yourself do not deserve it: the Heavenly Kingdom was prepared for the elect long ago - from the creation of the world [Matt. 25.34], and it, so to speak, awaits its inhabitants and inhabitants. It is the work of the goodness of our Lord Jesus Christ, who loved us to the cross and death and who acquired for us the eternal Kingdom in heaven through His most pure Blood. We are unworthy of him, but our Lord, the God-man Christ Jesus, is infinitely worthy of him. It is He who brings us together with Him, as the Head brings His members. So great and close is His communion with the Church that He is like one flesh with it. This mystery is great; I speak in relation to Christ and to the Church [Eph. 5.32]. When serving any sacred service, have a humble mood of thought and heart and be mentally lower than all readings, prayers, hymns and sacred actions performed in a church or in a private home. Why? Because the words of reading or prayers, hymns and sacred actions belong in their origin either to 1) the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, or 2) His Apostle, or 3) the saints and great fathers of the Church, of whom you are not worthy... to untie the thong of their sandals [Mk. 1.7]. Never dare to be mentally equal to them, much less to mentally stand above them and thus defile yourself with devilish pride, which always kills our soul, whether we know it or not. Learn to walk humbly before the Lord and you will gain precious peace of heart. Before all people, be as humble as possible: do not consider anyone small and insignificant, even if in the opinion of the people he was the very last in society. Be kind, meek and respectful to everyone. Humble yourself before everyone, and the Lord will exalt you before everyone. Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and everyone who humbles himself will be exalted [Lk. 18.14]. How do we look at the person who speaks to us and neglects to pay attention to us? We do not, as they say, have a heart for him, and just as he does not pay attention to us, we do not consider it our duty to listen to him with full attention and to fulfill his requests with goodwill towards him. Think the same way about a person praying to God. When he prays to God carelessly and does not pay attention to His presence, then God, offended by his inattention and ingratitude, does not incline His ear to his prayer and does not fulfill his request, because he is unworthy of such mercy from God. About prayer. He who comes to God must believe that He exists [Heb. 11.6]. Whoever begins to pray to God must once and forever firmly establish faith in God, that He really exists. Show from the Holy Scriptures, from church prayers, from the experiences of those praying that God exists. Our God - do miracles [Ps. 76.15 ]; He spoke loudly among the people about His power. What did you say? - In different ways. Briefly trace the miracles of the Old Testament and the New Testament. How quickly He answered the prayer of Zechariah, the God-man Jesus Christ, the apostles, and Cornelius. In the Old Testament - the prayers of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David (his psalms), Samuel's mother, Samuel himself, the parents of Sampson, Solomon (wisdom), Sirach, Job. Without Me you can do nothing [Jn. 15.5]. Remember these words of the Lord and without Him do not consider yourself safe anywhere, at any moment. Learn to look towards the Lord (like David), who says: I will lift up my eyes to the Lord, for He will pluck my noses from the snare [Ps. 24.15]. Try not to be alone without the Lord for a single minute, but always with Him - and then there will be great security for you. Oh, how much harm does attachment to wealth do! It prevents me from loving God and my neighbor and oppresses and kills my soul! God! Have mercy on me and deliver me from the flattery of 44 riches. The flattery of wealth and the power of the word of God suppresses the heart! This is the enormous harm it can cause! You are a priest - you most of all need to philosophize about heavenly things. Why aren’t you wiser, O heavenly one? Accustom your mind to turn daily to the things above, to live in the things above, to contemplate the things above, and to feed on the things above. Trample down earthly things with the help of the Lord Jesus Christ, who draws us all to what is above with His Cross and His saving Sacraments. When the all-evil enemy - the devil, by God's permission, does not and will not allow you to sleep all night, confusing and oppressing your spirit, then do not be irritated by this, although it is very annoying not to sleep when it is time to sleep, when you want to sleep and when everyone is sleeping. In allowing insomnia, God’s mercy to your soul is hidden: God delivers you over to the devil for the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit may be saved [1 Cor. 5.5]. Note that insomnia occurs mainly, if not exclusively, when your flesh was especially nourished during the day or when you remained idle for a day, at least without serious work that requires work and effort; when you are not tired from a long walk - in a word, when your flesh has not worked hard enough during the day. And what would have happened if she had not been tormented by insomnia? The seeds of evil would quickly grow in it and plunge the soul into great sins. The flesh, richly and variedly nourished and pleased, fights stronger and stronger against the salvation of the soul, the strongest puts obstacles to virtue, and grows stronger in its passions. So, thank the Lord when He hands over your flesh to Satan, and, among other things, to insomnia. He does this so that your spirit may be saved in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ [1 Cor. 5.5], may He weaken the flesh, which is beginning to take over or has already taken over the spirit. You yourself know that on the eve of this night (June 9th) in the afternoon, when you had a hearty and elegant dinner at the wake, you then felt the action of a strong passion in your heart, and it tormented you for a long time and especially annoyingly, so that there was a need to wear out your crafty, over-protective flesh. Hey, yes! So, thanksgiving and glory to You, All-Good Builder of my salvation! Amen. Will there be color on a tree or on a flower stem without warmth and moisture? It won't. Will a person grow the flower of virtues without the dew of God’s grace, without the warmth of faith and love given by the Holy Spirit? No. Like a plant without sun and rain, the human soul is without the Sun of righteousness - Christ, and the dew of grace - the Spirit of God. The pious youths, who have partaken of the fiery furnace, keep the rustling dewy spirit unharmed. This is how the Spirit of God takes us all away from the fire of passions. Why is it that an intelligent, educated person who has the ability to speak and write well is often struck by extraordinary dullness of mind and the inability to comprehend and efficiently connect several thoughts, or why often nothing comes to mind and you remain empty, meaningless? - All this is in order to enlighten our learned, arrogant pride in the fact that we have nothing of our own, not even a good thought, but everything is God’s. What do you have that you wouldn't get? [ 1 Cor. 4.7]. And without His help and blessing we cannot, especially in the area of ​​faith, even think that what is good is from ourselves, as if from ourselves, but contentment, but our ability is from God [2 Cor. 3.5]. If the Lord sends a bright thought, we will accept it and develop it. No, we'll be left with nothing. Inspiration. As secular writers [desire] him! What else is my real book if not God’s gift? Each of us has been given grace according to the measure of the gift [glory: gift] of Christ [Eph. 4.7]. You know from experience that only the Lord can control your heart for every spiritual good. Therefore, when you go to serve, pray to the Lord: direct my heart, O Lord, to shameless, fruitful service to You. Amen. You need to pray with a pure heart: prayer will not take hold of an unclean heart, like fire to damp wood. How righteous the Lord is in rewarding His saints! During their lives, they constantly called upon Him for help, glorified Him, and brought thanks to Him; therefore, after death, the Lord, who glorifies those who glorify Him, did that they are called for help, they are glorified. Because they sharpened their spiritual eye in prayers during life, after death they teach others to sharpen their spiritual eyes. Note: in all types of dislike towards people, the devil’s malice operates. And you should strengthen yourself in every possible way in your love for every person without any discrimination. On Sunday (June 12th) I received miraculous salvation from the Lord twice - from heaven: in the morning, on my way to mass (I was the next one), when my heart was bound and darkened by the movement of malice, and in the evening, on my way from Vespers, when my heart was also shot by the arrow of malice before Vespers. So I am a great sinner and so often I fall into the same sin! But I also admit that I do not become stagnant, I tremble to become stagnant in malice, and, by the grace of God, it tightly binds and torments me, so that I am weakened by it and become incapable of anything - and therefore I immediately repent and pray to the Lord to raise my soul from the underworld [Ps. 85.13]. How did I receive salvation from the Lord? In the first case, it’s like this: going to mass, I lifted my eyes to heaven - to the east, with faith, and with all my heart I said: Savior! I know my iniquity, and I will take away my sin before me [Ps. 50.5 ]: save me! From You alone is my salvation; You are my only Savior. And He immediately saved me, placing His good yoke and His light burden on my soul, removing the evil yoke of the devil and His heavy burden from my heart. Another time I also looked up to heaven and with heartfelt faith said clearly to myself: Savior! Save me; You are my most faithful and reliable salvation. And again He stretched out His right hand and cleansed my heart, and with His arm stood up for me! Glory to my Savior; For me, a great sinner, it’s a disgrace to my face! In my mother’s ignorance and poverty is my honor and glory, because in this I see how merciful and generous the Lord is to me, what great blessings He showed me, unworthy, making me both educated and knowledgeable in His Mysteries, noble and filled with all His gifts! Glory to the goodness and bounty of my God! I boast about my humble and poor parent. Seeing wild amusements everywhere in our city, I don’t know what to think about it: people in their right minds allow and do things that are excusable only for the insane. Some foreigner, I don’t know where he came from, has calmly settled down in the main square and is seducing the foolish with his disgusting performances - and this during Lent, when, according to our Orthodox custom, such demonic spectacles are especially intolerant. Orthodox brothers! Show complete contempt to this deceiver who is involving you in a sinful act; do not go to him, do not give him your money, which you can use for the benefit of your soul - for some good deed. Remember that the day of the Lord is near for all of us, on which we will have to give an account of every deed and word. Let us engage in all matters of piety. How long shall we spend our time in idleness and distraction? Those who know how to read, engage in reading the Holy Gospel, which is now affordable for everyone, even the poor. Give up pagan spectacles, fall in love with the temples of God and the service of God. Otherwise, we cannot escape the wrath of God, which has already begun to manifest itself. I sinned: I succumbed to feelings of pride... Oh! I still have pride! I am also indignant and sad when someone treats me proudly. God! Sovereignly stopping in me the flows of evil that are ready to drown me, and completely drying them up, glory to Thee, thanks to Thee! I looked to You when evil consumed me, and You delivered me! (June 13, 1860) What if it were not for Your help? Oh, then I would be a victim of evil forces, destructive forces! I rejoice in Your salvation! I have received wonderful salvation from the Lord several times today. Alive in heaven! Glory to You! When I have faith and rightness of heart before the Lord, then I am like a great rich man, and my spirit rejoices over such wealth, not being puffed up by it in the least; but when I lose the faith of my heart and the rightness of my heart, then I am a pitiful poor man, and my spirit grieves and laments about its poverty, as if it were a great disaster. Note that when the devil internally sets you on fire to irritability and malice, then it is your duty to strengthen yourself in meekness, patience and kindness of heart: then the Lord tempts you and wants to show you for yourself whether you have these virtues. And they are necessary for a Christian, especially for a priest. Sometimes there are strong attacks on the heart of the spirit of malice or the spirit of killing stinginess even after communion itself. There is no need to despair at the onslaught of evil: it is allowed by God to fight and strengthen our moral forces through the fight. It will pass. But we must pray to God in order to withstand the onslaught of the evil spirit, which can be especially strong by surprise, when we are unprepared, and when we would not like it - in front of deliberate people. Experience. Right. Pray to God that He will grant you the ability to make more sacrifices of love to your neighbors, whether they be material or spiritual sacrifices. God always sends His gifts to those who love and give diligently. All delusion, except faith, hope and love, that is, everything that is attracted to the heart from outside, is delusion and is not the life of the heart, but its death. When you meet any person who comes to you, or whom you come to, or whom you accidentally meet somewhere, let your first thought be the thought that he is your brother or sister in Christ, and your first feeling be a feeling of heartfelt respect for him or her; Let not your eye be deceitful when looking at your neighbor; do not mentally adapt him to your selfish views; let it not measure him from head to toe, and not look slyly at his title and position in the world, nor at his wealth or poverty, nor at any of his members, even if there was some deficiency in one of them; equally, let him not look with crafty, devouring glances at the beauty and symmetry of all members or at the special beauty of some of them - let him always give first of all and most of all respect to the dignity of man, his immortal soul, created in the image and likeness of God, redeemed by the most pure Blood of the Son of God. When you stumble in church, do not be at all embarrassed, but remain calm. Passion constrains, burns, torments, kills the soul: for this alone, at the very beginning of it, understand that it is the charm of the devil and there is no truth in it, neither is there life, and reject it with all your heart. Why keep fire in the depths, why cherish a snake in your bosom? You so often need God's mercy, so that God forgives your sins, and through prayer, you always undeservedly receive this mercy. Love to do more favors to others, even if they do not deserve it. This is required by your benefit, your eternal good. This is your direct duty for the rest of your life. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy [Matt. 5.7]. Especially lavish on mercy that which you yourself suffer from, that which harms your soul, that which strengthens the flesh over the spirit, that which kindles and feeds your passions - that is, money, food and drink. He who sows to the flesh... and he who sows to the spirit 45 [Gal. 6.8]. Look, says St. Basil the Great: Our God Himself... showed compassionate mercy for the hungry, for he says: I have mercy for this people (Matthew 15:32). Therefore, at the last Judgment, where the Lord calls the righteous to Himself, the generous one takes first place. The nourisher of others takes precedence among those awarded honors; he who gives the bread is called before all; he who is obliging and gracious is brought into life preferentially before other righteous people. But the unsociable and stingy are given over to the fire before other sinners (Matthew 25:34–42). Conversation eight during famine and drought. It is worthy and righteous to love God the Spirit most of all, and then the spiritual nature of man corresponding to Him, created in His image, as oneself, as one’s soul, and to value all material goods at nothing, when it turns out to be necessary to serve a brother, to make a sacrifice of love to him. Therefore, the goal and top of my desires and aspirations in relation to my brother should be love and generosity. Fulfill the commandments of God without doubt, despite the dreamy incitements of the enemy to violate them. All confusion regarding material goods is delusion, the dream of the devil, soap bubbles. There are people who do not want to pray in front of an icon that is not artistic or is not painted in accordance with the concepts of the person depicted by these people. These are proud and partial people who transfer their tastes from the world to the church of God or to the prayer books of their homes and look only at the grace and beauty of the face where all the glory of the face is inward. On the other hand, it is sometimes hard for their hearts to endure the struggle between the demands of the corrupted secular heart and its taste and the proper reverence for the sacred. We must humble our proud spirit and, despite the visible lack of grace or some lack of bruising of the sacred brush in the facial features, pray to the inner. Must worship in spirit and truth [Jn. 4.24]. The people of this world are accustomed to seeing and admiring the beauty and grace of forms in the world: they want to see and honor the same in the church. Hypocrisy! When you pray for the living or the dead, firmly believe in the grace given to you by God to pray for them and represent in your person the praying Church of Christ, of which the Sweetest Bridegroom and Head Jesus Christ, the Son of God, graciously accepts all prayers from her, as the prayers of His beloved Bride, to whom He became engaged for endless ages through the blood of the sufferings of the cross and death on the cross. Without faith in the grace given to you from above - to pray for the living and the dead - you will be an unworthy, soulless prayer book. Expect the future resurrection of bodies as a very ordinary event. Our race was created immortal in the beginning, and if we had not disobeyed the Chief of life and not introduced the seeds of death into our soul and body at the beginning, we would have been immortal both in soul and body. But now, by the grace of redemption, the path to immortality and eternal glory runs through the valley of death, beyond which undoubtedly shines the ineffable light of eternal immortality. You ask Me to confirm you in My love. Here is My answer and advice to you: reflect with your heart more often on what I have done and am doing for you - and then your love will grow and become stronger, and, finally, it will be as strong as death. God! From now on I want to be generous. Hitherto I have not lacked in anything, by Thy goodness, although the enemy has always confused me with poverty - I will not become scarce in the future, on the contrary, I will have everything in abundance. Help me, Lord, to be kind and generous. Amen. I mortify my body and enslave it, so that if I preach to others, I myself will not be enslaved [1 Cor. 9.27]. Look how necessary it is for a priest to exhaust and enslave his sinful, evil flesh! Otherwise, she will make him inaccessible in life and preaching! Saturation and drunkenness - stay away from the priest! Pampering - keep running from him! Mortify your passionate body and subordinate it to your spirit! Be weary of the things of God and rejoice in them. Thank God when there are many needs and services: then let your spirit triumph over the weariness of the sin-loving flesh by the work of God. How insignificant is it that the types of bread and wine in communion remain unchanged in comparison with what these types, transposed into the Body and Blood of Christ, produce in my soul! Views mean nothing to me. The flesh does not benefit at all [Jn. 6.63]. Mysteries fill me with life. I came that they might have life and have it more abundantly [Jn. 10.10]. While the devil spreads his nets for those devoted to the pleasures of the world and stretches out in the person of his minions - people, a hand to accept silver from their hands for farcical pleasures, the merciful Lord sends His smaller brethren to the bounty of Christians and in their person appears asking Himself for their mercy; You see, brothers, constantly beggars or humble novices of humble abodes, humbly asking you for a feasible sacrifice to the Lord. Pay attention: having given your silver to receive the pleasures of the world, which are far from very modest, you are giving them to the devil, who will turn them, sooner or later, into a means of destroying your soul and after your death will present them to you as proof of your carelessness about the salvation of your soul and your attachment to the world; and by giving your silver into the hands of the lesser brethren of Christ, you are giving it to Christ Himself, Who will write you down for it in the Book of Life and present your alms at the Last Judgment before everyone - in order to declare you pardon from eternal condemnation for sins at His Judgment. Hey, amen! So, take advantage of the time and opportunities! The time will come when you would like to show mercy to the lesser brethren of Christ, but this will be impossible: the purchase will stop, and you will appear in the shameful nakedness of your soul in the face of countless numbers of Christians, dressed in the wedding robe. When you are called to give prayer to a maternity wife in a poor man’s house, do not allow yourself for a moment to be burdened by the thought of the upcoming task, but willingly and hastily go where you are called; Having come to the house and seeing poverty everywhere, do not allow yourself sly and contemptuous thoughts regarding the home and furnishings and regarding the persons living in them; but let the dwelling of the poor be for you as the chambers of the rich, and the faces of the poor as the rich, or what am I saying? - let the poor man’s hut, like himself and his family, be in your thoughts higher and more honorable than the rich man’s chambers and himself. Remember that our Lord Jesus Christ, for the sake of our salvation, was born in a den and lay down in a manger, and throughout His entire life had no place to lay His head [Matt. 8.20]. Let your views on things and judgments about them be different from the views and judgments of the world; Let your look be impartial, holy, God's. So always look at the poor parishioner and his hut. Have faith in Jesus Christ our Lord of glory, regardless of personalities [Jas. 2.1]. 1) The priest must firmly rely on the success of his prayer, like the prophets on theirs (Jeremiah); and for this, by all means take care of the purity of the heart, because only a prayer offered with a pure heart is strong before God. 2) During prayer, with firm faith, distinguish between the lies whispered by the devil and slander against the holy things of God from the truth itself and be firm in the faith given to God. 3) Keep in your heart the words: the Lord is all-powerful, all-good and all-powerful, and His eyes are in every place [Prov. 15.3 ], means he will fulfill the prayer. 4) Faithfully and unhypocritically serve the Almighty and obey Him in everything, and serve people, the sheep of His pasture, without sparing your belly to the last drop of blood; be meek to everyone, not unkind. Prayers with such a heart must be read, as if they were composed by the praying person himself in extreme need. What is prayer? What are our prayers? What should prayer be like? Sample prayer. How to perform evening prayers? Morning? How to prepare for the Sacraments - Repentance and Communion? Contents of prayers for communion. Thanksgiving. Its content. The righteous living on earth already seem to hear the incessant voice of those celebrating, resounding throughout eternity, and they anticipate the endless sweetness of beholding the ineffable kindness of the face of the Lord. (Morning prayer 5th.) Well-ordered prayer must all come from the heart, and not so that some words are from the heart and others are not: it must all be a continuous flame. How sweet it is to confess your sins to God in prayer with all your heart and feel in your heart how the Lord accepts you, an erring person, into His love! Do not get carried away by the despondency of the heart that occurs during prayer: it is from the devil. Trust in the Good and Generous. According to the present order of things, turning to God should be natural and easy, like turning a tree leaf or flower to the sun. But from experience we see the opposite. Turning to God is at first something unnatural and difficult. Only after great labors of self-purification does it become a natural and easy task. What seems sweeter than serving God, the Father of bounties and the God of all joy? If all life were spent in serving Him, then one would only need to thank God. But in reality it turns out differently: people are reluctant to become involved in the work of God and soon become bored, especially if there are several different services and needs in a row. To prevent this from happening to you, be ready for God’s work at all times and consider it happiness to spend time serving God. At all times, be ready to serve your neighbors without grumbling, meekly, calmly and with pleasure, and do not say to yourself that this matter should be postponed until another time - do not put the heads of 48 your laziness. When they call, then it’s time for your service. You are God's servant. And the servant must always be ready to do business at the first call. So do not be afraid for the multitude of God’s works, but rejoice that the Lord is giving you the opportunity to spend a long time with Him, and pray to do it worthily. Tremble to do the work of God unworthily, with reluctance, with negligence, especially with mockery 49 . The Lord is the Avenger of such His servants. (After baptism in church following the liturgy. June 14.) Do not spare your body in the service of God, especially your heart; do not spare yourself to reproach yourself for any sinful movement of the heart, do not become stagnant in the ways of heart wickedness. Even in this life there is dying (from a killing spirit) and a miraculous resurrection (from the Divine Spirit) of the soul and body of a sinner. This is an indication of the future resurrection. Resurrect my soul, killed by sins, calling: Alleluia. 50 In my moral life, I absolutely cannot take a single step without the Savior. This is what constant, daily experience tells me, this is what I constantly see with my inner vision. How weak and morally insignificant I am! Wherever you are and whatever image of the Mother of God with the Eternal Child you see, glorify with all your heart the humane incarnation of our Son of God for the sake of salvation and clasp your hands in joy. Come, let us clasp our hands and glorify the God who was born from Her. 51 The benefits delivered by the Christian faith are so great that they surpass any concept and expectation - that is why the envious and primordial enemy of the human race tries in every possible way to make Christians insensitive to them, darkening their minds or distracting them from remembering the benefits of faith, tying them entirely to visible, sensory benefits, fettering them with laziness and instilling in them doubt and unbelief. Many of the enemy’s slander against the Lord is based on the unspeakable greatness of blessings. And you, servant of God, tell him: what is supernatural and unusual for me and you, for my Lord is the most ordinary work of His infinite goodness and limitless power. He, like boundless Love, did everything out of love for me, in order to save me into His Heavenly Kingdom; He did not spare His only begotten Son for me, but with Him He gave me everything; He nourishes me with His Body and Blood; He fills me with the Holy Spirit like a lip and gives me a foretaste of the sweetness of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth; He lives, gives rest, delights, makes me glad with His face. When the enemy in your thoughts denies the Father in the Most Holy Trinity, which is absurd, then you tell him: the whole fatherland in heaven and on earth is worthless [Eph. 3.15 ]; from Him the Son and the Holy Spirit; all things are from Him, by Him and to Him [Rom. 11.36]. When your meal is eaten by a person whom you consider unworthy of it, then remember that you yourself are using the gifts of God unworthily; and also remember that the Heavenly Father makes His sun shine on the evil and on the good, and rains on the righteous and on the unjust [Matt. 5.45]. So you, too, shine with your goodness and generosity on the good and the bad, rain your wealth on friends and enemies. By the very fact that your enemies take advantage of your property, you win a brilliant victory over them. Always do good to them and overcome evil with good [Rom. 12.21]. Just as from the table of the Lord - the earth, according to the goodness and bounty of the Lord, all earthly beings feed and the earth does not become impoverished in its products from their every minute consumption, but from nothing, by God's wave, produces every summer new gifts of the goodness of the Lord, so from my table, in imitation of the Lord, Whose image I bear on myself, all my relatives who come to me and those who are known or in need should feed; and just as the earthly meal does not become scarce because so many kinds of creatures feed on it, so, by the grace of the Lord, my meal will never become scarce, and the Lord will always create abundant gifts for me out of nothing. Grant me, Lord, to be truly good and generous, for nothing is more fitting for a priest than kindness and generosity. In your household, rely in everything on your wife, a God-given helper, and go yourself and preach the Kingdom of God [Lk. 9.60]. I think you have noticed how peaceful and pleasant sleep can be after heartfelt evening prayer. You lie down on your bed with extraordinary inner lightness and tranquility of all your spiritual strength, like a righteous person justified by a merciful, generous God. In the morning you get up just as easily, lightly, with good thoughts and feelings. This, brethren, is an image of the blessed transition of your soul in the evening of your life into eternity, when, having been guided by the Holy Mysteries, in peace with God, with people and with your conscience, you will fall asleep in eternal sleep. Your soul will have peace and ease, ease for all of endless eternity, and you will greet the morning of the general resurrection with a triumphant spirit, after which you will enter into possession of the Kingdom of Heaven prepared for you from the foundation of the world. There is no need to be offended by those who laugh at us and despise us or go against us during the action of our passion. Passion deserves this: let it be scourged both in us and from others. This is God's blessing to us; if you do not tolerate ridicule of your passion or opposition to it, then it means that the illness of your soul is very great and incurable and that you are very proud and proud. Break yourself and humble yourself to the ground if you want to be healed of your illness, and accept the ridicule of others at you as medicine, like wormwood, which drives out the rottenness of passion with bitterness. The lamp of the body is the eye [Matt. 6.22; OK. 11.34], that is, the lamp of the soul or heart is the mind. Reason should be a guiding star for the movements of the heart and shed the light of faith and natural knowledge into the heart; he must support and nourish holy and virtuous movements with meditation, and now cut off sinful and passionate movements as destructive to the soul and contrary to God the Lawgiver. That is why conscience is called practical mind. The words of the Gospel and the Apostolic Epistles, like spirit and life, must be read with life, with sympathy, so that the whole soul of the reader is in them. The same must be said about the psalms and other sacred readings. The same applies to all services and Sacraments. In the Old Testament, God more often deigned to be called the Lord of Hosts, that is, the Lord of Hosts, because all active forces - invisible and visible - are from Him, namely: intelligent and created in His image (Angels and people), and all animate but irrational forces (animals of all classes), and all inanimate (forces of nature). All powers are acted by God, as is man, considered as a personal power. Whether he is awake, sleeping, walking, lying down, or doing anything else, he does everything with the power of God. Whether he thinks, whether he feels, whether he contemplates, he does everything with the power and light of the God of powers and the God of intelligences. If he succeeds in good, he succeeds by God's power. The Lord my God is my strength, and will make 52 my problems to commit [Hab. 3.19]. The Lord God is the Power of every created power. Every physical and moral weakness of a person is His abandonment by the power of God. If the great power of God is united with the sign of the cross, then what is surprising if the Lord Jesus Christ most sincerely unites with the types of bread and wine, transforming them into His Body and Blood? We experience this, we experience this too - we feel it with our insides. Wonderful are Your works, O Lord! The unbelief of the heart always turns out to be false, and first of all in what outrages, darkens and painfully constrains the soul and body, and then - with proper well-intentioned reflection. Faith of the heart is always true: firstly, in that it quickens and gives rest through the forgiveness of sins; secondly - upon reflection, at least the most superficial. It would seem that the sin of unbelief of the heart or doubt is not a big one, but if you look closer, it turns out that it is a very important sin. Unbelief is the stubbornness of the heart to recognize the actual obvious truth and the rejection of the almighty power 53 of God, which an unfaithful heart limits. Unchecked at the very beginning, unbelief can spread to the entire circle of truths of faith and infect the entire sphere of human knowledge. Looking at indoor flowers in the summer, I am surprised how they form so beautifully, magnificently and luxuriously without any outside agent, and I think: after all, the vegetation of all plants is possible under one condition - under the condition of God's providence, which is present everywhere. The Lord Himself says that every year God dresses flowers as beautifully and luxuriously as Solomon did not dress in all his glory. So my Lord looks after my flowers, observes the laws of their formation and growth. I kiss you with love, little flowers, the work of the hands of my invisible God, who invisibly grows and preserves you. But what are these beautiful flowers made of? From rough earth and water - all honor to the Artist, His strength and wisdom, because from rough matter he creates such wondrous things that everyone admires. Now pay attention to yourself: you are a beautiful color - also from the rough earth; you are earth and ashes; and that you are so beautiful in soul and body, for this honor belongs to your Artist - God, His infinite wisdom and power. Put yourself more often in confrontation with a flower, compare yourself with it and give glory to the All-Wise Creator, Who created you and the flowers in your pots from the same earth. O Leanders! Leanders! How beautiful you are! O Creator! Creator! O Supreme Artist of all things! How beautiful You must be! But where are you? I do not see You face to face, but I see only You in Your works, as if through a glass darkly [1 Cor. 13:12], that I may feel Your goodness daily in my heart. Let us see the indescribable kindness of Your face. Rejoice when others come to you, no matter who they are - this is what faith and common sense command me. Stand for it. June 18th. 1860. Amos the prophet says: And I withheld [glory: And I withheld] the rain from you three months before the harvest; it rained on one city, but did not rain on another city; one area was watered by rain, and the other, not sprinkled with rain, dried up. Amos 4.7. Know, brothers, who will rain. It is not unreasonable nature that accidentally rains in one place and not in another; It does not depend on unreasonable nature that it does not rain for a long time or it rains for a long time - no, but on the Lord of nature. Blind naturalists attribute everything to nature. The Supreme Mind rules all forces and phenomena of nature. What kind of charm is the devil? When strangers, not your own, especially those who are more important, what they say and do is nothing, but when they are your own, you become angry and show impatience. What is the monstrosity of my heart? What kind of incomprehensible pride is this? I understand: when he says or does something about simplicity and humility, then a hater of simplicity and humility, so dear to God, rises up in my face, and through me he expresses his anger and impatience against good, simple and humble people. Mom is my inviolable shrine, which should not be touched by any unrighteous thought or hostile feeling. Honor your mother - this is the nature of all my relationships towards her: respect in thoughts and hearts, in words and deeds. Have unconditional respect for both God and your mother, and moreover, whole-hearted reverence. When, in the midst of home or public prayer, unbelief in something hurts and weakens you, do not be embarrassed by this and do not be discouraged by it, but let your very powerlessness and illness of your heart serve for you as a strong denunciation of unbelief in its groundlessness and extreme lies. Only faith is the power of God - and with faith a weak person performs miracles of strength (like martyrs), as everyone has experienced, because he is then united with the God of Powers; and unbelief is a pure denial of power, insignificance, a lie, a ghost. Faith is strong because it comes from God of Powers; unbelief is morally powerless because it is from the devil, who is moral weakness, powerlessness. Remember that from one image of the cross of the Lord, made with faith, the powerlessness and disease of unbelief disappears like smoke - because the cross, after the Lord of hosts was crucified on it, also became the power of God. And the cross is, for sure, also for you the power of God, stronger than you, because it gives you strength, delivers you from your inner powerlessness. Do not remain stagnant in unbelief and the powerlessness that results from it in prayer, but immediately return to faith, introduce it into your heart - and with it its power will come to you. Church prayers as a model of our prayers. (We ask the Lord for all spiritual blessings - have mercy on us, O God... Let us pray to the Lord in peace.) When the enemy confuses your spirit with pity for the corruptible food that comes, tell him: I eat tuna life-giving Food - the incorruptible Body and Blood of Christ for the future incorruptible life, and I do not spare the perishable food, but I count it for pus and excrement, which is what it actually turns into. May the stench of attachment to worldly things not enter your heart during the Divine Service and may it not darken or suppress your soul. Let her enjoy the Lord. A man devoted to covetousness places his life in the possession and enjoyment of wealth, and thus considers wealth as if it were his god, giving him life, instead of the one True God, who gives life and breath to all, and all things abundantly for enjoyment [1 Tim. 6.17]. Therefore, he greatly angers God, Who alone is our life. Beware of covetousness, said the Lord, for a person’s life does not depend on the abundance of his possessions [Lk. 12.15]. The flesh is all those who have their hearts attached to wealth, and the Spirit of God will not dwell in them. Priests of the Lord! Serve God worthily. God is the Source of goodness, who does good to those who serve Him worthily. What do you think 54, O priest, if the Lord, for your worthy service to Him, will make you adamant, or at least inconveniently inclined to evil, as He made the angels adamant in the bitter 55. (Canon to the Guardian Angel.) Moses saw in the bush like a flame the fire of the Divine - and the priest contemplates the Divine Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus, animated by His Spirit on the throne, and the most pure Mysteries appear as fire within it, pleasantly reviving, resting, cheering, upon worthy acceptance, and scorching, suppressing, killing the powers of the spirit and body, upon unworthy acceptance. In the Holy Mysteries the Lamb of God always appears to the heart, Who takes away the sin of the world [John. 1.29]. The Lord is faithful, faithful to His holy word. Learn from [...] to value for nothing what you value for a lot. Wonderful things! Some people have an abyss of knowledge in their soul, while others barely know anything; one is light, and the other is darkness. Hence the duty for those who have knowledge is to teach and enlighten the ignorant, the dark. If you want to write sermons well, be sure to fervently repent of your sins, and you will be a wonderful, animated, strong preacher. Experience. Also try by all means to maintain purity of heart. How easy it is for the Lord to break apart the sinful net with which Satan has entangled and bound someone! A minute of deep heartfelt contrition and tears, a moment of complete devotion to Christ God of oneself and one’s life with its sins and iniquities - and the net is broken, and we are delivered: Our soul is delivered, like a bird, from the net of those who catch: the net is broken, and we are delivered [Ps. 123.7 ] – David sings. Therefore, no matter what sins one may be bound by, do not despair, but seek contrition and tears. So that heartfelt contrition and tears can easily come to you, call with all your heart to help the zealous Intercessor of all Christians - the Queen Theotokos, and you will see how She will help you easily get rid of the strangling snares of the destroyer of men. From experience. O Christians! Do not bypass the Mother of God in your prayers - our Highest, Purest, Priceless Treasure, Giver of Divine goodness: you will lose much, much if you do not humbly and diligently call on Her. We, for our many sins, are not imams often have boldness before God, but She always has this boldness as His Mother, and the Mother’s prayer can do much for the mercy of the Lord. Many have experienced this themselves. The devil little by little, little by little, eradicates faith and every virtue in people and in their place, also gradually, implants unbelief and vices. Today, let’s say, the evil one managed to shake someone’s faith in one thing, and the person did not resist him with all his might for the truth; this weak faith has already remained in the heart, and the devil will strengthen it day by day until he finally brings him to unbelief; the same must be said about virtues. If today a person has changed several of one virtue, tomorrow he will change it more, the day after tomorrow even more, and so on; then another, a third, and so on, and so on will change - and instead of virtues, you see, the roots of vices will be planted in the heart, will begin to grow quickly, quickly and will more and more drown out the remaining seeds and sprouts of goodness. This is how people reach the greatest vices, become arrogant in untruth, bitter and desperate for their salvation, because the devil only tries to bring his minions to despair, which plunges the sinner into complete destruction. The very fact that for a fruitful, soothing communion of the Holy Mysteries, sincere repentance of sins and perfect purity of heart is required from me loudly testifies that in the Holy Mysteries the Most Pure Lord Himself, Who does not tolerate the slightest stain of sin on my soul. From His fruit you must know Him. If something holy is required of you, and you yourself have experienced this countless times, then it is a sign that the All-Holy Himself is entering into you, for whom you must prepare the way, right to create His paths. By the prepared cleanliness in the house, recognize the Most Pure Master of the house who will come and settle in it. On the day you eat of it, you will die [Gen. 2.17 ]; that is, at that very hour, at that very minute, as soon as you commit a sin, you will die a spiritual death. Thus, this decree of God has hitherto been fulfilled for everyone. Therefore, consider all spiritual death, all evil melancholy and sorrow of the heart as a consequence of sin, and in order to get rid of them, pray and repent, remember your sins, recognize yourself as damned, and poor, and poor, and blind, and spiritually naked. I always repented of the unworthy reception of the Holy Mysteries - and God forgave me. The enemy tries in every possible way to paralyze and weaken the soul during prayer. The Lord Jesus Christ is my Goodness and Life. Ergo 56... He who loves another passionately desires to be satisfied with the very flesh of the beloved, for that everything is kind in the beloved. And whoever does not love avoids seeing the unloved, for that everything is disliked in the unloved: his face, his voice, his manners, his gait - everything. From the heart, says the Savior, comes, among other things, murder [Matt. 15.19]. So, if you hear that someone has committed suicide or killed another, then know that murder was initially nourished and matured in the heart, in the first case - from excessive sorrows and heartfelt melancholy or dissatisfaction with something, in the latter - from envy or hatred, or love of money or jealousy. Only faith and good upbringing in the fear of God saves us from these terrible moments in which the devil, by God’s permission, takes possession of us for our sins. Therefore, woe to those who do not have heartfelt faith in their hearts! They will not be able to resist on the evil day and, having done everything, to stand [Eph. 6:13], but they will fall into a terrible fall. When you worthily, with inner witness, partake of the Life-giving Mysteries, then do not think of yourself otherwise than that Christ then lives in you, as the Apostle said: It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me [Gal. 2.20]. And the Lord Himself said: He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood abides in Me, and I in him [Jn. 6.56]. Equally, be completely convinced that the Holy Spirit also abides in you then, as the Savior said to the apostles: the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him and does not know Him; and you know Him, for He abides with you and will be in you [Jn. 14.17 ]; and with the Son and the Holy Spirit, as Their Guilt, always inseparable from Them, is God the Father. Let us come to him and make our abode with him [John. 14.23]. Infinite power and infinite wisdom revealed by God in the structure of the visible world and each individual in particular. – Infinite power is visible in the infinite variety in which matter appears: who can comprehend this amazing variety? All visible creation is composed of 57 four elements, but look how the Almighty Creator multiplied the products of these four elements! How obedient is substance to the will of the Creator! Infinite wisdom is visible in the amazing purposefulness of all things, in the correctness and grace of forms, in serving the common benefit of the whole creation. In every blade of grass, in every flower one can and should see a special, whole composition that equally proclaims the glory of the Creator, wise and all-powerful, like the sun and the stars. And just as there are an infinite number of these works and each of them is infinitely, incomprehensibly wise (until now no one could make a single blade of grass), then the Creator, of course, is also infinitely wise. (In the infinite variety of matter, the Lord showed us that He creates from it whatever He pleases: an infinite variety of stones, plants of all kinds and species, animal bodies of all forms. How numerous are Your works, O Lord! You have done everything wisely [Ps. 103:24].) How do the Most Holy Theotokos and the saints hear me in prayer? – They are in God and are one spirit with Him, and God is everywhere. In addition, I am a weak member of the Church - earthly, and She and they are noble members of the Church - heavenly; We all have one head - Christ, the omnipresent God. Especially the Lady and the saints mercifully incline their ears to those who worthily partake of the Holy Mysteries. [...] Don’t dwell on thoughts that have the quality of passion. My Lord is the Creator and Director of all life and beauty. What beauty will seduce me in His beauty? And she was young and beautiful, but she put her youth and beauty on me. (About mother.) Mama's cough is a weakness of old age. If, my enemy, you embarrass me with the coarseness of my mother’s clothes, I myself will dress in unclean rags, so that it will always remind me of the impurities of my soul before God and people; and I will scatter my hair on the head so that it will be a sign of the disorder of my thoughts. As I expected, it happened - he tempted! So shake your hand after that. Don't press forward at all. Otherwise, because of the apparently innocent handshake of his kindred maiden, the devil will steal your chastity at night. Ugh, what disgusting! Oh, you street robber and robber! Few fiery killing arrows! God! Cleanse me, a sinner! On the day of the Great Fast, greater than all those born of women [Matt. 11:11], defiled me. Beware of cold insensibility in this defilement: the devil knows how to do this too. One who is defiled in a dream, according to its effect, is like a pillar, insensitive, when he should be crying. God save us from this insensibility, especially from the pleasure of temptation and from self-justification, or even, as happens also, from the recognition of its benefits for bodily health. Then the ungodly person will become even more ungodly from ignorance of his sin, his uncleanness will remain on him, and one uncleanness will be joined by another - insensibility and pride. Study the enemy. The offspring of the devil (for example, lies, doubt, unbelief, passions) invades the soul in a manner corresponding to its parent, that is, it always kills the soul. Therefore, it is easy to recognize his machinations. A bad tree cannot bear good fruit [Matt. 7.18]. The main thing that needs to be observed during his machinations is not to be cowardly, not to stop, that is, not to stand in the least on evil, murderous feelings and thoughts, but, imputing them to nothing, engage in thoughts that are opposite. Do not indulge in sensitivity and irritability, but with firm patience repel poisonous attacks. The smoldering of your cigar or cigarette very well depicts the smoldering of your heart in the fire of passions: as your cigar smolders in your mouth, so your heart smolders in the fire of various passions. And just as passions are the constant and great mockery of the devil over poor people, so smoking tobacco is his new mockery of them. This is a sign of the inner fire of passions. Fossil! Learn to sympathize with people, especially loved ones, in the sorrow of their souls. For a long time I did not know clearly how necessary it is for our souls to be strengthened by the Holy Spirit. And now the Most Merciful has let me know how necessary it is. Yes, it is necessary every minute of our existence, like breathing, it is necessary in prayer and in our entire life: without His strengthening, our soul is constantly prone to any sin and, therefore, to spiritual death: it weakens, completely weakens from the evil entering the heart and becomes weak for good; Without strengthening from the Holy Spirit, you feel how your heart is washed away from various evils and is ready every minute to drown in its abyss. This is where we need our hearts to stand on stone. And this stone is the Holy Spirit. It is He who strengthens his strength, and if a person prays, He strengthens his heart in faith and hope that he will receive what he asks for; It is he who inflames his soul with love for God; It is he who brings to the soul bright, good thoughts that strengthen the mind and heart; if he does various things, He strengthens his heart with the consciousness of the importance and necessity of his work and with indestructible patience, which overcomes all difficulties; in dealing with people of different conditions and of both sexes, He breathes into him respect for the face of man, who is equally the image of God, whoever he may be, redeemed by the Blood of Christ God, and diverts his heart and attention from his, sometimes very unseemly, appearance of body and clothing, his rudeness in word and address; He unites us all with love, as children of the Heavenly Father, and in Jesus Christ teaches us to pray: Our Father, who art in heaven... God’s mercy towards me is so great that I don’t seem to believe that God has placed me at such a height, and this distrust is visible in many of my actions, even in many sacred rites and words. Don't be afraid; be sure: everything that happens and exists with you is the truth! Believe! You will see more than this [Jn. 1.50] – the King Christ Himself and His Heavenly Kingdom. The earthly is only a preparation for contemplating the future. My mother is a living witness to my insignificance. What a great benefit parents bring to their children! There are no more benefits delivered by them. But note that people sometimes strongly arm themselves against the greatest benefactors with ingratitude and even malice: the greater the benefactor, the stronger the benefactors arm themselves. Obviously, you need to strongly resist him and not listen to his plausible incitements. So it was the work of Satan that the Greatest Benefactor of mankind, the Lord Jesus Christ, was brought to spitting, strangulation and shameful death on the cross, although the high priests, elders, scribes and people served him as free instruments. So we see many examples that benefactors are forced to complain about those who have benefited, that these latter are ungrateful and evil before them. There are many in the world who are ungrateful and malicious in their attitude towards their benefactors. He who eats my bread with me has lifted up his heel against me [Jn. 13.18]. When you kiss your mother’s hand, remember that she carried you in those arms. Oh! How respectful and kind these hands should be for you! Remember also that these hands nourished you. Until now, I have seen constant experiences of God’s care for me: the Lord not only did not leave me in anything, but, on the contrary, gave me everything in abundance; Moreover, His care is constantly revealed in the fact that through my prayer He delivers me from all my sorrows, as a most faithful Savior. He will continue to be with me and will give me everything. Cast all your cares on Him, for He cares for you [1 Pet. 5.7]. Baking, baking, baking. People love company; birds love company; animals are society, fish are society. What am I? My neighbor must be sacred to me, inviolable for my malice, hatred or envy, self-interest or unclean desires of my heart. Read as if written on everyone’s forehead: holiness and the love of the Lord. Make it your pleasant duty to love everyone as you love yourself. When stinginess and malice sink into your heart, then remember the infinite goodness of God to us and His bounties, and even to a small extent, show your goodness and your generosity from the bottom of your heart. When you invite someone to your place, always invite with all your heart, affectionately. Your duty is to be sincerely kind to everyone. Whether those invited to come to you are favored or not is their business. Remember that even in matters of worldly affection, God works in you both to will and to act according to His good pleasure [glory: both to want and to do them] [Phil. 2.13]. God punished me with internal scourges throughout the whole night because, out of stinginess and some kind of malice, I did not want to accept a girl whose relatives lived not far from us for the night. The devil tormented me cruelly all night. Demonic flattery, acting in the mind and heart of a person; its space is all life; all our deeds, all our relationships towards God, towards people and towards things are infected with this flattery. Exposing her; constancy, greatness, difficulty of this matter; inevitable wounds from the malice of the devil, who becomes more ferocious the more his flattery is exposed, and uses all the slightest pretexts (sinful movements of thought and heart) to enter a person, take possession of his heart and tyrannize him. The flattery of wealth is primarily the flattery of fame and distinction: a person who is not glorious and not excellent seeks with all his might and means for distinction. Flattery of lust, or adulterous flattery. The flattery of food and drink: man fell into corruption through the deception of the devil. Flattery of clothes: what do you care about clothes? [Matt. 6.28]. The divisions of flattery are endless: whatever the thing is, it’s flattery. Flattery of all passions: malice, hatred, envy, stinginess and love of money. Feeling of disgust for life, melancholy, boredom. The means to get rid of flattery is prayer, heartfelt reflection on the impermanence of everything earthly and material and on the constancy, abiding 58 of everything invisible. We look not at what is seen, but at what is unseen: for what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal [2 Cor. 4.18]. Another way to protect yourself from the flattery of the devil (deception) is to carry the words, as if inscribed in your heart: demonic flattery. Previously this flattery was idolatry, now it is love of money. Flattery in prayer: These people draw near to Me with their lips, says the Lord, but their heart is far from Me [Matt. 15.8 ]; flattery in relation to people: flattering lips speak from a feigned heart [Ps. 11.3 ]; who does not slander [glory: whoever does not deceive] with his tongue [Ps. 14.3 ]; flattery to things: flattery of wealth and so on. He who has trampled upon the flattery of demons truly, with all his heart, prays to God and does all works before Him: those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth [Jn. 4:24], says the Lord. No wonder He said: we must worship in spirit and in truth. Quite a lot of people bow to God untruthfully, ex officio 59, ex officio, out of habit, formally, without substance. He who tramples on flattery treats everyone sincerely and does everything to others from the heart; he counts everything earthly as rubbish, like the Apostle Paul, in order to gain Christ [Phil. 3.8], because attachment to earthly goods prevents one from having Christ in the heart. See about the serpentine flattery in the Canon in many places. God! Save me [from] the many-headed and many-shaped beast. Blessed...is he who keeps his garments [glory: his garments] [Rev. 16.15]. God! Save my vestments. When dealing with your mother, always keep the following in mind: she is always taller than me, despite her extreme simplicity, lack of education and rudeness. She is my king, my lord. Malice of the heart, with the infinite goodness of God and man surrounding us everywhere, is the greatest blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, Who is the Good Spirit. Infinite Goodness - God. Everyone is an instrument of His goodness, and first of all the parents, then the wife, then the king, the rulers and all the people. Who is our parent: earthly father and mother or God? God. Parents are only the instruments with which He brought us into the world. They gave birth to sons and raised them up [Isa. 1,2], says God. When you are transported on a ship from one place to another, who transports you: the steamer or the owner of the ship? - The owner, and the steamer is a tool, nothing more. So from the abyss of non-existence to the abyss of being, the Creator transported you through your parents, like through some kind of machine. When your heart breaks into anger towards someone, then mentally descend into your heart and say in your heart: the infinite goodness of God covers us always, now and ever; everything towards me is only an instrument of the Lord’s goodness. Why does anger still live in me? Get away from me, hellish fiend: you are disfiguring me, you are making me into a monster of life. When you cannot tolerate tears of compassion and love in another, then you have a demon in you, alien to all love and compassion. What do I often pray for during the Divine service? - So that there are fewer drunkards, adulterers, thieves, deceivers, seducers. May God give prosperity to the Christian life and an enlightened mind. On the name day of the Sovereign Emperor. Yesterday (August 29th) we solemnly remembered the Beheading of the Head and the descent into hell to preach to those in hell about God revealed in the flesh, John, the Forerunner of the Lord, more than whom, according to the testimony of the Savior Himself, there was not a single person among those born of women; and now we solemnly celebrate the name day of our pious Sovereign, more than whom in the civil world at the present time there is also no one, because he is the head of the entire vast and powerful state in the world, the father of millions of Orthodox and non-Orthodox, faithful and unfaithful subjects. But, no matter how great the Forerunner was still alive on earth, the lesser one in the Kingdom of Heaven was greater than him, according to the testimony of the Lord Himself; so about the now namesake Sovereign, it should be said that the youngest in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than him: a twelve-year-old boy, the son of a simple villager, the righteous Artemy Verkolsky or the same youth Jacob Borovitsky - greater than him; The same name of the reigning Sovereign, the holy noble prince Alexander Nevsky, is also his father. And this disposes us to talk about the heavenly greatness and glory of the saints of God, which is eternal and ubiquitous, about the one true greatness of faith, virtue and holiness - and about the transitory greatness and glory of this world: all human glory is like the flower of the grass [1 Pet. 1.24]. But we are not afraid that the greatness and glory of our Orthodox Sovereign is only the greatness and glory of this world - greatness and glory that is transitory, because the now reigning Sovereign of the Orthodox Christian state is the first son and patron of the Church, building the good of Christians. Let us pray to the Lord that his greatness and glory will not pass away with his earthly life, but will follow him into eternity; so that the Lord would strengthen his Christian soul in royal virtues and, during the terrible and righteous test of all people, would give him boldness to say about his former subjects: here I am and the children whom the Lord gave me [Isa. 8.18]. Let us also pray to the blessed Prince Alexander that through his prayerful intercession with the King of Kings he will strengthen him in the difficult feat of ruling the people and in the deeds of faith and virtue. Just as when walking down the street it is impossible to protect yourself from the wind blowing on you, so it is impossible for a person to protect himself from the devil blowing at him with the winds of thoughts and passionate upheavals of the heart. The saints are most overcome by a spirit of despondency, as can be seen from the prayers and verses of the canons. A person is sometimes immersed in the abyss of evil and becomes entangled in it, as in a hopeless labyrinth. There is no need to become discouraged and stagnant, but pray with faith and tears - and the soul will be born into the light of God. Glory to the miraculous image of my Savior (which is in my icon case), which created a wondrous thing for me, and stole me from the jaws of the hellish beast that cruelly tormented me. I magnify the salvation of Tsarev! My soul! Magnify Christ, the Giver of Life, who saves you. Undoubtedly and boldly turn to Him in prayer, to His most pure image. July 1st, 1860. The most common natural and universal thing is to honor, love and take care of your parents. I must honor and protect my priceless treasure in every possible way - my mother. Vision. [Island] with great calm, without the slightest appearance of hesitation, trimmed off the painful growths on the patient’s backside. This is a lesson to my disgust. Just as in the most pure, life-giving, venerable, terrible Mysteries of Christ, the evil one seduced me with the modest appearance of simple bread and wine (land trampled underfoot), so in relation to my parent he seduces me with her modest, simple appearance, her simple, uneducated words and manners. But just as those in themselves are always venerable Mysteries, so my mother is always my venerable mother; both under the simple, humble forms of bread and wine - the Life-Giving Lord, and in the simple, rough body and uneducated word - the spirit of my mother. Leave your mother in her complete simplicity and artlessness in words and manners: under this external rudeness and artlessness hides a simple, kind, sincerely sympathetic heart. Her gaze is a gaze of goodness; her word is the word of the heart. There is no greater benefactor on earth than mother. Corresponding to good deeds is respect. Not for the beauty of her face, not for her education, not for her intelligence, not for her kind heart, and not even for her spiritual virtues: meekness, humility, simplicity, I respect and love my mother, and therefore only because she is my mother, and for the sake of God’s commandment. Some people, even before prayer, are afraid of prayer, as if it were some kind of burden that oppresses and kills the soul, and when they begin to pray, they relax in spirit and are in a hurry - just to get rid of it as quickly as possible. This is true both in public and in home prayer. What kind of prayer is this? Where is her freedom? Where is her goodwill? Neither from sorrow, nor from need... The Christian faith does not tolerate partiality. You don't look at any face [Matt. 22:16], even Christ’s enemies said. Have faith in Jesus Christ our Lord of glory, regardless of personalities [Jas. 2:1], says the apostle. All as one person. Meekness, calmness, evenness, firmness in convictions - this is the motto of behavior! Just as the enemy used to arm me against my brothers, against my father, so now against my mother. O wicked one! Take care, beware that not a single thought of contempt and hatred lurks in your heart against her for the simplicity and rudeness of her words and manners. May the enemy not constantly rob you and may he not mock you cruelly at your cowardice. How long will you and him give him the opportunity to triumph over you, and him to laugh at you, as he always cruelly laughed at you? That's enough! The Son of God, being God, was not afraid to stoop to the image of a slave (note, pay attention: God and slave) and extreme poverty, so that I would not be afraid to humble myself to the most extreme degree. He even endured the cross and death, being careless about shame, so that for the sake of His extreme humility and for the sake of my own salvation and others, I would despise all shame; He washed the feet of the disciples, so that I would not be ashamed out of pride to wash the feet of everyone, that is, so that I would not shun even the last Christian (feet) and would do for him everything that was necessary for him. ABOUT! How proud we are and how little we care about humility! Our humility is high, fearful; We are so afraid that we will not lose ourselves in the eyes of others: our humility is suspicious, petty, and imperfect. The enemy often internally defeats us with thoughts of pride when we think and want to humble ourselves. Our humility must be extremely pure, without any suspiciousness or hesitation, absolutely not allowing any restrictions. We have a great example - the humiliation of Himself as the Son of God, and we are ashamed not to humble ourselves to the utmost. For who are we if not earth and ashes and pus? [Honor] - God commands, my mind and conscience prompt me to do so. Die for God's will - die for your mind if it goes against it. Remember how the evil one led you by the nose and tormented you because of a painted icon of the Mother of God that was not to your taste; he instilled hatred and disgust, as if towards the incorrectly painted faces of the Mother of God and the Eternal Child - and did not allow you to pray until you defeated him; so now he is leading your proud soul by the nose because of the simple, rude image of your mother and does not allow you to properly honor her! Is it difficult for Christian humility to overcome it in the name of Christ? After all, even in the light of common sense, it is easy to be convinced that the mother should be revered above all else in the world. Christian ascetic! Be zealous for the rewards of the Lord prepared from Him for the victors, and do not weaken in the fight against invisible enemies. He who overcomes inherits all things [Rev. 21.7]. Love your neighbor as yourself - the royal law. When we pray according to the prayers of others, the Lord looks at whether we have our own desire for what we are asking for, whether there is a share of our gratitude, our glorification. Do not place anything carnal in your mother and in every person and value exclusively his soul, his mind and heart. Imagine that you see the Unapproachable Light, from Which came the light of the sun, the month and the stars; that you see that Infinite Love Which sent His Only Begotten Son into the world, that by Him the world might be saved from eternal torment; that you see that Primary Beauty, from Which is all the diversity and beauty in the world - the diversity and beauty of plants, stones, shells, fish, birds, animals, all human beauty. Imagine that you see the loving Creator of heaven and earth, shining with the unapproachable light of His perfections. How will you feel then? But the Christian faith prepares us all for this vision. A note about plants. In plants it is obvious: 1) a wise mind, visible in all parts of the plant; 2) the power that animates, binds and maintains in proper relations all parts of the plant; and 3) the omnipotence with which Infinite Wisdom modifies the ugly substance itself, with such ease making it [serve] His infinite intentions and purposes. How numerous are Your works, O Lord [Ps. 103.24 ]! Wonderful to me is [Your] knowledge [Ps. 138.6 ]! Just as objects on the earth at a distant distance, even though they are large, but if the sun is not reflected in them, are not visible from afar at all, and if the sun is reflected, then they are visible to everyone from afar, even those that are small, so between people. Those in whom the eternal Sun of truth is not reflected by His perfections [Mal. 4.2 ] - God, are visible only at close range to very few; and if the Sun of Truth is reflected in them, then they are visible to everyone from afar, everyone glorifies them, people of all places and times (saints). And some of them shine like the sun, others like the moon, others like stars. If every summer, according to some necessary law, God clothes such a countless variety of trees, herbs and flowers, then He will dress me according to the same law, He will not forget if I am not idle... If such a countless number of creatures feed from Him every day and they are all fed, then I too will be fed and will not be forgotten. Why worry too much about food and clothing? Providence takes care of me. I saw and see. Looking at God's creatures and seeing their infinite multitude, I see myself exalted above all their hosts by the image and likeness of God, by reason and freedom, by the ability to consider all of them with my mind and to marvel at the all-wise and all-good Creator in them. ABOUT! How I will revere my Creator! ABOUT! How honorable should be for me the creators of my existence - my father and my mother! They gave me existence in time - for time and eternity; They brought me, by the will of God, who created me in my mother’s womb, into the magnificent palace of the world so that at a certain time the Creator would introduce me to the palace of heaven! Here things are done without me, they don’t ask me. Yes, without me the Lord does the works of His omnipotence or His miracles, just as He created me without me. So it is in prayer, so it is in the Sacraments. The state or any society is a body. Just as in the body all members together and each separately are placed in their place by God, so in the social body each member is placed in his place by God; Also, everyone’s own deeds are the cause of one place or another. Unite with Me and leave the corruptible earth, so that in union with Me you can enjoy endless benefits. What a mother is to her children, what a good wife is to her husband, so is the Guardian Angel to a Christian person in spiritual life. A brother’s labors should not be left without gratitude, so that God does not leave your deeds without reward. Sacraments - body and soul; rituals - body and soul; the word is body and soul; prayer – body and soul: everything is in parallel with the body and soul of a person. How come some people want there to be no rituals, or forms of the Sacraments, or external worship? They take a person's body. God! Teach the unbooked wisdom, show the fishermen theologians, the Soul of talents, the Soul, Who has ever 60, dwelled in someone, created the words of the greatness of God and transformed everything, increased, uplifted, arranging grief - come and dwell in me, cleanse my heart from all filth and speak with my lips, as in the apostles of Christ; teach me, according to the words of Christ, what should be said to the people who gather in this church and stand and pray in it. Deign, Lord, with me, Thy unworthy servant, to teach them what and how to pray. About the post. We warn you that during Lent you will encounter especially internal and external temptations, which may be very difficult for you: do not be embarrassed by this. Invisible enemies are especially malicious against us when they see us on the path of faith and piety, and try to hinder us with various temptations. Don't sigh about meat. This is an abomination to the Lord. No one who puts his hand to the plow... 61 [Lk. 9.62]. No one who often happily thinks about savory dishes during Lent will benefit from it. To the preacher. How, while preaching love, you yourself nourish hatred; Preaching humility, are you proud yourself? Doctor! heal yourself [Lk. 4.23]. When teaching others well-known virtues, be first imbued with them yourself, so that you do not receive condemnation from God. How is it that when you teach others, you don’t teach yourself? [Rom. 2.21]. In Christ there is neither male nor female [Gal. 3.28], but all and in all [glory: but all and in all] Christ [Col. 3.11]. Look how honored every Christian person is without distinction - Christ is in all of them. This means that we must honor and love everyone for the sake of the living Christ. With pleasure, count yourself among the poor and ignorant of this world, whom God has chosen to be rich in faith and heirs of His Kingdom [Jas. 2.5]. Well-ordered prayer is one that is accompanied by good deeds. Why do you call Me... and not do what I say? [ OK. 6.46]. Everyone sees that light pours onto the earth from the sky, for the sun, month, and stars shine for us from the heavenly circle. This indicates to us that the Uncreated, Intelligent Light - the Lord our God - dwells primarily in heaven, and from Him all light, both material and spiritual, descends to us, the light of the mind and heart. There was the true Light, which enlightens every person who comes into the world [Jn. 1.9]. In conversations about prayer, explain the content of the liturgy, especially its main part; also, in general terms, Vespers and Matins; how to behave during the Sacraments, of which they are spectators. When doubt about something comes into your heart during prayer, immediately accept heartfelt thanks to the Lord for the fact that He has deigned to reveal to you the truth that you doubt, and the doubt will pass. Glory to You, Lord, endless forgiveness of our debts and repose of our hearts from their burdens. God is love [1 John. 4:8, 4:16]. All thoughts, feelings and dispositions of the heart that tend towards the destruction of love and the planting of enmity are from the devil. Write this on your heart and hold on to love in every possible way. Hold on to love [1 Cor. 14.1]. When guests often flood your house, take this as a visit from God and rejoice that God does not deprive you of your blessings through war, not by fire, not through enemies (and this often happens to others), but through your own acquaintances and that you have the opportunity here to show your love for them and for God. God can demand sacrifice from us whenever He wants. Bring to Him with joy the sacrifice of hospitality. God tests you not with war, not with fire, not with the thieves, not with drought and shortage of bread, not with illnesses, but with the easiest test. It is as if He Himself comes to you in the person of guests (every person is His image, and a Christian is a member of Him, of His flesh and blood) and wants to see how you use the gifts of His goodness: with passion or not; and how you succeed in love, how you value His servants, with cordiality or without cordiality, like a crafty slave, alien to love, you accept them. Pay attention to yourself. Every Christian person faces various temptations. Receive one another, as Christ also received you to the glory of God [Rom. 15.7]. During mutual communication with each other, the devil often shows in a false, unfavorable, disgusting form some side of a person or some part of his body and thereby arouses in the heart of the inexperienced heartfelt disgust and hatred towards that person. And you, bypassing all appearances, do not want to see anything in another, as a brother for whom Christ died, a joint heir of the future blessed Kingdom, as the holy Apostle Peter says about himself: a partner in the glory that is to be revealed [1 Pet. 5.1]. Honor everyone, love the brotherhood [1 Pet. 2.17]. Pay attention: what is contrary to the carnal, old, sinful person, then do it - go against him all your life. This is the purpose of your life and together is your glory in Christ Jesus. But those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts [Gal. 5.24]. Confirm this truth in your heart: one thing is worth all our hatred - it is sin or vice; and have only love for people. The royal law is clear: love... your neighbor as yourself [Lk. 10.27]. One must always pray quietly, calmly, with heartfelt firmness, with the lamp of the mind and heart (prayer is light, not darkness), firmly knowing that neither the greatness of sins nor the multitude of sins exceeds the long-suffering of our God and His extreme love for mankind. My God is my Creator, and I am a vessel created by Him, made obscene by my sins. When you see the poor and, according to custom, give them alms, may the gift of your heart to the Lord be abundant: remember then how generously the Lord gives you His gifts undeservedly on your part, and if you have given meager alms, reproach yourself and henceforth correct yourself from your stinginess. He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly; and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully [2 Cor. 9.6]. When we are in passion, then we are alien to the light of the eyes of our hearts, then deep darkness covers our soul; Then our soul is barren of all light: neither thoughts nor feelings of good, imbued with faith. From this we understand that every light of the soul is from God, who enlightens every person who comes into the world [Jn. 1.9]. In the area of ​​faith, one word of heartfelt affirmation or denial, even one thought, one feeling of agreement or disagreement with something is very important. What seems criminal in case of danger and only in case of danger to say: I don’t know this Man (Christ) - but it was a criminal renunciation of Christ the Savior and for its purification it required bitter tears and a threefold restoration to faith and apostleship. So I cannot tell You, Lord: You have tempted me, and iniquity is not found in me [Ps. 16.3]. Oh! Untruth, my great untruth: I grumbled against You, under Your blows; I have blasphemed Your holy and venerable name; I dared to say that You do not take care of me, you left me. Goodness! How can you leave me, forget me? Will a woman forget her suckling child, so as not to have compassion on the son of her womb? but even if she forgot, I will not forget you [Isa. 49.15] - says the Lord. And I, truly crazy, dared to say this. You leave only for a while and then with great mercy you accept the pack again. True. If foolish sheep instinctively sense what kind of shepherd they have, how much more do verbal, intelligent sheep have a sense, and the most subtle sense, of what kind of shepherd they have! You can't fool them. Shepherds! Be careful in front of your sheep: they understand you. Understand what the devil wants, using all possible tricks and efforts to create disbelief in your heart towards the most pure Mysteries: he wants to kill you both temporarily and eternally. Does smoke bother you? – the devil’s machinations mean nothing more than smoke: the breath of the Holy Spirit blows it away. God! Confirm my faith! The king is the likeness of God. The king's power is over his entire kingdom; the power of God is over the whole world; just as a king, although he lives in the capital, and his name is carried and revered throughout the kingdom, so God, although he primarily dwells in heaven - in eternal glory, appearing to [blessed] spirits, is also present to us by His grace, and His name is glorious throughout the whole earth. Serving sincerely the Lord, know in advance that the devil in your thoughts and in your heart will slander Him, and prepare in advance to repel all his slander at once, without embarrassment and cowardice. The cowardice and cowardly confusion of your heart at the slander of the devil is unworthy of you and would only expose the weakness of your faith. Pay attention: he is trying to mentally take away His all-perfection from the All-Perfect. Step on the very head of the asp 64 and basilisk 65 and boldly trample the lion and the serpent. People are covered in the darkness of ignorance about God, about themselves and about the enemies of their salvation, who therefore easily rob the mental home of our soul, its mental wealth. Thy ear is attentive to the preparation of their hearts [Ps. 9.38]. Do you hear who God listens to? To those whose hearts are ready during prayer, who have prepared their hearts as they should for a great task - a conversation with God. My heart is ready, O God [Ps. 56.8]. What usually happens with us, praying people? The heart is not ready: the tongue prays, but the heart is far from God, often occupied with some vain objects, or at least sleeps in prayer. Your Heavenly Father, seeing the deeds you do in secret to please Him, constantly rewards you for this in reality - all your life, rewards you every day. You just need to have eyes to see. The words of my Savior are eternal truth. Glory to Thee, O Lord, Father of mercies and God of all comfort [2 Cor. 1.3 ]! Who loves a murderer of soul and body? And money kills those who are attached to it with their hearts, they kill them mentally and physically. So, we must squander them on good deeds and on the needs of ourselves and our household. Remember the commandment of the Lord: do not resist evil [Matt. 5.39 ] (that is, concerning you personally, your earthly interests); on the contrary, overcome evil with good [Rom. 12.21 ]; do not forbid the one who takes the sap and robe 66; If the one to whom you gave material gratitude seems to be small and because of this he is hostile to you - give more and ask for an apology for not giving enough. Look, Baptism is God’s work: when you perform it, be inwardly great and lofty and do not humiliate God’s work in front of any person. Do not be ashamed of the work of God, lest God disgrace you. Most people philosophize with the strongest wisdom about earthly things, and when they have to philosophize about heavenly things, then where does all the strength disappear - their wisdom is weak, like a cobweb, and they philosophize reluctantly. Do not satisfy your belly with pleasant food: with the pleasure of it, sinful relaxation enters the heart, the flesh strengthens over the spirit, and in prayer, look, perhaps you will not cope with your heart - it will leave your hands: you will hasten, you will pray without heartfelt attention, and you will bring not God, but the devil into it (and he will not give you rest at night, to your evil, to your grief. Until you cry your sin - negligence in prayer, you will not fall asleep, despite your efforts). The devil tries by all means to darken the eye of the heart so that it does not mature God; and without the heartfelt vision of God there is death for the soul. When encountering the devil, try in every possible way to expand the horizon of your heart’s vision - try to see God in the deeds of His mercy towards us, constant and endless. When you pray for other people, let them be close to your heart, as you are close to yourself; may they be like you alone. When praying, we must be grateful to the Lord for the fact that He grants us, sinners and evil-doers, to open our foul and unclean lips for conversation with Him and to listen to our prayers, for this is also a matter of the greatest goodness - the Creator of all things, the Benefactor, to accept petitions, thanksgiving and praise from His criminal and ungrateful creatures. Often deliberately wage war with your heart and say to it: O gloomy heart, evil heart, when will I completely drive away your unclean darkness, destroy your malice? For, indeed, the heart is always our enemy in its satanic darkness and malice. Remove all darkness from our hearts. Let gratitude to God constantly burn in your heart, like the fire on the altar of the Old Testament tabernacle. Every day, hour and minute - give thanks, as every day, hour, minute and moment the Lord does you good. If now sin deprives me of nightly rest and, like a cruel worm, sucks my heart, then how great will my misfortune be after death, when everyone must depart and very many will depart to eternal rest, and I will suffer forever? Wake up early. When the hellish worm sucks your sinful heart, do not be faint-hearted then and do not indulge in impatience, rushing like a madman in all directions, but be strong in spirit and endure the punishment for sin, surrendering to the will of God and saying: Thy holy will be done, Lord, I am worthy for my sins of eternal condemnation and torment; just do not grant me to be tempted any more and strengthen me in enduring these temporary hellish torments, which You allowed me to endure, not wanting to subject me to eternal ones; Having punished me, have mercy again according to Your great mercy [Ps. 50.1]. Be as good and generous as possible - and then you will see how much it is possible for a person to accommodate, the goodness and generosity of God to you and to the entire human race and to every creature... I feel sorry for my unbelieving brethren, because I myself am part of my brethren: she is another me. Do not stop your mother in her simplicity - in her simple words and actions: let everything with her be natural, and not forced, not elegant; let it be a lesson in humility for you: always remember from what low family, uneducated and rude you are, so that in this way you can constantly be grateful to the Great Benefactor - God, who called you out of insignificance. Try by all means to acquire complacency and flexibility more towards good of every kind - to good thoughts, desires, intentions, words and actions, than to evil of various kinds - to gloomy thoughts, breathing displeasure on everyone and everything, passionate movements of the heart, bitter words and actions of impatience and dislike. Defeat the evil in yourself in all its forms. When you want to pray and notice that there is no peace in your heart, immediately establish silence and calmness in it, and then pray in Divine silence. The Holy Spirit cannot dwell in a heart that does not have peace. You should be like a young lamb (in meekness and gentleness), jumping merrily around its mother. So be simple, artless. Be independent, free: do not depend on any external objects or disturbances, that is, do not become confused or passionate about them. Keep your freedom and peace of spirit. God! You are one - the fullness and contentment of my heart. With You - Who is in heaven for me? and with You I want nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart, filled with You, faint; God is the rock of my heart and my portion forever [Ps. 72.25–26]. Oh, my blessedness upon receiving communion on Wednesday of Holy Week, March 29th! How blessed I was! Heavenly peace, dwell often in my heart! Stand at the entrance of your heart and cheerfully repel the liar - the enemy, who always slanders the shrine and in every possible way strives to kill your heart through unbelief of the heart; stand on mental guard and constantly say: the stench of the devil. This hits the proud star and drives him away like smoke. It is also necessary that the following word be inscribed on your heart and always clearly visible: gratitude, that is, gratitude for all the spiritual gifts of God that you use in worship, in the Sacraments and in prayer in general. The heart plays such an important role in a person’s life that through the heart a person looks at everything in the world: as the heart is, so is the view: an unclean heart means an unclean view of everything; proud - proud and looks down on everything; meek and humble - treats everyone meekly and humbly, looks at everything with grateful surprise, uses everything with gratitude. It is remarkable that when I am in sin and the enemy is in me and torments me, then it is reflected on my face: it is gloomy and sad, and the people with whom I have intercourse do not have the same respect for me and do not look at me as before: they now see the ugliness of my face from the inner ugliness of the soul, darkened by the devil, they sense an evil spirit in me; on the contrary, when I stand in the grace of God, they feel the fragrance of the Spirit of God in me, and my face is pleasant to them because of the light, calmness, meekness and humility that the soul reflects in the face. When it is said to the inner man: “Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead” [Eph. 5.14], then of course it is a real dream, very similar to an ordinary bodily dream; also, when it is said: my soul, arise, what have you written down is, of course, a real dream of the soul, and is not said only allegorically. When the body sleeps, it relaxes everywhere and becomes insensitive; so the soul, sleeping in a sinful sleep, weakens in its strength and becomes insensitive to everything that concerns faith, hope and love. Tell her, for example, that the Son of God came down to earth for you and became a man in order to save you from eternal death, explain to her about His saving teaching, about His miracles, about His suffering, about death on the cross, about the resurrection and ascension to heaven, about His second coming - she cannot comprehend this, does not feel the greatness of God’s benefits - she is asleep, completely asleep for faith, hope and love. She is not afraid of the Righteous Judge, future torment, the never-ending worm, or the unquenchable fire. Sleeping - does not hear, does not see, does not feel. It is remarkable that bodily sleep begins from the heart: the heart falls asleep first of all, then the body. The eyes of the sleeping person are closed and do not see, the ears do not hear, and the soul sleeping in a sinful sleep, too, - and the soul must always ripen with the eyes of the heart, even during sleep, according to what is written: I sleep, but my heart is awake [Song. 5.2]. Anyone who begins to correct others must remember how the Lord patiently corrected him and continues to correct him throughout his life, so as not to become immoderately irritated with those who sin and not to punish them mercilessly, but with meekness and love. The ascetic will often have to curse himself, his heart, which often resists its own good with all its might and does not sincerely ascend to God. Poor man I am! - he will say, - who will deliver me from this body of death? [Rom. 7.24]. I do not do the good that I want, but the evil that I do not want, I do [Rom. 7.19]. I rejoice and thank God that the evil in me is always and inevitably punished. It's worth it. Glory to the all-holy and all-righteous Lord of my life. This is the surest guarantee of eternal torment prepared for unrepentant sinners. I rejoice and also thank God that every good thing, be it in thought or in deed, is, at least internally, always rewarded. This is the surest guarantee of future endless bliss. Praying to you is half the battle, because what you want to receive in prayer, God desires it for you incomparably more than you yourself. Pray with faith and hope. We must pray in such a way that the Lord can say about us who pray: this is truly an Israelite, in whom there is no guile [Jn. 1:47], behold, a true worshiper, bowing to the Father in spirit and truth. How to pray in spirit and in truth? We must burn in spirit in prayer and sincerely say the words of prayer. Let us suppose that you pray like this: may my prayer be corrected like incense before You [Ps. 140.2]. Do you really, sincerely want the Lord to correct your prayer, like the easy and quick rise of incense (so that your prayer rises easily)? If the moon is illuminated by the sun, being itself dark, then will not the righteous in the Kingdom of their Heavenly Father be enlightened, like the sun, by His inaccessible light? The angels of the lithium eternally shine and are the second lights according to God - because they always stand before the throne of God and are showered with luminous luminaries. Knowing how all-evil the devil is and how he manifests his anger at you in your heart, scorching it mercilessly, avoid every kind of malice in every possible way, not even because of the most apparently just reasons. Be completely gentle. Lord, help me! Only the devil tends to be angry with everyone, but the servant of Christ should be good towards everyone. Do not put off repentance from day to day: the incorporeal enemy uses all his strength to prevent true repentance and bring a person to hell. Experience. I put off fasting until the last week, and before repentance the enemy tied up my spiritual strength. Do not let any sinful (passionate) movement stop in your heart for one moment. For a moment you will have to pay for many hours of torment. Imagine 68 in the heart of Christ - and you will feel very good in life; and often imagine Him (write Him) spiritually in your heart as peace, cleansing of sins and spiritual sweetness, as joy, as meekness, as spiritual light, as love, as truth. But God forbid that the devil should be imagined in your heart through various passions: through anger, through envy, stinginess and other passions; also through lies, through doubt, unbelief, timidity and despondency of the heart. And the devil is precisely imagined through these passions and heart disturbances. Therefore, in every possible way adhere to faith, love, peace, impartiality towards earthly things. What is transitory must pass away, according to the indispensable eternal law. But it is good for those who pass away to acquire the love of the Enduring, Eternal (that is, God or the human soul). Understand what I say [2 Tim. 2.7]. My Lord had no place to bow his head, and despised earthly things, having nothing and living on the alms of others. What about me? Follow Christ. His cross draws you to heaven. Humility is when everyone is above me and I am below everything, even my own strengths and abilities, which I reverence as a gift from God. My father-in-law, sisters-in-law and brothers-in-law are instruments of God’s goodness towards me. [Take care of them in every possible way.] Ask God and do not think in your heart how God will hear you or how he will give you this or that gift. Completely trust His Providence - He knows. We take on a lot of work with unnecessary thoughts. You need to be simple, trusting, like children. Someone will not think in his heart, but will have faith. The spiritual serpent creeps into the heart during prayer because we do not unite with God with strong faith, with the most sincere prayer. Then you feel that the enemy is taking your heart away from a living, sincere faith in God, not allowing you to unite with Him. The unworthy acceptance of the life-giving Mysteries produces great devastation in the human soul. It deprives her of all the virtues, or gifts of the Holy Spirit - faith, hope and love, meekness and humility, peace, joy, patience, self-control; upsets all forces - mental and physical, so that a person is weak both in soul and body. Just as during a worthy communion Christ enters the heart of a person and brings with him all the indicated virtues and the peace and tranquility of all spiritual powers, so after an unworthy one He leaves his heart, and after Him, like a shadow behind the body, all the virtues come out of the human heart, all the gifts of God’s grace, and the spiritual house remains empty, according to what is written: Behold, your house is left to you empty [Lk. 13.35 ]; and Satan enters this idle house with impudence and great rage and brings with him all kinds of evil - hellish darkness, darkening the eyes of the heart and not allowing one to see anything in the spiritual and Divine, or unbelief, despondency, impatience, a tendency to enmity with everyone, grumbling, blasphemy against God, disorder of mental strength, all passions, especially a burning attachment to earthly things and mainly to acquisitions, with which the heart begins to feed, like some unclean worm, and above all - a hellish, all-embracing fire that scorches mercilessly the insides, which inflames the insides of a person to the extreme, so that the internal heat engulfs the head, which is as if on fire, especially the face, which turns very purple and from the inner tightness, heat and extreme internal suffering falls and has a very painful, suffering expression - in general, the whole person becomes a pitiful creature: it’s strange and scary to look at him. God forbid, when this misfortune happens to him before the great holidays or on the greatest holidays: then the general joy represents a striking contrast between the church meeting and that person who, having come to church in his pitiful situation, stands with his eyes downcast at the ground, not daring to raise his eyes to the holy icons and to people, convicted by his conscience, sad, gloomy, full of internal torment. He prays - and his prayer is not heard; calls on the name of the Lord for help - the Lord does not respond; resorts to the power of the Life-giving Cross - she leaves him, to the intercession of the Mother of God and the saints - they do not listen to him. Thus, a person is punished for unworthy acceptance of the Holy Mysteries, and rightly so, because he has despised the Mystery of God - the great and saving Mystery of the Body and Blood of the Son of God, by which he was sanctified and revived many times, and he has despised it after he has tasted and seen many times that Christ Himself is essentially found in them. This is taken from experience. Not by washing, but by rolling, according to the proverb, not by bitterness, but by sweetness - with everything the devil inclines us to sin and plunges us into sin. Today the evil one deftly spread a seductive look, and precisely the look of a female face related to me, which I looked at with pleasure during the day, without, however, having any unclean thoughts; and with this seductive appearance the devil clearly exposed himself, his constant intrigues over me, clearly showed me that the tormenting fire that spread in my insides on Friday, Saturday and Holy Sunday was his work. It's clear as day. This fire of anger, oppression, and despondency left me when I was traveling with the cross: Lord, have mercy on me! Although voluptuousness is pleasant for our flesh and the pleasantness of voluptuousness spreads throughout the whole body, so that there is not the slightest desire in the soul to pray to the Lord for the removal of this sin, but we must arouse this desire, we must produce repentant feelings in ourselves. Who knows if we would not actually be guilty, in reality, if we saw such a seductive appearance that only the devil can imagine? In reality, we usually do not see seductive views: at this time everything is covered with appearance and decency: this means that there are no opportunities for temptation. But if there were such views, we would hardly have fallen. Therefore, you need to tearfully beg the Lord upon awakening to cleanse the sin of desecration that occurred from the seducer at night, and try not to look at a woman’s face with pleasure during the day. Look, how good people live: they receive a ruble a day and raise orphans, and yet everyone is well-fed and clothed and hospitable. Learn from them. Remember also that your brothers are of the same blood as your wife: do not spare anything for them. God will always send you for them. In our insides there is a mental nest where Christ dwells or the devil settles. This is the heart. The devil often drives us out of this nest and takes up residence himself - and then things get very bad for us. The holy apostles called this nest the church of God, or the temple of the Holy Spirit; The Savior is a house (swept and tidied [Matthew 12:44]). Behold, I stand at the door and knock [Rev. 3.20]. If any passion in its character has extraordinary burning, strong heaviness and tightness and malice, then it is a sign that the devil is strongly at work in us. Voluntary passions of a person mostly have pleasure in their character, but involuntary passions do not have it; on the contrary, they involuntarily, reluctantly serve the will of Satan, who forces them to suffer through torment, just as he once forced the martyrs to renounce Christ through various torments. Stand firm, despite his internal torment, and you will be a martyr. For example, if he forces you to be evil, stand strong for the goodness of your heart, and you will be a martyr for Christ, Who is Goodness Himself; also when prompted to stinginess, stand firm for generosity, and you will be a martyr to God, Who is the God of generosity; when to pride, stand for humility, and you will be a martyr of Him who said about Himself: learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart [Matt. 11.29 ]; when you turn to unbelief, stand for faith, and you will again be a martyr of Christ, Who commands us to have the faith of God. Stand in the faith, be courageous, be strong [1 Cor. 16:13], says the apostle. That person can be called good, generous, humble, a true believer, who is always faithful to his virtues, despite any obstacles, external and internal, who always courageously fights them and overcomes them with God's help. If you are generous, then always be generous; if you are sometimes stingy, you are no longer generous; also, if you are kind today, and tomorrow for some reason you are angry, you are no longer kind. The same should be said about all virtues. Generosity is generosity, kindness is goodness, faith is faith - they must always have their own appearance in our hearts. The mental thief often intensifies to rob our soul from its virtues: do not give in to him, put on the whole armor of God... so that you may be able to withstand on the evil day [Eph. 6.11–13 ]; and there are often fierce, deliberate days chosen by the devil to attack us; they are in no way inferior to the bombardment of any city, even much more superior in accuracy, duration and burning power of fiery bombs launched by an invisible enemy into the mental city of our soul. Always firmly remember that virtues will not be implanted in our hearts and passions will not be eradicated without fervent prayer for this to God, without prayer for the intercession of the Mother of God, the Guardian Angel, the Forerunner and the saints, whom you, a great sinner, should not bypass in your prayer as persons who have received from God the grace to pray for us. Remember that your mother, your wife, your father-in-law are instruments of God’s endless goodness towards you; treat them chiefly with love for their work [1 Thess. 5.13]. See in them, as it were, God the Benefactor Himself. Dislike for them (ungratefulness is dislike) is ingratitude towards God Himself. Father and mother are the representatives of God's goodness on earth. The devil is depicted with horns because he butts our insides when he inhabits us. I have sinned before You, Lord: I have condemned Your people in unbelief; For this reason I myself suffer from the stubborn devilish unbelief of my heart. Lord, have mercy and again give me living faith. It’s a strange thing that the devil holds us captive with his very torments: the thief always comes to steal, kill and destroy our soul. From its fruit I always know it. And what is the need to indulge in a murderer? Why attach your heart to something that kills, according to numerous experiences? Why get into the network if you know it? If you have put the enemy to shame several times, defeating him with the help of God in that in which he had always tried to defeat and defeat you, and if you have also done significant alms, then be afraid of his strongest attack on you and do not neglect any of the slightest movements of sin in your heart, otherwise he will attach himself to them and, out of malice and envy, will use all his efforts to repay you for the defeat in the most cruel way; He is especially furious with us before great holidays, in order to deprive us of spiritual joy on these great days and plunge us into great sorrow and sadness. But, knowing the envy of the devil and his arrogant, boundless deceit and malice, one should not lose heart in the sorrows caused by him and think that the Lord, because of our sins, has completely turned His face away from us. The devil will torment us and go away. Experience. When a spiritual scorpion instantly strikes your heart with its slander against God and His truth, that is, when it breathes unbelief into you, do not be indignant at all, but remain completely calm, knowing for sure that this is his cunning. If you are confused, you will humiliate the greatness of your spirit, of which unbelief is unworthy, and you will offend God, Who is the eternal Truth and Who is always faithful and abides, always the same, although we are unfaithful and changeable. God is true, but every man is a lie [Ps. 115.2]. When you pray with faith, sincerely, with all your heart, then in your soul you always feel great peace, lightness, as if you had no insides at all, and some kind of sweet bliss of heart. You feel something completely different when you pray not whole-heartedly, devoid of sincerity or truth (whether this comes from our negligence or from burdening the stomach with food, when we in vain call upon ourselves living faith) - then there is no sweet peace in the heart: for us it then becomes like an internal heavy burden, under which our spirit sometimes faints, painfully aching. Faith is strength, the life of the heart; unbelief is his weakness and his very death. Experience. What is for a person as a citizen the king and the lower civil authorities, for a Christian person - God, the Most Pure Mother of God, Angels and Saints. Glory to Thee, Lord, glory to Thee! In memory and for the glory of God in the Trinity. In the morning, on the fourth day of Easter, at five o’clock I saw the magnificent descent of the Spirit of God onto the throne of the church: the All-Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove, all in a wondrous, blinding radiance. There were people in the church. They were awaiting the transfer of the relics of the Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called, which rested before the altar at the right wall of the church; the clergy gathered; they moved, lifted, carried - and the All-Holy Spirit appeared flying over the throne of the church in an indescribable radiance. Everyone was burning with desire to see Him, and everyone was afraid of their unworthiness and, throwing themselves on their faces to the ground, with humble hearts they begged Him not to hide from them instantly, and the Spirit of God, as if condescending to the strong desire of the hearts of believers to behold His glory, stopped over the throne and rested on it, and the radiance from His glory pleasantly amazed the vision of those looking at the throne. There were also those who, falling on their faces, as if tormented by evil spirits, cried out loudly, whether frightened by such a magnificent vision because of their unworthiness or for another reason. I woke up in such a pleasant vision - they were ringing for Matins. Cheerfully and cheerfully I got up, got dressed, washed and went to the church of God; Having arrived there, I, as usual, bowed to the throne of God and thought to see the radiance of the Divine Spirit on it, but it was not there. Blessed are those who attend the services of Bright Week. The Spirit of God, the All-Good, All-Holy, Life-Giving, All-Powerful, with a special abundance of grace, rests at this time on the holy throne - on the risen Life-Giver Christ. There are people who are envious and contemptuous 70 of the intellectual works of others: they greet almost every newly published work with distrust and contempt, internally asking the author of the book: can anything good come from Nazareth? [In. 1.46]. Such people consider themselves mentally superior to everyone else and dream that they really are superior to everyone else with their intelligence. Meanwhile, what did they themselves produce? Either nothing, or something very mediocre. Their very envy and stupid pride clearly exposes their mediocrity, their evil soul, into which wisdom cannot penetrate! Instead of rejoicing at the appearance of all good and useful mental work in the world, disdainful and envious people are ready to destroy all the authors of good and useful things and put their names in their places! All-merciful, generously gifted, impartial to the soul! Do not such people insult You, swearing at Your generous divisions 71 of Your gifts according to Your Divine authority, since in all well-intentioned authors the same Spirit works, dividing His gifts with authority to everyone [especially], as He pleases [1 Cor. 12.11 ]! - Yes, you! How will You reward and reward these envious people? Because they will lose even what they think they have; the fact that they will not participate in Your gifts and will never produce anything truly good and useful. To the point! There are still many people, malicious people, who, hearing about the disaster and misfortune or death of their acquaintances or even strangers, as well as comrades, even relatives, especially distinguished by wealth, nobility, learning or other things, rejoice inwardly hearing about their illness or death, as if these latter were their enemies and oppressors, although these latter did not cause anything bad to the former. Save, Lord, everyone from this devilish gloating: it is monstrous in man and puts him along with the demons who rejoice in human destruction. Sometimes they rejoice inwardly that such and such did not die in a Christian way, like a pagan, and angrily send him straight to the eternal fire. There are so many people of this kind! - just listen at least occasionally to people’s speeches, to their judgments and gossip. The devil's plague! I understand now why the Savior’s right side was pierced: it was pierced for my corrupt, evil, earth-bound heart, which is located in our right side and is often wounded by the crafty, primordial murderer. I also understand why foul-smelling scrofulous matter flows from my right ear and from my right side: it must constantly remind me of my sick, unclean and fetid heart, and at the same time serve as punishment for its uncleanness. Glory to Your righteousness, Lord! From the time the Lord suffered on the cross, Divine, Life-giving power became inherent to him. Just imagine vividly what happened on the cross, and with faith in the Crucified One, depict the sign of the cross on yourself - and you will see what it will do. However, the Cross works miracles only on those who live as the Crucified One commanded, who crucify their own flesh with passions and lusts [Gal. 5.24] and walk the way of the cross. And those who do not create, as the Lord says, live in passions, cannot boast of the power of the Cross, unless they sincerely repent of their sins and try with all their might not to return to their previous sins, because otherwise the Divine power of the Honest and Life-giving Cross will leave them. When the devil, having settled in your heart because of some passion, prevents you from praying heartily and derails all your efforts towards sincere prayer, scorching and cutting you off internally from God, then do not give in to despair and impatience, but strain all your strength to heartily acknowledge your sin before God, sigh and shed a tear about it - then the evil spirit will leave you and your prayer will go like incense, grief. What to do? The Lord is righteous, with His goodness He allows the devil to torment us for every sinful movement of the heart, so as not to allow us to make great falls and not plunge us into eternal torment. When you are carried away by the passion of enmity towards your brother, imagine how God loves us; when there is pride - imagine how the Lord, being rich, became poor for our sake [2 Cor. 8:9] and how He was meek and lowly in heart [Matt. 11.29 ]; when stinginess - imagine more clearly how generous the Lord is to you, how His hand never shrinks from giving you gifts (the gifts of the Lord are a river, and your giving to others is a small stream). Passions are blind; when any passion carries you away, try by all means, calling on God for help, not to close the eyes of your heart and see objects in their true form; passions show us things in a false form, and, moreover, extremely exaggerated: in passion a fly seems like an elephant. A stingy person usually imagines the expenses at a terrible rate, and he does not seem to see or know the arrivals, which by God’s mercy far exceed the expenses. The proud star often lies like a stone in our right side, and then from our heart, like from granite, all good thoughts and feelings, all prayerful words are reflected or bounce back. If you drive him out with extreme humility and tears, then suddenly it will become so easy, so easy. It is necessary that throughout the entire course of our life there should be, as it were, inscribed on our hearts a great word: humility, so that it always shines in our lives, like a luminous torch that warms our hearts, and so that we always remember who we are, how low and insignificant we are, and with what gratitude to God we must use all the gifts of God, material and spiritual! Together with this, it will be convenient to always drive away the unclean, soul-killing darkness of devilish pride, which constantly obscures the mental horizon of our soul and increases every day. Often the words of the Holy Scripture, the words of prayers, church readings and chants, their power do not fit in our heart due to its carnal narrowness, crampedness, impurity; the flesh cannot contain the gift of faith. In order for our soul to contain this greatest heavenly gift, we must inspire our hearts with our prayer and fasting. The Savior said to the Jews: My word cannot be contained in you [Jn. 8.37]. This often happens to us too. So, let everyone who experiences this unpleasant phenomenon know that it comes from the turbidity, impurity of our heart. This way the sun is not reflected in black mud or dirt. A person’s heart has been driven out of its place by the devil’s power and is strongly infected with the breath of the devil; it is necessary for the Lord Himself to guide and cleanse it; for this - the Holy Sacraments, and in particular - the greatest Mystery of the Body and Blood of the Sovereigns. But even when directed and purified, it often goes astray and becomes defiled again. This is because a person has a hereditarily corrupted will from birth, the correction of which requires a long-term skill in acting according to the same law. All sorrows of the heart, illnesses, and various temptations from evil spirits tend towards this. An unclean heart can only be corrected through many sorrows, and therefore the apostle says that through many sorrows we must enter the Kingdom of God [Acts. 14.22]. So a heavily soiled dress, dipped in hot water, is rubbed and crushed vigorously in order to wipe off the adhering dirt from all points; So doctors sometimes use cauterization and cutting out sore spots to prevent the body from rotting and becoming sick. Christ is invisibly imagined in the Body and Blood of the Lord. The Lord always allows the unbelief of the heart to strengthen the faith that is weakening in my heart. Known by them in the breaking of bread [Lk. 24.35]. And now the Lord is known to us as God in the breaking of bread, that is, when we eat worthily, with unashamed faith, His life-giving Mysteries. Hitherto, I, the accursed one, have trampled on the Blood of my Lord, receiving communion unworthily. From now on, grant to repent truly and always accept with dignity. I see, I see, my Savior, Your bright palace in heaven, prepared for the righteous, but my soul does not have the garment of purity; enlighten her robe and save me. My clothing is unrighteousness and wickedness, as it is written: I am clothed with unrighteousness and wickedness with my passions [Ps. 72.6]. And what was the clothing of the soul of the Savior, Who is our eternal supreme Model? Look at the Transfiguration - this is the light that has always been in the soul of the Lord, from which light His teaching, life and miracles poured out. He said: believe in the light [Jn. 12.36], because there was an eternal Light and on earth always carried His ineffable light in the soul, apparently shown on Tabor. Do not be faint-hearted when passions arise and their continuation; don't be afraid of this inner worm or this scorching fire. This is the charm of the devil, who through torment inclines us to sin, just as it happens before communion when we are occupied with the inner sorrow and oppression that he also produces in our souls. Do not pay attention to the poisonous excuses of the devil in the passions, as well as to the excuses before communion, but pray to the Lord that He will confirm you in virtue. Reading prayers, also the word of God and the scriptures of the divinely wise holy fathers and using any other gifts of the Lord, say in your heart: I must always gratefully use these gifts of God and not become conceited from their abundance and constancy. If you do not crucify your flesh with its passions and lusts [Gal. 5:24], then the sign of the Life-giving Cross will not only not deliver you from the fire of passions, but will burn you even more - as a punishment for you. Then only it will help you when you firmly decide not to follow them. Glory to the merciful Lord! Having read the 50th Psalm internally with all my heart, I received permission from the internal shackles with which the sin of avarice had bound me, and I walked free in spirit. Psalm 50 is strong in bowing to God's mercy. Saint David is one of the best teachers of prayer. We will take him as a model and guide - his faith and hope. So anyone of you who does not renounce everything that he has [glory: all his possessions] cannot be My disciple [Lk. 14.33]. So, in order for you to be a disciple of Christ, heartily renounce all your property and do not in the least tie your heart to it; use it completely impartially. Help, Lord! Prepare the way for the Lord (mental, heartfelt), make His paths straight [Isa. 40.3; Matt. 3.3] (straightforwardness, sincerity of heart). When you come to church for worship, put aside all worldly concerns and leave them outside the threshold; Before the spiritual King, the soul must put aside all carnality, that is, all carnal wisdom, for none of those bound by carnal lusts and passions is worthy to come or approach the King of glory: immerse yourself entirely in the heavenly and eternal. Know that when doubts, unbelief, pride, stinginess, envy, hatred and other passions bother you in your heart, then the smart house of your soul is full of demons; Rather, cry about your sins before the Master, so that He will deign to expel them from your heart with His mania. Sincere, that is, true, prayer to Christ from the bottom of my heart always delivers me from invisible thieves and from all my sorrows. Do not worry [glory: do not worry] about your soul, what you will eat and what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will wear. Is not the life more than food, and the body than clothing? [Matt. 6.25]. Don’t especially worry about it, priest. In the very service of God you will always find faithful and sufficient food. Please everyone and everything. Be hospitable. The life of Christians tangibly proves that they either do not pray at all, or they pray, but not truly (not sincerely, not with all their hearts); The word is true that if everyone prayed truly, then there would be incomparably fewer vicious people and vices would not be so gross. Then there would be many many saints on earth and the Kingdom of God would be in the world. Priest of God! Excessive concern for the things of life, especially the attachment of the heart to earthly goods, is unworthy of you. The Lord has admonished you about this a thousand times and punished you, but you still do not come to your senses. That is why your torment will increase more and more every time your heart passionately desires earthly things. Note the Providence of God when guests visit you: they come neither less often nor more often than is necessary to test your virtue of hospitality and to test how attached you are to earthly things. Don’t forget that the guests are similar people in everything, with the same conscience as yours, and in them is the image of God. There is a different you in them. If there is a need to multiply the loaves of bread for a multitude of visitors, God will multiply them. Even if my brother eats up my property, he does not take away my last piece of bread. And if so? And then - for Christ's sake - how sweet it would be to endure! They often come to my home and bother me, but they do not deprive me of it, they do not strip my clothes from me, they do not divide them into parts and do not cast lots. ABOUT! How little or no patience I endure for Christ’s sake! How little I succeed in love! (Remember - your clothes are moth-eaten [James 5:2] - as a punishment for you.) Remember that love is our first duty. Who is God as great as our God? Thou art the God who works miracles: Thou hast spoken Thy power among men [Ps. 76,14–15]. To those praying: I said: you are gods, and you are all sons of the Most High [Ps. 81.6]. You are gods, you talk with God, akin to akin. Sin hardens and infects the heart with pride, strips it of faith, hope and love. We must break through this devilish delusion and break through it to God, casting aside bitterness and pride and accepting faith, hope and love. The Holy Mysteries of the Body and Blood are the touchstone of our heart and its simplicity. Here you can now see a person as he is - simple or crafty, faithful or unfaithful. (I thank the Lord that He has not now handed me over to the scoffer of His majesty - the murderer Satan.) I am limitless weakness; strength into my being comes from without, namely from the Lord, who says: for my power is made perfect in weakness [2 Cor. 12.9]. So, I, who am weakest, will lift up my eyes to the mountains, from where my help will come [Ps. 120.1]. Our strength is our invisible soul; in animals there is also their invisible soul; in plants there is also their strength, their life is invisible; the entire material world exists and moves by an invisible force (the laws of nature). In the mountain villages there are Heavenly Forces, pure, alien to all materiality. Everything - heavenly and earthly, above and below - is brought to a single omnipotent Force, producing all power in heaven and on earth. So, let every power praise the One Power in Three Persons - the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And let the earthly ones praise Her primarily with the binding power of love and the everywhere spreading life and bliss with the power of love. If it is unpleasant for you to see in your house a person you do not love, then remember what it is like for God to see you in His great house, not loving God Himself in your neighbor. When your heart is cold, does not need God and prayer and does not feel your sins, do not hesitate to delve into it and discover there many sins hidden by self-love and pride - and then cry about them. His mercy endures forever [Ps. 135.1–26]. You take advantage of God’s mercies every minute, and these mercies make you happy. But remember and imagine that in so many past centuries the mercies of the Lord continuously poured on people and brought joy to the human race, and in all future centuries they will also pour. Do you see how His mercy is upon us forever! If you want, analyze in detail the very mercies, which, however, have no end, and then the true abyss of God’s great mercies to people, revealed in all centuries, will open before you. Give due honor to each saint by invoking the saint whose memory is celebrated on a certain day. Every time a sinner sins, he offends the very loving Lord, who wants to live in us and is meanwhile driven out by the stench of sins. This friend does me a lot of good - how could I not offend him with something, how could I repay him? Peace of the heart before committing a sin, sorrow of the heart after committing it, peace again immediately after bringing sincere repentance - they say clearer than day that God is always with us and constantly tests our hearts and wombs [Ps. 7.10]. When I am simple, I feel good, then I am God’s – and God is simple. Let us learn the art of translating into our souls the spiritual qualities and dispositions of the saints, expressed and, as it were, imprinted in the prayers they composed. The fire burns and scorches inside, and the Lady extinguishes it. Experience. Just as fire tends to burn, so sin tends to scorch the soul with fire. Here every sin is punished - in the heart, from its origin; and goodness is rewarded - also in the heart. Without the Savior there is torment, spiritual death. Axiomatic truth. So that a person does not become arrogant with God, he must always be kept in a sense of his poverty and poverty, helplessness on the part of the world. We have different abilities. In God these are Persons. (I'm not saying.) The nature of our soul is sometimes violated and killed by an invisible evil force. This is certain. We need a Deliverer, also invisible. God is not a man: you cannot deceive Him with feigned repentance - you must truly repent from the depths of your soul, from the bottom of your heart. Do not trust your flesh at all, hate it, crucify it: it is always false, it always plunges you into destruction. Deny yourself [Matt. 16.24], that is, one’s own evil heart, compelling one to evil. People communicate through sight with their souls; the soul is seen as in a mirror. Experience. If... I do not have love, then I am nothing [1 Cor. 13.2 ] (priest’s motto). Do not owe anyone anything except mutual love [Rom. 13.8]. From pure...diligently [1 Pet. 1.22 ] 72 . Many sinful sinews come from our hearts, and they are the devil’s most accessible means of acting on us; The purer the heart, the more powerless the devil. Sinful veins: pride, hatred, stinginess, envy, irritability, general addiction to the earth. Signs of the devil being in us: heaviness of heart, reluctance to prayer and worship, lack of humility, irritability. How will those who do not honor the saints honor God? The small one starts small and gradually reaches the great. This is a natural law. (On the veneration of saints.) Your faith has saved you [Matt. 9.22]. So, it is not works, but faith that saves us. We experience this at every step. The more the devil separates you from God, the more you strive to be with Him. Due to lack of humility, the enemy overthrows. What is humility? Humility is a deep feeling of one’s insignificance and a deep feeling of God’s many different benefits; a deep feeling of one’s sins and diligent self-condemnation, or awareness of one’s spiritual poverty and constant looking to God and expecting from Him all that is good and useful; humility - softening and tenderness of the heart; humility - frequent tears about sins; humility - disappearance in God; in general, humility is living faith, unshakable hope and unfeigned love. Another humility is uncomplaining patience with sorrows, illnesses and misfortunes; humility - placing oneself below everyone else. Why is it pleasant to think about the true, good and beautiful? Because then their source is with us - God: He then touches our soul. Christ is near - in your heart; you don’t have to go far for Him. Your heart is the proof, the guarantee. (This is about the Mysteries.) Is the star of day waiting for your faith to rise to the horizon of the sky? Without you, without your faith, by the power of the Most High it completes its paths and rises daily above your head. So exactly the spiritual Sun - Christ God, without waiting for your faith, daily in His most pure Mysteries ascends to His throne and is truly imagined in the Mysteries of His Body and Blood. Is the animal kingdom waiting for your call or your faith to grow and multiply? Does the kingdom of plants await your faith to begin to grow with the onset of spring? Look at the temptations of the Savior in the desert and know how the devil tempts humanity. Rejoice when the devil attacks your heart with some kind of passion (for example, malice), because then you have the opportunity to show your love for Christ and for your brother, to be a martyr for Him, you can triumph in the name of the Lord over a strong enemy - the devil, and receive a crown of kindness from the hand of the Lord [Wis. 5.16]. Pay attention: the devil puts fear in your heart for future visitors. Therefore, when they happen to come, you suddenly become indignant. A heartfelt faith in the existence of the world of spirits is necessary: ​​then there will be sparkling faith in the existence of the God of spirits and all flesh, and in the existence after death of human souls. I will write a letter of gratitude 73 to the Lady for deliverance from grief and heartache: I called with firm faith to Her Kazan image - and received what I asked for. In order for you to visualize the omnipresence and omniscience of God and how He hears our prayers everywhere, imagine that God is all Face, all Sight, all Hearing, all Mind, Wisdom, and He looks at the world - the works of His hands - like at an anthill, and at all the creatures in it, like ants scurrying before our eyes on an anthill. After fervent, tearful prayer, the enemy always defiles me with voluptuousness, scattering seductive views and presenting occasions for voluptuous actions; but, however, there remains complete freedom for my will. Neither fencing the bed with a cross, nor falling asleep with prayer will help if during the day you relax your soul with even a somewhat voluptuous gaze. And why all the efforts of the enemy? So that I always grieve my Benefactor - the Lord, for Whom abomination is voluptuousness. There is a God, faithful in His words, commandments and promises, 74 on whom the devil attacks through me - this is what all the machinations of Satan affirm with certainty, because through them he in every possible way intensifies to persuade me to violate His holy commandments, wants to overshadow His false promises with his lies. Damn you with all your dirty tricks. How have I angered my Lord? - By the slyness of the heart, doubt, unbelief, all passions, voluptuousness at night and during the day. What sin have I not committed? What evil have you not imagined in my soul? The devil's cunning often cuts my heart during and after communion of the life-giving Mysteries, that is, the burning unbelief instilled by him. If you win, there will be no pain. Darkness of mind and heart, confusion and fear and pain of the heart before and during communion are clear signs of the wiles of the devil in our soul. In the unbelief of the heart in the Holy Mysteries there is always hidden the murderer the devil, who kills the soul, but in the faith of the heart there is always life, or Christ, who adds 75 life to our soul. Experience. Nurture within yourself the following conviction: for my sins, I am unworthy to have property in Your Kingdom, Lord! Everything serves You in Your Kingdom and must serve as the Creator and Lord; and I often and very often transgress Your laws, I destroy the wonderful harmony between Your creatures with my passions, therefore I am not worthy to be a member of Your Kingdom. We are Abraham's seed [Jn. 8.33 ]; This means that people are the seed of parents. Show everyone a cheerful, pleasant and affectionate face. You use God’s mercies undeservedly; allow others to take advantage of your mercies undeservedly. Although by doing this you deserve God’s mercy. On the Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearers. How good it is to serve the Lord! You will do all you can and do good deeds - and the whole earth will talk about you in memory of you. Is this a deposit of something else? - future rewards. (...She prepared Me for burial... it will be said in her memory [Matthew 26:12–13].) This was fulfilled not only on the myrrh-bearer, but on all the others, and precisely according to the deliberate arrangement of Providence. You, brothers, bring to the Lord, like ointment, tears for your sins, like that Gospel myrrh-bearer, and from the depths of sighing, alms and other good deeds that anyone can; and although your sacrifice will not be glorified throughout the entire earth, it will certainly be remembered by the Lord on the day of common retribution for all - at the Last Judgment. The Lord will not forget anything that was done for Him out of love and zeal for Him and out of love for one’s neighbor. May God help you. Mary of Egypt brought tears like ointment - and is blessed and glorified. Your tears are flowing... 76 Be hospitable. What if the second coming comes soon and finds you inhospitable and stingy? In any case, the hour of the Bridegroom may be very close, in which He will come for your soul. Be vigilant and succeed with all measures - with the weapons of your right hand and your soul - in love. Marfo! Marfo! worry and speak about the abundance, but there is only one thing that is needed [Lk. 10.41–42]. Educators and mentors, and together with you the educated! Truly, you worry and talk about many things in your schools, but one thing is necessary, and this you neglect. In order to maintain the fervor of the spirit (prayer) and not to hamper the freedom of the spirit, burdened by the constant reading of the same prayers, and to have time to hear the service, you do not need to read the canon and prayers for communion every morning, but rather diligently read two or three of the most powerful prayers. Do we, priests, really think that we will only be heard in our many words? (We are talking about city priests having daily services.) No. Don't be a taco. Even one short prayer, a sigh, a tear of heartfelt contrition for sins is enough for the Lord. You can also diversify your prayer - read other sequences, rarely read, in order to arouse the spirit of prayer with them. Isn’t our identical prayers insulting to the Lord as idle talk? Can our weak spirit, weak in faith and virtue, always enter into the spirit of the holy fathers who composed the prayers and stand at the height of their contemplation? Isn’t our weak, more verbal than heartfelt, more forced than free prayer a parody of their inner prayer? During prayer, one must in every possible way beware of the state of the soul about which the Lord Himself expressed His indignation in the Apocalypse: I know your deeds (and your, one might say, prayer), you are neither cold nor hot; Oh, that you were cold or hot! But because you are warm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth... You do not know (do not feel) that you are unhappy, and pitiful, and poor, and blind, and naked [Rev. 3.15–17]. Let not the salt take over [Russian: lose its power] [Matt. 5.13; OK. 14.34]. The love of money is nourished and strengthened by chance (the example of Judas); Likewise, other passions (envy - the example of Cain, Saul, Joseph's brothers) grow with time. Therefore, it is necessary to tear them out of the heart by the roots in advance. The criticism of the people of this age against pious people, that they are gloomy and rude, can be repelled by the excuse that they are constantly attacked by evil demons. What if we put those who condemn in the place of those who are condemned? The devil hides the state of our soul from us, does not allow us to see the sins and all the abominations of our soul. When I receive communion worthily, my face shines with calmness and joy, like the face of a righteous person - this is the effect of the life-giving Mysteries in me. Next, I seem to involuntarily sing in my heart the goodness and mercy of God towards me: I am kind to everyone, I love everyone. When you go to serve the Liturgy, check first: do you control your heart, can you freely turn it in prayer? Has the enemy taken possession of it? It is bad if one owns it by settling in it; If you don’t drive him out, then you will probably perform the Liturgy unworthily and receive communion of the life-giving Mysteries as a punishment and torment for yourself. The enemy uses all measures to prevent the priest from participating in the liturgy and receiving the Holy Mysteries. With the measure you use, it will be measured to you [Matt. 7.2; Mk. 4.24]. If you do not believe with your heart in the omnipotence of God in the mystery, then you yourself will certainly become weak with an unbelieving heart; Moreover, you will certainly suffer and be tormented. Remember that Body and Blood are My Mystery, always living and life-giving; do not dare to investigate, but accept them with faith and grateful love. Do not listen to the enemy who forces you to investigate My Secret. This is an insult to My truth, holiness and goodness. You have tasted and seen how good I am in the Mysteries, and that is enough for your assurance. Remember: I am the God of Mysteries. Show me your filial power of attorney: do not listen to the instigations of the enemy. The Synod and bishops are great people with God, and their high purpose; they rightly rule the word of the truth of Christ. Oh! What would happen to Christians if there were no bishops? We would be blown 77 by every wind of doctrine, according to the wickedness of men [Eph. 4.14] (like Lutherans and schismatics). Look at the schismatics, what are they without these rulers of truth? - lost sheep, entangled by the deceit of men. Only the shadow of the word of truth remained with them, but the deed, the essence, was a lie. When the soul is occupied with the devil's pretexts, 78 then it is no longer pure before God, even though it fights with incorporeal enemies, for how can one who has allowed the devil's pretext into his heart to live without sin? If there were no inclination toward sin in us, the devil could not touch us; we begin sin with a heartfelt movement towards it - the devil continues, intensifies, inflates it. Therefore, we must condemn ourselves before God and consider ourselves vile when the devil is playing in our hearts. Whoever thinks of offending a person for nothing, thinks of offending God for nothing, and every sin seems insignificant to him. This is evidenced by daily experience. But man is the image of God; his insult extends to God Himself. There is a moth for clothes; there is also for the human heart. It's a sin. Heart inclinations and dispositions, virtues and vices are passed on to children. Thus, the Mother of God was born from parents strengthened by sorrow in faith and piety. Children fully receive nature from their parents - both soul and body; Only the Lord increases or decreases the degree of ability. Grow and multiply [Gen. 1.28] - that is, you people (both soul and body). From one blood He made the whole human race [Acts. 17.26]. There is nothing to fear about divisibility here. The same Spirit of God acts throughout the entire universe and in the angels, dividing His gifts with power to each one individually, as He pleases [1 Cor. 12:11], but He Himself is not divided. Why is there a reluctance to spiritual reading? From an unclean heart. Looking for similar things. Tell me your dreams - and I will know your life, your morals, your virtues and your passions. The bleeding woman, touching only the hem of the Savior’s robe, received healing; and I, perceiving His entire Body with faith, always receive remission of sins, healing of soul and body. The harlot, holding His immaculate feet, bore the remission of sins; and I, holding Him in my heart with unshameful faith, also always receive remission of sins, evidenced by the peace of conscience. Today we celebrate the birthday of the blessed Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. So, do the great, crowned persons of this world come from nothingness 79 according to the word of Him who brought everything into being from non-existence, from non-existence? - Yes, from insignificance. Here, the wisest of the kings, Solomon, directly says that he received a common beginning with everyone. So, on the days of their births, all human heights must humble themselves before God and gratefully glorify the one, great, omnipotent, all-good, One Existing Author of all existence. All nations are as nothing before Him [Isa. 40.17], especially an individual person, no matter who he is. Let's think about how we should consecrate our birthdays? The Holy Apostle of Christ, teacher of languages ​​Paul, testifies that, in addition to external ones, he suffered an attack all his days (from the devil) [2 Cor. 11.28]. With embarrassment, fear, stupid distrust of yourself when reading prayers, you deceived me, tempter, and you are deceiving me; in passions you always seduce with burning irritability of the heart and addiction, darkness and crampedness; You also deceive, you impudent one, during the communion of the Holy Mysteries. I tested you, understood you, recognized you. With all this, the painful unbelief of the heart that you produced always caused only a more sincere, firm, reasonable, conscious faith in your constant shame. How long will you come at me with your demonic charms? Oh, when you darken and confuse my mind and heart before the Holy Mysteries, I will remember then how you affected me before during divine services, when I read prayers in the ears of the people, how you darkened and disturbed my heart; I will remember how you act in passions. You always acted with darkness and deception, which later dissipated like smoke, and I saw clearly how foolish it was on my part that I considered your darkness and your plans to be something important. Often reading the same long prayers, you learn to be a hypocrite before the Lord, like the ancient Pharisees, who performed prayers for long periods of time (the Pharisees are hypocrites), because the more words, the more opportunity there is to speak falsely and not from the heart: the mind diverges from the many demands of words, as they say in the Rule (Holy Pentecost). Less, but from the heart is better. The robber was saved by a few sincere words; publican too. We must always remember that we must pray in spirit and in truth; to pray with the tongue or body without a soul, feignedly, is ungodly. What is a person? – Earth revived by the Spirit of God. He breathed into his face (the earthen composition) the breath of life [Gen. 2.7]. The Spirit of God then transformed the earth into body and blood, giving him a soul; so the bread and wine of the Eucharist are transformed by the Spirit of God into the Body and Blood of the Lord God-Man, and His Spirit in them. This is My Body [Matt. 26.26 ]; This is My Blood [Matt. 26.28 ]! The words that I speak to you are spirit and life [Jn. 6.63]. Do not stagnate in the heart confusion and timidity that comes from the heart’s unbelief in Christ, but, attributing them to the deception of the devil, to a ghost, to nothing, imagine with living faith in the heart of Christ - and you will see how the heart’s confusion and fear will dissipate like smoke, how the seduction will disappear and peace and tranquility will be established. From the fruit in your heart, know Christ and the devil: Christ is life for the heart, peace, light, joy; devil - death, languor, despondency. Hezekiah turned to the wall in illness, and was heard by God in the sorrow of his soul. This example is written down for you as a keepsake in St. book, so that you pray with complete confidence within the walls of your home that God will hear you and fulfill the desire of your heart. Everywhere you need to overcome yourself - even in everyday affairs and circumstances, not to mention faith: overcome yourself, and it will be easy. A thousand times, many thousands of times, the Lord has delivered and is constantly delivering us from sins and sorrows according to our faith, and yet we do not trust in Him vividly, as we should - why? The devil interferes by darkening and oppressing the heart. But here we must be strong in hope, and do not impute the machinations of the evil one to anything. The Lord is close to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him in truth [Ps. 144.18]. In order to pray to God fruitfully, with living faith and hope, imagine, when you come to church or stand at home to pray, the most child-loving, all-powerful, wise, all-good, meek, generous, merciful Father, who has already given you countless gifts and is always ready to give you everything you need, if only you ask Him in the simplicity and sincerity of your heart, with undoubted faith. Worry and speak (in prayer) about much (you talk a lot), but there is only one thing you need [Lk. 10.41–42] – heartfelt faith, warmth of feeling; burning in spirit [Rom. 12.11] - a sigh and a tear for sins. With long and monotonous prayers, the same thing happens as with a lot of food taken into the stomach: the food burdens the stomach and is not digested in it; Likewise, monotonous and prolonged prayer does not turn into the life of the soul, into nourishing juices for it, and only falls heavily on the heart. He who does not love the brethren will not understand, will not feel in his heart the advancing 80 mind of Christ’s love for people, will not accept His most pure Body and Blood worthily; His evil heart will not be given a living faith in the Mysteries, and he will taste judgment and condemnation for himself if he does not correct himself from malice. Remember the consequences or fruits of heartfelt disbelief in the Mysteries and the consequences or fruits of heartfelt faith in them. Glory to the truth of the Body and Blood of Christ, which always triumphs over the inconstancy and lies of my heart! If I admit with all my heart the falsity of my heart after accepting the Holy Mysteries of Christ with unbelief, then the torment of the heart passes and peace comes. The earth, we see, is revived and produces countless varieties of plants throughout the continent. How many diverse plant bodies are woven on it! But what is she? We all see that it, the earth, is black soil, silt, sand, clay, and so on. Thus, it means nothing to the Lord to revive a block of earth. Thus, He creates a living serpent from a staff; Thus, He makes a dry rod grow in one night; so, He is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham [Matt. 3.9]. If the staff is made by the body of the serpent, then the bread and wine are also undoubtedly made by the Body and Blood of the Savior. There was no special water or wine for it to become the blood of the serpent: everything came from one rod; and here there is wine for the Blood. An impatient person is also a person who is fickle in everything, because constancy necessarily presupposes patience; A constant person, like an unstable one, certainly encounters many cases and circumstances in life in which patience is required - and he endures; whereas the fickle person does not tolerate, gets irritated, loses his temper. You need to learn patience and be patient, avoiding the slightest impatience, because even the slightest impatience is already failure to fulfill, resistance to the commandment of the Savior: in your patience gain your souls [Lk. 21.19], and reveals a person’s pride and anger. For the impatient, look: every step is impatience, every word, every deed; For the most part, an impatient person walks quickly, speaks quickly, does everything quickly, even eats and drinks quickly. If you pray insincerely, not from the heart, or speak to others, act insincerely (different in the tongue, different in the heart), then you are already the son of a liar, the original murderer - the devil, for there is no truth in him, who is a liar and the father of lies [John. 8.44]. That is why the Savior says: the truth is worthy to bow down [Jn. 4.24 ]; the apostle says: what is true is love [Eph. 4:15], that is, one must truly love everyone; Another apostle says: love not in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth [1 Jn. 3.18]. The essence of the Body and Blood of Christ is to save from sins, to give peace, to delight the heart: just believe with all your heart that in the Mysteries is the Body and Blood of your Savior; do not test, do not be deceitful, do not question yourself - and you will feel in your heart Christ as He is. Doubt always kills the soul; faith always gives life. The promises of God regarding the Mysteries, as well as everything else, are to her and amen; and in Himself there is this affirmative of it, that is, in His being there is truth; no need for external proof: come and see [Jn. 1:46], taste and see that the Lord is good. A moment of doubt - and the devil is in us; a moment of living faith - and the Lord is in us: so one moment - death and after this one moment - life again. So the Lord is true! The devil is so deceitful! Thus the Lord always gives life; the devil always brings death. God! Grant me to know my wretchedness, poverty, misery, blindness and spiritual nakedness. Grant me to say to You often from the bottom of my heart: Lord! I am miserable, and pitiful, and poor, and blind, and naked [Rev. 3.17]. May self-love and pride not blind me. How difficult it is for our hearts to give birth to faith! It suffers like a woman in childbirth, and often brings her into the world in no other way than with illness and tears! Oh, poverty! Oh, damnation! Oh, our blindness! There are diseases like those that give birth [Ps. 47.7]. It is not for nothing that this comparison is given in the Holy Scriptures. Many secretly wish that the Almighty Lord would be right here - hovering with us; but His power and kingdom are great: the heavens are His and the earth is His: He must be and build everywhere. Glory to Your sovereignty, Lord! The holy prophet and king David saw the heavenly beauty of the soul of the future Queen - the Mother of God, adorned with all sorts of virtues, under the image of the Queen, dressed in gilded vestments and adorned. You shake, so to speak, the being of God with the prayer of faith, you also shake the organs of the Spirit of God - Angels and Saints, and they respond to your voice of faith. Give no place to the devil [Eph. 4:27]: when he forces you to do evil, do rather the opposite of that evil, the good - hurry, do not delay in doing good. What lightness, what peace and quiet in the heart after fervent, sincere, tearful prayer - when sins are cried out! How smooth and calm a dream is! So, sinlessness is for me every good: spiritual and physical! But sin is evil for me, both spiritual and physical: I am sick both in soul and body, when I am a sinner and do not cleanse my sins in prayer with whole-hearted repentance: my heart is heavy, like a mountain; I have no peace of heart, day or night! And my sleep is interrupted by the tightness and sorrow of my heart! The Lord God is so true and holy that He demands from us holiness and truth similar to Him. For example, during prayer, He clearly always demands from us internally that our thoughts and hearts certainly turn within the limits that the words or content, the essence of prayers, assume, so that every word is as if from our essence, as if it were our own, and that our thoughts and hearts do not in any way deviate during prayer to extraneous objects, even if they are not reprehensible and even holy - that is, He wants us to be completely sincere, simple, true. We always experience this internally! So - so so, and not so - you are a lie, and I do not favor you. Dislike, enmity or hatred should not be known among Christians even by name. How can there be dislike between Christians? Everywhere you see love, everywhere you smell the fragrance of love. Our God is a God of love; His kingdom is the kingdom of love; out of love for us, He did not spare His Only Begotten Son for us and gave Him up to death for us. And you express love everywhere: at home - to your family (they are sealed in Baptism and Confirmation with the cross of love and wear the cross, eat the supper of love with you in church). In the church there are symbols of love everywhere (crosses, the sign of the cross, saints who have pleased the love of God and neighbors) and the Most Embodied Love. In heaven and on earth, love is everywhere. She is limitless, just as God is limitless. She calms and delights the heart, like God, while enmity kills soul and body. Will you still not love when everywhere you hear preaching about love, when only the murderer the devil is not love, but eternal enmity? Satan! With your lies you serve only the truth of the Lord! How? - You know it yourself. Despite the fact that you so disgusted me with your gloom, lies and malice that if I were allowed to perish with you forever in the abyss of eternal fire, I would rejoice at this too - that is, that your malice would suffer a worthy punishment in me. So great is your malice! When, during communion, the enemy darkens your mind and heart with unbelief in the Holy Mysteries, then look at the sun and say to yourself: if the material sun always shines, then the spiritual Sun - Christ my God - all the more constantly shines in His truth and righteousness. When others eat your food, remember then that the Lord sent down His Only Begotten Son for us to eat; what will you spare for others for the sake of this Life-giving Food? Pray to God like this when you find the passion of stinginess: God, our God! Heavenly Bread - the food for the whole world of our Lord and God Jesus Christ, Savior and Deliverer and Benefactor, blessing and sanctifying us - Bless and strengthen me not to spare any flesh of Your people, redeemed and drunk with Your Blood, so that with my generosity I will glorify Your unspeakable generosity to us, Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. When you have conversations about prayer, explain the morning and evening prayers and prayers for communion. Heartfelt faith is necessary for a person because the light of our mind is very limited, it does not contain much intelligent light; and the Lord God is the Boundless Light, and the world is the abyss of His omnipotence and wisdom, while in us there is only an insignificant, so to speak, drop of His power and wisdom, because they could contain so much, and not more, in their mortal mind. Remember this. To the atheist - for gradualness in the knowledge of God. The earth is hard and inert, although it moves around the sun very quickly; water is liquid and fast, and therefore they say: fast flow; the air is even thinner and faster, and therefore it moves, for example, in the winds very quickly; Finally, the light is even thinner and faster, and in one second it passes through an incredible amount of space. If the light is so subtle and passes through a huge space in the most insignificant fraction of time, then what must the created spirit be like and how light and fast should it be; finally, what should the Uncreated Spirit be like - the Lord Himself, how immeasurable He is? If light per second spreads with such terrifying speed, then how quickly does the Uncreated Light, the Source of all light and everything created, spread in created, intelligent spirits? Finally, how does the Light, which created everything, embrace all His creations, all the abysses of the worlds? Glory to Thee, Immaterial, Uncreated Light, enlightening every person who comes into the world [John. 1.9]. If you really want everyone to say only good things about you, then you are ambitious. If you demand gratitude from others for your mercy, then you are proud. If you do not tolerate guests, then you are stingy. If you seek greetings from others, then you are proud. Greet first of all yourself, without waiting for others to do it before you. Don’t dwell for a minute on a black thought and don’t warm it up in your heart, otherwise it will multiply, and your whole light will darken, and you won’t see the outcome. The All-Holy Spirit constantly revives my soul and strengthens its strength. I feel this very clearly after the extinguishing of passions and after the defeat of heartfelt unbelief that weakens the soul. Glory to Thee, thanksgiving to Thee, All-Holy Soul, Hypostatic Power of the Most High! Strengthen me with the sovereign spirit [Ps. 50.14]. When my heart doubts that the Spirit of God is the Hypostatic Power of God, strengthening me in faith, hope and love, my heart immediately weakens, and this is tangible proof that the Spirit of God is my strength: through Him I firmly believe in Jesus Christ, for no one can call Jesus Lord except by the Holy Spirit [1 Cor. 12.3]. Glory to You, Savior, Almighty Power; glory to You, Savior, Omnipresent Power! Glory to Thee, Most Gracious Womb! Glory to Thee, Hearing, ever opening to hear the prayers of me, the accursed one, to have mercy on me and save me from my sins! Glory to Thee, Brightest Eyes, looking at me with kindness and perceiving all my secrets! Glory to Thee, glory to Thee, glory to Thee, Sweetest Jesus, my Savior! If the Lord so quickly and clearly hears me not in the church, when I cry out to Him with my heart, then how soon will He hear me in the church, when I pray with my heart? April 16, Saturday evening on the way to the Assumption Church. [K...] kindly: I must love him. Grant, Lord! Jesus Christ conquered anger - conquer too. Just as the Holy Spirit descends invisibly but perceptibly into the soul, so He also descends invisibly, but really and significantly, on the Holy Mysteries. Our names mean limitation, weakness, dependence on God - Ivan, Nikolai, Alexander, Alexandra, Theodore, Theodora. They also mean that we are fleeting creatures. Therefore, there is only one God who bears the name – the One, that is, the Existing One 81. Great name! Wonderful name! A name eternally revered by all intelligent creatures! Everything is from Being and everything is to Being. In whom do demons live? In people of a swinish disposition, greedy for food and drink and living uncleanly. What will happen to such people? Look: they will drown in the abyss of eternal fire (in the lake of fire), like the pigs mentioned in the Gospel, into which demons entered, rushed into the sea and drowned. This is where demons drive all the people in whom they live - into the abyss of eternal fire. The Lord clearly presented this truth to us in the Gospel. Christians! Be afraid! Explain the name: namesake (position, ???? 82, naming); Why are names given to people? The name actually belongs to the creature, it is given: a) to distinguish it from others; b) sometimes taken from the circumstances of his birth and life: Moses 83, Samuel 84, and to express the properties of a person; since the naming depends on human arbitrariness, the name often does not correspond to the properties and life of the person, and c) to always remind the Christian man that he is destined to be a member of the Heavenly Kingdom, why all his life he should have the goal of striving with all the strength of his soul for eternal blissful life. Remember the One who laid down His soul for us and, in imitation of Him, not only do not spare any of your things for others, if they are useful, but also yourself. You spared water for your sister-in-law to bathe, and for this the devil punished you. Let's not let this happen. Lord, help me! As a wanderer and stranger, be satisfied with everything; and for this, put aside self-love and pride, of which you have a lot, and be meek and kind. Lord, help me! The namesake - the position, the naming of a name - reminds us of our insignificance. Before conception and birth we were nothing; Having been born, we had no name except the name that God assigned to us at birth, that is, the name is man: man was born into the world [John. 16.21 ], they talk about a newborn - and nothing more; then the servant of God, after prayers over the wife who gave birth, signifying the newborn with a cross, gives him a name, borrowing it from the name of some saint glorified by God, which is called a namesake 85, and thus he, like a creature, begins to exist with a certain name, which distinguishes him from many of his own kind. My mother’s extraordinary simplicity is my field for humility. Honor your father and mother not only externally, but also internally - in your thoughts and heart; Do not have a single thought that is disrespectful or does not breathe love. When we are youths, then our humility is expressed in pleasant surprise and in high respect for persons superior to us; In adults, this pleasant feeling of surprise at those superior to us is either absent or rare; we equate ourselves with everyone, and this happens in us from pride, initially instilled in us by the devil, who equalized the desire he gave us to the Creator, like to take a captive 86. Canon to Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker. Naming. Every creature in the world has a name; Every thing made by a person, when it is ready, receives a name, and not one, but several, depending on how it is considered: whether it is by its form or by its purpose. So a person, when he is fully formed, receives names: firstly, man, secondly, Christian, names assigned [from birth...]. (The first name is man. But this name is common to him with all people.) By name they usually judge the properties and purpose of an object or where its permanent place should be. When we were born, first of all they call us by the name of a person - a person was born into the world [John. 16.21 ]; this name in Greek means such a living being that faces upward, that is, a person, a rationally free being, or a being who philosophizes on high, as the apostle says. Then the servant of God, having marked the newborn with a cross on his forehead, lips and forearms, thereby prepares him to accept the name of a Christian; then he gives him a Christian name from among the saints glorified by God in heaven, and through baptism he finally acquires the name of Christian. By the name that a Christian person bears, one should usually conclude that his permanent place should not be here on earth, but in heaven, because Christ, the Head of our faith and the Head of us, is in heaven, and He directly said: where I am, you too will be [John. 17.24 ]; and the apostle commands us: seek the things above, where Christ is [Col. 3.1 ]; or says that our citizenship is in heaven [Phil. 3.20]. Based on the private name we receive, we should also conclude that our permanent place is not here, but in heaven - where the glorified saint or saint is, whose name is called upon us. How instructive and edifying Christian names are. This means that the name Christian and the name of a saint, which we receive at birth and baptism, oblige us to imitate Christ first of all: whoever serves Me, let him follow Me [John. 12:26 ], or at least to a saint - and think about the life above. Otherwise, our names will not have a reasonable basis or Christian meaning: the name must certainly be justified by deeds and life. When praying, you need to have three strong convictions: a) that God exists, b) that He is all-good, and c) that His ear and heart are always open to listening to us. The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears are upon their prayer [Ps. 33.16]. He who comes [to God] must believe that He exists and is a rewarder of those who seek Him [Heb. 11.6]. Your spiritual affairs are bad. We need to fix them. You are angry, you dishonor communities of people. You want to be sinless and are tormented for small sins that come from the devil. Humble yourself: you will always be a sinner while you are in the body. Always have faith and trust in God, and be patient with what comes your way. Don’t pay attention to the devil’s unbelief. Often the ax lies at the root of the tree itself [Matt. 3.10; OK. 3:9], that is, at my heart, and is ready to flog me: often I feel death in my very heart - in the very source of my life, and this with every sin. The wages of sin is death [Rom. 6.23] first in the heart, and then in the body. Why is it cramped for a sinner? Because space belongs to God, and not to sin (not to the devil), and sin sacrilegiously invades the realm of God (into the being of man), which is why it is cramped; and until then it oppresses our soul until it is cleansed by sincere repentance. Tribulation and distress to every soul of a person who does evil... glory and honor and peace to everyone who does good [Rom. 2.9–10]. Every good thing has internal spaciousness, although outwardly it is crowded by people or the prince of this age [1 Cor. 2.6]. When you read prayers during the performance of the Sacraments, do not worry about performing the actions that you speak about in prayers - leave everything to the Almighty. Unworthily often I opened my lips to pray and cast down the saint with a dog [Matt. 7.6] (Holy Mysteries, Life-Giving Cross, holy water, prosphyra). In honor and glory of the Lord's Trinity, let the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit be named on everything, through the sprinkling of consecrated water or through the sign of the Honest and Life-giving Cross. The power of the Life-giving Cross abandoned me because I condemned an entire assembly of believers, or the Body of Christ, in unbelief, while being an unbeliever myself. Those who have sinned against the Lord. I repent with all my heart! If I cannot drive away the devil, it means that he has a foundation in me, food for his presence, that is, either pride or some other passion. Jesus Christ is every good thing for me; the devil is all evil. Experience. The Lord, as a skilled Physician, uses internal cauterizations of sin through the devil. Be patient. The Lord enters the soul with peace (peace be upon you [Luke 24:36]); the devil - severe, soul-killing confusion. Until you stop fighting against passions, and therefore against the devil, until then the devil will not stop fighting against you, and the harder you fight against them, the more fiery and numerous arrows he will throw at your heart. Let everything serve Life-giving Love; may love reign. Each of the Persons of the Most Holy Divine Trinity spoke in people His common power: the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Do not be discouraged while fighting the incorporeal enemy, but glorify the Lord in the very sorrow and crampedness, who has bestowed upon us such a high honor, that is, to endure the struggle with the insidious serpent for His sake and to be wounded for Him at every hour. For if you had not begun to live piously and strive to unite with God, then the enemy would not have attacked you and would not have tormented you. Understand the wiles of the evil one: he knows where the strength is against him, and therefore he rejects him with unbelief by all means. This means that it is all the more necessary to strengthen the heart in faith. Nalyatsai 87 . What cunning in the attacks of the prince of darkness! I understand you! Glory to the mercy of the Lord and the power of the Life-giving Cross. Morning of April 23rd. Councils of saints, martyrs, saints and all saints! - gather together to expose me, an unfaithful, dark, passionate person, and illuminate me with your light. We do not envy you, radiant sun. Your and our Master promises to enlighten us just as you shine: the righteous... like the sun [Matt. 13.43]. But in what an unapproachable light does the Uncreated Light, our God, live, when your light is so unapproachable; with what light do the angelic ranks shine, turning around the mental Sun - God, about God the Angels always turn? By what light are all the saints? Further, if our sun is so bright and, so to speak, sees the entire universe, then how bright are the eyes of the Lord and how freely do they see the entire universe and see in all secret places, into all human hearts and thoughts? I often endure violence from the devil in my mind and in my heart and in my whole being: there is often the darkness of the devil in me, there is a burning unbelief in me - not mine, but the devil’s. Not mine, because I want, I am strengthening to believe; because I know from experience that faith is my life, my peace. There is anger and devilish hatred in me - not mine, because I want to love and I know from experience that love is life-giving for me and that if I sometimes hate someone, it is always because of something empty, material or even sinful. The devil sometimes also pours out in me the fire of love of money, envy, irritability and pride, which are incredibly sensitive to every trifle, and then I am unfree, bound, not my own, but someone else’s, that is, subordinate to alien dominion - the iron, fiery dominion of the spirit of malice. Holy Angele! Do not give room to the evil demon to possess me with the violence of this mortal body! I don’t justify myself: I, too, am guilty of passions. I am not always quite attentive to myself and take the flattery of sin for something true. God! Grant me to despise all food of the flesh and with all my soul to always desire the one incorruptible, soul-sweet food of Your most pure Body and Blood, to always honor that alone for myself with all and to love that alone. How bad it is to sin: you can’t even sleep at night. But I sinned through stinginess and lack of love! What is this? The Lord did not spare His glory, His Body and Blood, but what do I regret? But I don’t want to love a brother who doesn’t hate me, doesn’t beat me, doesn’t dishonor me? What is this? Lord, help my heart to strengthen itself in non-covetousness and love! A stingy person is like a eating man whose mouth is full and who, however, still greedily snatches a piece from his brother’s mouth and puts it in his own mouth! How disgusting he is! And that's all - poison 88! O Adam, I am dying to fall into corruption! Until now, through your poison, the enemy cruelly abuses us! God's demand for perfection in prayer and life and the rejection of what was imperfect in them. You are also very proud because you are very irritable. Whomever the devil robs in prayer, he robs in life, and an insincere pilgrim often falls into grave sins, while a sincere one avoids them. The devil wants to fill a ship loaded with goods with hatred and stinginess. Saul, Saul! Why are you persecuting Me? [Acts. 9.4]. The Sweetest Jesus addressed this voice, O hater, to you: you are persecuting Jesus Christ in your brother. Beware. Do you hate the enemy? You're stupid. Why? Because when the enemy persecutes you, you are also internally persecuting yourself. For tell me: is it not persecution, is it not the most cruel persecution to torment oneself with hatred of the enemy? Love your enemy and you will be wise. ABOUT! If you only knew what a triumph, what a bliss it is to love an enemy and do good to him! So the Son of God, so God in the Holy Trinity triumphed and triumphs with His love over the ungrateful and evil human race; Thus the saints of God triumphed over their enemies, loving them and doing good to them. Christ died for us while we were still sinners [Rom. 5.8]. For if, being enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled to God, we will be saved from wrath by Him [Rom. 5.10]. Lend without expecting anything [Lk. 6.35]. So you give food to your brethren, your guests, without expecting anything from them, without expecting mutual treats from them. Obviously, the Lord disposes us with these words to brotherly love and wants to provide us, in His great compassion, with opportunities to receive heavenly rewards. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to get it back, what gratitude are you for that? [ OK. 6.34]. Don't the pagans do the same? [Matt. 5.47]. When any passion comes to your heart, remember then the words of the Apostle: they who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with passions and lusts [Gal. 5:24], and having depicted the sign of the cross on your belly with faith, pronounce, also with living faith, the indicated words - and passion will be reflected. Crucifying the flesh with its passions and lusts is not an easy task, but a difficult and regrettable one. It was not in vain that it was said - crucified [Gal. 5.24]. Just as crucifixion on the cross is associated with great mental and physical torment, so is the crucifixion of the flesh with its passions, which are deeply rooted in a person’s being and constitute, so to speak, his being. When we pray, in order to maintain the warmth of reverence and gratitude before God in our hearts, we must have in our hearts the thought: In Him we live and move and have our being [Acts. 17.28]. My soul! Remember your heavenly dignity and do not be indignant over things that are perishable and insignificant. Respect their heavenly dignity in other people and do not dare to insult or hate them because of something perishable. Love the spiritual and heavenly with all your might and despise the material and earthly. Remember the words of your Savior: give us this day our daily bread [Matt. 6.11], – only for the day [Russian: for this day]. Great Christian wisdom is hidden in them. Remember also how the Lord Himself showed in His life an example of carelessness about food and was content only with voluntary offerings, saying: My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work [Jn. 4.34]. God! Grant me the pleasure of always leaving my debts to my debtors, just as I often need You to forgive my debts. God! I always want to forgive when only me, my pride, is insulted. Adorned with Divine graces, Lady, have mercy on me. Full of goodness, mercy, meekness, humility, Sun of light and purity, do not leave me! Imagining or seeing the multitude of earthly blessings given from the Lord to people, imagine what an infinite variety and fullness of spiritual blessings are prepared for the chosen people in the next century. Judge the future by the present, because the present is the guarantee of the future. Glory to Your goodness and bounty, Lord! I lift up my eyes to the mountains, from where my help will come [Ps. 120.1 ] - words that are constantly justified in reality. The Lord is faithful to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him in truth [Ps. 144.18]. If you do not count money on an equal basis with earth and ashes, you will often feel internally ill from spending it immoderately and unreasonably and torment yourself. He who collects wealth with an addiction to wealth is like a man burying himself alive and then, when he is already buried up to his neck in the ground, saying: give me more and more earth, so that I can bury myself completely, so that I cannot see the light of God at all. Sing often: I will rejoice and rejoice in You and sing to Your name, O Most High. Do not owe anyone anything except mutual love [Rom. 13.8]. Every person, especially a Christian, needs to remember that God is a spiritual, moral King and Lawgiver, from Whom all earthly legislation, all moral rules receive their origin, power and meaning, and, remembering this, verify their life, their thoughts, desires, intentions, words, actions with the highest will of the Supreme Lawgiver; and since we, through the depravity of our nature and through our carelessness, often sin against Him, then in a contrite spirit and a humble heart we must constantly recognize ourselves as guilty before Him and often say: Lord, have mercy! – in prayers we especially need to remember this. I am sinful before the Lord in that I spent most of my life in passions and laziness. It's time for me to repent and continue my repentance throughout my life. Accept every person as Christ or a brother of Christ, as you should. He is not ashamed to call them brethren [Heb. 2.11]. Learn to appreciate human love in order to learn to appreciate God's love. The little one starts small. You have been faithful over a few things; I will put you over many things [Matt. 25,21]. When others slander you, or turn away from you, or are cold in their treatment of you, say: I deserve it, and try to correct yourself in that for which, in your opinion, others are cold towards you. A brotherly heart is not a stone: it naturally strives for its brothers and sisters, and who can hinder this desire? Konstantin never insulted me in any way at the age of four. This speaks volumes in favor of his kindness. Here is another proof of the existence of God. When in prayer I do not pray truly, with all my heart, but falsely, feignedly, then I inevitably lose peace of mind and heartfelt life: I become weak and, as it were, die in spirit for all good. And when I pray unfeignedly, with all my heart, then the necessary consequence of such prayer is peace of heart and striving for all good. When you receive healing from any illness, give thanks to the Lord with the following short doxology: Glory to Thee, Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of the Beginning Father, Alone healing every disease and every weakness among people [Matt. 4:23 ], because you had mercy on me, a sinner, and delivered me from my illness, without allowing it to develop and kill me because of my sins. Grant me from now on, Master, the strength to firmly do Your will for the salvation of my damned soul and for Your glory, with Your Originless Father and Your Consubstantial Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen. What is a pure heart? - meek, humble, unkind, simple, trusting, undeceitful, unsuspicious, kindly, kind, unselfish, unenvious, non-adulterous. What is a priest? – personified faith, hope and love. What do insults and insults to others mean to us? - bite of an insignificant insect. It is not our neighbors who offend us, but we ourselves who offend and torment ourselves with our evil disposition. All insults can be endured with joy, especially if we are unjustly offended, for then the Lord’s saying about bliss applies to us: blessed are you when they revile you... rejoice and be glad [Matt. 5,11 – 12]. And if it is fair, then one should rejoice at this as an opportunity to correct oneself, and accept the insults of others in this case as a blessing and as a worthy reward for oneself. The bush burns with fire, but the bush does not burn [Russian: the thorn bush burns with fire, but the bush does not burn] [Ex. 3.2]. Who is this bush? You. You often burn with the inner fire of the devil, but you do not burn and will not be burned if you are strengthened by faith and hope. Do not grieve when you lose money or any other thing, but grieve when you somehow lose faith or love. A person's life does not depend on the abundance of his possessions [Lk. 12.15]. The passions and sufferings of this present time for glory (in comparison with the glory) that wants to appear in us are unworthy (infinitesimal) [Rom. 8.18]. What a varied meaning the sign of the cross we use has! It, first of all, reminds us that the Only Begotten Son of God laid down His soul for us on the Cross in order to redeem us from sin and eternal death, and reminds each of us of the obligation to lay down our souls for our brothers: He laid down His life for us: and we must lay down our lives for our brothers [1 John. 13.16], - which means it reminds us of God’s endless love for us and our duty of love for God and among ourselves; secondly, it reminds us of the insignificance of everything temporary, perishable and of the greatness of the blessings prepared for us in heaven through the love of Him crucified for us: I go to prepare a place for you [John. 14.2 ]; thirdly, about the unity of all Christians as one body of Christ, redeemed by the Cross, and joint heirs of the Heavenly Kingdom; fourthly, about the unceasing, gracious omnipresence of the Lord crucified for us and about the almighty power, constantly testified by the invincible, incomprehensible Divine power of the Honest and Life-giving Cross of the Lord; and, fifthly, about the undoubted fulfillment of all the promises of the Redeemer contained in the Gospel and relating to believers and unbelievers and to the earth we inhabit: Constantly Faithful and Almighty now, will be the same in endless ages. Do not lose heart or give in to despondency because of any disturbances or sorrows noticed within, for the very reason that decline or despondency of spirit is a new disorder, and to lose heart in misfortune means to intensify misfortune by one’s own will! If guests often come to you, but you do not go to them for some plausible reason to treat each other - rejoice in this: because if you do not receive reward from them, you will be rewarded from the Heavenly Father at the second coming of His Son; therefore, accept them with joy as your benefactors. The Lord Jesus Christ was so cold among the people that there were constantly many coming to Him and going away... and they had no time to eat [Mk. 6.31]. If you, too, have guests who are constantly cold, be patient with them and talk with them, but more about spiritual things. Every day, many times, let everyone remember that he lives in the Kingdom of God, the omnipresent, all-good, all-powerful, Who sees everyone every moment and does not for a moment abandon with His Providence not only man, but also the last bird, the last grass. In her simplicity, my mother is fifty times better than me and more worthy before God. Looking at your mother, marvel at God’s goodness and omnipotence, through which God gave you existence, from what simplicity and ignorance, ignobility you came from - and humble yourself, deeply humble yourself before the Creator, and deeply honor your mother as an instrument of God’s goodness and as your love, as your benefactor. When you pray for the forgiveness of your sins, always strengthen your faith and trust in the mercy of God, which is always ready to forgive our sins - that God will forgive them through sincere prayer, and be in every possible way lest despair set in your heart, expressed by a heavy despondency of the heart and forced tears. That your sins are against God’s mercy, whatever they may be, as long as you sincerely repent of them! And it often happens that a person prays and does not internally hope from his heart that his sins will be forgiven, considering them, as it were, above God’s mercy. For this he really does not receive forgiveness, although he sheds springs of involuntary tears, and with a sorrowful, constricted heart he departs from the generous God. That's what he deserves. Believe as you receive, says the Lord, and it will be done for you [Mk. 11.24]. Failure to trust in God is blasphemy against God. Pure prayer, with a burning spirit, is achieved, like all great things, through labor (enduring it with thanksgiving and great patience, as sorrow makes patience, and patience is an art [Rom. 5:3-4]). In all man-made churches there is light, and that light comes from the sun, not from the church. In all the churches of bodies not made by hands there is an intelligent light - the soul, and that light is not from it, but from the intelligent Sun - God, who we see in the world as the soul does in the body. I notice how the mental Sun, God, rises and shines in my soul, for then I feel light and warm and light; and how he is removed from her and leaves her in darkness and suffering. Just as in material nature the cause of darkness is the removal or concealment of the sun, so in spiritual nature darkness comes from the removal of the mental Sun from our soul and from covering it with the darkness of the accursed. Just as in material nature there is always some remnant of light even after the setting of the sun, due to its incomparable magnitude, so in the soul there remains some remnant of light after the removal of the spiritual Sun, due to His omnipresence and due to the comparative powerlessness of the prince of darkness, who, without God’s permission, cannot completely darken the soul. But we must also be careful, lest, as the Savior said, darkness overtake us [Jn. 1.5 ] absolutely. Let me add one more experience to the previous experiences: there is no life without the Body and Blood of Christ. If you do not...drink His Blood, you will not have life in you [Jn. 6.53]. Lord, have mercy! May 7, 1860. Teaching for the Sunday about the Samaritan from the text: how do you, being a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink? For the Jews do not communicate with the Samaritans [John. 4.9]. The Lord greatly desires our salvation. Historical application: The Jew is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Samaritan wife is us; The Lord Jesus Christ sits daily and hourly on the source of our sinful, deep heart and, weary from looking at our lawless ways for a long time, or having walked for a long time in the spiritual desert (the voice of one crying in the wilderness [John 1:23]: the desert is empty of good works and faith of humanity), thirsts for our spiritual salvation, wanting to enter our withered hearts and water them with the waters of the grace of the Holy Spirit (from the womb rivers of living water will flow [John 7:38]) and, as it were, to drink from their own drink. Our salvation is drinking from Him. You marvel at how He, the Almighty and All-righteous God, so strongly desires to save us - insignificant and sinful creatures, whom He could have disappeared from the face of the earth in an instant, and as if you were saying to the Samaritan woman: how are you, being a Jew... Find out the secret of this thirst for the Lord - this is ineffable love. (Here is an incomplete parable about the well of water and the Samaritan woman.) What does the Lord answer her? Listen: if you knew... living water 89 [Jn. 4:10], that is, the water of faith in Christ, the water of the grace of the Holy Spirit, giving drink into eternal life. Lesson for the Sunday about the blind man. Are we blind too? [In. 9.40]. About spiritual blindness and the fact that, being all blind, we do not feel it, but say that we see. Why does the devil triumph over us? Because for the most part we succumb to him at the first attacks on our soul, we do not defeat him; and then he takes his power over us. The All-Holy and All-Righteous Lord demands the fulfillment of His laws to the utmost precision; You violate one mental moment in His law - and you are already sinful, unclean, unworthy in His eyes. So He is All-Holy! So that there is no inclination towards sin in your thoughts. The path is narrow and straitened for the pious because the prince of this world [Jn. 12:31] - the devil, presses them in his area (the world is his area), as if they are not of the world 90, and he takes excessive taxes from them for every sinful movement, while he takes less from the sons of this age. Do you want to be constantly healthy and calm? Cry or suffer for your sins, which you commit every day, and believe me, you will always be healthy and at peace. Honor your mother in the simplicity of your heart, rejecting from your heart all the devil’s charms. How pleased it is for my Lord to see humble, simple-hearted respect for the mother who is His vicegerent on earth. Yes, she is my life, the beginning of my life. I will write a letter of gratitude to my Most Holy Lady, Queen Theotokos, for deliverance from spiritual sorrow and distress. I called with all my heart - and was pardoned by Her, and suddenly my sorrow passed and the space of my heart returned. Death will involuntarily separate you from all your acquisitions; So that this separation is not painful and does not bind the freedom of your soul before death, begin voluntarily to despise it during your lifetime and use it to acquire human friendship. Just as the sun tends to drive away darkness, so Christ has the darkness of passions and demons. I know Whom I ask not to start believing in me again. - To the enemy demon. Do you hear? So that the word “I don’t love” is never heard from your lips. Until you live for Christ and Christians, do not think of resting your heart. Only He has rest for the weary and heavy-laden: Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest [Matt. 11.28]. Prayer is continuous faith, continuous hope to receive what you ask for, and continuous love and gratitude to God. Whatever person you meet, read the words, as if clearly written on his very forehead: love and honor. Who is the main person in sacred history? – God, who created the world and man, and the Redeemer of fallen man, the Son of God Jesus Christ. This is why the history of the Jewish people, from whom the Savior (Abraham and so on) came, is told. What happens to your body, the feelings of which you attach so much importance to, after your soul leaves it? It smolders, stinks, turns into nothing, that is, into earth, into sand. What happens to your vision, to your hearing - to these giants between the senses of your body, on which you rely so much in your knowledge of the objects of the material world? They often become nothing after the soul leaves the body, like any earth. What is our soul? This is the life-giving spirit for the body, it is in some way the creator or artist of the body, just as the Life-giving Spirit of Almighty God is the Creator and Artist of everything. How can I not always be in my spirit above my corruptible feelings and reject their testimony as false when it goes against the words of the Almighty, Life-Giving God? If from the mysterious types of bread and wine on the holy altar my spirit is enlivened, rested, and always rejoices when I partake of them with sincere faith, doesn’t this mean that these types are only one kind and that the spirit and life of God the Savior are hidden in them? On the other hand, if I always suffer from lack of faith or disbelief in the Mysteries, then this is precisely because the devil’s deceit and lies, meeting with the Lord’s simple truth, cannot in any way unite with themselves: what kind of agreement does Christ have with Belial, light to darkness? [ 2 Cor. 6.15]. The lies of the devil, nesting in my heart, torment me, not allowing Christ into it. Where Christ is, there is the Spirit; where the Cross and, therefore, Christ, there is also the Spirit of God. Today I am completely calm. There is lightness in my right side (not physically, but spiritually), which means that my peace—Christ—dwells in my heart. Yes, dwell, Lord Jesus! May 10, 1860 God is visible in the world as a soul in a body. The sun illuminates and enlivens nature, and our righteous Sun - Christ - always illuminates our soul darkened by sins, sanctifies and enlivens it, if only by lack of faith we do not offend Him and repent of sins of thought, word and deed. In all churches built by people there is light, and this light comes from the sun, not from the church; in all the churches of human bodies there is the mental light of their souls, and that light is not from them, but from the spiritual Sun - God; God is the same for people and intelligent beings in general as the sun is for the earth and other planets. I notice with my inner eyes how the mental Sun - God - rises and shines in my soul and how it moves away from it and leaves it in darkness and suffering. So He is manifest! In complete simplicity, with complete impartiality to earthly things, invite to your meal those whom you decide to invite. Help, Lord Jesus! You serve the Lord Christ Jesus [Col. 3:24], said the apostle in his letter to the slaves. If to anyone, then especially to priests, these words apply. How must a priest perform all the services and requirements! If confusion, crampedness and the hellish weight of unbelief or any passion take possession of your heart and bind you internally, do not be faint-hearted in this case, but attribute it to smoke and a devilish dream, that is, completely neglect it, raising your heart’s eyes to the Lord. All passions revolve around the material, corruptible, vain, transitory, and therefore they are obviously the delusion of the devil, alien to all truth. Do not pay any attention to them, that is, do not sympathize, and you will not receive sinful harm from them. Blessed are the meek [Matt. 5.5]. Learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart [Matt. 11.29]. Learn throughout your life and every day the meekness and humility of your Lord, and every hour mentally enter your heart and test whether there is meekness and humility in it. Meekness and humility are sweet to the heart and life-giving to it. Do you feel their sweetness every day? Meekness is the quietness of soul that the apostle speaks of: you were quiet among you, just as a nurse treats her children tenderly [1 Thess. 2.7 ]; in this spiritual disposition, a person does not irritate anyone and is not irritated by anything, because he deeply respects the dignity of man in everyone and especially the dignity of a Christian; humility is the constant consciousness of one’s insignificance and one’s duty and the attempt to never be above one’s rank and position, never, as they say, to step out of one’s rut; also a zealous effort to be faithful to one's rank and duty. If we pray with all our hearts, that is, we say every word from the soul, truly, then not a single word will be in vain for us: the Most Humane Master listens with favor to every word and, whatever we ask, will certainly grant, especially the benefits of the spiritual Kingdom, since He is the spiritual King, the King of righteousness and peace. There is nothing I can do to please my Savior so much as love for my brother. I will, with the help of my Savior Himself, love my brother as myself. This I command you, that you love one another [Jn. 15,17]. By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another [Jn. 13.35]. In every brother the image of my God shines; in every brother of mine there is Christ Himself with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who dwells in you, which you have from God?.. [1 Cor. 6.19]. Just as animals, having received an illness or taken poison, immediately, by instinct, seek healing in known plants or in something else, so a Christian, wounded by an invisible serpent, as if by some instinct, should immediately seek healing in the Savior with a heartfelt aspiration to Him. The Lord Jesus Christ is the air for my soul - without Him my soul can no more live than a body without air. The presence of the Spirit of God in rational creatures is so obvious and tangible that the pious hear His voice, but they do not know where He comes from and where He goes. Not a single day, my Savior Jesus, have I gone without Your all-powerful help, which I deliberately asked for. Lord Jesus Christ! Grant me to constantly remember that without You I feel extremely bad, but with You there is always good, always. Dig and deepen [Lk. 6:48], says the Lord, that is, your faith (or your prayer, your love). Have you dug and deepened your faith, hope and love? Look: the enemy, by God's permission, often comes to test whether your faith, hope and love are deepened in your heart; if not, then you are in danger: the enemy will mock you cruelly. The winds will blow, these nasty spirits, spiritual rivers will come and lean on your soul - and the weak house of your superficial faith, hope and love will fall. You are a spiritual person: do not judge according to the flesh. Always remember that a person’s heart is his essence; and everything else: his appearance, his word, his address - appearance. In man, whatever he may be, there is almost the image of God. You and your mother are one; you are her fruit, coming from her. And in you, in your soul and in your body, much remains that you received from her. Love her with a pure heart, diligently. Always be inferior to her in thoughts, words and actions. Look, your mother is a lonely person here - provide her with all possible affection and services: make it as unnoticeable as possible for her to be separated from her family and her homeland. Love... thinks no evil [1 Cor. 13.4–5]. You are proud: in disputes you always want to gain the upper hand; and angry: you get angry at everything, you get irritated by everything. When entering your home, say: rest my spirit, Lord, in the place of Your blessing to me, and may all passions flee far from my shelter. Amen. Who does not value human love, how will he value God’s love? Who does not believe in human love, how can he believe in God’s love? When you partake of the Holy Mysteries, remember what happens to you when you take communion with full faith: undisturbed calm all day long; and what happens when you don’t defeat the doubt that creeps in and breaks into your heart: then you suffer all day long and, if you don’t pay off your sin or repent of it, another and a third; a compelling desire for all passions arises in your heart, troubles will surround you on all sides. May 16th day, 1860. The best way to receive communion worthily of the Holy Mysteries is to put aside and mortify all malice of the heart and put aside all worldly cares and preserve a burning spirit. What does the Lord God stand for, punishing every sin, every sinful movement in us? For His immutability, for His constancy in truth and holiness. After all, our soul is the image of God; How can the Lord tolerate the rust of sin on His image? Glory to God's immutability, glory to His love! Having sinned and suffering punishment within, regret not that you are suffering, but that you have angered your loving Master. Death, which reigns inside after sin, clearly says that you have left the Source of living water, and through your carelessness and malice have severed your connection with Him. Abundant saturation of the belly makes the heart weak for faith and makes it white. The qualities of prayer: freedom, reasonableness (of every word), truth or sincerity, tranquility (peace) - that is why the priest often reminds of peace with the words: peace to all. I will put My laws in their minds, and write them on their hearts [Heb. 8,10]. Grant, Lord, write them with Your sovereign right hand. Why did Saul shine with a light greater than the sun? Because the light that shone on Saul was uncreated - the cause of the created light. Glory to You, Savior, my endless salvation, my truest and most ready salvation - if only my heart was ready for You. From what fierce oppression and sorrow, which changed my face to the extreme and deprived me of the opportunity to communicate and speak with people, which is why I could hardly restrain myself from tears - You saved me through my prayer! Glory to Thee, my Savior, save me forever from the most cruel enemy. And let me intensify my strong cry to the Lord precisely when the inner dark force turns me away from it, which wants me to always suffer and not find salvation, which especially wants to shame me as a priest before the people. Oh, narrow path! O fierce day mentioned by the apostle! Having done this, I fulfilled the prophecy of the Lord: call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will glorify Me [Ps. 49.15]. O greatness of my Lord! Listen to the voice of all the holy prayer books, what does it express? – Grief from the attack of passions, from the devil’s excuses. Some talk about their apathy towards life, even from decent people. Who produces this apathy? - Devil. Life is a precious gift of God. Servants of God should highly value it and cherish it. The murderer the devil always shows himself in a manner worthy of himself: either he instills a burning passion for earthly goods, or an aversion to life. You have clothed yourself with confession and greatness [Russian: You are clothed with glory and majesty] [Ps. 103.1]. Marvelous words! They wonderfully depict the majesty of God. Glory and majesty are before Him [Ps. 95.6]. Whatever the grace of the Holy Spirit touches, everything is sanctified (things) and preserved (animals) by holy water. So that people always have before their eyes proof that the Lord is the Creator of everything, the plant kingdom in the eyes of everyone every spring arises, according to His delusion, from insignificance, just like people and animals. So that people are firmly convinced that God alone is the Giver of Life, He gives us over to spiritual death and then, through our prayer to Him, revives us. He constantly reveals His power in creatures. Forced, prolonged prayer develops hypocrisy, makes one incapable of any activity that requires reflection, and makes a person lethargic in everything, even in fulfilling his duties. This should convince everyone praying in this way to correct their prayer. One must pray willingly, with energy, not for too long, from the heart. Do not pray to God out of sorrow, not out of need (forcibly) - God loves a cheerful giver [2 Cor. 9.7]. I am truly, in fact, always a slave, and Jesus Christ is truly, in fact, my Lord. I sin before Him willingly and unwillingly, I always repent before Him - and I always receive from Him merciful forgiveness and humble boldness before Him. All humanity is before the face of God as one man - from one blood He produced the entire human race [Acts. 17.26 ]; Everyone has the same spiritual needs. That is why it is commanded: love... your neighbor as yourself [Lk. 10.27]. It is the same as if it were said: love your flesh, love your soul. Christ and the Church are as closely united as husband and wife; and husband and wife are one body and soul. Thus, all people, rooted and established in love, should be united in the unity of love [Eph. 3.18]. How we have humiliated ourselves, our nature with sins, but how dear and high we are in the eyes of God: God did not spare His Son for us and clothed Him in our flesh, in our entire nature - for our salvation; He has prepared for us from the foundation of the world an eternal Kingdom; The essentially good Angels rejoice over our conversion, but what about us? Sometimes we don’t even want to know and we humiliate ourselves more and more, destroying our souls with various vices and worldly addictions. It is pitiful, inexpressibly pitiful to look at man - this creature created in the image of God, especially at a Christian who has been awarded such a high calling, has been honored so much, and has been favored by God. It is necessary to teach and teach. Convince and urge to live worthy of the name of a Christian. Yes, like the prophet from the beast of the sea, the Persian Jonah, from the aphids, snatched away all of Adam, the fallen nation 91. The human race, in the person of the first people, was devoured by a spiritual beast, like Jonah by a whale of the sea (the devil is called the beast of the abyss in the Apocalypse). The Savior, in order to snatch the human race from the jaws of this spiritual beast, Himself through death descended into hell, as if into the jaws of this spiritual beast, and by His power, like God, brought out from there all humanity, who were waiting for Him and prepared to receive Him through the preaching of the Baptist who was put to death. Thus, those who were previously held in hellish bonds, having accepted the judgment of man in the flesh in hell, after the descent of Christ the Savior into hell, were raised to life according to God in the spirit. Two forces, completely opposite to each other, influence me: a good force and an evil force, a vital force and a deadly force. As spiritual forces, they are both invisible. The good force, through my free and sincere prayer, always drives away the evil force, and the evil force is strong only because of the evil hiding within me. In order not to endure the continuous oppression of the evil spirit, you must constantly have the Jesus Prayer in your heart: Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me. Against the invisible - Invisible, against the strong - The Strongest. The Lord, in His goodness, gave us, undeservedly on our part, to see the sun and the light of the sun and to enjoy it - He will also give us to enjoy His unapproachable light. Let the light of the sun be your guarantee of this, but especially the quiet light of the holy glory of the Heavenly Father - His Only Begotten Son, given to us, and the spirit of love, given into our hearts. For all things are from Him, by Him and to Him [Rom. 11.36] (and people). How we must love all people, how we wish for their salvation! Rejoice and be proud, feeding any person with corruptible bread. It is our great happiness that we can so conveniently serve the image of God Himself with material goods and thus deserve His love and gratitude! Take root in your memory the deceptions of the enemy: a million times he deceived you, and a million times you, upon reflection, repented of your sins. How can I learn not to listen to lies? Oh, blindness! Oh, the endless weakness of the flesh! To squander one's wealth on hospitality is to acquire. Filaret the Merciful [...] and many others. He is the head of the house, you are his son... (lat.). The end of the sentence is unreadable. Come less often, and it will be more pleasant for me to receive you (lat.). To whom - already, henceforth, more. Ever - always, incessantly, continuously. From nowhere (from nowhere) - from where. Ubo - because, therefore. For I am confident that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor the present, nor the future, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 8:38-39). Tune - for free, free of charge. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; when what is perfect comes, then what is in part will cease (1 Cor. 13:9-10). In it - in the church (I have consecrated this church that you have built... and My eyes and My heart will be there all the days [1 Kings 9:3]). To charm (to charm) – to bewitch, to enchant, to seduce. Canopy and sleepiness - shadow and dream (sleepy daydream). Prelest is deception, lie, seduction, delusion. I have hidden Your words in my heart, so that I will not sin against You [Russian: In my heart I have hidden Your word, so as not to sin before You] (Ps. 119:11). I will take it out - constantly, always. We are talking about the brothers-in-law of Father John's wife (brothers-in-law). In the family of Archpriest K.P. Nesvitsky (father-in-law of Father John), except for E.K. Sergieva, there were two more daughters - Alexandra and Anna, whom Father John had to “provide with an apartment and maintenance... until they got married,” and three sons - Alexey, Peter and Konstantin. The eldest, Alexy, was 30 years old in 1855, the youngest, Konstantin, was 18. The whole family settled in one apartment on the second floor of a house that belonged to St. Andrew's Cathedral. From the very beginning of their life together, difficult relationships were established in the family. The novice priest made the highest demands on himself: he strove to serve the liturgy as often as possible, conducted catechetical conversations in the cathedral, and hurried to the aid of numerous city beggars, which caused grumbling at home and led to difficult explanations. In addition, Father John, having a family of seven adults, could not regularly help his mother, who needed financial support. Distribute – meaning “to console, please, cheer.” Skudelnik - potter (skudel - clay); here in the meaning of “Creator, Creator”. You don't know what to pray for. “If in good circumstances...” - if among good things (in good circumstances) only; “even in evil” - if in disasters (in evil circumstances). Probably E.K.'s mother is mentioned here. Sergieva A.P. Nesvitskaya, who died in 1855. Mania – 1) a wave, a sign made without words; 2) secret incomprehensible action. “As if he were worthless” - as if he had nothing; “containing everything” – possessing everything. A winepress is a pit in which eastern peoples trampled grape berries to squeeze out the juice. Mrezha – fishing net, seine. Leviathan (Heb.) – sea monster. Separate - to separate, to separate one from the other, to distribute. Christopher translated from Greek means “Christ-bearer.” It is told about Saint Ignatius the God-Bearer that at the time when he was being led to be devoured by wild beasts and he was constantly having the name of Jesus Christ on his lips, the wicked asked him why he was constantly repeating that name. The saint answered that he had the name of Jesus Christ inscribed in his heart and confessed with his lips the One Whom he always carried in his heart. When the saint was devoured by beasts, with his remaining bones, by the will of God, his heart was preserved, untouched by the beasts. Having found him, the pagans remembered the words of Saint Ignatius and cut his heart in two, wanting to make sure whether what he said was true. And they found on both inner sides of the cut heart an inscription in gold letters: “Jesus Christ.” So Saint Ignatius was a God-bearer in name and in reality, always carrying Christ God in his heart, with his God-thought mind written like a reed. We unceasingly magnify You, Christ, who inexpressibly united the earthly with the heavenly, creating one Church of Angels and men (canon of the Holy Angel and other Bodiless Ones, 9th canto). Constantine the Great (244 – 337) – saint equal to the apostles; Emperor of the Roman Empire, who stopped the state persecution of Christians. Premium - heavenly, heavenly, located above the earthly world. Property is the dignity that should be given to someone. Flattery is seduction, deception. He who sows to his flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life (Gal. 6:8). Dreaming is an empty appearance, a ghost, seduction. Mockery here means “idle talk, gossip, ridicule.” Akathist to the Sweetest Jesus, kontakion 2. Irmos of the 6th song of the canon to the Most Holy Theotokos, tone 4. Discipline - definition, arrangement, purpose. Power - power, strength, power. What else weighs - you know what... The worst is the worst, the most evil. Therefore, therefore (lat.). Composed - compiled, installed. Abiding – permanent, unceasing. Out of duty, out of obligation (lat.). Izhe (yezh, hedgehog) – which (which, which). No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God (Luke 9:62). Asp is a poisonous snake, the poison of which causes death immediately; Spells do not affect the asp either - he is deaf to them. Forbid - prohibit, refuse. Ever - always, unceasingly. Imagine (sya) – depict, imprint; take on an image, become like. Godly - worthy of God, as characteristic of Divine power. Disdainful - proud, arrogant, impudent, contemptuous. Division - division into parts. Love each other diligently from a pure heart (1 Pet. 1:22). Inscribe - to reward, send back, express. Promises are promises, promises. Add - continue, extend. With the flows of your tears you cultivated the barren desert, and you brought forth fruit from the depths with sighs of a hundred labors, and you were a lamp of the universe, shining miracles, (name of the rivers) Our Father, pray to Christ God that our souls may be saved (common troparion to the venerables). Prilog - a sinful proposal, trick, trap, attack. From insignificance - from nothing (from “nothing”). Succeed - to have success, to prosper. Here it means “increasing, triumphant, victorious.” Existing – actual, true, abiding, eternal. Moses – from Hebrew “taken from the water.” Samuel - from Hebrew “heard by God.” Name-name - from “tezi” (Serb.), that is, “the same”; hence the “namesake”. Delight - kidnap, catch, catch. Push up - pull the bow, tense up. If you knew the gift of God and Who says to you: Give Me a drink, then you yourself would ask Him, and He would give you living water (John 4:10). As if they are not of the world - because they are not of this world. Purification for us, O Lord, and salvation for us, O Lord, you shone forth from the Virgin, and as a prophet from the beast of the sea Persian Jonah, from aphids snatched up all the fallen Adam of all people [Russian: With a propitiatory sacrifice for us and for our salvation, you, O Lord Christ, shone forth from the Virgin, so that, like Jonah the prophet from the belly of the beast of the sea, to snatch from death the fallen Adam with all his race] (the confusion of the 6th canon of the canon of the Feast of the Ascension of Christ). You might be interested in: