Год 1864

February 27, 1864. Despise the temporary life, but love the eternal, otherwise you will cleave to the temporary and neglect the eternal. The glutton is confident and does what is of no importance, that there is earth, water and pus - various foods, sweets and drinks, and neglects what is the subject of the greatest importance, namely: spiritual salvation and pleasing God, or faith, hope, love for God and neighbor, prayer. He does not have the spirit of prayer. But, if you don’t want to perish, man, value most of all spiritual salvation and pleasing God, namely: abstinence, contemplation of God, prayer, humility, meekness and kindness and impartiality towards earthly things. Everything must be put in the right place. Everything for everyone and for me, the accursed one - the Lord is merciful and generous; everything is God’s, but nothing is mine (renunciation of all property). I must reverently thank God for everything - for the stream of air, light, water, for sips of food, for clothes. Everything, including our very bodies, is truly earth and water. Amen. We are all one and must love each other as ourselves. Selfish pity for something for others and confusion, violence to pity are from the devil. Any attachment to earthly things is the dream of the devil and the dream of our pride. Reckon yourself for nothing, for abomination, damnation, and honor others as images of God, for you are really nothing and a sin, every sin means an abomination, worse than any insignificance, but you do not know the hearts of others and you also do not know the hidden affairs of God in them. You see how you despise a stranger because he is not rich, does not have his own home, is not a citizen of the local city - but if he were a citizen, but rich, and had his own house, he would always treat him with respect, even though he would notice some weaknesses. And here, even though he is a righteous man, you despise him as a stranger. But those of whom the whole world was not worthy wandered through deserts and mountains, through caves and gorges of the earth [Heb. 11, 38]. This is why we must respect him, that he has nothing in this age - no home, no money, no property, no citizenship, but has God in his heart, to Whom alone he cleaves instead of all the earthly treasures to which the people of this age cleave. O carnal, sinful, blind man! How perverse is our carnal wisdom! It's the other way around. To be rich is good, and to be poor is also bad, although be rich in spiritual treasures. But the Lord Himself lived in poverty and His Most Pure Mother. This example is enough not to neglect the poor, but rather to honor them! I will teach the wicked your way [Ps. 50, 15]. These words teach us to challenge each other and admonish each other. Listen, O priest of God! You often have to argue with God according to ready-made prayer models, but do not flatter 17 with your tongue [Ps. 14:3], saying one thing with your lips, but having something else in your heart, or speaking and not sympathizing with what you are saying or about whom you are praying - may there not be this devilish guile and double-mindedness in you, but with your heart and lips pray to Almighty God, who searches hearts and wombs. And in order for you to always sincerely pray to the Lord God, despise everything earthly, be dispassionate towards all the blessings and pleasures of this world, charming, corruptible and fleeting: food, drink, various sweets, money, clothes and various decorations or distinctions, the comforts of a temporary home; count everything as rubbish and decay and water, be self-controlled, love God with all your heart, completely, and not superficially only and somehow, love with all your thought (that is, the whole process of thought) and with all your strength, and not lightly, so that nothing can tear you away from the love of God - neither sorrow, nor hardship, nor persecution, nor misfortune, nor death, nor belly, nor everything else [Rom. 8, 35 – 39], and love your neighbor as yourself, as your personal, living, rationally free, god-like and god-like member, generously enduring his errors, weaknesses, delusions, and inflamed passions. Look, remember: it is a great thing to talk with God, who constantly looks at us, constantly listens to us and constantly tests our hearts and wombs. Let him not lie, let your heart not be cold towards God and your neighbor while praying for your neighbors. Remember: God will judge you for everything, for every idle or flattering word. Meanwhile, the primordial enemy, the father of lies, is the devil [John. 8, 44], does not sleep and in every way tries to petrify and make your passionate heart insensitive, deceitful and crafty, tries to drive out of your heart faith and trust in God with love for Him and love and compassion for your neighbor and occupy you with only worldly, temporary interests. Listen, pay attention to yourself, to your thoughts in your heart, O priest of God, and do not be bound by worldly lusts and pleasures. May your sweetness be one God and the human soul. Be a lover of souls, and not a lover of money or a sensualist. Lord Himself, arrange all this, for without You we cannot do anything [John. 15, 5]. Wake up! Wake up! The Lady Theotokos is the most beautifully decorated church of the Holy Trinity, after God - the treasure of all blessings, purity, shrines, all true wisdom, the source of spiritual strength and strength. From Elder Eutyches I borrow the spirit of faith, hope and love. Throw in sweets that relax your soul and body, especially sweet tea: it is extremely relaxing for body and soul. Experience. What does the Holy Church instill in us when, both at home prayer and in church, she puts prayers into our mouths on behalf of everyone, and not from just one person? Instills in us unceasing mutual love, so that we always and in everything, in prayer and in everyday life, love each other as ourselves, so that we, imitating God in the Three Persons who make up the highest unity, ourselves be one, made up of many. May they all be one, just as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, so may they also be one in Us [Jn. 17, 21]. Common prayer on behalf of everyone in life teaches us to share everyday needs with others, so that in life we ​​have everything in common and, as it were, one, so that mutual love is visible in everything; also so that everyone should use their abilities for the benefit of others, whoever can, and not hide their talent in the ground and not be selfish and lazy. You are wise - give advice to the unwise, smart, educated - teach the ignorant, strong - help the powerless, rich - help the poor. When you pray alone and your spirit becomes depressed and becomes bored and burdened by loneliness, remember then, as always, that the Trinitarian God, all the holy Angels, your Guardian Angel, the holy people of God, look at you with brighter eyes than the sun. Truly! For they are all one in God, and where God is, there they are also. Where the sun is, all its rays are directed there. Understand what is being said. Always pray with a burning heart, and to do this, never overeat or get drunk. Remember who you are talking to. People often forget with whom they talk during prayer, who are the witnesses to their prayer. They forget that they are talking with the Witty and All-Seeing, that all the Heavenly Powers and holy men of God are listening to their conversation with God. When I need to serve my neighbor with labor, or money, or food and drink, clothing, housing, I often become embittered and irritated with him, whereas I should be happy, because I must love him as I love myself, and I am pleased when others serve me. But the main thing is that this is done for the sake of the Lord, out of obedience to Him: whoever wants to be great among you, let him be your servant; and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave; since the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve [Matt. 20, 26 – 28]. He who heals the spiritual infirmities of others must first heal his own mental ailments and passions (doctor, heal yourself [Luke 4:23]), and then, when love, meekness and humility penetrate the soul, heal the spiritual infirmities and passions of others. Or: you must first remove the log of pride and malice from the tow of your heart and then remove the twig from the tow of another’s heart. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first [1 Tim. 1, 15]. Despise the flesh, it passes away 19, that is, the womb, do not pursue the pleasures of the womb, despise fornication, pride, malice, envy, laziness, disobedience, theft, lies, blasphemy, etc. Lord! Give me my lost book! What a high dignity, honor, happiness to pray for people, for this precious acquisition 20 and property of God! With what joy, cheerfulness, zeal, and love we must pray to God, the Father of men, for His people, purchased by Him with the blood of His Son! They are redeemed from among men, as the firstborn to God and to the Lamb [Rev. 14, 4]. Equally, what a great happiness it is to welcome strangers or relatives into your home for free, out of love, especially children who do not yet have their own property with which they could reward their benefactors. We serve them instead of their parents and, as it were, temporarily replace for them the place of their parents, the Heavenly Father himself. But with what joy and peace of mind and contentment one must do this! (I am a wanderer. Father Nikolai Kudryavin. His hospitable home.) Pleasing the belly is serving the devil. Experience. The Lord is everything in everything, the devil is nothing; The Lord is life, the devil is death; The Lord is the truth, the devil is a lie, a dream; only two opposites - there is no middle. By their fruit you will know them in your heart [Matt. 7, 20]. What is sin? - Moral ugliness, nonsense, absurdity, although it has a claim to some kind of legality, to some meaning, to some imaginary basis. These are all passions - pride, malice and hatred of one's neighbor, envy, ill will and malice, stinginess, addiction to earthly goods and extraordinary covetousness, demonic fear or apprehension, despondency, etc. Sin is moral death, it instantly darkens, constrains, confuses and kills the spirit, because as soon as you felt that some heart movement was disturbing your heart, then know that it is sinful, and immediately repent of your sin before the all-seeing God. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Explaining morning and evening prayers to high school students. My children, whom the Lord gave me! On the feast of the bright Resurrection of Christ, I want to give you all a precious gift - precious not for the price, but for what it contains, namely: I want to give you an explanation of the morning and evening prayers, which are as necessary for every Christian to perform daily, as it is necessary to eat and drink, and which should be understood clearly as natural as to feel the taste in food and drink. Children! Prayer is a conversation between a person and God, with our Creator, Master, Father and future Judge of our life! A great thing is prayer! The greatest benefit of fervent prayer! (Through heartfelt prayer, sins are cleansed; in heartfelt prayer we receive the strength not to fall into new ones, especially serious sins or vices: laziness, disobedience, rudeness and insolence; heartfelt prayer strengthens us in virtue - in meekness, humility, obedience, diligence.) You yourself have experienced many times that as you pray fervently, your soul will feel calm and easy and cheerful and bright, you become kinder, gentler, more humble and obedient, and everything goes smoothly easily, without hesitation - in a word, you feel God’s grace in yourself and see God’s grace in your deeds. The voice of the Lord God, our Heavenly Father, is heard in the soul: you are My child, and the soul answers: You are my Father! And if prayer is such an important matter and such a great benefit to us from prayer, then you all need to learn to pray well - with concept, with feeling, sincerely, with faith, with hope and love and with the fear of God, and, having learned to pray here at school, not give up prayer throughout your life, and every day, without fail, in the morning and evening, stand in prayer before the face of the Heavenly Father and for no reason at all. or everyday circumstances, do not leave your conversation with Him. Let us begin, with God’s help, to explain the morning and evening prayers. But first, let’s talk about the sign of the cross, bowing and standing in prayer. Always make the sign of the cross carefully, namely: put the first three fingers of the right hand together in a standing position to signify and remind yourself that our God, the Creator of heaven and earth, our Father, Lord, Savior and Judge of the entire human race, is one in Essence, but in Three Persons: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit - not three gods, but one God in Three Persons; and bend the last two small fingers - the ring and little fingers - to the palm to signify and remind us that God, the Son of God, for the sake of our salvation, came to earth, became incarnate and became a man, without ceasing to be God, and became the God-man; the ring finger reminds us that Jesus Christ - the Son of God - is God, and the little finger reminds us that He is also a man, similar to us in everything except sin. So, let the sign of the cross constantly remind each of you that our God, our Creator, the Creator of heaven and earth, of everything visible and invisible, Whom we must constantly please, is One, but in Three Persons, and that One of the Three Divine Persons, the Son of God, for our salvation came to earth and became a man and was called Jesus, that is, the Savior, and Christ, or the Anointed One of the Holy Spirit. The sign of the cross itself should be depicted sensibly 21 in this way: the fingers of the right hand, folded in the manner shown, should first be placed on the forehead (on the forehead) in the name of God the Father (Who is the Supreme Reason); then on the womb in the name of the Son of God, born before the world from the womb of God the Father: from the womb before the star I gave birth to Thee [Ps. 109, 3 ]; then on both shoulders: first on the right and then on the left - in the name of God the Holy Spirit, Who is the strength, or, as it were, the muscle, the hand of God the Father, according to the word of Scripture: Thy hand will guide me [Ps. 138, 10]. Having thus made the sign of the cross, we must immediately make a heartfelt worship of the Lord God in the Trinity, before Whom we stand; make the sign of the cross and bows infrequently and especially leisurely, because this makes them meaningless and mechanical, and occasionally slowly, with heartfelt attention. During prayer, stand upright, with fear and reverence, because our God, the Father, the Almighty, our Creator, looks at us and listens to our prayer. Read the prayers slowly, with all your heart, trying to understand, recognize and feel the power of each word of the prayer. For example, you say: God! Cleanse me, a sinner, - saying these words, realize and feel that God, the all-holy and all-good Father, listens to your words and wants to cleanse you from all sins, if only you wished it with all your heart, if only you recognized yourself, felt like a great, unrequited sinner. Having prepared you with these brief words on how to behave during prayer for each of you, now, with God’s help, I will begin to explain the prayers themselves. Rising from sleep, dress decently and wash your face, then stand reverently, presenting yourself before the all-seeing God and, putting the sign of the cross on yourself, say: In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Here imagine that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit is the Creator and Head of every creation, the Source of all life, our Lord and King, whose holy will, indicated in His commandments, we must unswervingly, strictly fulfill. Therefore, slow down a little so that all your feelings come into silence and your thoughts leave everything earthly, and then say the following prayers slowly, with heartfelt attention. God, be merciful to me, a sinner [Lk. 18, 13]. Here you need to feel how sinful you are, how negligent you are in fulfilling His commandments, which you must fulfill for your own peace and bliss, sigh and humbly ask in your soul for God’s mercy. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, for the prayers (that is, for the prayers) of Thy Most Pure Mother and all the saints, have mercy on us. Amen. Think here that Jesus Christ alone has the power on earth to forgive our sins and have mercy on us, for [He suffered] for our sins. Here also imagine that the Mother of God and all the saints pray day and night for us sinners to the Lord, [and therefore] even more so we should pray for ourselves and call on the saints to pray for us. [Say]: Glory to Thee, our God, glory to Thee. Here you must remember that God created all creatures, including you, for His glory, and therefore your whole life should be led to the glory of God. All creation praises the Lord - heaven and earth and the underworld. And for your own peace and bliss, you must glorify the Lord with your good deeds. Your peace and bliss depend on it. Prayer to the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity. Heavenly King, Comforter, Soul of truth, Who is everywhere and fulfills everything, Treasure of good things and Giver of life, come and dwell in us, and cleanse us from all filth, and save, O Good One, our souls. Why is the Holy Spirit called the King of Heaven, and not the earthly one at the same time? Because He reigns in the heavenly Hosts, or in the Angels, and in all the saints; Comforter - because He is the joy of all Angels and saints and the consolation of us who mourn on earth, and of all those persecuted for the sake of righteousness. He comforts us by assuring us who repent of the forgiveness of sins and the promise of future rewards. Spirit of truth [John. 14, 17] is called because everything true, holy, honorable, and praiseworthy comes from Him; Thus, the Gospel is the breath of the Holy Spirit; everything that is sung and read in church is the breath of the Holy Spirit. Who is everywhere - Who, that is, the Holy Spirit, is everywhere; and fulfill everything - and fills everything (like air); Treasure of the Good – The Treasury of every good thing that we have on earth; and life to the Giver - He gives life to everyone; come and dwell in us - in us, and cleanse us (us) from all filth (carnal and spiritual) and save, O Good One, that is, Good One, our souls. In Russian: Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of truth, omnipresent and all-filling, Fullness and Source of all blessings and life, Giver, come and dwell in our hearts (God sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying: “Abba, Father!” [Gal. 4:6]) and cleanse us from all filth and save our souls, O Good One (God)! Note 2: it should be noted that prayers are transmitted in Russian not in order to read them in Russian, but in order to clearly understand them in the Slavic language. You should definitely read in Slavic. Note 1. The Holy Spirit is called the King of Heaven, because He incessantly rests in the Heavenly Powers, or Angels, and in holy people, guides them, governs them; Comforter, because He is the joy and bliss of all the inhabitants of heaven and all good and righteous people living on earth or those who sincerely repent and endure adversity, sorrow and illness for the sake of God: The Kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit [Rom. 14, 17 ]; The Spirit of truth, because truth, truth is, so to speak, the breath of the Holy Spirit - for example, the Gospel, the Christian Church, its worship, its Sacraments, rituals, and in general everything that is true, most pure, most loving, well-praised, whatever is virtue and whatever is praiseworthy [Phil. 4, 8 ]; Who is everywhere - He is everywhere at all times, and fills everything - and fills everything - heaven and earth, so that there is not a single point of space anywhere, neither in the sky, nor in the air, nor in the water, nor in the fire, nor in the earth, nor on the earth, where He is not completely and, moreover, not encompassed by anything; The treasure of good things, that is, the container, repository, or source of all goods and life is the Giver. He is the source and dispenser of life for all creatures, especially for rational creatures of spiritual life, for holy Angels and men; come and dwell in us (dwell in our hearts), and save, O Good One, our souls (that is, cleanse us from sins and bring us into Thy Kingdom of Heaven). Holy God (said to God the Father), Holy Mighty (said to God the Son), Holy Immortal (said to God the Holy Spirit), have mercy on us (that is, forgive our sins and do not remember them). When you call God holy, then think that you also need to be pure and holy. Be holy, for I am holy, says the Lord God [Lev. 11, 44]. Must be holy in spirit and body. Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit (that is, from Angels and men and from all creation), now and ever (always) and forever and ever (eternally). Amen. Truly so. Our whole life must be spent for the glory of God and for the salvation of our neighbors and ourselves, for the salvation of people is the glory of God, is the strongest desire of the Lord God. Most Holy Trinity (that is, Father, Son and Holy Soul), have mercy on us (we must pray for everyone, and not for ourselves alone, out of love and unanimity, which the Lord Jesus Christ commanded us). Lord (God the Father), cleanse our sins; Master (Jesus Christ), forgive our iniquities; Holy One (Holy Soul), visit and heal our infirmities (mental and physical), for the sake of Your name (not because we deserve this mercy, for we are all sinners worthy of all condemnation and punishment, not mercy, but for the sake of Your name, because Your name is the God of mercy, generosity and love for mankind. Lord, have mercy - three times (because there are Three Persons in God). Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen. Our Father. When you pronounce these words, then know, feel and always remember that our God is our Father, we are all His children in Christ, and among ourselves are brethren, and that we must all live with each other in a brotherly, loving way. When you tell the Lord that He is in heaven, then you must remember that our life will be in heaven, with the Heavenly Father. “In My Father’s house there are many mansions,” says the Savior. But if it were not so, I would say to you: I go to prepare a place for you [Jn. 14, 2]. Therefore, do not cleave to anything earthly, knowing that sooner or later you will have to leave it forever, that all earthly elements, like the elements of your body, will be ruined and destroyed. When you say: hallowed be Thy name, then you must have in your soul a strong desire to sanctify, glorify the name of the Heavenly Father with all your thoughts, desires, words and deeds - in a word, try to be holy in all your life; follow the example of the Holy One who called you, and be holy in all your actions, says the Apostle [1 Pet. 1, 15 ]; when you say: Thy Kingdom come, then you must with all your heart desire to destroy from your heart the sin that reigns in you, or various passions, for example, lack of faith and coldness towards God and towards the Church, disobedience and stubbornness, rudeness, anger, insolence, laziness, absent-mindedness, gluttony, envy, stinginess, love of money, fornication, theft, lies, godliness, deception and others - and instill in yourself every virtue: faith, meekness, humility, obedience, simplicity and kindness of heart, courtesy, diligence in work, simplicity in food and clothing, generosity, impartiality to earthly goods, etc. When you say: Thy will be done, then you must desire with all your heart to cut off your sinful will, your self-love and to do the will of God in everything, even if it is and is very disgusting for our corrupted sinful will and for our proud, passionate heart. For example, the will of God wants us to obey our superiors, parents and mentors, if their will is not contrary to the law of God, so that we love our enemies - although this will of God is contrary to our hearts, we must certainly fulfill it, even urgently love our enemies, our offenders; if we are vindictive and hateful, then we will not be worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven, according to the word of the Lord: if your righteousness does not exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, then you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven [Matt. 5, 20]. Or: if you love those who love you, what will be your reward? [Matt. 5, 46]. In the same way, although the will of superiors, parents and mentors may be contrary to our sinful will, we must break it and willingly, uncomplainingly, accurately, quickly fulfill their will, for obedience to them is obedience to God. When you say: give us our daily bread today, then remember that the Heavenly Father is the Nourisher (Breadwinner) of every creature, who grows all kinds of food for us and for animals, all grain seeds and fruits, who gives us fish, birds and various animals for food, and love and thank Him with all your heart for His countless bounties. 1) Why is it suggested to ask only for bread, and not for anything else? Because bread is most necessary, more essential, more nutritious than all other fruits for the human body, which is why it is called essential: you can eat only bread with stew and be alive and strong; also so that we avoid delicacies that pamper the soul and body and relax, and do not be gluttons and do not make the belly our idol; 2) why is it inspired to ask for bread for everyone, and not for yourself alone? - Because we are all brothers with each other and must take care as much about ourselves as about others. Our Lord Jesus Christ, with these words, teaches us to take care of each other regarding everyday needs: for example, if someone has enough means for daily food, generally enough for life, he should share with the poor, and especially he should give to the poor: whoever has two clothes, give to the poor, and whoever has food, do the same, said the Forerunner of Christ John [Lk. 3, 11 ]; equally, without stinginess, treat what God sent to visiting guests, or strangers, or relatives, or acquaintances, hoping in the common Father of all that He will reward for leaving; 3) why is it suggested to ask today, for this day? - In order not to worry ourselves with thoughts: what will we eat and drink or what will we wear tomorrow, in the confidence that the Heavenly Father constantly, daily cares for us, and not only for us, but also for every creature: about animals, about birds and fish, and insects and reptiles, so that we only work to earn food for ourselves, and especially so that first of all we seek the Kingdom of God in us and His righteousness, and everything necessary for life will be added to us [Matt. 6, 33], that is, we must only try to love God with all our hearts and our neighbor as ourselves, desiring for him everything that we desire for ourselves - and the Lord will send us everything that is necessary for life. When you say: and forgive us our debts, just as we forgive our debtors (that is, our offenders), then you need, firstly, to recognize and feel your sins and sincerely wish and ask for forgiveness for them from the Heavenly Father, and from now on have a firm intention not to sin the same sins or any sins: behold, you have recovered; sin no more [Jn. 5, 14], - behold, I have forgiven you, healed your soul from sins, go in peace, sin no more; secondly, you do not need to remember the insults that your neighbors have done to you, that is, do not be vindictive and forgive from the heart all insults intentionally or unintentionally caused by others, because we are all weak, sinful people, and if we forgive our neighbors for their sins against us, then our Heavenly Father will forgive them and us, and if we do not forgive, then, without any doubt, our Heavenly Father will not forgive them to us either, as he announced Our Lord Jesus Christ in His Gospel; when you say: and do not lead us into temptation, then you are asking the Heavenly Father to remove from you such cases in which your faith (your faithfulness and devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ) may be shaken, for example, in the Lord Jesus Christ (especially if you are not firm in faith), for example, so that you do not in any case deny Him, as the Apostle Peter denied, so as not to be ashamed to confess His name, so that do not be ashamed of His cross, His Most Pure Mother or His saints - in general, with these words you ask the Heavenly Father to remove from you, as from a weak person, enemy or carnal and worldly temptations, of which there are so many in the world around us; when you say: but deliver us from the evil one, then you must wish that the Lord will deliver you from all ([...]) the snares of the devil, which he sets for us everywhere, trying to extinguish in us faith in God, all hope in Him and love for Him, our Creator, Father and Provider, and tie us only to earthly and perishable things. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. These words constitute the conclusion of the Lord’s Prayer; they have the following connection with the prayer (the meaning of the entire prayer): Heavenly Father! We ask You, as Your children in Christ, for the holiness that our ancestors lost in Paradise; We ask that You reign in us by Your Holy Spirit, as You once reigned in the first-created Adam before his fall; We ask that You teach and strengthen us to do Your will, and throw away our will; so that You give us everything we need for temporary life; so that He always forgives our sins and does not allow us to fall into new sins and completely delivers us from the tempter - fulfill our prayer, because - Your Kingdom, and not the kingdom of the enemy the devil; we live in Your Kingdom, and we are all Your servants, and not the devil, Your enemy, and we want to serve You until the end of our lives; Your strength, You are almighty, strengthen us against our strong enemies - air demons and against all sins; Thine is the glory forever, for Thou art the God of glory, Who created all things for the sake of Thy glory; You could create nothing and be all-blessed, and yet for our happiness and bliss you created everything and manage everything. Direct our lives to Thy glory and to the shame of the ethereal enemies of Thy and ours. Amen, that is, we sincerely wish for everything that we ask of You in prayer. Let everything we ask be done. Always read the Lord’s Prayer slowly, calmly, with reflection, putting every word on your heart and giving due weight to every word. This is a great prayer. It contains requests for all our benefits that are necessary for us. She is truly the container and source of all blessings. Oh, if children (and all Christians) always learned to say it with all their hearts, what blessed children they would be by the Lord Himself! Trinity troparia, that is, sacred songs with praise to the Most Holy Trinity. Having risen from sleep, we fall down to Ti (You), the Good (good God), and cry out an angelic song to Ti (You), the Stronger (Strong): Holy, Holy, Holy ecu, God, the Mother of God, have mercy on us (that is, for the sake of the all-powerful prayers of the Mother of God, have mercy on us, that is, for the sake of the prayers for us of the Mother of God), for She, the most holy, the most blessed, prays for us day and night. Remember here that our duty is to eternally worship the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, God in the Trinity. And therefore, as soon as you get out of bed, immediately worship your all-good and all-powerful Creator with a grateful prayer to Him. Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. From the bed (from the bed, from the bed) and sleep raised me ecu (raised me), Lord, enlighten my mind and heart (the source of life for us), and open my lips (mouth), in the hedgehog (to) sing Thee (to sing praises to You), the Holy Trinity: Holy (refers to the Father), Holy (refers to the Son), Holy (refers to the Holy Spirit) ecu, God (one in Three Persons), Mother of God, have mercy on us (due to the unparalleled, perfect pleasing of our Most Holy Lady Theotokos to the All-Holy God - Her prayers to God are omnipotent). Therefore, in very many prayers we ask the Lord to have mercy on us for the sake of Her holy and all-powerful prayers, for our prayers are sinful, cold and unworthy of God. And now and ever and unto ages of ages (that is, the glory of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is eternal, and did not begin yesterday or today or a thousand years ago). Amen. Truly so. In vain (suddenly, unexpectedly, unexpectedly) the Judge (that is, common to all of us) will come, and each (each) deed (deed) will be exposed (opened, revealed), but with fear we call at midnight (with fear we cry out, we pray to You at midnight): Holy, Holy, Holy ecu, God (Holy, Holy, Holy You, our God), Mother of God, have mercy on us. Here, remember vividly that we will all go to court before the Lord God to give an account for our entire lives, for all our deeds, words and thoughts. Calling God according to his dignity as Holy, we ourselves must strive with all our might to be holy as He is holy, for He created us in His image, pure, sinless and holy. Lord, have mercy - 12 times - according to the number of hours of the day, so that the Lord will extend His mercy to us at all hours of the day and night. A prayer of gratitude to the Most Holy Trinity - the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit - for the reinforcement and renewal of bodily and mental strength through sleep. Having risen from sleep, I thank Thee (You), Holy Trinity (that is, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit), for (because) many for the sake of Your goodness and long-suffering (that is, because of Your great love, kindness and long-suffering towards us sinners) were not angry with me (with me), lazy and sinful, and did not destroy me ecu with my iniquities (with iniquities, untruths); but he was philanthropic as usual (but according to His custom, being philanthropic towards me) and in the hopelessness of the one lying (in the uncertainty of the future of the one lying) he raised me up (raised me), in order to exercise and glorify Your power (so that, having risen early, glorify Your power, Your providence for the whole world). And now enlighten my eyes of the mind (my eyes of the heart, my soul), open my mouth (open my lips and tongue) to learn by Thy word (for teaching in the word or in your law), to understand Thy commandments (to understand Thy commandments), and to do Thy will (to do Thy will), and to sing to You in confession of the heart (to in order to sincerely confess You), and glorify Your all-holy name, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and ever (always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen. Explanation of the psalm: Have mercy on me, O God [Ps. 50], in relation to the New Testament state of a Christian person. Come, let us worship the Tsar (King) our God. Come, let us worship and fall down before Christ, our King God. Come, let us bow and fall down to Christ Himself, the King and our God. Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your great mercy, and according to the multitude of Your mercies (because You have mercy on us generously, forgiving many and serious sins), cleanse my iniquity. Most of all (many times) wash me from my iniquity, and from my sin (here you need to recognize and vividly feel your sin) cleanse me. For (for) I know my iniquity, and I will take away my sin before me (“I will take it out” means always). You alone (before You alone) have I sinned (I have sinned) and the evil one (that is, the deed, because every sin is the work of the evil one) before You (I have done it), so that You may be justified in Your words (so that You are righteous in Your commandments, and I am wrong in my deeds), and be victorious, always judging You (and victorious in Your judgment over us, criminal creatures). Behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and my mother gave birth to me in sins (for behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and my mother gave birth to me in sins). Behold, ecu loved the truth, ecu revealed to me the unknown and secret wisdom of Yours (but You love the truth and revealed to me the previously unknown secrets of Your wisdom). Sprinkle me with hyssop, and I will be cleansed (sprinkle me with hyssop, and I will be cleansed, that is, from sins; by hyssop, the holy prophet and king David meant that hyssop made from plants, which was immersed in the blood of Old Testament sacrifices - in the blood of goats, rams and calves, and with which they sprinkled people for carnal purity and sanctified various things; this hyssop blood depicted the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, with which we sprinkle our hearts for the cleansing of sins and for the sanctification of soul and body, which means that Father David meant blood here; the Son of God, the God-man Jesus Christ, poured out for the worldly life). Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow (Wash me with the grace of the Holy Spirit, and I will be whiter than snow). Give to my hearing (that is, my soul, which both hears and sees) joy and gladness (give joy and gladness): the humble bones will rejoice (the bones struck by You). Turn Your face away from my sins and cleanse all my iniquities. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a right spirit in my womb (create, create in me a pure heart and renew a right, that is, justified, new spirit in my insides). Do not cast me away (do not cast me away) from Your presence and do not take Your Holy Spirit away from Me (from me). Reward me with the joy of Your salvation (return to me the joy of Your salvation lost through sin, for Your salvation is joyful for me, rests, lives and strengthens me) and strengthen me with the Sovereign Spirit (the Sovereign Spirit, that is, the Holy Spirit of God). I will teach the wicked in Your way (each of us is obliged to teach the ignorant or erring in the ways of the Lord, that is, the commandments of God), and the wicked will turn to You. Deliver me from bloodshed, O God (that is, from the reproaches of conscience for shedding blood and from the worthy punishment for shedding it), God of my salvation (God is called the God of salvation, because He constantly saves those who trust in Him from sins and from enemies visible and invisible): my tongue (that is, my soul speaking through the tongue) will rejoice in Your righteousness. Lord, my lips have opened (meaning the lips of the heart, the spiritual), and my lips (outer lips - mouth, tongue) will proclaim Your praise (praise, glory to You). For if You had desired a sacrifice, you would have given it (if You had desired from me to accept a sacrifice of rams, goats and bulls, then I would have brought it to You): You are not pleased with burnt offerings (but You are not pleased with burnt offerings of sacrificial animals). The sacrifice to God is a contrite spirit (an acceptable sacrifice to God is a contrite, grieving soul for its sins): a contrite and humble heart God will not despise (if someone, having sinned, brings repentance to God for his sins, sincerely condemns himself and asks God for forgiveness with a painful and humble heart, God will not reject him, he will not leave God humiliated or ashamed, unheard, not cleansed from their sins). Bless Zion with Your favor (that is, honor Zion with Your favor - Zion, that is, the Christian Church), and may the walls of Jerusalem be built (by Jerusalem again we mean the Church of Christ, as well as the Christian soul, which is the city and dwelling of the great King - God; the walls of Jerusalem, that is, the commandments of God, protecting this smart city - the soul, that is, may the soul be built according to the commandments God's); then favor the sacrifice of righteousness (then with good will mix in the sacrifice of righteousness, that is, the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, Who is our righteousness), the offering and the burnt offering (the offering is the same Holy Mysteries offered at the liturgy as a sacrifice to God the Father for all; the burnt offering is, of course, also the Holy Body and Blood of the Lord, because the Lord on the cross offered Himself as a burnt offering, burning from crucifixion with the whole body). Then they will lay the calf on Your altar (that is, they will crucify the flesh with wordless41 passions and deprived of the old, sinful life, they will lay it on Your altar, that is, they will sacrifice it to You). The passion of the people of this century is arrogant, proud and arrogant talkativeness, and little action. We need life and true enlightenment (a simple matter), and life and enlightenment come from God. Is it in Him that they are sought? Somewhere outside, in the overseas corners. The earth and everything on it is the Lord’s, and we are all the Lord’s, not our own, and we all walk before the Lord. And God is love [1 John. 4, 8]. Therefore, we must all live in love on His earth, in meekness and humility, with a feeling of gratitude for everything. Our heart is like a dark land. The Gospel is the sun, enlightening and life-giving our hearts. Shine in our hearts the true sun of Thy righteousness, Lord! Whether you pray, read, talk to someone, eat, drink, or do anything else - do everything with reflection, illuminating everything with the light of reason - but the heart itself is dark and stupid. Oh, great, most beneficial, all-saving, most life-giving, most peaceful, all-sweet name - Jesus! It constantly heals all my passions, all spiritual infirmities, all bodily illnesses, cleanses, enlightens, pacifies, revitalizes, delights, strengthens and encourages me! Oh, most beneficial name - Jesus! How I will thank You, Jesus! In order to sow seeds in the ground, one must break it down with a plow or plow; in order to plant human seed, a man must tear apart the virgin, untouched soil of his wife and throw his seeds into it! Wonderful are Your works, O Lord! He created all wisdom ecu [Ps. 103, 24]. I revere the works of Your omnipotence and Your wisdom! How wonderfully You create us from dust, O All-Powerful One! How can we be proud after this? Should the dust be proud? Should Semyon be proud? You, Lord, planted us, You watered us, You grew us, You formed us and took me out of my mother’s womb, as if from some kind of Your workshop. Glory to You! Even now you do everything for me, you provide for everything, you give me everything. Our body is like a sponge - so weak! You, addicted to the belly, to food and drink, to money, to clothing, look at heaven and remember that countless spiritual beings live there who have no need for all this, and that you are destined for the same life after the end of earthly life, if you remain faithful to the covenant of your Creator and Lord Jesus Christ. Think about it: is it natural, is it reasonable to put your feet up and your head down? Care about the belly most of all, and almost nothing about the soul? To take the greatest possible care of the body, and the least and superficial care of the soul? Protect the corruptible with all your might, but neglect the imperishable, while the corruptible will be earth, dust, and the incorruptible soul, through negligence, can be subjected to eternal torment? Lord, bless and confirm! Rubbish food, drink, clothing, money, housing and all things, no matter how attractive they may be, and my very body - despise everything. Amen. Wake up! O damned flesh! How much addiction I have for you, how much dislike for my neighbor and enmity towards him because of my addiction to you! How much work for the accursed enemy the devil! How strongly it nests in you! But this is a lie, the dream of the devil - to love and caress the undead flesh! We must love the soul and crucify the flesh. This is the truth. We must love God and our neighbor and despise our flesh and everything carnal! This is the truth! Oh, how our passions intensify - anger, irritability, pride, greed, stinginess, covetousness, enmity towards our neighbor and other passions, when we extensively feed our flesh! What a disaster our soul is in then! Let us kiss the post and be jealous of the post. Food and drink are food for the fire of passions: if we take away food from them, we will take away passions. And observe fasting in clothes, and in books, and in studies in general. So that you can sit calmly at the table with guests, frequent or rare, your own or strangers, that is, so as not to spare anything for anyone, carry 22 the name of the Lord in your thoughts and heart, and in the name of the Lord resist the demons of stinginess and greed, and you will defeat them, for they, scorched by the name of the Lord, will flee. Do not make any difference in food in your thoughts, but consider everything equally as hay: their value is a matter of human arbitrariness. I thank You, all-merciful and all-powerful Mother of Christ our God, for you very quickly and graciously saved me from the fears and storms of the demonic hordes that suddenly surrounded me during Matins on August 5, 1864. I called to You, bowing to the local icon 23 of Yours during my holy service, and behold, You drove away those who offended me, dark, evil forces darkened, frightened and beset me, and I, together with the clergy, wrote thanks to You 24 for getting rid of the evil ones. You did not disgrace my hope, but for one heartfelt bow before your local icon you saved me. So, if enemies surround you and you are in spiritual trouble, immediately call on our Most Holy Lady - that is why She is the Lady, to rule with Her sovereign power over the forces resisting us and to sovereignly save us, for we are Her heritage. When others give me something valuable and pleasant, I rejoice at it and feel love and gratitude towards those who give; when I have to give something valuable and pleasant to others, I feel sorry and grieve for the thing. What an absurdity! Isn’t it true that you should rejoice in the well-being and contentment of your neighbor as if you were your own, for it is said: love your neighbor as yourself [Matt. 19, 19], or: as you want people to do to you, do so to them [Matt. 7, 12 ]? And: rejoice with those who rejoice [Rom. 12, 15]. The neighbor is another me. The neighbor is the image of God; God is in the neighbor, and he is in God. Neighbor is a small god. And all earthly things - earth and water, air and smoke, ash and dirt. - Just. Truly! How long will I be a baby at my mature age? When the Lord says: Give to everyone who asks you [Lk. 6:30], then, without a doubt, He means that you have something to give, and that He will give to you for alms to others. Serve with a cheerful heart and demeanor, knowing Whose servant you are and Whom you serve. You are a servant of Christ and a servant of His least brethren. Just as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me [Matt. 25, 40]. He is not ashamed to call them brethren [Heb. 2, 11]. We are all one, and for everyone everything is Lord, as for Angels, for saints, for all material worlds and every smallest part of them. Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns; and your Father in heaven feeds them. Aren't you much better than them? And which of you, by caring, can add even one cubit to his height? And why do you care about clothes? Look at the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; but I tell you that Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like any of them; But if God clothes the grass of the field, which exists today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, God clothes it so much more than you, O you of little faith! [Matt. 6, 26 – 30]... Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness (mutual love), and all this will be added to you (from God) [Matt. 6, 33]. Here is the most necessary truth for you! Follow it. Rely on God for everything. Cast all your cares on Him, for He cares for you [1 Pet. 5, 7]. In fact, how can one live the way we live, for we live as if there is no Guardian God: we ourselves think of arranging everything, we think of providing for ourselves, putting aside the thought of a common Guardian for all. What greatness is the Christian and especially the Christian priest: he is one fusion with the Divine, and with God he possesses everything! What love God has for man! What love a person should have for a person! Oh, how the Heavenly Father cares about us, about our eternal well-being. Not only about sweets or beautiful expensive things, but also about your sinful flesh, for for the sake of the slightest addiction to all this God resists. 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]. You see, you don’t need to pay attention to the visible, as if it didn’t exist, but to the invisible, for that is temporary, and that is eternal. Moreover, when you seek the invisible, then God will take care of the visible for you, just as he has been concerned with before. As I look more closely at the beggars and talk a little with them, I see how kind, meek, humble, simple-hearted, and sincerely benevolent they are - poor physically, but rich spiritually; they shame me, rude, proud, evil, contemptuous and irritable, crafty, cold towards God and people, envious and stingy. These are the true friends of God! And the enemy, who knows their spiritual treasures, arouses in his slaves, the proud rich, contempt for them and anger and is ready to wipe them off the face of the earth, as if they do not rightfully live on it and walk on it. O friends of my God, my poor brothers! You are truly rich in spirit, and I am truly poor, cursed and needy. You deserve true respect from us, who have an abundance of the blessings of this world, but are poor and meager in the deeds of virtue - abstinence, meekness, humility, gentleness, sincerity and ardor for God and neighbor. God! Teach me to despise the external and turn all the eyes of my mind inward, to appreciate the internal, to despise the external. Let me observe the same in relation to the rich and powerful of this world. When I am full or satiated, I become full of lies, pride, malice, contempt, and hard-heartedness. And I must be truth and love, meekness and humility and kindness. When you partake of the Holy Mysteries, say in your heart: come to me, O Giver of Life, to snatch me from the jaws of the hellish serpent, to cleanse me from the filth of passions, to pacify my restless heart, to revive my soul, deadened by sins, to cheer my sorrowful, despondent spirit; you are coming to feed me, languishing in the hunger of sin, to clothe me, naked of all virtue, to strengthen me, weak, to honor me, dishonest, to exalt me, base, to ennoble me, despised, to enlighten me, dark; You seek to grant me every good deed. Thank You, Most Merciful! Love is the life of our soul and body, and not only food and drink; We need very, very little food and drink, therefore treat everyone with love, especially your own, for example, your wife’s brothers and sisters or uncles and aunts, nephews and nieces, even if they go every day, for whoever does not provide for his own is worse than an infidel and has rejected the faith [1 Tim. 5, 8]. Do not bring yourself to the point of feeling some kind of satiety with your faith, the word of God, prayer, the Holy Mysteries, but always arouse a hunger for them. Woe to you who are now satiated! for you will hunger [Lk. 6, 25]. A miser values ​​things, but does not value a person who needs things; He regrets things, but does not spare a person, although a person is a priceless creature. You don’t feel sorry for yourself, but you feel sorry for others; you love yourself, but you don’t feel sorry for others. But everything in general is rubbish and water. Everything for everyone - the inexhaustible Lord, who has put everything under man’s feet like dust and hay, the whole world. Love is patient [1 Cor. 13:4], that is, he does not suddenly punish the sinner, but patiently endures his failures, admonishing and punishing him, while the property of anger is to suddenly strike the enemy or make him unhappy, plunging him into extremes. It's amazing how angry and impatient we are! Our brother has sinned, and we do not regret that he is sinning, we do not cry out of brotherly love about his free madness, about his passion, but we are angry with him, we despise him, we want to eat him for his sin; Meanwhile, we ourselves, perhaps, were guilty of the same thing, and we were condescendingly forgiven for our guilt, and only thanks to the condescension of our superiors, we finally somehow recovered from our falls or addictions and vices and became good people for something, or even now we are guilty of the same thing, only not as rudely as a sinning brother, and, therefore, we are also subject to responsibility. When punishing others for sins and crimes, we must remember our weaknesses, our vices and passions, past or existing, and lovingly, pityingly and patiently punishing our subordinates, and not with bitterness, mercilessly and impatiently, hastily, with meekness instructing our opponents, whether God will give them repentance to the knowledge of the truth, so that they will be freed from the snare of the devil, who has ensnared them in his will [2 Tim. 2, 25 – 26]. It is not in vain that the Apostle sets long-suffering and mercy as the first sign of our love for our neighbor: love is patient and kind [1 Cor. 13:4], for every person is weak, weak, rash, prone to every sin, but even with all this he can easily come to his senses, rebel, repent under favorable conditions, and therefore we must be patient with his weaknesses and sins, as we ourselves want others to be lenient with our weaknesses, and seeing how not to see them or not notice them. However, where sin has a harmful effect on others, or where it is combined with omission of service duties, or where it assumes large proportions, immediate severity is required to curb and stop it or remove the harmful person from among well-intentioned people. Cast out the wicked from among you [1 Cor. 5, 13]. God did not spare His Only Begotten Son for man - what then will we spare for our neighbor: food and drink for his nutrition, clothes for his clothing, money for his various needs? The Lord gives a lot to some, and little to others, so that we can provide for each other. The Lord has so arranged that if we willingly share the generous gifts of His goodness with others, then they serve for the benefit of the soul and body, opening our hearts to love our neighbors and the moderation of their use, serving also for the benefit of the body, which is not satiated and not burdened with them; and if we are proud, stingy and greedily use only ourselves and spare them for others, then they turn to the detriment of our soul and body - to the detriment of the soul because greed and stinginess close the heart to love for God and neighbor and make us disgusting self-lovers, intensifying all passions in us, and because greed makes us satiated and prematurely upsets our health. It is necessary to confess sins more often in order to amaze and scourge sins by openly admitting them and in order to feel more disgust for them. Think, man, into what trouble daring sin has plunged us and what the Lord Christ, the Son of God, has done for our salvation: remember His incarnation, voluntary self-exhaustion, His treatment of people, His speeches, His miracles, ridicule of Him, cursing, spitting, beating, strangling, finally the most blasphemous crucifixion, death and burial and resurrection from the dead. Remember what He did for us to deliver us from eternal torment and what He demands from you for this: that you surrender yourself entirely to Him, live not for yourself, but for Him, fulfilling His commandments. Avoid what plunges us into sin: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life [1 John. 2, 16]. Crucify the flesh with its passions and lusts [Gal. 5, 24]. Save your soul with patience [Lk. 21, 19]. Love God and your neighbor as yourself. God! Have mercy on me: I am a glutton. God! I am a carnal man - do not destroy me. But everything is possible for You, all-good Master: You can transform me into a spiritual person - transform me, O Almighty! God! Make me acceptable to You. What did the Lord of our belly do for us, insignificant, ungrateful and malicious worms? – He came down from heaven, took on our flesh, performed many different miracles, suffered, shed all his blood, died and rose again, so that he may raise us with Him. Let us fulfill His dying will - let us love one another [Jn. 15, 12: let us be diligent 25 in fulfilling His other commandments and will not offend Him with self-will, self-rule and rebellion. God! Help! There is no one more noble and conscientious than my brothers. Proved by experience. Save them, Lord! Be angry with yourself, with yourself alone, full of all evil, all truly worst and most evil, and all the weakest. What passions are you not filled with? And impatience, and irritability, and pride, and contempt, and malice, ill will, and envy, and stinginess, and covetousness, and gluttony - in a word, you are a moral abomination, nothing. Despise yourself, worst of all, be irritated and embittered with yourself, and honor all others as truly better than you, for who has such help for virtue as you, and who is as flawed as you? Most importantly, your stinginess of heart amazes me. How generous the Lord is to you and how stingy you are to those like yourself! Then your anger: how good, long-suffering and abundantly merciful the Lord is to you, but how angry, impatient and unmerciful you are towards those like you. Then pride and contempt: how the Lord has exalted you, despicable, vile, weak, full of a thousand sins, and how you humiliate and despise those who are like you at heart, perhaps a hundred times better than you, although they have some visible weaknesses and passions, for do you know the heart of everyone, do you know what is hidden in the depths of each of them, do you know that another sinner may have such wonderful qualities of heart that are not found in to you and to many who seem righteous, and who are dear to the Lord, who knows the secrets of our hearts. God! Teach me humility, patience, kindness and sincere goodwill. I can’t live without You! Behold, zrish! We must be one spirit with the Lord - the spirit of holiness, the spirit of love, goodness, meekness, long-suffering, mercy. He who does not have this spirit in himself is not God's. So, I must be love, one love, count everyone as one. Let them all be one [Jn. 17, 21]. Wake up! God! Help. What will happen to us, my brothers, what will happen to us in that age when everything that flattered us in this world - wealth, honor, food and drink, clothing, beautifully decorated homes, and all attractive things - what will happen, I say, when all this leaves us? When will all this turn out to be a dream for us and when will deeds of faith and virtue be required of us, deeds of abstinence, purity, meekness, humility, mercy, patience, obedience, etc.? We must have the most living, spiritual connection with the inhabitants of heaven: the Lady, the apostles, prophets, martyrs, saints and all the saints, for they are members of the one body of the Church of Christ, to which we, sinners, belong, and of which the living Head is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. That is why we call them in prayers, talk with them, thank them, glorify them. All Christians urgently need to be in touch with them if they desire Christian prosperity, 26 for the saints are friends, our guides to salvation. A baby instinctively cries like a dog barks. To trample on the flesh: to put it on an equal footing with dirt and everything carnal, to neglect it. God! Your strength - help. When we consider everything carnal to be nothing, then the Lord will be everything to us: the Lord will reign over the ruins in the heart of earthliness. The Lord is simple: either He is everything to us, or if He is not everything, then everything on earth will overcome us. Either God - or flesh, or God - or earth. There is one heart, and it is simple - it clings to one thing. Through our addiction to the flesh or through the excessive value of the flesh and everything carnal, the devil reigns in our hearts, fulfilling his ungodly will and driving out the Kingdom of God from our hearts and destroying the work of Jesus Christ - raising us to heaven. True. Despise the flesh, it will pass away. And in the present age - all the price is for the flesh and the carnal and no price for the spirit and the spiritual, faith and virtue. Love for God and, therefore, the Lord Himself, does not live in the heart in which greed reigns, addiction to earthly goods: earthly sweets, money, etc. It has been proven by experience and is being proven daily. In that heart lives hard-heartedness, pride, arrogance, contempt, malice, revenge, envy, stinginess, vanity and vanity, theft, deception, hypocrisy and pretense, cunning, caresses and groveling, fornication, foul language, violence, treason, perjury. We are all one in unanimity and love and spiritual rebirth, and for all of us everything is the Heavenly Father. Our Father, Who is in heaven. We are one family with one spirit, and if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His [Rom. 8, 9]. Let's understand this. We are the Church of Christ, whose Head is Christ Himself, meek and humble, inexhaustible in blessings for us, if only we live in love. We are the flock, He is the Shepherd. We are the members, He is the Head; How can members be proud of anything when they have everything from the Head? If we have a living, active connection with the members of Christ here, we love them in deed and in truth, then all the holy people of God will have a living union with us, and, no matter what we ask them for, they will intercede for us from Christ God, for whom they sacrificed everything that was dear to them. We, having received life from the Life of all God to offer Him the fruits of life, do we offer Him as a gift our life, the fruits of our life, like the forefathers, prophets, apostles, martyrs, saints, saints, righteous and all saints? Do we even think about it every day? Are we not just living for ourselves? Do we live according to the commandments and statutes of the Giver of Life? If not, then what prevents?.. Self-love, pride? Let us sacrifice our love for ourselves as a sacrifice for the love of God, for what are we in ourselves? - Sin, corruption. Every day they ask you for alms - and give every day willingly, without bitterness, rudeness and murmuring: you give not your own, but God’s to God’s children of the cross, who barely have where to bow their heads; you are the steward of God's property; You are a daily servant of the lesser brethren of Christ; do your work with meekness and humility, do not bore them; To serve Christ, the Judge and Giver of men, is a great honor, a high dignity! Do good deeds with joy. God! Sinned: he became angry with the poor woman, treated her rudely and saddened her. In the future, Lord, do not allow anyone to be offended, even in thought or with a glance! Simply, without much effort, money comes to you - just, without thinking much, give it away. Your efforts are generously rewarded - be generous to others yourself. If you are not rewarded according to your deserts, give to others not according to your deserts and for the sake of their needs. Just as a passionate person is one spirit with the devil (and I and many others feel and feel this), so a virtuous person is and remains one spirit with the Lord. And he feels this, senses it, saying: It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me [Gal. 2:20], or as the Lord Himself says: He who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood abides in Me, and I in him [Jn. 6, 56], or the Apostle: you do not know yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you [2 Cor. 13, 5]. So, for example, the Lady is one spirit with the Lord, the Son and Her God, and the womb of the Son of God in Her womb was an image of the spiritual, invisible, eternal, most holy union of Her most pure soul with the Most Pure God with the assistance of the eternal, omnipotent and unchangeable Spirit of God, Who made Her all holy and unchangeable. So are the holy men of God one spirit with the Lord, and so are all those who live piously on earth. – A great mystery and a great honor to earth-born! But what dishonor and what destruction to the vain and rebellious! They are one spirit with the devil, from whom deliver us all, O Christ our God! I thank Thee, Lord my God, for even now you have not ceased to listen to me in the sorrow of my soul and to save me and surround me with the joys of deliverance. August 2 days 1864 Sunday. If the truth of something is revealed in God’s word, explored and explained by the God-enlightened mind of holy men glorified by God, and known by the heart in its light and life-giving quality, then to doubt it, to be perplexed about it is a grave sin, there is a devilish arrogance of the mind and heart. I myself am a moment-to-moment debtor to the Lord spiritually and physically—spiritually through sins and physically, tuna 27 receiving from Him all the material gifts of food, drink, money, clothes, air, warmth, light, in general, the many different sustenance and contentment of life. How can I not have the pleasure of forgiving my neighbor’s debts, spiritual and material, when the Lord forgives me countless of them? How can I not give God’s gifts freely, when the Lord endlessly gives me all spiritual and material blessings: light to the mind and heart, peace and joy to the heart, alms as varied as a stream of air? Yes, that would be ugly - we are one body and members of each other [Eph. 4, 25], and certainly everyone owes each other a lot; just as in a body the members necessarily mutually owe something to each other, so in a social body it is impossible to do without others owing to us or we not owing to others, and it is impossible not to forgive each other’s debts; just as in the body, naturally, some members often live at the expense of others (so the stomach at the expense of the head or at the expense of the arms and legs), so in society. And most importantly, we must remember that we have everything from God, and we ourselves infinitely owe Him a lot, and He forgives us our debts with love, as long as we forgive our debtors. Let us willingly and diligently forgive our neighbors their debts to us; Let us begin to offer this sacrifice to God daily and live in love. Let us reject self-will and disorderly passions and submit entirely to the will of God. We are images of God, and God is love [1 John. 4, 8 ]; Let us live in love, let us be jealous of it with all our might. Lord help me! But we will consider everything earthly - all food, clothing, money - as rubbish and we will not anger the Lord because of rubbish, biting each other, being at enmity with each other. Will we sell the gentlemen for food, for money? Which is one God: either God, or the flesh - two cannot be recognized, two cannot be served; and the flesh prescribes its laws to us, completely contrary to God: gluttony, intemperance, reliance on food and drink, money, stinginess, or sparing God’s gifts to one’s neighbor, anger at one’s neighbor because of food and drink, contempt for him because of the same, envy because of the same, hardness of heart in his misfortune, etc. What can we do to serve the Lord? unhypocritical? -Crucify the flesh with passions and lusts and consider it as nothing, and consider everything that it values, loves very much: sweets, money, clothes, houses, carriages - consider it as nothing, as rubbish, pus, earth, as indeed all this is so, and consider love as the most precious thing in life and sacrifice everything for it, conquer everything for it, consider everything as nothing for it. Everyone needs to know and believe that there is a spiritual, deadly serpent called the devil and Satan [Rev. 12:9], condemned by the Creator to eternal torment, capable of dragging unbelievers, lawless and unrepentant people into eternal torment. Everyone also needs to know and believe that the Savior was sent into the world from God to save people from the deadly sting of this serpent - sin and from eternal death, and that this Savior gives everyone His saving medicine against the remorse of this serpent - repentance and the Holy Mysteries of His Body and Blood. There are many raindrops, but all from one cloud; there are many rays, but all from one sun; there are many leaves on a tree, but all from one; there is a lot of sand on the ground, but it all comes from one earth. There are so many people, but all from one Adam and, first of all, God. Why does the Lord add day to day, year to year of our existence? So that we gradually wean away, throw away wickedness from our souls, each in his own way, and internalize blissful simplicity, so that, for example, we become like gentle lambs, like simple babies, so that we learn not to have the slightest attachment to earthly things, for example, to clothing, to food, drink, to money, to large, well-decorated dwellings, etc., but, like loving and simple children, to cleave with all our hearts to one God and loved Him with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your thoughts, and your neighbor as yourself. Let us hasten, brethren, with heartfelt and tearful prayer, to ask the Lord for simplicity of heart and let us be jealous, let us take every measure to cast off the wickedness of our souls, for example, evil suspicion, malice, malevolence, malice, pride and arrogance; self-praise, contempt, impatience, despondency, despair, resentment and irritability; timidity and cowardice, envy, stinginess, gluttony and satiety, fornication of thoughts, or heartfelt, and actual fornication; love of money and in general the passion for acquisition, laziness, disobedience and the whole dark horde of sins. God! Without You we cannot do anything. Bless us for this work, and grant us victory over our enemies, over our passions. Wake up! Let us take away spiritual myopia from ourselves and stop paying all our attention only to the temporary, earthly, without looking with our intelligent eyes into the future, never-ending life, without lifting our hearts to our heavenly homeland. Indeed, the amazing shortsightedness of the immortal soul to look only at the present, visible, generally subject to the senses and titillating our carnal senses, and not to look at the life of the next century, at the blessings that eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and has not entered into the heart of man, and which, however, the all-good and all-wise God has prepared for those who love Him [1 Cor. 2, 9]. What are we depriving ourselves of, brothers and sisters, because of our voluntary myopia? Like flies, we have settled down to earthly sweets, and we don’t want to wake up or tear ourselves away from them. Blessed is he who despises the pleasures of this world. There will be no end to his bliss. Just as in worldly life there are poor and rich, so in the spiritual world, in the spiritual order there are poor and rich. The poor ask from the rich or the wealthy and cannot live without them - so in the spiritual order, the poor must resort to the benefits of the spiritually rich. We are spiritually poor, beggars, and saints are spiritually rich or still shining with faith and piety in this life. It is to them that we, the poor, must resort. We must ask for their prayers, so that they help us become simple, like babies, so that they teach us spiritual wisdom, how to overcome sins, how to love God and our neighbor. So, pray for me, holy people of God - prophets, apostles, saints, martyrs, saints, righteous and all saints, that I may be like you. Elder Eutykhios, like a gentle lamb, is humble like a child. But an old man, rich in faith and spiritual wisdom! Any regret that this and that is left from the table and will disappear leads to anxiety and gluttony: a person feels sorry for what was left, and so that, in his opinion, it does not disappear, he eats what is still left, although he is full - such madness! Yes, it’s better to lose everything, count it, just so as not to desecrate the church of God with satiety, just so as not to become a beast. Give up all pity, look at food as nothing, as earth, pus, for the end of both food and even our bodies is pus. The spiritual demands of Christianity are such that we must not only spare our property and indifferently part with it when others steal it from us, but we must not spare our bodies either, but be prepared for various hardships, labors, 28 torments, like saints, unmercenaries, martyrs, and confessors. What about us? When our uninvited guests often eat and drink, we are in trouble, we feel sorry for this and that, and our hearts hurt. Little believers! Earth lovers! When you pray to the Lord, imagine well to whom you are praying - you are praying to the beginningless and endless King of every creation, the all-holy, all-good, all-powerful, all-wise, omnipresent, all-righteous, before Whom millions of millions of Angels of various orders revere, Whom is sung by the armies of martyrs, the class of prophets and apostles, the councils of saints, saints and saints. righteous. When you pray to the Lady, also imagine Her unparalleled holiness, greatness, goodness, wisdom, all-good, servile worship from the armies of Angelic and human councils. The mystery of Christ's redemption, His suffering, death on the cross and His resurrection and Ascension and Second Coming must be constantly remembered and corresponded to all this. The shrine of the Mother of God, as an animated ark and church of the Divine, as deified above all, should be honored and asked from Her after the Lord for purification, and shrine, and strength in faith and love. Avoid revenge, insolence and arbitrariness. Our soul has a passion for this, when others do something not according to us or do not do what we would like. Be patient. Think about what would happen if others took revenge on you immediately because you did something against their will or did not do something that you could have done and should do?.. And as you want others to do to you, do so to them. Or stick to the rule: we leave our debtor. Man is the personified house. Here we must remember that our heart is extremely capricious, evil and stupid. We don’t like someone very much for no reason at all, as they say, and we harbor malice towards him in our hearts, and would be ready to hit him on the cheeks for no reason or shower him with abusive words. We must despise the natural and unreasonable malice of the heart and pray to God to drive out this stench of the hellish abyss from the heart. Let us remember what we are commanded: This I command you, that you love one another [Jn. 15, 17]. The life of the heart is love, its death is anger and enmity towards the brother. The Lord keeps us on earth for this purpose, so that love for God and neighbor will completely penetrate our hearts - this is what He expects from everyone. This is the goal of peace. My daily, greatest misfortune is sins that sting, oppress and gnaw at my heart. But against this misfortune there is a daily, greatest Savior, the Savior Jesus Christ. He does me good every day - invisibly, graciously, magnificently! Poor sinners! Know the whole Savior, just as I know Him by His grace, by His gift. These are the milky springs from which you were originally nourished, and this is the door through which you came into this world. How one must reverence all these works of the highest wisdom, omnipotence, goodness and holiness, with what purity one must look at them, in what inviolability they should have them all! You men and you women! Keep your heart pure! My friends! Above all else in life, beware of intemperance in food and drink, and do not be greedy and gluttonous. From intemperance and delicacy, a great deal of disorder occurs in life in mental, moral, economic and household, service-civil or church-service and physical relationships. In addition, loss of time, relaxation, laziness, etc. I borrow evidence from myself. You ate intemperately - and now it became hard: hard for the soul, hard for the body; You have neither sensible thoughts nor Christian feelings; you are exhausted, you want to sleep; You sleep for an hour, and then, perhaps, your head hurts. What, are you without sin? Why are you angry with those who sin? Is leaning on a table disgusting? And before that they reclined behind him. This matter is indifferent. But our common enemy misrepresents to you all the actions of your neighbor, so that you become embittered towards your neighbor. You, as if not noticing the enemy’s machinations, do not look at the shortcomings of your neighbor, covering them with love or correcting them with kindness and meekness, but condemn and correct yourself immediately. Each of us has many bad habits that we do not notice and are condescendingly excused by others. Forgive them in others too, covering them with love. You become embittered at your neighbor, at your brother, and say: he is this and that - a miser, angry, proud, etc., or he did this and that. What do you care about that? He sins against God, not you: God is his judge, not you; He will answer to God for himself, not you. Know yourself: know how sinful you are, what a log you have in your own eye, how hard it is for you to cope with your sins and overcome them, how you yourself suffer from them, like a woman who is pregnant, how they have overwhelmed you, 30 how you want the indulgence of others in your weaknesses. And your brother is a man just like you: have mercy on him as a sinful man, like you in everything, just as weak as you; love him as yourself, hearing the Lord say: This I command you, that you love one another [Jn. 15, 17], and just as you pray for yourself, so that the Lord will help you eradicate your fierce and ineffective passions, so pray for your brother, so that the Lord will free him from flattery 31 and the corruption of passions, from their darkness and oppression. We must remember that we are one body of sin, more or less infected in our members with the breath of the common enemy the devil, and on our own, without the grace of God, we are powerless to get rid of this deadening and gloomy breath - only the Holy Spirit with His breath can disperse the demonic darkness of passions due to the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross, and that, therefore, we must humbly pray to the Lord in the spirit of brotherly love for all our brothers and for all people, so that 32 they have overcome the darkness of passions and their great charm, in which they delight, not knowing their destruction: for example, a rich man delights in his wealth, an ambitious man in his differences, a glutton in food and drink and delicacies, an evil man in his malice, an envious man in the suffering victim of his envy, etc. The greedy person's heart hurts when others take the best piece, not he, and although he is full, he nevertheless regrets that he does not eat it himself. What should I do? We should be glad that others, not us, get the best. This is out of humility and because the multi-passionate flesh does not need to be indulged, because it rebels more, fights, and fights the soul. In general, we must rejoice in every case of crucifying the flesh with passions and lusts, that is, rejoice in the fact that something objectionable is done to our flesh, and rejoice in the fulfillment, contrary to our flesh, of the commandment of God. You were a complete master of yourself and could correct yourself if you wanted (they will tell you at that Last Judgment) in a few days, but you could - and did not correct yourself; now blame yourself. In one day you could weep your sins with bitter tears and wash your heart with them, but even at fifty years old you did not mourn them. Oh, woe to me, wretched one! Just as every word of the prayer Have mercy on me, O God... The Lord hears and fulfills every word (experience), as long as it is spoken from the heart, so are all the words of other prayers, even our own sincere short prayers. Amen. O benevolent Master! Glory to You. Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; press, and it will be opened to you; everyone who asks is accepted... [Matt. 7, 7 – 8]. Only in simplicity of heart, pray without doubt. By infecting our physical makeup with disease, the Lord crushes the old, sinful, carnal man in order to give strength to the new man, whom we have weakened with carnal deeds: gluttony, idleness, entertainment, and various passions. When I am weak, then I am strong [2 Cor. 12, 10]. We must accept illness with gratitude. Holy men of God are great in their spiritual disposition, in their faith, in their firm trust in God and ardent love for God, for whom they despised all earthly things! Oh, how insignificant we are before them! How unlike them! They are great in their feats of abstinence, vigil, unceasing fasting, prayer, exercise in the word of God, in the thought of God! Oh, how different we are from them! How we should at least honor them! How can one not ask for their prayers for oneself with reverence! But under no circumstances should you fraternize with them, do not become familiar, or become arrogant. I thank You, Lord, my Master and Judge, because you taught me to simply pray to You, and because Abiye 33 you hear me crying to You, and you save me from my sins and my sorrows, and you put my burdens in the distance [Ps. 30, 9]. Behold, I cried out to You in the sin of my wickedness with the words of church prayer: Lord our God, who grants repentance to man. 34 and as soon as I finished it, peace and lightness settled in my soul. July 29, 1864 in the Engineering Garden, on a walk with his brother-in-law Gurnov. First moral lesson. Do not listen to the enemy’s slander against your neighbor, his abominations and various evils and his pride... look at every person simply, with respect, as the image of God, and do not think anything bad about him. Second lesson. When you pray only internally or together and externally, be firmly confident that the Lord is here, with you and in you, and hears every word, even if it’s to yourself, even if you only speak mentally; speak from the bottom of your heart, sincerely, condemn yourself also sincerely, without the slightest justification of yourself; Have faith that the Lord will have mercy on you and you will not remain unmercied. Right. Taken from experience. Never be angry with anyone, especially innocent children, no matter what business, free or official, they distract you from. Do everything without bitterness, remain meek, gentle and affectionate inviolably. And forget anger, this chimera, this hellish monster. God! Help! Human! There is hell in you - conquer this hell in the power of the fortress of the Lord Jesus Christ. The more you eat or drink sweets, the more you stink. Isn't it? Eat and drink moderately and simply, without resorting to sweets and meats and various drinks, and you will smell as fragrant as a cypress tree. That is why in our hearts there is no living faith, hope in God and hope for a future judgment and a future life and future torment, because there is no love for God and neighbor, there is no sincere heartfelt prayer, there are no fruits of virtue, because we are constantly gluttonous, live in idleness and in all sorts of passions and serve the devil, and he sat down in our hearts and created a throne in them^ Experience. Fasting and prayer. You are angry with your neighbor, you despise him, you don’t want to talk to him peacefully and lovingly because he has something rude, abrupt, careless 35 that is unpleasant to you in his character, in his speech, in his manners, because he is aware of his dignity, perhaps more than proper, or that he is somewhat proud and disrespectful; but you are more guilty than he, doctor and teacher of your neighbor: to the doctor! heal yourself [Lk. 4, 23 ], teacher! learn it yourself. Your malice is the worst evil of all evil - is it possible to correct evil with malice? Having a log, is it possible to take a knitting needle from someone else? Evil and shortcomings are corrected with goodness, love, affection, meekness, humility, and patience. Recognize yourself first of all sinners who seem to you to be sinners or are actually sinners, consider yourself worse and lower than everyone else, purge all pride and anger towards your neighbor, impatience and rage - and then heal others. Otherwise, cover the sins of others with condescending love. If you see all the iniquities in your neighbor, what will happen? – Eternal enmity and disorder, for who is without sin? For this reason, we are commanded to forgive our debtors, for if the Lord sees our iniquities, which of us will stand before His righteousness? If you forgive people their sins, then your Heavenly Father will also forgive you [Matt. 6, 14]. Be glad, grateful and kind to visitors who visit you during illness out of love for you or even out of duty and decency, although you did not expect and would not want this visit due to your gloomy mood. Retain all your respect and courtesy towards them. Otherwise we sometimes become alienated from those who love us. A person pampered by delicious food and drink can be stubborn and capricious when he is deprived of his favorite dish, for example, when he is ill, so that it does not harm him; he does not want to believe that it will be harmful to him, and is ready to quarrel and quarrels with the one who deprives him of the eaten idol. And what would it seem like to be satisfied with this or those dishes that are offered to him? After all, it can’t be that only the forbidden dish is both satisfying and healthy? You can be full with just soup or bread and water. No, to know such an evil heart - out of empty pleasure it seeks to quarrel and feast, and to torment loved ones and itself. We must maintain peace and sacrifice our pleasures to maintain it. One must be satisfied with everything, because a person needs very little and very little value, and the simpler the better. Don't eat meat. The rubble is made from meat. We are at the table of love, at the most embodied Love, but we do not have love. Strange thing! And there is no concern. And love itself will not come without our diligence, effort and activity. Let the gifts of God's love for us - food, drink, sweets - be an expression of our mutual love. Wake up! The providence of the Heavenly Father will provide everything for us. Let us preserve the simplicity of love. Love for mankind Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, I thank you with all my heart, for you heard my prayer for love of neighbor and contempt for earthly things and poured out peaceful, reasonable and sweet love into my heart. Confirm this in me, O God, through the prayers of our all-pure Lady Theotokos, and may I be Your child, O Lord, and Her truest child. July 26, 1864 11 pm. Do not look at the appetite, or the strong, continuing desire to eat and drink when you have already eaten and drunk enough: our nature is all corrupted by sin - taste, and the womb, and the ability to bear children, and the desire for intercourse, and sight, and hearing, and touch - everything, and you do not need to follow it in everything without reflection, but stop eating and drinking before your appetite stops, when you still want to eat and drink - then you will not burden yourself, your stomach and heart, and you will be healthy in spirit and body and live longer. And have nothing in common with greed: eat and drink not with enthusiasm, but leaving freedom to your mind and heart to call on or glorify the name of the Lord (or thank the Lord for His gifts) or to think about something useful or soul-saving and to talk with those sitting together at the table. Food and drink are not a business, not an occupation, but a hobby. Recognize from the heart that every creation of God is good and pure, especially man, as the work of the most pure hands of the Creator, His most pure thought, His word and His spirit. The vile dreamer the devil has not given anything and cannot give even a hair's breadth of anything of his own to any of God's creatures. Oh, the most beautiful, most precious plant - man! Oh, a certain graceful and magnificent palm tree - man! Oh, God's best creation is man! Oh, the most honest, inviolable (should be) creation of God for anything unclean, as the image of God Himself, as the venerable church of God Himself! Let all the nasty, crafty and blasphemous thoughts and thoughts of doubt flee from us, O fellow men, brothers and sisters. We are God's children, we are holy in Christ - let us keep our hearts sacred; Let us, as animated arks of God, let our thoughts and hearts be touched by the hand of bad and evil spirits! Who became man for the sake of the Word of God and God! Keep us in Your sanctuary! Our Holy Head! Do not give our hearts and our bodies to the vile Belial 36, let him defile them with thoughts, but abide with us and keep us pure and blameless. Grant us, Lord, to always have a living connection with You, our most blessed Head, like members of Your body, a connection in the thoughts of the heart, in prayer and in deeds! Wake up! The falling away of our hearts from You is darkness and death, Lord, there is sorrow and oppression, shame and humiliation and spiritual abomination. With You we have light, life, peace, joy, spaciousness in the heart, boldness, and greatness, and holiness. You know that you are promised eternal life in God, that you must earn it by obedience to God and His Church in this short-term life, by enduring illnesses, sorrows, hardships and various hardships - and you do not want to obey the Creator, you live in carelessness and carelessness about your soul, in carelessness about virtue, in incessant sins. What can you expect after this, you ungrateful, ill-tempered and disobedient creatures? My soul, think, turn your entire earthly life to the glory of God and the good of your neighbors. Do not please flesh and blood, but your Lord: flesh and blood are perishable, like everything earthly. If a person towards whom you for some reason do not have a cordial disposition for his, for example, pride, pompousness, arrogance, resentment, ingratitude, asks about your health when you are sick or healthy, do not accept his words with suspicion and resentment, but simply, with heartfelt goodness and joy and say: thank you, my dear or my dear, or my dear, my dear, or simply: I sincerely thank you or you for participating. In general, overcome all evil with good [Rom. 12, 21]. For goodness and love are always victorious, instructive, edifying and productive, that is, they are conducive to good actions. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God! You worked, and we all breathed into your work! How can we be indignant and embittered at those who participate in our work, for example, they eat what we have obtained through our labors, which are abundantly rewarded by Your goodness, so that we have something to show love for our neighbors. Beggar or beggar, may your soul be rich and enriched by meekness, humility, patience, and submission to God’s will. You are sick, but your soul will be healthy, your heart will be purer, your spirit will be humbler. It is good for me, for you have humbled me, so that I may learn through Your justification 37 [Ps. 118, 71]. Why suspiciousness where it should not be, for example in faith, for example, when reading or hearing God’s word, church readings and singing, in prayer, etc. God is the truth - that’s enough; the devil is a lie, a slanderer, an adversary - that's enough. Know only God and His truth, be alien to the devil and his lies, dreams, absurdities. If you feed the flesh extensively, then the heart imperceptibly becomes coarser, thickens and moves away from God and is alienated from Him; for him food and drink become god. Talk about food and drink and sweets at your meal: all this is not mine - God’s; I only need essential things, very, very little, the rest is the property of my neighbors, my own and others, such as the beggars, the unfortunate, the crippled, etc., or guests, strangers. And consider your own as the same flesh and blood with you, and, as members of the family, may they always be pleased, kind, respected, and not neglected in your house; God is in them, they are images of God, even if they bear the wounds of sins. The sinful habit, which became the law, reigned in my thoughts, the sinful habit in the heart in passionate movements, the sinful habit in the will and strives for evil. The last abyss of sins has passed over me, and my spirit disappears; but simple, Master, save Your high arm, like Peter, save me, the Steward 38. Children! Whose building is this that we call the world? - God's. Whose building is the person? - God's; That is why God is called the Creator. We must thank God that He revealed Himself to us and that He created the world. The cross, the soulless tree, even its signs are trembled by demons because the Son of God was nailed to the tree of the cross and sanctified it by His suffering on it - how the demons tremble of the Lady Theotokos and the very name of Her all-holy! Holy is the cross, all the more holy is the Mother of God, who brought holiness to the cross itself, for the body received from Her suffered on the cross. Like the bright Lady star, She is all in the abyss of light - God; like a hot coal in a great fire - all bright and fiery. Amen. Confirm, God! Just as it is easy to think that She is light and holiness, so She is eternal light and eternal holiness. Amen. Say to yourself when someone offends you in anything: I am worthy to endure every untruth from people, every insult, every deprivation, and therefore, when something like this happens to me, I must endure it without bitterness, without grumbling, with joy, like the Christians of the first times or like the few true Christians of all times. So be patient if, for example, your boss offends you by unjustly appropriating something from your property for himself, or treating you proudly and rudely, or bypassing you in rewards, or in some other way. Commit yourself, your boss, and all your neighbors to the Lord, for the Lord is the Judge. Do not avenge yourselves, beloved, but give room to the wrath of God. For it is written: Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says the Lord [Rom. 12, 19]. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever [Heb. 13, 8]. So the truth of God (everything you read in the Gospel, in church prayers, canons, akathists, Psalms) is the same forever; she is still the same as you found her for the first time, or when you prayed with a diligent heart, felt all the truth, sweetness, peace and life-giving of her. You change and become in different relationships to her, but she is the same - the eternal sun, enlightening, warming, revitalizing. My pride and my self-will are death for me. Love for God and neighbor - His image and adherence to the will of God - is life for me. To warm the hearts of everyone with love and affection, despising everything earthly like rubbish, like pus, like dust. To despise the carnal, sinful law, which is at war in my souls and takes captive by the sinful law that is in my souls [Rom. 7, 23 ]; to despise the self-law of a heart that is multi-passionate, self-loving, earth-loving, proud, hostile to God, and hateful of man. Love, love and love! Great God! Look at the intention, confirm it and commit it! Wake up! Wake up! How long will the holy Mysteries, acceptable to us, remind us that we are one body of many [1 Cor. 10, 17], - and how long will there not be mutual heartfelt unity in us with each other, as members of the one body of Christ? How long will we be self-legislative in life, quarrel with each other, envy each other, bite each other, grieve and devour each other? Condemn and scold each other? How long will there not be in us the spirit of Christ, the spirit of meekness, humility, kindness, unfeigned love, self-sacrifice, patience, chastity, abstinence, simplicity and sincerity, contempt for the worldly, complete striving for heavenly things? Master Lord Jesus Christ! Enlighten the eyes of our hearts, and may Your good Spirit guide us all to rightness on earth. Give us Your Spirit. Everything is for all of us, the Lord, and we can do nothing for ourselves on our own. He is the giver of strength, blessings, and favorable opportunities for the development of our well-being. Place all your sorrow, all your care, all your care on the Lord. If you suffer, unrighteously or righteously, reproach, contempt, humiliation, oppression, insult, deprivation from someone, then rejoice and consider this as retribution of God’s righteousness for your sins, and do not become irritated and do not become embittered; do not be proud and do not disdain and do not contradict. God will reveal the truth. Imitate the Savior - although He was slandered, He did not slander each other; while suffering, he did not threaten, but handed it over to the Righteous Judge [I Pet. 2, 23]. Despise earthly life as temporary, vain, sinful, shared with the devil, and direct all thoughts, desires, hopes, and quests toward heavenly, eternal, true, righteous life, shared with God and the saints. Endless, inexhaustible Love - God; He is everything to everyone; He treats everyone in my house at my meal, not I: I myself am His parasite; His right hand, extended to me, will never be exhausted in His gifts. Have such thoughts to protect yourself from greed and stinginess when treating frequent guests, relatives, receiving strangers, when giving alms to the poor, when donating to churches and monasteries, when doing charity of any kind. Look at all things in the world as inexhaustible gifts of endless, ever-flowing and never-fading Love. If you envy the rich, or high-ranking rulers, or counts, princes, landowners because they have enormous wealth, large, beautiful, wooded, picturesque dachas and palaces, then you can envy God Himself, the All-Creator and Ruler of the World, who lives in unapproachable light and eternal bliss. How proud you are! You have forgotten about yourself who you are, what an insignificance you are, what you are worth, what you were before and what you have become now by the sole grace of God. You see the well-being of the few above you and envy them, but do not see the misfortune of the countless people below you. You see how many are above you, but you don’t see how many are below you. Be humble, dear one, and be pleased with the fact that God has given you much that is not according to your merits. It must also be said that such envy exposes the earth-loving soul in you. You would be ready, it seems, to acquire the whole world, but to waste your soul, 39 to reduce it to nothing, all its heavenly needs and aspirations. Envy is generally a low, devilish quality, but envy of people in material goods is even more low, showing in a person, if he is educated, a deliberate withdrawal from true goods, spiritual, heavenly. For all our good is God. It is good for me to cleave to God [Ps. 72, 28]. You haven’t learned patience and groan, moan, and get irritated when you’re sick: shouldn’t a baby cry from pain and various troubles? Instead of words, moans, groans, he has only one voice - crying. We must sympathize with him, calm him down in every possible way, and not be annoyed by his crying. Oh, if I were pure gold! Oh, if only I had a pure heart! If you want to be a true Christian, unhypocritical, then fast; without abstinence and fasting you cannot help but be a hypocrite: You cannot, it is said, serve God and mammon [Matt. 6, 24]. Their god is the belly [Phil. 3, 19]. In You, Lord Jesus, when You dwell in my heart by my faith, my whole life, all my wealth, all my treasures, all my contentment. Oh, give me the grace to always be with You! Give me the grace to trample upon my heart everything earthly like dust, to spare nothing earthly, saying: The Lord gave, the Lord has taken away [Job. 1, 21]. Money, bread and salt, various fruits, varied clothing, books, housing - these are all gifts from the infinite, good, inexhaustible God. Should absurdity be added to absurdity, that is, to the mistake of a neighbor, anger against him for the mistake?.. For the poor, low in rank and condition, for subordinates, for domestic and relatives or relatives, for the powerless and ugly, I am ready (especially after getting used to them or borrowing them on my part) to be embittered and despise them, to regard them as nothing, but to the rich, learned, important, well-dressed, I caress and indulge, I humiliate myself before them, I am afraid of them, although I may not depend on them. I'm a strange person! Fickle, uneven, partial person! Those whom I should respect and love more for their misfortune, for their poverty, simplicity, meekness, humility or life on the cross, I despise, and whom I sometimes need to despise and turn away from, for example, a rich, brilliant, important, daring person - I respect him, I fear him, before him I subserviently and bow my sacred head with respect. Damned, arbitrarily blind man! How I cleave to earthly things! How appearance seduces me! How little faith I have! My brothers! have faith in Jesus Christ our Lord of glory, regardless of personalities [Jas. 2, 1]. We are all brothers. The enemy at deliberate times strongly draws my heart with fiery tightness to doubt, despondency, embarrassment, fear, anger, blasphemy, irritability, pride, contempt, envy, stinginess, gluttony, fornication, or painfully clings my heart to smart clothes, to money, to a beautiful home. What to do? – Have Jesus Christ in your heart and trust in Him, love Him alone with all your heart. And the rain fell, and the rivers flooded, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it did not fall, because it was founded on rock [Matt. 7, 25]. If you can’t do even the slightest thing, why bother about the rest? [ OK. 12, 26]. That is, everything is God for us, but we ourselves cannot do a single hair for ourselves. Just as God has given us everything, soul and body, so He provides for us all and in everything; He also gives us good thoughts, so that without Him we cannot even think anything on our own, as if from ourselves, but our ability comes from God [2 Cor. 3, 5], as well as bodily contentment, in food and drink, clothing, money, etc. Wonderful, universal is Your providence, Master! Glory to your countless mercies, like the sand of the earth, poured out on us, the ungrateful and malicious. Every person has his own character and his own manner of speech, gait, etc. - in this respect, everyone is his own master. Do not despise the character of another because it is not the same as yours. Caress, rest, delight, satiate your flesh - it will annoy you, it will upset you, it will laugh at you, and how? - Very cruel, despicable, merciless. What from here? “Crucify her in every possible way, then you will have true peace and true pleasure in your soul.” What one should laugh at as absurd stupidity and nonsense, what one should despise without paying attention, is something a person often grieves about, laments, and cries. O foolish heart! O passionate heart! Our sweets are eaten by others - we mourn, we are indignant, but we should rejoice about this, because others eat what, if eaten by us, would bring harm to the soul, would serve to satiation; finally, because by pleasing others you fulfill the work of love and earn the favor and love of others. We must pray for the shortcomings, mistakes and passions of our neighbor, and not become embittered towards him and not increase evil, not condemn him, not gloat. What do you want from others when you do something bad? Isn't it condescension? Shouldn't you pray for yourself so that God will forgive you? Don’t you want your sin to be ignored and covered with your love? Do the same with others, if no harm is foreseen for others, or, mind you, with love and a spirit of meekness. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not feel the plank in your own eye? [Matt. 7, 3]. God! Help me from now on to succeed in abstinence and impartiality towards everything earthly. I ask you great things, but to You, Master, all things are possible. Amen. Let me not be a hypocrite in prayer. This is true Christian philosophy - abstinence and fasting, contemplation of God and true, heartfelt prayer. Give me God in my heart, and I will be calm and content - with Him I will have everything. (Experience.) If I do not cleave to anything except God, there will be paradise in my soul. If I don’t worry about anything, placing all my trust in God, there will be paradise in my soul. (Experience.) Repeat one thing: Lord, Lord, Lord, and you will not be ashamed, but repeat it with faith. Truth, being, life, wisdom, light, education, success in everything, peace, contentment are mutual love, based on faith and love for God. Lies, ghosts, death, madness, darkness, ignorance, stupidity and failure in everything, languor, dissatisfaction with everyone and everything is dislike and mutual enmity, which has an imprecise beginning of the devil. Because of something carnal, for example, because of sweaty stench, untidiness, bad breath, bad breath, painful ugliness, or because of mistakes, passions, bad habits of a neighbor, one should not harbor hatred towards one’s neighbor in the heart: this is a false, meaningless pretext of the devil, who seeks to reign in us constantly through an addiction to earthly, pleasant, through malice, pride, contempt, gluttony, envy, stinginess and other passions and drive out from us the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of spiritual blessings - purity, holiness and truth, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit [Rom. 14, 17]. Do not drink, do not drink fresh milk in the morning. Extremely harmful to the soul. One must stop eating meat: it makes the heart coarse and grows cold toward God and toward one’s neighbor. God! Let no satanic, earthly wisdom dwell in me. Amen. Do not say: I am rich, I live in large and bright chambers, and he is like cattle, in a dwelling like a stable. Our Lord deliberately deigned to be born in a manger Himself and commanded His disciples to write this in the Gospel. Rich chambers are empty vanity; a simple, gentle soul is the magnificent dwelling of the Holy Trinity, and simple, meek, humble, and gentle souls are found most often in a simple rank, such as the apostles, or in a poor state, while in the chambers of this world there lives more pride and pompousness, malice and deceit and the vanity of covetousness, envy and other passions that degrade a person to the state senseless cattle or wild animals. There is a proverb: God rests in simple hearts. Whose simple hearts are these? – The hearts of simple and poor people who have experienced poverty and grief. It is in them that the Lord rests. But scientists are for the most part crafty, arrogant, arrogant in mind, arrogant, and lacking in faith; together with other teachings, their hearts learned to despise fellow humans similar to themselves, who have exactly the same nature; They dream of themselves that they are light for those in darkness, mentors for the insane - and they themselves remain in the greatest darkness, in the greater ugliness of vices. Here is earthly education and nobility! Educated people in their crafty hearts and in their false minds find only more pretexts for sin; they have learned to excuse their sins more than ordinary people, who, although their hearts are uncorrupted, do not yet know this art or deceit - to excuse their sins with various pretexts. For a scientist, every sin is an excusable weakness or a need of nature. God! Have mercy on us! So I am a scientist, but a learned sinner: with learning, I am constantly contained by sins: either pride and contempt, or malice and envy, or covetousness and stinginess, or gluttony, gluttony and drunkenness, or wickedness and various unfaithful, doubtful, blasphemous and nasty thoughts; either coldness towards God, ingratitude, insensibility of His benefits, or laziness, or malice and gloating. What is in my learning? But here is my learning, about which I should always rejoice and in which I should always boast: I came to know the Savior, Jesus Christ the Son of God. Here is my wisdom! Here is my wealth! Here is my nobility! He is my purification and salvation, He is everything to me, in Him all knowledge receives its end and reward, He is the Alpha and Omega [Rev. 1.8]. Know and remember that the matter of your salvation is always close to the heart of the Lady Theotokos, for for this purpose He chose Her from all generations and was incarnated from Her, the Most Pure One, by the favor of the Father and the assistance of the Holy Spirit, the Son of God, in order to save the human race from sin, curse and eternal death or eternal torment. Just as the Savior is close to the work of our salvation, so is it to Her. Turn to Her with complete faith, hope, and love. God bless! The delusion and disease of my heart is love of earth (or addiction to earthly goods), because of which I often fall into anger at my neighbor, into envy, into pride and contempt, because of it I want to get rich, receive external distinctions, have a richly furnished apartment, spacious, the walls of which are covered with colored wallpaper or painted with expensive and pleasant paint, dress in the latest fashion, eat and drink as much as possible It’s tastier and more refined to have and read earthly books, that is, having as their subject only earthly things, that is, temporary, corruptible, transitory, or heavenly ones, but not spiritual, but also material, for example, astronomy. But Christ, my God, my Savior, taught me both in the first days of His carnal infancy and throughout my entire subsequent life to despise earthly so-called blessings: a bright home, soft clothing, tasty and refined food, money - the root of all evil, even books of secular content, for He Himself did not study and sought primarily heavenly blessings. Set your mind on things above [Col. 3, 2]. Be all in God, all heavenly, trampling on everything earthly with your mind and will of your heart, then you will be a true servant of Christ, whose Body and Blood you eat. Otherwise you are neither warm nor cold [Rev. 3, 15 – 16]: you are connected with earthly things - with worldly lusts and pleasures, you want to belong to both Christ and the world. But it is impossible for two masters to work: both one’s belly and the Lord (Who is the Spirit and will abolish both food and belly [1 Cor. 6:13]), wealth and God, passions and God, who is dispassionate and dispassion is the quietest abyss. Take your time in prayer and in matters that do not require haste. The devil often forces us to haste, so as not to give us time to think about words and deeds and so that we speak and do only out of blind habit or out of passion. Many take communion for a long time and often, but do not change internally; they do not want to leave their passions, bad habits and addictions. This is the kiss of Judas; the land that drinks the rain that falls on it many times and grows grain useful to those for whom it is cultivated receives a blessing from God; but the thorns and thistles that produce are worthless and are close to a curse, the end of which is burning [Heb. 6,7 – 8]. Sister Anna defends her rights, her human dignity and teaches you to behave as a good person, especially a priest, should, verbally 40 with dignity, with meekness and love and respect for her, as for everyone. You need to leave all displeasure, anger, hostility, contempt, disgust and hatred for her. You are full of inexcusable shortcomings, like a priest, a man and the owner of the house, and she, although with shortcomings, is excusable in her, like in a weak woman, young, impressionable, lively. What should she do with you when you have no domestic qualities for which you should be respected? Blame yourself. Love her as you love yourself, trampling on yourself. On the ruins of one’s self-love one can only found love for one’s neighbor and for God. Turn yourself away... [Matt. 16, 24]. God! Help. I am yours, save me [Ps. 118, 94]. Christ, the Son of God, the most holy God, is not ashamed to call... us sinners brethren [Heb. 2, 11 ], and do not be ashamed to call brothers and sisters at least the poor and ignorant, simple people, relatives according to the flesh or not relatives, and do not be proud before them, do not despise them, do not be ashamed of them, do not blush and do not be indignant when they call you brother, for we are all truly brothers in Christ, we were all born 41 of water and the Spirit in the baptismal font and became children of God, all we are called Christians, we all feed on the Flesh and Blood of the Son of God, the Savior of the world, other Church Sacraments are performed on all of us, we all pray in the Lord’s Prayer: Our Father and equally we all call God our Father - we know no other kinship except the kinship of the spiritual and at the same time of the flesh, the highest, the eternal, which was given to us by the Lord of life, the Creator and Renewer of our nature, Jesus Christ, for this one kinship is true, holy, abiding 42; earthly kinship is false, unclean (for we were born in sins and in iniquity and filthiness before God), temporary, perishable, just as our flesh and blood are perishable. So, simply treat your fellow humans as equals with equals, and do not be proud of anyone, but, on the contrary, humble yourself, for everyone who exalts himself will be humiliated, and he who humiliates himself will be exalted [Lk. 18, 14]. Don’t say: I am educated, but he or she is not, he or she is a simple, uneducated man or peasant; Do not turn the gift of God to you, unworthy, into a reason for pride, but for humility. For to whom much is given, much will be demanded from him, and to whom little is given, little will be asked. Do not say: I am noble, and he is of low birth; earthly nobility without the nobility of faith and virtue is an empty name. What is my nobility when I am noble, but just as much a sinner as others, or even worse? And one must love one’s neighbor not in one’s own way, but in God’s way, that is, not according to one’s own will, but according to God’s. Our will is to love only those who love us, and to despise, hate, persecute enemies or people who are unpleasant to us for some reason, but God wants us to love them all the more, as if they were sick, so that we ourselves, as sick with pride, pride, contempt and malice, would heal ourselves with love and humility, applying this all-healing plaster to their heart wounds. When correcting the sinful illnesses of others, there is no need to be arrogant, become embittered or angry and lose your temper and think not about the benefit of your neighbor, but about yourself and serve your pride and your passions in general; love is not irritated by frivolous or proud and arrogant and evil words and actions of a neighbor - it is long-suffering, merciful, not irritated, not proud, does not think evil, does not put every word in line, but covers everything up - and that’s okay, for what you cover with condescension often conveniently passes by itself. So, the one who heals others must be healthy himself, so that those being healed do not say: doctor, heal yourself [Lk. 4, 23], namely: it is necessary to be meek, humble, kind and long-suffering... If the person being healed notices that you yourself are angry and angry and do not love him, then he will internally despise and hate you, and you will not have any effect on him, for evil is not corrected by evil, but by good. Conquer evil with good [Rom. 12, 21]. Eradicate in advance what you want to eradicate in others. Concerns about everyday things, like darkness, cover the mental horizon of the soul and darken the eyes of the heart and bind the soul. But do not worry about anything, but cast all your sorrow and care on the Lord, according to the instructions of the spirit-bearing Apostle [1 Pet. 5, 7]. Don’t worry about spending on others: it is a pre-betrothal of new and greater bounties of the Lord to you. Some seem to be praying to the Lord, but he himself is working for the devil, who nests in his heart, because he prays only with his lips, but his heart is cold, does not feel and does not desire what his lips ask and what they say, and he is further away from the Lord. There are also many communicants, of whom I am the first, who partake of the Body and Blood of Christ insincerely, not with great love, only with the lips and belly, with little faith, coldness, with a heart addicted to food and drink, money or prone to pride, malice, envy, laziness, and their heart is far from Him who is all love, holiness, perfection and wisdom and kindness 43 indescribable. Such people need to go deeper into themselves and repent more deeply and reflect more deeply on what prayer is and what communion is. The coldness of the heart towards God and towards prayer comes from the devil: he is the coldness of tartarus; and we, as children of God, will love the Lord with ardent love. Grant, Lord, for without You we cannot do anything, because You are everything to us, and we are nothing. You brought us from non-existence into existence and provided us with everything. I, like a dog, return to my vomit, or, like a pig, after washing, I return to the pot [2 Pet. 2, 22]. After being washed with the most pure Blood of the Lord, I again sin the same sins from which I was washed, and sometimes, due to coldness and lack of faith, I was not washed. Why am I faint-hearted when the enemy gives me a cold for serving him? I will accept one worthy of my deeds. But remember me, O Lord, in Thy Kingdom [Lk. 23, 41 – 42] and deliver me from the hand of the flattering Belial. Amen. To a Christian who sins willingly or unwillingly, remind him more often of his dignity, that he is deified and that our nature is seated on the throne with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit; On occasion, tell a Jew, a Mohammedan, or a pagan what they are deprived of through their inertia in unbelief; tell them how our nature has been exalted by the Son of God, how it has been ennobled and blessed; exhort Christians to forsake sins for the sake of such nobility of their nature; attract non-believers to the faith of Christ. Great Litany. We are all one body [1 Cor. 10, 17 ]; the litany lists the members of the body. This is the nature of the entire divine service - Vespers, Matins, Liturgy. With what spirit, with what loftiness of thoughts, with what love should a priest pray to God! To repent means to feel in your heart the lies, madness, and guilt of your sins; it means to realize that with them you have offended your Creator, Lord, Father and Benefactor, who is infinitely holy and infinitely abhors sin; it means to wish with all your soul to correct and smooth them over. I don’t believe my heart, or the old man in me, I despise it, I reject it, according to the word of Spasov: if anyone wants to come after Me, deny yourself [Matt. 16, 24]. O wicked, proud, suspicious, unfaithful, nasty, blasphemous, envious, stingy, voluptuous, lazy, money-loving and earth-loving heart! I trample you, I destroy (from the word: vile, worthy of disgust. - Ed.) you, I strike you, I wear you out, you vile muck! Food and drink, sweets are one pretext for enmity against a brother, because: 1) The earth is the Lord’s, and its fulfillment [Ps. 23, 1 ], and the common property, and not a single person; 2) my brother needs very little and he will not abuse us; 3) The Lord will always send, instead of what was taken, three times, five times more, as it was before; 4) empty confusion and enmity always occur because of food and drink consumed by one’s neighbor; 5) so, consider all these confusions and visits of the brethren to eat and drink as a dream, as a demonic mess; 6) always firmly trust in the Lord Provider and the righteous Revenant, Who sees everything and knows everything, knows the comings of the brothers, and the machinations of the enemy, and your covetousness, gluttony and addiction to earthly things. Be indifferent to earthly things. Oh, God forbid, this indifference! Be clinging with all your heart to the one Lord and cast all your sorrow upon Him and He will nourish you [Ps. 54, 23]. Be kind to every neighbor and overcome with good all evil, evil and treacherous people - by the grace of God, to which you are no stranger. Where is your faith, O little faith? With whom do you unite in communion? Is it not with the infinite Belly Itself? He who eats the heavenly, true bread so often must despise the earthly, corruptible bread. If I love earthly things, for example, money, food and drink, sweets, clothes, a rich home, honors, then I am not a slave of Christ, because Christ raised me to heaven, to the eternal dwelling of light and bliss, where there is no food and drink, and the servant of Christ loves the heavenly fatherland, considering everything earthly: money, food, clothing, etc., as rubbish. God is generous, that is, He abundantly supplies His creatures, especially man, with everything they need for their spiritual and physical life. I came that they might have life and have it more abundantly [Jn. 10, 10]. Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns; and your Father in heaven feeds them. Aren't you much better than them? [Matt. 6, 26]. The generous man loves the generous and hates the stingy. As the greatest reward, the Lord promises to the participants of His Body and Blood the closest mutual unity of the communicated with the Communicated: abides in Me, and I in him [Jn. 6:56]. If the Lord gave me all of Himself, then what more could I want? What to regret? I am nothing, the Lord is everything to me, both internally and externally. Do not be anxious about anything [Phil. 4, 6]. The Lord is near [Phil. 4, 5]. Cast all your cares on Him, for He cares for you [1 Pet. 5, 7]. The loving Heavenly Father feeds everyone - both evil and good - why shouldn’t you feed those who come out of imitation of the Heavenly Father in the hope of His all-good and generous Providence, that He will not leave you and will not forsake you [Heb. 13, 5 ]? Doubt about the truth of the Word of God and the Church, or about the holiness of the person glorified by the Church, is from the devil. Don't doubt it for a moment. Blasphemy comes from doubting holiness. The effect of the enemy on a person can be known instantly, that is, suddenly, for his yoke is evil and his burden is heavy. Sorrow and distress, or death of the heart, immediately reveal the murderer-devil. Know the secret of the human heart, Lord! Those who sinned before You, as if I accepted and talked with my brother with an unfriendly and hostile heart and mind; with a proud eye and an unsatisfied heart [Ps. 100.5]. Most generous Lord! I have sinned before You through stinginess and greed. You have been generous and generous to me, but I, evil-willed, am stingy and become embittered at those who take my supposed food and drink. Have mercy on me, Master, the Feeder of every creature (and not I the feeder), - me, the impudent one, who angers You at every hour; have mercy on me, partial to Your earthly blessings and despising my heavenly purpose; have mercy on me, Master, who despises my brethren, and Your children in Christ, deified and joined to Your Only Begotten Son. Transform, O All-Powerful One, my heart from being evil, proud, stingy, envious, unkind, greedy, covetous, gluttonous, and confused. My joy! You are sending me great gifts of Your goodness, so that I do not doubt and do not be stingy in giving to the brethren, but now, out of incomprehensible foolishness and malice, I indulge in stinginess, and I use Your bounties as an excuse for stinginess: do not be completely angry with me, my Creator, but give me a good and generous heart! God! Your gifts have never failed me, or - what am I saying? They were added to me, and I pity my blood relatives who are not rich, crazy ones, relatives because of whom everything came to me through Your goodness. God! Teach me love, teach me heartfelt unity! Amen. God! Who is a sinner like me? Who, like me, is proud and angry? But turn me and save me, my Savior! I am a wanderer, a stranger on your land and I have nothing of my own, but I have Yours by Your sole mercy, tuna! Give me the grace of humility and self-abasement, give me the grace to consider myself unworthy of the gifts of Your goodness and generosity and, on the contrary, consider myself worthy of condemnation, all kinds of deprivation and torment! And let my relatives not serve as an excuse for me to enmity with my relatives by my wife, for I receive nothing from my relatives - they are poor and accustomed to poverty and are happy with little, and from my father by wife I [received] all the wealth through the arrangement of Providence. It is worthy and righteous for me to be generous to him and to his children, to be respectful and loving, and not stingy, proud and hostile. Wake up! Wake up! True. Peace of the heart. Because of food and drink and various sweets, until now (for nine years) I have had so much anxiety, grief, anger, and enmity with my neighbors! And it’s all in vain, tune! It's time to leave the madness behind. God! help! You have provided and continue to provide for me, graciously, generously, constantly! On people, on their houses, money, food, drink, clothes, books, on all their material belongings it is written: everything is earth and everything is in the earth - only love lives forever and will go with us from this life to another. The Lord is life, the Nourisher of our souls and bodies. Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns; and your Father in heaven feeds them. Aren't you much better than them? [Matt. 6, 26]. And he feeds the soul with His word, prayer, the Holy Mysteries, and thoughts of God. If He feeds the soulless trees, feeds and clothes the grass, how much more than us! [Matt. 6, 30]. What can a tree itself do for itself? Nothing - everything is God, for it is soulless, unconscious, unreasonable. You cannot serve God and mammon [Matt. 6:24], that is, God and covetousness, or earthly, because our soul is simple and cannot be dual, or at the same time belong equally to two masters. We should not attach our hearts to earthly things: to food, clothing, housing, money and other things, because we are heavenly, like Christ our Head, and this is all earthly. There is God, the Creator, the Provider, the Father, the righteous Judge and the Rewarder. Do not sell love - a priceless virtue - for food, drinks and money or clothes and in general for earthly acquisitions. For example, if your brother often comes to you for free food and drink, do not hate him, but love him unfailingly. Let everything be done with love. God, who is love [1 Cor. 16, 14], for love he will send you everything in abundance, as the Father, Judge and Provider and Rewarder. Amen. According to his giving he will be rewarded [Prov. 19, 17]. More humane! I thank You that You saved me from stinginess and gloominess at meals. Father of all! Give me the grace, as a father, to rejoice over those who eat at my table, so that according to Your grace, generosity and love for mankind, I will eat and drink at Your table in Your Kingdom. Hey, wake up! Wake up! The poor and beggars should be pitied all the more because they endure every day the disadvantages of poverty: poverty, nakedness, unkempt housing, contempt from the rich and mediocre. To despise and offend them would be insane insolence. Despise the absurd movements of the passions of the heart. Consider them to be nonsense, nonsense, insanity, alien to truth or reality. Here the Father and together your King, that is, God, constantly stands before you and instills in you His words of truth and laws, and here the enemy and slanderer of Him and people always stands before you and almost constantly instills in you thoughts, false words, constantly shamelessly slandering God and His saints [Rev. 12, 10], teaches shameful and ungodly deeds. Who should you listen to? Watch for yourself and don't sleep. The enemy does not sleep. Parent! Intercede, save, have mercy, strengthen and preserve us sinners with the prayers of the One who gave birth to You. Wake up! Wake up! If we ourselves do not take revenge on those who offend or devour us, we do not become embittered towards them and despise them, then the Heavenly Father will avenge us, and if we ourselves take revenge with malice, contempt, envy, then we ourselves will be condemned as transgressors of God’s commandments because of food or other things, and we will delight in God’s judgment for ourselves, and we will punish them very unreasonably and ineffectively ourselves - only ourselves and them annoying. There is nothing better than to endure all insults in meekness and kindness and to pray for those who offend, wishing them correction and salvation. Consider yourself wrong for being offended by your brother over trifles, and don’t blame him: say, I’m to blame, not him. Every day the enemy corrupts and kills my soul many times due to my inattention to myself and evil behavior; Every day the Lord renews my nature, corrupted by sins, and revives my soul and body, killed by sins! Glory to Thy love for mankind and long-suffering, O Lord! When a rich, or [...], or noble, or well-dressed person comes up for a blessing, then you rush with pleasure and with an air of servility to bless him with a large cross, and when a poor person in rags, even an old man or an old woman, approaches, then reluctantly and carelessly, with annoyance, you extend your hand for blessing and bless casually, as if the poor person does not deserve the blessing of the Lord precisely because he is poor, pitiful and needs you and others help. Oh, hypocrisy! Oh, demonic darkness! Oh, pride, oh, devilish malice! Oh, demonic flattery! And it will be followed by priests, ministers of truth, ministers of Christ Jesus, the Lord of heaven and earth, who was born and lived in poverty! But for the most part it happens that where there is external poverty, there is spiritual wealth, where there is external ugliness, there is internal beauty, where there is external impurity, there is purity of heart, where there is external ignobility, there is internal nobility, where there is bodily pilgrimage, there is spiritual affirmation, where there is lack of education according to the customs of this world, there is high spiritual education according to the Spirit of God. Has not God turned the wisdom of this world into foolishness? [ 1 Cor. 1, 20]. Here I have everything in abundance: delicious food, delicious drink, elegant clothes, a beautiful, clean, bright, comfortable, well-decorated home, but in spirit I am poor, I am more in deception: my charming appearance closes the eyes of my heart, puffs me up imperceptibly and teaches me to look with contempt at the poor in appearance, at small and thin houses and transforms the true concepts of things. It is better for me not to be rich and famous, but poor and humble, in order to keep my soul in its true wisdom. Otherwise, the blessings of this world transform the true wisdom of the soul. A man is in his heart, not in his appearance. Blessed is he who is not deceived by appearances, but looks at the heart. Blessed is the one who has little of the blessings of this world: wealth, precious and elegant clothes, but has only what is necessary and not luxurious - the eyes of the heart will be purer. Blessed is he who is not seduced by the blessings of this world that seduce the unwary: food, drink, clothing, distinctions, earthly nobility, wealth and rich people, for all this is earthly, ephemeral, perishable, dust and pus. Blessed is he who values ​​the immortal spirit in man, this image of God. The Lord's commandment to love one's neighbor as oneself must be fulfilled in every case, without thinking, out of respect for the true will of God. The Truth of the Lord must also be accepted without thinking. I thank You, Lord, for admonishing me, who fell into the flattery of anger at my brother because of food and drink: sorrow and distress and shame of face [Dan. 9, 7] were exposure and at the same time punishment of my sin. But as soon as I recognized my sin in the depths of my soul, as soon as I told him in my heart: you are a demonic dream, as soon as I was convinced of the need to love my neighbor as myself, for we are all one, how sorrow and crampedness and shame on my face left me: I calmed down, took courage, took boldness before You and before people. So there is no need to make distinctions between people in love, that is, we must love everyone, and not just love one and hate the other, but love even our enemies and robbers, who make our path to heaven easier, untying our spiritual feet. When giving alms to the poor, say in your heart with sincere conviction: I am the most sinful of all, the worst of all, the last of all, worthy of all condemnation and punishment, and not the gifts of God’s mercy, with which the Lord, in His boundless goodness and long-suffering, blesses me. By doing this, you will not despise and be inwardly embittered towards the poor (these fellow members and fellow humans) - towards the rational and animated members of Christ, living temples of the Holy Spirit, images and likenesses of God. The table is not mine, it is the Lord's; It is not I who fill it - the Lord. A little is needed for a person. My brother is my partner. There is no mine - there is God's. Everything is common, just like we are all one. Do not spare anything earthly - everything will soon be rot and dust - body, food, drink, all sweets: tea, sugar, beer, honey, wine, colorful and valuable clothes. Don’t look at how they are, but look at what will soon happen to them, or at the end of them, as well as at the end of good deeds - humility, meekness, kindness, friendship, intelligence and courtesy to everyone, generosity, goodwill, hard work and other virtues. They are difficult, but the end is good - spiritual salvation. How angry, capricious and stingy I am. As soon as I see something very tasty, I immediately squeeze my heart, get irritated by the imaginary luxury and don’t want to eat. O most generous Creator! And how You have diversified Your sweets for us and bestowed everything as insignificance, as earth - and we value this dust so highly, we, created in Your image, and that which should bind us with mutual love, because of this we lose love. We must thank the Lord that He loved us so much, and sacrifice mutual love to Him, for Love - God delights in nothing so much as love, the Generous - in generosity, the Meek and Humble - in meekness and humility. Freely and joyfully the Giver - with our goodwill and cordiality. Any disposition towards malice or other passion is from the devil: listen to your heart and unceasingly pray to the Savior of all, otherwise the enemy will overcome you, and the abomination of desolation and passions will take root in your heart. Consider your neighbor as one with you and love him as you love yourself. Through our covetousness and stinginess, the enemy of the human race wants to lock up the treasures of God, the gifts of His goodness and generosity in some hands - others, the poor, even if they die of hunger and cold; or he draws you into luxury: keep everything, they say, on yourself and don’t give it to anyone else: dress yourself in purple and fine linen, eat and drink, have fun, pour wine, tea, coffee, mead and beer overflowing, smoke precious fragrant cigars, and don’t pay attention to others, the poor. And this is what the members do... This is the manner, this is the disposition he or she has, tell yourself if you notice strangeness in someone, or self-consciousness, or even pride in the manner, and do not be angry with anyone, but pray for everyone. I myself am filled with thousands of weaknesses, and how can I not condescend to subordinates or household members who have weaknesses? However, there is no time for pandering. They have the same sinful nature as I do, only I have more means than theirs to live holy, because almost every day I use the great grace-filled benefits of worship and the Sacraments, I know more of them, I read more of the sacred books, but my sin is much heavier than their sins, and I will be exacted more severely. I thank You, Lord, that You have strengthened my heart not to succumb to stinginess, hostility and oppression with the following words: we are all one, and God is everything to everyone. One man, having been in a church in which there were a multitude of people of every condition and rank and of both sexes in rich clothes, in distinctions, in crosses and ribbons, said that he did not find a person among them, but when he saw beggars, cripples, elderly people in the street, in torn clothes, he said: these are people. There I saw only a beautiful outward appearance, but I did not see a simple, meek and humble, believing and God-fearing soul, but here, under the ugly appearance, I see beautiful, simple, meek and humble souls. Everything is for you, a sinner: for you God in the flesh, for you the Treasure of purity and holiness of the Mother of God - to save and cover you from troubles and misfortunes, for you Angels, for you saints to pray for you - and will you still love deadly sin and abide in it? I am nothing, all that is good in me is the Lord God; nothing is mine - everything is God's. Mine is only weaknesses, lust for sin, sinful abomination. And so in everything - all trust is in the Lord, prayer, glory and thanksgiving to Him for all His manifold and inexhaustible grace. What do you have that you wouldn't get? [ 1 Cor. 4, 7]. That is why you are John, which means the grace of the Lord. Rest in God, my soul; no one will take Him, the infinite Life, from you unless you leave Him yourself. Speak in your heart about your neighbors: this is my flesh and my blood, or what am I saying? - God's flesh and God's blood, as it is said: we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones [Eph. 5:30], and do not spare anything for them, as for yourself, as for your own flesh and blood. Stinginess, pity and indignation towards our neighbors who eat and drink with us or to whom we give alms, comes from our individual pride, disrespect for others and from the false conviction of the heart that others are strangers, and not our own, not blood. Meanwhile, we are all half-brothers and sisters in the Savior. Also say in your heart: I am the last of all, a dead dog and I am not worthy of any respect from others (because everyone else is better and higher than me), no gratitude, for the Lord has given and will give me everything, and it is not mine, but God’s that others eat and drink and wear (from clothes). He who prays to the Lord, the Mother of God, the Angels and the saints must first of all take care of correcting his heart and his life, and then imitate them, as it is written: be merciful, just as your Father is merciful [Lk. 6, 36]. Be holy, for I am holy [Lev. 11, 45]. Those who pray to the Mother of God should imitate Her humility, unimaginable purity, devotion to the will of God (for example, when you see injustice) and patience. Those praying to the Angels should think about the heavenly life and also about fiery love for God and neighbor, try for spirituality, putting off carnality and carnal passions by fasting, also about fiery love for God and neighbor; Let those who pray to the saints imitate their love for God and contempt for the world or its vain blessings, their prayer, abstinence, non-covetousness, patience with illnesses, sorrows and misfortunes, their love for their neighbor. Otherwise, prayer will be a beating of air. A person praying, like a hungry person, must hunger and strongly desire those benefits (especially spiritual ones): forgiveness of sins, cleansing, sanctification, confirmation in virtue, which they ask for in prayer. Otherwise words are wasted. Understand in the same way about thanksgiving and glorification of the Lord: hunger to thank and glorify the Lord unceasingly - everything comes from Him, all the gifts of His goodness and mercy. Anyone who has sinned in anything, whether subordinate or non-subordinate, must be corrected with the spirit of meekness [Gal. 6, 1], and not ferocity: we all tend to sin. Yes, look after yourself: weren’t you yourself the cause of your brother’s mistake, wasn’t it your oversight or haste for peace that caused your brother to make a mistake. If so, then there is no point in being angry, annoyed, annoyed, or angry with him, even if he says something rude to your comments or doesn’t even listen to you. Blame yourself and be careful in your actions in future. And during the Holy Mysteries, be afraid to raise your voice or shout at a subordinate. In view of them, or the King of glory Himself, meek and humble, one must be in a reverent mood of spirit, in meekness and humility, in goodness, self-control, chastity and righteousness. Think of nothing earthly in yourself when you carry with you the King of kings, the Lord of heaven and earth, the Lord of life and death. Do not hesitate and do not regret sharing the latter with your neighbor. If you see your brother, you see God; if you love your brother, you love God. He who does not love his brother whom he sees, how can he love God whom he does not see? [ 1Jn. 4, 20]. Love your brother. If it’s for me, give it here, if it’s for your neighbor, it’s a pity, my heart aches for the sweets, or the money, or even silver or something else. Self-love! Treat everyone with your true heart, simply, and do not ask yourself internally: is this one and that one true in his heart, is he deceiving me - for this leads to heart restlessness, darkening of the heart’s eye and crafty suspicion. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not feel the plank in your own eye? [Matt. 7, 3]. If the true children of God are holy, then how holy is the true Mother of God? Oh, useless 45 shrine! And a true child of God, and a true Mother of God! Lady! Make us children of light [Eph. 5, 8], children of God! Prayer is the restoration of the covenant with God and sonship broken by our sins. Therefore woe to those who do not pray - they remain children of the devil [1 John. 3, 10]. Gluttony and satiety eradicate faith, hope and love. Follow the Apostle, take away everything, all sweets, money, clothes, honor and praise, die to everything that deceives us in the world, so that you may gain Christ [Phil. 3, 8]. Be a stranger to everything except Christ and your neighbor, a member of Christ, and Christ, who cares for the wicked and unbelievers, will take even more care of you, and you will not lack for anything. Amen. Help, Lord! Oh, how sweets make war in our lives [Jas. 4, 1 ]! Rejoice when God’s children eat and drink with you: God who is in them will reward you for them. Rejoice in the happiness of nourishing and resting them. Do not be stingy, but generous for them, for God Himself in their person accepts your treat. With the measure you use, it will be measured to you [Matt. 7, 2]. According to the law of God's truth, the giver should not become poor, just so as not to be insanely wasteful, without measure: there is no need to give balls and invite everyone indiscriminately. Seek first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness, and all this will be added to you [Matt. 6, 33]. You see the cunning of the enemy, how he torments you in vain with his insane stinging of sweets for your neighbor, while you yourself love to be sweetly fed and watered by others. Everything is empty, tell the enemy - the demon of stinginess and malice. Say again: Our Lord, the Father of bounties, is all pure sweets and all pleasures [2 Cor. 1:3], who is inexhaustible in His gifts and who gives His gifts to others with love. Know also that if you feel sorry for your guests for something pleasant and valuable and are offended by them, then you do not have true respect for them, as rational people, exalted creatures on earth, to whom God has subjugated the whole earth with everything that is on it, and through this you earn the disrespect of others, for if you measure the measure, it will be measured to you [Matt. 7, 2]: you don’t respect others - and they won’t respect you. He who respects the dignity of a person in a guest, and in a person in general, does not spare anything for him, not even his last property, just as the widow of Sarepta did not spare the last handful of flour and drops of oil for Elijah the prophet [1 Kings. 17, 10 – 16]. Take comfort from these true words. Amen. Glory to You, God! What, we are smarter than our Master and His apostles, we, darkened in mind and heart, that we care about earthly things even in prayer, while our Lord commands us to philosophize on heavenly things, not on earthly things [Col. 3, 2], seek first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness [Matt. 6, 33 ], promising to give us everything earthly? Oh, we damned people! We want to arrange everything with our mind, as if there is no Supreme Mind who has graciously destined for us the path to salvation; We all want to act according to our corrupted carnal will, as if there is no supreme will; We want to be guided by our carnal wisdom, as if our Heavenly Father, who provides for us, has no wisdom! A glutton and a glutton have no sincere prayer: empty words fly from his lips, because his heart is not imbued with the power of prayers, their fire, remaining cold, like a stone. In addition, a glutton easily harbors evil, nasty and blasphemous thoughts and all passions in his heart. The Sodomites and Gomorrites, through gluttony, reached the last degree of evil. The glutton is hard-hearted and uncompassionate; if he gives alms, it is out of habit and often reluctantly. Blessed is he who believes the word of God simply, without reflection: he is always calm and joyful and firm and free from serious temptations. Have faith in God, for truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, “Be taken up and thrown into the sea,” and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him whatever he says [Mk. 11, 23]. Blessed is he who believes without reflection that we are one body of many [1 Cor. 10, 17], that for everyone everything is the Lord, as for plants, birds and other creatures. Explain to parishioners in a sermon what the image of [the Mother of God] with the eternal Child in her arms means and what it teaches. The union of the Divine with humanity, the immeasurable height of human nature seated 46 on the throne of the Divine. How Christian people should value themselves, protect themselves from all sin, from lustful aphids and strive for the heavenly Kingdom. The Son of God humbled Himself to the form of a servant 47 and the image of a man - you admit that you are at least the lowest of people, the worst, the most spontaneously sinful. He bowed down and descended to earth - bow before your kind, be respectful to everyone. He humbled Himself for your pride - humble yourself if you want to be pardoned by God. Do not intertwine your hands with the hands of gamblers or other lawless people - you are holding the Lamb in it during the liturgy. Your hand is honorable, although inconspicuous. Is life a toy? Isn't it a serious thing? Is it light or heavy? - Godmother means it’s heavy. Spacious or cramped? – Narrow is the way that leads to the belly [Matt. 7, 14]. Carefree or busy? - Busy. How much care and effort must be used to eradicate passions from the heart, from youth to old age, if God blesses us to live to see it. Those who dress richly shame the poor. Make sure that everyone comes to church in simple, clean dresses, and not in fashionable ones, without crinolines, and in simple hats. In the prayers and hymns of the church, the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Hypostatic Word of the Father and the supreme Reason - the Father, move throughout their entire space. Everything that comes into the head of someone who contradicts and blasphemes from inuda 48 is from the devil, the father of lies, the slanderer [Jn. 8, 44; Open 12, 10]. Prayers and chants are the breath of the Holy Spirit. The union in Jesus Christ of the Divinity with humanity and the union of Jesus Christ with His Most Pure Mother, as the fruit of the womb, is an image of His union with human nature, or with the Church, like marriage, or the connection of husband and wife into one flesh, is an image of the union of Christ with believers! Oh, how venerable is the Lady, in Whom and through Whom God united with men! How honest and loving the union of husband and wife should be! How honorable man! What the mystery of God is, do not try to comprehend with your mind, lest you fall into the snare of the enemy, and be wounded, and fall, but accept it in the simplicity of your heart by faith, as the truth of God, as God Himself, for example, the incarnation of the Son of God from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. Why is a confession of faith necessary? In order for her flesh, or mouth, to be in harmony with her heart, and the whole person to confess and glorify God; also because sometimes people are ashamed to confess their faith to others, a confession of faith is required from them so that they overcome their shame; also because the sinful flesh is at odds with the spirit, a confession of faith is necessary to bring the flesh and spirit into harmony. Is the devil smarter and stronger than God, that you are faint-hearted and despair when tempted? Trust in God and courageously fight the enemy, defeating him with the word of God and prayer. The prophecies have come true that the innocent and sinless and all-holy Lord Jesus Christ will suffer for us; it will also come true that we will suffer forever if we do not repent. And these will go into everlasting punishment [Matt. 25, 46]. Love your neighbor as yourself: what you wish for yourself, wish for him; What you don’t wish for yourself, don’t wish for him. As you want people to do to you, do so to them [Matt. 7, 12]. Chosen Voivode and Lord, hell to the conqueror, as if you were delivered from eternal death, I will sing praises to You, Your creation and servant 49 . The devil attacked me with anger against Elder Eutychius and my father before mass, and for at least an hour I suffered and prayed, prayed and suffered, and finally, when I began to serve the Liturgy with hope and vigor, hellish fire and oppression left me, and I served the entire mass for the glory of God, and spoke Metropolitan Gregory’s sermon well. July 28, 1864 One love must be in the heart, invincible by anything. He Himself created everything, He Himself provides for everyone, He Himself prepares everything in abundance for everyone, He Himself provides enough for everyone, that is, the Lord God. I will never leave you nor forsake you [Heb. 13, 5]. Look at the birds of the air... [Matt. 6, 26]. On church holidays or on the holidays of Christmas, Epiphany, Easter before the glorification 51 from brotherly money, distribute to the poor even a ruble in silver, for it is said: give, and it will be given to you: good measure, shaken down, pressed down and running over, will be poured into your bosom; For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you [Lk. 6, 38]. When you pray, be like a babbling child, merging into one spirit with the spirit of the saint who composed the prayers. Consider yourself as nothing, and accept prayers as a great gift from God. Completely abandon your carnal mind and do not listen to it, for the carnal mind boasts, doubts, dreams, and blasphemes. If, during or outside of prayer, the enemy stuns your soul with any blasphemies and abominations, do not be discouraged by them, but say with firmness in your heart: to cleanse these and similar abominations our Lord Jesus Christ came to earth, in these and similar infirmities of the spirit the Most Merciful One came to help us, and when you say these words with faith, your heart will immediately calm down, for the Lord will cleanse your heart. In general, one should not be discouraged from any sin, but from a dream, but trust in the Savior: what is the Savior for, if not to save? Ole of Thy immeasurable compassion, Love for mankind! Ole of Thy greatest service to us sinners! - and to this day you serve us philanthropically, cleansing and saving us. So, let the enemy's power be put to shame! Kissing an officer in public is nothing, or with other secular people who have weight in the eyes of the world, but with a poor wanderer, filled with strong faith, hope, sincere love for God and neighbor, it is shameful to kiss in public, like some kind of uncleanness! How long will this world live in you with its charm and vanity? How long is this hypocrisy? How long is partiality? How long will you not go against the adulterous and sinful world? Oh, truly, in the eyes of God, simple, poor, strange people are a thousand times higher, more kind and dearer than the people of this world - officers, officials, etc.! Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart [1 Sam. 16, 7], - but the heart of the former is simple, meek, humble, moreover, they always bear the external cross of various deprivations and the internal one of contempt and insults. But remember that our heart is blind, dreamy, proud, evil, and do not follow its movements - you must go opposite it. If you glorify your pious neighbor, you glorify God; If you do good to your neighbor, you do good to yourself, for we are one body; If you do good to your neighbor, you make God a debtor to yourself, for your neighbor is the image of God, and God is everything in everyone. When you do good to a Christian, you make Christ, the Son of God, a debtor, for Christians are His body, His members; If you borrow from a Christian, you borrow the Holy Spirit, for Christians are temples of the Holy Spirit: Don’t you know that you are the church of God, and the Spirit of God lives in you? [ 1 Cor. 3, 16]. God created man in His own image and likeness, as if making him a small god - an infinitely great gift; and man, a rationally free being, became ungrateful before his Creator, offended Him with his treachery and infidelity, his pride before Him, wanting to become equal to his Creator and went against Him. Every sin is a war against God. But – oh, the endless gift of God’s love for people! When we fell so deeply, having sinned against the Creator, when we fell from life to death, rushing from God, our belly, and corrupted ourselves with sins, when we were threatened with eternal death, God sent to earth the Redeemer of the world - His Only Begotten Son, in the likeness of our flesh to enlighten us [Rom. 8:3], to suffer for our sins and thus cleanse us from sins through faith in Him and bring us again to His Father, from whom we have fallen. Let us appreciate this new and greatest good deed of God towards us and let us not be negligent about the great salvation [Heb. 2, 3 ]! Let us constantly remember our sinful corruption and be renewed by the grace-filled means offered by the Church. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation [2 Cor. 5, 17]. Are we new? Or the same old ones, with the same sins? Every person: Orthodox Christian or non-Orthodox - Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, Jew, Mohammedan, even an idolater - is my neighbor, I am, and I must love him, I must respect him and take care of his salvation as if it were my own. Amen. I must show him mercy and compassion, just as I wish this from others for myself. Moreover, my wife is me, my children are me, my father and mother are me, and I urgently must love and honor them as myself, or as I wish for myself from others. Amen. You should not be upset or irritated by them, for upset and irritability are a sign of a lack of love and a sign of pride. The Mother of God is one flesh and blood, one spirit with the Savior, as His Mother. What an immeasurable merit is Her by the grace of God that She became the Mother of God Himself, giving His most pure and all-sanctified flesh, feeding Him with milk, carrying Him in her arms, dressing Him, preserving His youth in every possible way, kissing Him many times, caressing Him. God! Who will describe the greatness of the Virgin Mary? Every tongue is perplexed to praise according to its inheritance, but the mind and the worldly neti of Thee, Mother of God, are amazed... 52 With a single thought and a simple movement of the heart, call on Her. She is one with God, just like the saints. Be completely indifferent to food and drink, no matter what kind they are, and do not care whether there is much or little prepared; if there is a lot, don’t say: why did you make a lot? It will remain and will have to be thrown away for nothing. But look at food and drink as rubbish and do not feel sorry for it at all: pity means the heart’s attachment to food and drink and, in general, to earthly and material things. Neglect about him and be united with God alone in your heart and soul with your neighbor. Food, drink, money, clothing are things alien to the soul, not akin to it. Her element is God and neighbor. Be careless about material goods, for the most generous and all-good God cares about us every minute of life. Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns; and your Father in heaven feeds them. Aren't you much better than them? [Matt. 6, 26]. God, who constantly cares about my eternal life and did not spare His Only Begotten Son to give it, how will He not give me everything necessary for temporary life, which serves as preparation for eternal life? If the Lord Jesus Christ is our Head, and we are His members, then why should we worry? Absolutely nothing - He cares about us, all-good and all-powerful. Just. We despise beggars. What kind of madness is this?! Where would we most respect a person as bearing the cross of deprivation, poverty, humiliation from many, where would we more lovingly sympathize and help the poor, but we despise and insult him, as if because he is poor, because he suffers. What kind of perversion of the moral order is this? Truly, beggars must be loved and respected all the more, the poorer and more unhappy they are. He’s already patient—why on earth would I still tempt his patience for no reason at all? O foolish heart! It acts in this case according to its usual whim. If his brother is guilty of something, it becomes angry, embittered with him, as if evil can be corrected by evil, as if to evil it is necessary to add a new, greater evil. O crazy heart! Earthly treasures separate the heart from God, but heavenly treasures unite it with Him. Consider it a misfortune to be even one minute without God, and since earthly treasures (predilections) separate the heart from God, then despise them for God’s sake and count them as rubbish: I count them all as rubbish, in order to gain Christ [Phil. 3, 8]. What kind of love is this? One of your friends passed through the prayer room while you were praying, and you immediately became upset and angry at the person who passed by, suspecting malicious intent in him. Love endures everything [1 Cor. 13, 4, 7]: the first sign of love is long-suffering. Kokosh flew up onto the pole, and the chicks followed him. A bad Christian is one who does not look to the things above, where Christ has ascended, and cleaves to earthly things. Wonderfully, graciously, the Heavenly Father has cared for me until now, and now he is concerned - will he abandon me now? No. He who did not spare His Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also freely give us all things with Him? [Rom. 8, 32] - everything necessary for soul and body, which His Only Begotten Son taught us to pray for in His prayer. How long to be crazy? Put your hope in earthly blessings and not in God? Cling to earthly things and not to heavenly things, to creation and not to the Creator? Why do you live in the world? In order to know flattery, the destructiveness of sin, the truth and life-giving nature of virtue, and to hate and turn away from the former, and to love the latter and follow it with all my heart with firmness. Nothing upsets the health of soul and body more than diverse passions and addictions. Blessed is he who has given himself, each other, and his whole life to Christ God, Creator, Provider and Savior. All true Christians, the entire Church, heavenly and earthly, are one body and one member at a time, and their head is Christ. O great, brightest, most blissful body! What should we, brothers, fear under such a Head! How can we not love each other! How can we not rejoice in each other’s happiness! How not to condole in misfortunes! How not to rejoice with those who rejoice and not to weep with those who weep! Well-being, honor, glory, wealth, health of my neighbor - my honor and glory, my wealth; his health is mine! Why should we feel sorry for our neighbors when our Head, the Lord, is our inexhaustible wealth! How proud we should be when He humbled himself! How irritated should we be when He was meek and humble towards everyone! How can we be embittered when He is good! A thought, word, spirit or deed in a person is a great thing! For every idle word we will give an answer on the day of judgment [Matt. 12:36], because the first idle talker, or liar, is the devil [Jn. 8, 44 ]; The Lord has no idle words; man, the image of God, should not have them either: the word must be truth, deed. Do not indulge in impatience, do not be cowardly and do not be discouraged because passions violently invade your heart, darken, scorch and oppress and generally kill your spirit - this is a worthy retribution for our proud, proud, voluptuous and multi-passionate flesh, this humbles our sinful soul and teaches it to remember God as a righteous Judge, to love and respect every person and have no attachment to any earthly things. Without this, we would begin to despise many people, for example, enemies, the poor to whom we especially give food, those who are unsightly in appearance, those who offend us or those who eat up our property; Without this, we would cling to the corruptible goods of this world and forget about God and the need to work out our salvation with fear and trembling [Phil. 2, 12]. The passions are the humbling and intelligible scourges of God, the purification of us by fire. They show us how sinful, unclean and guilty we are before God, how powerless we are for any good, how insignificant (poor); they show that our heart is an abyss of sin, a receptacle for spiritual impurities and stench. They show that the poor and beggars of this world, walking in rags and humbly stretching out their hand to us to accept alms, are a thousand times better than us, and, therefore, we are incomparably worse than them, because they are humble, and we are proud, we are voluptuous - they are accustomed to simple food, which God will give; We are vain in our clothes and consider almost [one] only well-dressed, washed, sleek and combed as a person - we somehow neglect those who behave differently and thus consider a person in appearance, in that which is not a person at all, without looking with intelligent eyes at the inner god-like person. They, having always had coarse, low-value clothes, were accustomed to look at themselves not from a haughty, but humbly, as the scum of the world, as trampled upon by everyone [1 Cor. 4, 13], moreover, they are constantly humbled and brought down, so to speak, to the ground by arrogant looks, anger, reproaches and various insults of others. The splendor, elegance and beauty of the clothes of the people of this world, following fashion, make the poor look at them as people who are much higher and superior to them in everything, for smart and fashionable clothes have such charm that they seem to give a person intelligence and nobility and sedateness and importance, while, on the contrary, a poor person, in rags, by this rags, is accustomed to judge himself as a rude, insignificant, worthless person. So, do not be faint-hearted, but humble yourself and correct yourself immediately when you feel the flame of passions burning you. Despise the corrupt world, which acts contrary to God in everything and deceives the servants of God in everything. Live contrary to the world: what it despises, you love, what it loves, you hate. Do not love the world, nor the things in the world: whoever loves the world does not have the Father’s love in him. For all that is in the world: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life [1 Jn. 2, 15 – 16]. Do not worry about the integrity and strengthening of chests and caskets, but about the strengthening and integrity of your heart, so that it keeps intact your faith, your trust in God in all circumstances of life and love for God and your neighbor; suspicious, fearful concern for strengthening the chests with earthly blessings exposes the lack of faith and trust in God and the poverty of love for God and the attachment of the heart to earthly things. Neglect earthly things and leave their care to God. He gave, and He will preserve. Cast all your cares on Him, for He cares for you [1 Pet. 5, 7], and the Lord preserves righteous acquisition. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal [Matt. 6, 19]. May you not have the treasure of your heart on earth, but let it be in heaven; earthly treasures disturb the spirit - heavenly ones pacify. Hey, amen. Everyone who leaves houses, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for My name’s sake will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life [Matt. 19, 29]. So, do not complain that you have absolutely no time to communicate with your wife due to almost incessant work. You are standing on a good path, on a glorious, godly path. Those who have wives should be as they have [1 Cor. 7, 29]. There is nothing higher, more precious, more lovable and desirable on earth than the human soul, which is the image of the invisible God and the sister of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, everyone must be attentive to himself in order to preserve his soul in simplicity, meekness, gentleness and humility, and his soul and body in purity, integrity and immaculateness; attentive to others, to always honor and love everyone as oneself, without distinction of status and gender, equally the poor as the rich, noble and ignorant! Have faith in Jesus Christ our Lord of glory, regardless of persons. For if a man with a gold ring and rich clothing enters your congregation, a poor man will also enter in scanty clothing... [Jas. 2, 1 – 2]. Do not desire or grudge silver and gold, especially for a priest, for through this the heart cleaves to money, but place all your trust in God. Self-love and addiction to worldly glitter. Twenty thousand for diamonds, five thousand for a fur coat - but here you can feed five hundred beggars for a year. About Christian love. Responsibilities of Christian Love. Jail. We ourselves, according to God’s justice, are punished for our sins with an internal prison: no matter what is sin, it is a prison. Crowding and sorrow. When you meet any person for whom you know some kind of sin and whom your heart is ready to turn away and despise, repeat to yourself: I am worse than this person, because everything that is good in me is not mine - God’s; mine is only extreme evil, constantly nesting within me. Teach children to live in sincere friendship with each other, to be simple, straightforward and to treat everyone as themselves. I revere, Lord, before Your ineffable, living wisdom, revealed and revealed in the structure, nutrition and life of the human body, especially in its spiritual powers and abilities, equally in the structure and life of the universe and all its creatures. I reverence every creation of Thy, as the work of Thy wisdom and Thy hands. Grant me to look with pure, bright eyes at all Your living creatures. When your heart is disturbed and darkened by vile and blasphemous thoughts and movements of the heart, then come immediately to the Lord and say in your heart: Lord, the knower of the heart! You see my bad and blasphemous thoughts, you see that they come to me and nest inside me not at my will. Cleanse them for the sake of Your holy name and do not allow Your creation to become defiled within itself, in the depths of my heart. 1864 June 8. Gymnasium act. Prayer service. I thank You, Lord my God, that You have granted me to so tangibly know my weakness and my insignificance and Your all-powerful help. God! You see what a storm there was in me, what confusion, darkness, oppression - and all of this You, Almighty, through prayer, through faith and my hope in You, transformed into silence, peace, serenity and space! I thank You that You allowed the opposition to shake my soul so much and with this shaking humbled my spirit and erased all the rags of the carnal man, all his languor. I thank You that You have given my lasciviousness, my weakness the strength to thank You for Your mercies shown to us in teaching Your servants Your law and other useful sciences! Lord, Source of law and wisdom, and in the past 53 do not forsake us with Your omnipotent help and all-effective grace, so that with one heart and one mouth we may 54 glorify Your most holy name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Why do unclean, nasty, crafty and blasphemous thoughts plague us? In order for us to know all the abomination and destruction of them, their wickedness and deceit, and with all our hearts to desire and thirst for the purity and holiness of God. And without them, we would not recognize the disastrous state of our heart, in which various sinful passions and abominations are hidden, when there are no temptations, and we would not take care of cleansing it. Seeing the Savior crucified on the cross, say: it is my Father who suffers for me, his prodigal son, so that I do not perish forever, but inherit the Kingdom prepared for me from the foundation of the world, and try in every possible way to fulfill the will (covenant) of the Father, the Savior, who died for you, and His covenant is the following: to love one another as He loved us. I give you a new commandment, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, so you also love one another [Jn. 13, 34]. And again: if anyone wants to come after Me, turn away and take up your cross and follow Me [Matt. 16, 24]. Transfiguration of the Lord on Tabor. If the entire flesh of the Lord was illuminated on Tabor, like the sun, then how did the Lord illuminate His entire Mother of God, dwelling in Her all-sanctified womb? How is She most bright, most pure, most holy, our Lady? She truly shines like the sun, and not only She, but even Her miraculous icons (Tikhvinskaya at her appearance). The core of our heart should be love. Love God with all your heart, love your neighbor as yourself, simply, without thinking, without discerning the person: enemy, friend, relative, rich, poor, stranger, relative, fellow believer and non-religionist, fellow countryman and distant one - for all creatures of one God, all from one blood. Do you revere the gifts of life? Reverence the door of life. Another glory to the sun, that is, the Mother of God, another glory to the moon, for example, the Forerunner, and another glory to the stars [1 Cor. 15, 41] - to the prophets, apostles, saints, martyrs, saints, unmercenaries... Have you seen a furnace that has flared up and inside it are completely red-hot coals and everything has become the purest and most luminous fire? Such is our Lady. She carried the fire of the Divine in Her womb and infused God into Herself for endless ages. She is like an all-light coal, abiding in the fire of the Divine - all-pure, all-light, all-fiery, all-golden. The Lord rests in all the saints, and therefore they are completely holy, like sparks in the flame of the Divine. The Lord is in us, and we must live holy. However, although we are sinners, Christ dedicated and sanctifies Himself for us, so that we too will be (and are) sanctified by the truth [John. 17, 19]. Therefore, let no one be tempted by the sins of pious Christians: they will fall and they will rise, they will become dirty and they will also be cleansed: Christ is the abyss of purification. The elder is true, like the truth. Many times the Lord admonished me internally. My completeness, Lord! Fill me with Yourself. To be carnally minded, the mind of the devil, is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace [Rom. 8, 6 ]! I am nothing, everything is Being, or the Being of beings. The Lord is my being, the Lord is deliverance from eternal death, the Lord is my eternal belly, the Lord is cleansing and deliverance from the abomination of sins and my sanctification, the Lord is strength in my weakness, consolation in my sorrow, space in my cramped conditions, hope in my cowardice and despondency; The Lord is a life-giving fire in my coldness, the Lord is a light in my darkness, peace in my confusion, the Lord is an intercessor in my temptations. He is my thinking, my desire, my activity; He is the light of soul and body, food, drink, my robe, my shield, my weapon. Everything is Lord for me. My soul, love and thank the Lord unceasingly. Bless, my soul, the Lord, and all that is within me, His holy name: bless, my soul, the Lord, and do not forget all His rewards: He who cleanses all your iniquities, who heals all your illnesses... who crowns you with mercy and bounty, fulfilling your good desires [Ps. 102, 1 – 5]. All of you are brethren [Matt. 23, 8]. May you love one another [Jn. 13, 34]. The Church is God’s family, in which God is the Father, the Most Holy Theotokos, the Mother of the Lord Jesus Christ is our Mother, Angels and holy men are elder brothers, and we are all half-brothers, born by the Church in the same font of baptism in the Holy Spirit. The younger ones naturally owe respect to the elders, they are naturally subordinate to them as imperfect, they ask the elders for prayers for themselves from God, since they are friends of God, whose intercession the Lord accepts with favor. For the children of the Heavenly Father, the prayer initiated by His Son is the Our Father. The state of the human soul, outside temptation and the machinations of ethereal enemies, is like easy, healthy breathing and exhalation of fresh air, or like the serene state of the soul of a baby and a child in general living under the parental roof. And the state of the soul during temptation is like painful breathing and exhalation in a stuffy, sultry, fetid atmosphere or being stung into the very heart by the most evil and poisonous insects or reptiles, such as snakes, adders 55 and scorpions. You are all heavy, sorrow, fire, cramped. But endure, my soul, all temptations: your God will not leave you to be tempted more than you can, but when you are tempted he will also give you relief, so that you can endure it [1 Cor. 10, 13]. What sincere, fiery and firm love for everyone should the heart of a priest be imbued with, so that he can pray unfeignedly to the Lord, the Father of all men [Eph. 4:6], about His children, to preach His word with zeal and power and to shepherd them tirelessly or instruct them in faith, piety and good deeds! Yes, priest of God, you must take care of gaining such love through prayer and self-sacrifice for the good of the Lord’s people or by crucifying all your passions and their mother - self-love. Otherwise, you will not be a worthy servant of the Lord and not a shepherd, but a hireling. With what love, with what extreme condescension, with what meekness, humility and gentleness, the Lord gave us all of Himself at our disposal, or our faith, for our eternal salvation! For He truly placed at our disposal His most pure Body and most pure Blood, and in them all of Himself, so that we, when we desire, can be partakers of His Divine nature [2 Pet. 1.4 ], His strength, His light, His holiness, His wisdom, His love, all His perfections, for with Him how does He not give us everything? [Rom. 8, 32]. We are worthy to carry Him like a baby in our arms or as one who tasted death, but gives life to us, dead sinners, in a tomb or ark; we communicate Him to everyone at will, and with Him the cleansing of sins, peace, revitalization, health, pleasure, joy. How must we sacrifice ourselves and all our property, following His example, for our neighbors, for whom He tasted death, as they are members of His body [Eph. 5, 30 ]? What do you say to this, rich people and all those who have wealth, abundance, power, strength? With what meekness should a priest treat his parishioners who come to him for advice or to call him for a service! Another comes to call him to give communion to his child, while his father or mother is in the grave, and those left have nothing! And they are in grief and despair - what if the priest gets angry with them or treats them rudely? Will he not finally kill their spirit? When some sins bother you, ask yourself: what do I have of mine? Nothing - everything is God’s, and everything of God’s is pure and holy; I should be the whole world. And uncleanness is the work of the devil and my negligence. So in the saints - everything is God, there is no uncleanness, only shrine. One Spirit of God. Oh, demonic pride! We add sins to sins. God! Establish the truth of the word of Your saint and our mother Church in my heart; let me unshakably believe in him and trust in him and be imbued with love and cleansed by him. The poor are the same children of the Heavenly Father, the same image of God, the same members of Christ and temples of the Holy Spirit, like us, and even a thousand times better than us, because they live in need, bear the external cross of deprivation and therefore live in humility, simplicity, alien to pride, vanity, sensuality, stinginess characteristic of rich people; anger, because they are accustomed to patiently enduring the anger of others, scolding, pushing, ridicule and looks of contempt; they are content with the small and essential, placing their hope in God and good people, they thank God and willing givers for everything and pray for them, while the rich are dissatisfied with many things and do not thank God for much. The poor give thanks from the bottom of their hearts for a penny or a penny and with humble simplicity pray to God for you, asking you for health, salvation, and every good of soul and body, adding to your name father and mother and your children. And how much persecution they endure, curses, contempt, cold, hunger, heat, nakedness, uncleanliness, inconvenience and crowded housing! They (as the apostles spoke of themselves) are like the rabble of the world, trampled under foot by all [1 Cor. 4, 13], while in everything they are like us. In their lives they become like the Son of God, who made us rich because of our poverty, so that through His poverty we might become rich [2 Cor. 8, 9], and Who did not have where to bow his head [Matt. 8, 20]. ABOUT! Let no one despise the beggars or be embittered at them, these defenseless and pity-worthy beggars, but let them have mercy on them with love, seeing in them by faith the lesser brethren of Christ and Christ Himself - God, the Giver of Life, the Savior and the Giver of all good things: I was hungry, and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger and you accepted Me; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me... just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did it to Me [Matt. 25, 35 – 40], for we are members of Christ, from His flesh and from His bones [Eph. 5, 30], for the Head of the body of the Church is Christ [Col. 1, 18]. Introduce this wisdom into your heart, and let it live in it, and let it control your thoughts, desires and deeds. May I not despise them, the despicable dog! I am a nonentity, I am vile, the only one worthy of contempt and trampling upon everyone, from a person who voluntarily makes himself an animal, unclean, greedy, evil - and when else? - when I am honored with the most pure, life-giving and terrible Mysteries of the Lord Jesus Christ, Who deified me. Introduce this truth into my heart, Lord, so that, remembering it, I will be constantly humble and constantly cleanse myself from all passion, filthiness of the flesh and spirit, so that I may consider myself worthy of all contempt - as I despise You, of all offense - as I insult You, Lord, of all untruths - as I do injustice to You, Most Righteous Judge, Lord! I am the worst of all, the most sinful of all! For, lifted up to heaven by You, I myself descended and descended to hell. You have given me so much strength, and I live unrepentantly. Alas for me, a sinner! But may my malice not overcome Your unspeakable goodness and mercy! 56 May your thought, word and deed be one in prayer, in Scripture, in the Church, in life, just as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one, and moreover, may you be one with all those who love God, may you be love. During scrofulous attacks, avoid mealy foods: oatmeal, corn crackers, etc. By fighting the passions, the soul is strengthened in faith and virtue, for example, in patience, chastity, abstinence, humility, goodwill, meekness, kindness, etc. Without struggle there is no firmness, without patience there is no virtue. When any passion forces you to cleave to any living flesh or soulless thing, say with firmness in your heart: it is good for me to cleave to God [Ps. 72:28], and immediately unite more firmly with God in your heart. Holy is the Lord our God and holy are all His works! Let uncleanness not be thought of or named in us as the product of dreamy, or lying, unclean spirits. Amen. I thank You, Most Holy Queen Theotokos, for through my prayer, in the cramped conditions of hell, you quickly delivered me from the cramped conditions and, when I was confused, I pacified, and when I was hopeless, I was comforted. June 4, 1864. I thank You, Lord Jesus, for through the prayers of the One who gave birth to You, you have mercy on me. God! You came to save us by faith, even in You: behold, I believe that You are my Savior, save me; You have come to renew my nature, corrupted by sin - renew me, who has corrupted myself with passions and lusts, renew both mentally and physically, so that I may be pure in heart and strong in body for the glory of Your name. You have come to deliver us from the work of the enemy - deliver me from the work of the all-evil, unclean, nasty and disgusting enemy, howling in my members and inclining me, violently drawing me to sin. You came to enlighten us - enlighten my heart darkened by passions. You have come, fellow squanderer, gather my thoughts, squandered by the enemy. You came to strengthen us in our weakness and said: My strength is made perfect in weakness [2 Cor. 12:9], and Your Apostle says: Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest in me [2 Cor. 12, 9]. Behold, I am extremely weak and cannot do anything good without You: without You I can neither think, nor feel good, nor desire good, nor speak, nor do; I am absolutely weak for any good without You - give me grace, give me light and strength to think and feel good and comfortably do it, say and do what pleases you. Behold, I commend my whole life to You, Christ God, my Savior, my Renewer - cleanse, sanctify, strengthen and save me. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a right spirit in my womb [Ps. 50, 12]. Help me, otherwise I will perish - and without You my destruction is close, close for every hour. In their malice towards us, in their treachery against us and in the insults and insults inflicted on us in various ways, people are worthy of special pity and our love, as the sick and perishing, who have become the instrument of our all-evil and crafty enemy the devil, who teaches us all kinds of evil, who seeks through those like us to cause us some grief and misfortune. But these sorrows and troubles are very, very useful for us, revealing to us our heart ulcers, which we did not see or feel. When embarrassment and some kind of powerlessness of the heart prevents you from pronouncing the words of prayers during worship, then consider this embarrassment and powerlessness as a dream, throw away despondency, cowardice and timidity about the name of the Lord and speak slowly, calmly and deliberately louder, and you will overcome embarrassment and powerlessness and receive cheerfulness and strength. To him who believes and trusts, everything is possible. We must fight and win. Love your neighbor as yourself, for by loving your neighbor, you love yourself, and by hating your neighbor, first of all you harm yourself, first of all you hate your soul. You know this from experience. Oh, wise, constructive and life-giving laws of the Lord! How good it is to fulfill them, although sinful flattery makes it difficult to fulfill them. How good is the yoke of the Lord for the soul and light is His burden, that is, His commandments [Matt. 11, 30]. Who is the Christian King? – Jesus Christ. Who is the Queen Mother? - Holy Mother of God. Who are the great princes? - apostles, prophets, saints, etc. I have appointed princes throughout the whole earth [Ps. 44, 17]. You too will sit on twelve thrones... [Matt. 19, 28]. The saints will judge the world [1 Cor. 6, 2]. Oh, my all-evil, unclean, accursed flesh! I am seduced by beautiful faces and, like some kind of delicacy, I am ready to kindle the fire of unclean lust against them, although I resist it in the name of the Lord, but I turn away from unseemly faces, especially if they are dressed in ugly and poor clothes, and am ready to be kindled against them with the fire of an incomprehensible, blind malice! And all this, as I think, is because I place my pleasure in eating and drinking pleasantly, and dressing elegantly - in a word, because I am accustomed to looking and appreciating a person more by appearance and that I myself kindle my flesh with carnal pleasures that war in my souls [Jas. 4.1 ]! God! Have mercy on me. Let me know the deceit of the damned flesh and look equally at every face, whether it is beautiful or ugly, whether well dressed or poorly, because appearance means nothing, but always look at the inner man, who is equally the image of God in everyone. The hidden man of the heart [1 Pet. 3, 4] – this is what is great and invaluable in everyone! Yes, avoid sweets: sweets are a disaster for the teacher of the law and the priest. Especially sweet tea and crackers. All faith is subverted, the heart is plunged into impurity. If you have Christian love for your neighbor, then all heaven will love you; if you have unity of spirit with your neighbors, then you will have unity with God and with all the inhabitants of heaven; If you are merciful to your neighbor, God and all the Angels and saints will be merciful to you; If you pray for others, all heaven will intercede for you. Holy and simple is the Lord our God - and so be you. That lustful thoughts and movements, that evil and blasphemous, that despondency and cowardice, that envy, that gluttony and covetousness are the same thing, from Satan. Do not get lost, do not be faint-hearted and do not lose heart when overwhelmed by them and endure, pray and trust in God. You, earth-born, who do not have purity, triumph that the purity of soul and body, unattainable for you, has been completely and abundantly achieved by the Most Holy Virgin Mary, the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ - triumph and pray to Her, may She teach you and your children to lead a clean life in this pernicious age full of temptations. For Her purity, humility and all the virtues and for the fact that She was honored to be the Mother of God the Word, we bring gratitude to the Heavenly Father, offering a bloodless Sacrifice, and we say: Much for the Most Holy... 57 How damaged and corrupted I am by sin: something bad, evil, unclean is immediately thought and felt in the heart, but good, good, pure, holy is often only thought and said, and not felt! Alas for me! Evil is even closer to my heart than good! In addition, I just thought or felt evil, and am immediately ready to do it - and you will do it quickly and conveniently, but the good that you want 58 is due to me, 59 but to do it - I do not find the strength in myself, and the planned good deed is often put off for a long, long time. When praying for people, pray for them as for yourself, for we are one body, and as for the children of the Heavenly Father. In the living book of Christianity, the head is Christ, individual nations are individual books, letters are individual people. And all of Christianity is one book. In the book of humanity, the head of everything is God, and the divisions are diverse nations. In petitionary prayer, the main thing is faith in God and a sincere, firm desire for the blessings for which we ask, and future reluctance or aversion from those sins of which we repent. Otherwise, we wish with our tongues and thoughts, but our hearts remain insensitive, or we seem to turn away with our tongues, but not with our hearts; we become stuck in those very sins for which we pray daily for deliverance. And Isain’s prophecy comes true for us: these people draw near to Me with their lips, and with their lips they honor Me, but their heart is far from Me [Isa. 29, 13]. A living sense of one’s sins is necessary in prayer, as at any time. I thank You, Lover of Mankind, my help, that You helped me to sit victoriously in conversation with students for three classes (May 30) on Saturday, as always. Glory to Your great, strong, victorious, cleansing, enlightening, pacifying, revitalizing, heart-expanding, exalting, attracting the hearts of others! When your heart is touched by a lustful, nasty, evil or blasphemous thought, or the thought of malice, envy, stinginess, covetousness, gluttony and delusion hurts and oppresses you, then tell yourself with the firm conviction of your heart that this is a dream - and suddenly the thought or thoughts will disappear. Blessed is he who speaks the truth in his heart [Ps. 14, 2]. Torment to the one who dreams in his heart, or to the one who thinks evil and sinful! Grief and distress to every soul of a person who does evil [Rom. 2, 9]. Despise the carnal pleasure of sin, for it is the irritation of the transitory flesh. When a thought of doubt about the truth comes, say that this thought is a dream, and the truth is the eternal truth. Who am I? On the one hand, the abyss of sin, all opposition to God, the All-Creator and All-Effective, worthy of all condemnation and torment, on the other hand, complete poverty of all virtue and weakness for all virtue. I cannot do anything without my Savior, according to His word and according to my countless experiences. He created my soul and body, He grew me, He formed my abilities, He creates everything good in me if I do something good. And mine is only evil. But my Creator and my Deliverer! You created me; Your creation, Your servant - You rule me, You do Your will through me; May I have the grace to completely subjugate my will to Your will, for I cannot do this without Your grace. You are my shepherd - feed me. You are my Savior - save me. You are my light - enlighten me; You are my strength - strengthen me. What fellowship does righteousness have with iniquity? What does light have in common with darkness? [ 2 Cor. 6, 14]. - Not the slightest: one unrighteous thought is an abomination to the Lord, and the Lord withdraws from the heart in which this thought nests: we ourselves feel this ourselves. Therefore, in order to unite with someone, the Lord needs that person to be completely clean from the taint of sin and adorned with virtues, or that he believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, who takes away the sins of the world, recognizes his sins and strongly condemns them, considers them reckless, absurd and with all his heart asks for forgiveness for them, firmly intending not to sin in the future. Thus, all the saints were united with the Lord and became saints. How holy is the Lady Theotokos, with Whom God the Word Himself, the ever-present Light, the True Light, so sincerely united, Who enlightens every person coming into the world [John. 1, 9], upon which the Holy Spirit found and on which the power of the Most High overshadowed? How holy and all-holy is the Lady Theotokos, Who became the church of the Divinity not made by hands and was completely imbued in all thoughts, feelings, words and deeds with the Holy Spirit and from the blood of Whom the Creator Himself made His flesh, Who is one flesh and blood with Her and one soul? Truly all-holy, firm, unshakable, unchangeable throughout all eternity in Her highest, Divine holiness, for the all-perfect God, who became Her Son according to humanity, made Her all-perfect for Her greatest humility, love for purity and for the source of purity - God, for Her perfect renunciation of the world and clinging with all her thoughts to the heavenly Kingdom, and especially for the fact that She became His Mother, carried Him in the womb, then in Her most pure hands, nourished the whole creation with the most pure milk of the Nourisher, kept Him, caressed Him, was sick and grieved for Him, shed tears for Him, lived all her life for Him, only for Him alone, was all immersed in His spirit and was one heart, one soul with Him, one shrine with Him, one by will, by desires alone! Oh, the highest unity of love and shrine of the Most Pure Virgin Mary and Her Divine Son, the Lord Jesus Christ! God's people are wonderful and holy in their complete love for the Lord, in their streams of blood or sweat shed out of love for the Lord! Knowing the constant machinations of the disembodied enemy over you, your weakness, oblivion, sinfulness, malice and other passions, voluntary and involuntary fascination with them and the difficulty of getting rid of them, have leniency towards your neighbor, when he falls into any sin or expresses any passion of his - do not be angry with him, but be angry only with the devil, the first culprit of every evil, and forgive your neighbor kindly and in meekness and pray for him and caress him. Not only when your neighbor bothers you with something, but also when he begins to beat you, do not be angry with him, but always be kind and meek. And be a servant to the poor and needy, and honor them as the Lord for the sake of their Head, the Lord Jesus. The trouble is drinking a lot of tea, and even not enough - tea is unforgiving, relaxes the soul and body, makes it proud, disdainful, angry, prodigal, blasphemous, malicious, envious. I mortify my body and enslave it, says the Apostle, so that, if I preach to others, I myself will not be enslaved [1 Cor. 9, 27]. You see, if you do not mortify and enslave your body, you will become indecent, incapable, unfit for spiritual life. Those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts [Gal. 5, 24]. But tea and tobacco and other lusts pamper and do not crucify the flesh. We need to leave them little by little. We are all God’s, and everything we have is God’s, therefore we must treat each other carefully, with mutual respect and love, and with things - completely impartially, for we must cleave only to God, and for God’s sake to our neighbor, loving him as ourselves, without distinction of person. God acts in us and through us, and God is our Trustee and Nourisher. Anger, and pride, and contempt, and irritability are from the devil: may they be cursed by us all in word and deed! Be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you [Eph. 4, 32]. My Creator, my Lord and Savior! Behold, I constantly sin before You, willingly and unwillingly: make me wise and strengthen me not to sin before You. May Thy good Spirit guide me to the rightness of the earth [Ps. 142, 10]. I consider myself smarter than many, while everyone is smarter than me, just like the mind that exists within me is Yours, not mine. Behold, Lord, I often feel in my heart pride, anger at my neighbor, suspicion of evil in my neighbor, especially in my relatives and colleagues; I, damned and despicable, humiliate too much their moral dignity, suggesting in them the abyss of all evil and inwardly despise them, while I myself, the most sinful, weakest and most insignificant, am worthy of all contempt! God! I predatoryly ascribe to myself knowledge of the human heart, whereas only You alone test hearts and wombs; God! I am encroaching, accursed one, on Your rights, on the right of judgment over people, over their consciences, while I am an insignificant worm, and not a person, reproaching people and humiliating people [Ps. 21, 7 ]; God! I am like black tar, denigrating everyone who comes into contact with me, I am like the accursed Belial; God! I feel in myself ill-will towards my neighbor - moreover, malice towards him, envy of his well-being, gloating about the decrease in his well-being. God! Renewer of our corrupted nature! I feel an abyss of evil within me: my soul is full of all kinds of evils, and my stomach is close to hell. I commend to You, Lord, my whole belly, my whole heart, all my thoughts, my will: according to Your great compassion, correct my malice! Change me, transform me, the thorns of my passions that constantly gore my soul, pluck from my heart, bend my will under Your will and guide me to the right to walk the path of Your commandments through the prayers of Your Most Pure Mother and all Your saints. Amen. Man, know that your heart is the receptacle of Satan, everything is deceitful, everything is corrupted by many different passions: pride, deceit, malice, contempt, envy, stinginess, love of money, gluttony, philandering, laziness; know that it is all dead without God, powerless, dark, stinking, that it is an abyss of varied evil and the source of all torment; know, I say, and, having known, surrender yourself entirely to God, do not have your own will, your own mind, so that your mind may be Christ’s, and your will may be Christ’s. God! - say, - I am all corrupted, all abomination, all weakness, all I surrender to You, the most merciful Creator: renew me, cleanse me, sanctify and strengthen me; You are my God and my Savior, You came into the world of sinners to save and renew our nature corrupted by sin. This is why you were incarnate, this is why you lived on earth, went from city to city, from city to city, teaching, healing and raising the dead, for this you suffered and died on the cross, in order to save me, in order to renew me, cleanse me, make me a saint and a participant in eternal bliss. May my anger and my passions not overcome, O Lord, Your unspeakable goodness and mercy. Know sin, its falsity, its abomination, its darkness, its fetters, its torment, and hate it with all your soul and with tears ask the Lord and the Most Pure Mother of God to deliver you from sin. After all, you are free and sin most of your own free will. Cut off your will and follow the will of God. If you want to pray to God, or the Lady Theotokos, or the Angels and saints and you find yourself cold, powerless for sincere prayer, then call on the Holy Spirit for help and ask Him for the gift of prayer, for we ourselves cannot pray in a godly manner if the Holy Spirit does not dwell in us and move our hearts to prayer. We do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings that cannot be expressed [Rom. 8, 26 ]; He gives prayer to the one who prays [1 Sam. 2, 9]. And if you don’t call on Him, then you will pray coldly and hypocritically, you will only beat the air. That is why at the beginning of our prayers we call on the Holy Spirit to come and dwell in us. What if it were not for Your mercy, Lord? What sorrow and distress, what darkness, what joyless weeping and gnashing of teeth would contain us? But now Your mercy delivers us from all this, when we cry out to You for mercy and mercy on our souls. You cleanse our sins, and with their cleansing all the torment goes away. And your sufferings did all this for us. What if You had not suffered for us? Indescribable grief would be upon us! Glory to Your mercy and bounty, Lord! Remember: the name of man is great - always respect and love him and never have any bitterness towards him because he sins, falls, works through passions, and pity him as worthy of pity, as one who has been led by Satan into all sorts of disasters of sin, which has so much charm in itself that it conveniently wins over to its side all those who are inexperienced in the fight against it. Remember: man is the majestic image of God, although he bears the wounds of sins. Do not spare him earthly blessings, which are all subjugated under his nose [Ps. 8, 7]. Cling to it in the Lord with pure love, but not to earthly blessings, for they are decay, rubbish, dust of the earth, just like our body. Always be sincerely respectful and kind to everyone without distinction. Our senseless, evil heart often rages at soulless things because it somehow inopportunely falls into his hands. I saw one man how he scolded a roll of paper lying in the table because it somehow fell into the hole of the drawer and did not allow it to be pushed back at that very moment: with rage and impatience, he tore off the piece of paper and threw it on the floor, then locked the drawer. Symbol of faith. In the world you will meet many different opinions, talk about faith, misconceptions in faith: adhere strictly to the Creed - this is the true path. You will encounter many temptations to sin and various sins - strictly adhere to the commandments of God and do not deviate from their straight path; evade - immediately correct your mistake, repent. There are many imaginary needs in the world, many very diverse desires, carnal or mental, often vain, but let the Lord’s Prayer be the list of your needs, your desires, use it to count your needs, and arrange your desires according to it. Here in a few words all our needs are shown. Do not soften your womb and with it all your flesh and your soul with sweets and long sleep, especially sleep during the day. The priest must be completely careless about material goods or means of maintenance, and with childlike simplicity rely on the Providence of God, which constantly acts on us. Again the sweetness of tea with sugar (this pleasant captivity of gluttony, pleasant work for the belly) became the cause of voluptuousness and sin in a dream! Until I give up sweets! Help, Lord! Cleanse, Lord! Do not destroy me, O Lord, with my iniquities! Take away sin, Lord! Oh, the beauty of the flesh! The beauty of pulp! The beauty of sight! O dream of the flesh! Oh, earth! If we sing the resurrection of Christ, but we ourselves do not rise from the dead works of sins and passions, then we sing the resurrection of Christ in vain - we are only beating the air. Doctor, heal yourself [Lk. 4, 23], if you want to instruct, correct or heal others. Ugh, how evil you are: everything is wrong with you in others, although everything has turned upside down for you; You see a piece of wood in your neighbor’s eye, but you don’t smell the log in your own. O man blind with the eyes of the soul! Remove your own thorns first, and then treat the thorns of others. God! Grant me not to judge my brother maliciously for everything! Tell me, evil one, how can you be angry with a stranger, someone lower in rank and status as a person, without any reason, when we are not commanded to be angry even with our enemies, our offenders and our ill-wishers, for it is said: love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you [Matt. 5, 44 ]! Oh, evil, dark, absurd, senseless heart! Despise him, crucify him, on the contrary, deal with him in everything. Tell me, blasphemer, how can you even think something blasphemous about something that is essential, unchangeable and eternally holy! O dark, nasty, absurd, senseless heart! How can I follow you, such a stench, such an absurd one! You must be completely despised and all your whims and lusts, your caprices, your passions. But when you are united with God, imbued with God and breathing with God like fire, clothed in God like light, then I respect you, adore you, then I am your humble servant! The Lord is everything to everyone - Truth, Holy, Goodness, Holiness, Strength, Peace, Joy and eternal Perfection; the devil is nothing, a dream for many, being a lie, malice, abomination, evil power, languor, sorrow, and despondency, and all kinds of evil. In my Lord, who brought me into existence from non-existence and sustains me in existence, I place all my trust. I am nothing like me until now; God is everything for me, for those who are with me and for everyone, although many do not know or feel this, attributing everything to themselves, their mind and strength and origin or ancestors. There is an owner here - we don’t care about him. This is what people say about a famous house and its owner when someone points out to them the disturbances noticed in or around it. There is an owner there, they say he will be held accountable for the malfunction, for example, by the police - not us. This is what we need to say when thoughts of wickedness, malice and condemnation show us any shortcomings or weaknesses in our neighbor: it has its own owner, its own soul - it will give an answer to God for itself. Or: there is a master here, that is, God, who judges souls invisibly, secretly. O infinitely great Benefactor, my Savior! When I imagine the endless corruption of my nature by sins and manifold passions, and at the same time my spirit falls and becomes despondent, then only I will remember You that You came to renew my nature, corrupted by sin, and to give to my dishonor, my shame, the nobility of an angel, even higher than the angels - the nobility of the Son of God, for the sake of faith in You, for the sake of birth by water and the Spirit and for the sake of the communion of the Saints Mysteries of Yours, my spirit will instantly rise from despondency, shake off the dishonor of passions and be completely filled with gratitude to You! Oh, my exalted glory - the Son of God! Oh, the removal of extreme dishonor from me - the Son of God! Oh, the exaltation of my baseness - the Son of God! Oh, the royal nobility bestowed upon me - the Son of God! Oh, the restoration and renewal of my nature - the Son of God! Oh, the cleansing of my sins and passions - the Son of God! Glory to Thee, infinite Grace and Power, Son of God! (May 23 days 1864) Do not lose heart, sinners like me, but only believe in the Son of God. Respect each other, sinners, and do not despise any sinner, for we are all sinners and the Son of God came to save, cleanse and lift everyone to heaven. About the oppression of the rich (tenants, homeowners) or wine sellers who sell wine. Have reverence for the works of God, and especially for man, man and woman. Whether praying at home or in church, we must sincerely repent and correct ourselves, and not flatter God with our tongue. Give Mi, son, your heart [Prov. 23, 26], that is, tear your heart away from the vanity of the world, from manifold passions and do My will. Gluttony is the devil, gluttony is fornication, blasphemy, wickedness, pride, malice of the heart. Our righteous Sun (Christ) walks around us during the liturgy. Belief system. All of us: holy men, and Angels, and we earthly beings are one body - the Church. Put this system into practice. What are the systems of science? We leave the debtor to ours. This means not having grief, enmity and bitterness towards a neighbor who has committed a crime against us (intentionally, persistently, or unintentionally), but to forgive him his guilt in the simplicity of his heart, vividly imagining his weaknesses and frequent falls into sin, and preserving for the guilty neighbor the same love and the same feelings of affection that we had for him before the guilt. What if the Lord saw through our iniquities as we do the guilt of our neighbors? Who could resist? But just as the Lord is long-suffering and merciful, so be you long-suffering and merciful (undemanding, compassionate). Love is patient and merciful [1 Cor. 13, 4]. Don’t blame your neighbor’s 60 mistakes - consider them, as if they never happened, for nothing! We are one body, and this body is sinful. What is more common and easier in us if not sins? We breathe them like air. But the Lord, the head of the body of the Church [Col. 1, 18], there is their cleansing. Leave everything to the Head, who works all in all [1 Cor. 12:6], and you hold on to love alone, for it alone is infallible in our lives (true love). Do not serve the devil with the spirit of enmity, malice, hatred, and do not multiply the kingdom of the enemy with evil, do not spread it in the Kingdom of Christ. Conquer evil with good [Rom. 12, 21]. But you cannot defeat evil with evil, just as you cannot destroy fire with fire, but with water. Anger is always the dream of the devil. Love is always the truth of God and a child of God. Where Christian love is, there is God, and God is inexhaustible. This means that no one should feel sorry for anything, but should receive and treat everyone with love, not be burdened by frequent guests, especially one’s relatives, and consider them as one with oneself, as oneself, honor them invariably (as you want constant respect for yourself) and love them invariably. God is everything for everyone. He cares for you [1 Pet. 5.7]. I will never leave you nor forsake you [Heb. 13, 5]. A person who is partial to the blessings of this world or a stingy person’s heart is united in love with the blessings of this world - food and drink, sweets, clothing, money, housing, etc., and not with the souls of their neighbors. For example, guests come, especially if they come often, such as relatives, and the stingy person’s heart hurts. Why? Because it is painfully attached to sweets, and not to the souls of its neighbors, it feels sorry for them for its neighbor, and does not feel sorry for its neighbor who wants to eat and drink, and while it loves sweets, it hates its neighbor who eats its sweets. You cannot serve God and mammon [Matt. 6, 24]. But God is in our neighbor. He who does not love his brother whom he sees, how can he love God whom he does not see? [ 1Jn. 4, 20]. Nothing should ever be spared for one's neighbor as for God. There is nowhere to put food and drink, but it’s a shame to give it to my brother! What kind of malice, what greed, what stupidity! And this is me, such a sneaky weirdo! Everyone ate, drank and still had some left - why, it seems, is there to be sad? No, it’s a pity, don’t go eat or drink. Oh, damned flesh! Oh, evil and dark heart! Oh, accursed Belial, acting in the flesh! Oh, self-love! Oh, unity! There is only one food available on earth, man [Isa. 5, 8 ]? Communicating with one another [1 Jn. 1, 7 ]! In Christianity there is no “I” - there is “we”; There is no “mine” – there is “ours”. Trouble is how sweets fight in our lives and how they defile and bind us! You should eat and drink as little as possible and without sweets. Know once and for all that the devil seduces and confuses us with the beauty of the flesh and the desire of the flesh, inciting us to fornication, adultery, and sodomy, using various sweets of food and drink as a weapon to kindle unclean lust; Therefore, consider the sweetness of food and drink as a delight and avoid being heated by them in every possible way. In your youth the devil, through the flesh, drew you into debauchery, and now the devil incites you for your own reasons... But remember the words of the Savior: everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart [Matt. 5, 28]. I sinned against these words today in a dream. In general, addiction to earthly and carnal things: to food, drink, clothing, a richly decorated home and various rich household accessories, to carriages, horses, to money, to entertainment, pleasures - from the devil, who, through an addiction to earthly things, makes our heart carnal, earthly, shameful vessel of passions, while it should be wise on heaven, to be spiritual and the temple of the Holy Spirit. You cannot serve God and mammon [Matt. 6, 24], God and wealth, God and flesh, God and the world, God and sweets. Therefore, to control your flesh and your heart is the science of sciences, the art of arts. I am God and the devil, the most unclean animal and a holy man, flesh and spirit. O impermanence! Oh, ingratitude! Oh laziness! Oh, God's patience! But how long will I change like the moon or like a kaleidoscope? Establish me on the rock of Your desires, Lord! Extinguish the flame of flesh, the flame of voluptuousness! The crucified flesh makes friends with the spirit and with God, but when caressed, nourished extensively and sweetly, it fights strongly against our spirit and against God, and everything becomes an abomination of sin, and does not want to pray, and in general rebels against God, for example, with blasphemy, and moves away from Him. Experience. Therefore those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts [Gal. 5, 24]. Avoid especially sweets and hot drinks, and also tea, especially sweets: do not drink more than two glasses, and even then without sugar. If only you, my flesh, were alive and quite strong and healthy. And for this you don’t need sweets and a lot of food. Christ has come to earth and will lead us to heaven 61. Are we striving to fulfill the purpose of our beloved Savior? Are we being wise, are we striving for the Kingdom above? – We will answer this more often. Do we value the Savior’s sermons, His suffering, and death? Do we not, like pigs, trample all His economy, clinging to earthly things instead of heavenly things? God! You alone know the cares, labors and sweats of Your saints for their purification, for pleasing You, the Father of all - You also weigh Your holiness! God's love attracts everyone to unite with Himself - and you strive to unite with everyone through love. On Monday, he conducted classes on the name of the Lord safely, with decent importance and dignity, counteracting thoughts. I thank the Lord that he does not abandon the sinner who believes in Him - the Lord of heaven and earth listens to His worm. But lift me up from the mire of sin, Love for Mankind! Be lenient towards the weaknesses of those who repent. Look at you. How many passions do you have? For example, gluttony, pride, anger, irritability, and internal adultery and the like. You still can’t get behind gluttony. (May 18, 1864) Why do the sons of this age mock what is truth, light, peace, sweetness, our life - I mean church services, church readings and hymns? They slander what they do not know [Jude. 1, 10]. Father, let them go: they do not know what they are doing [Lk. 23, 34], and enlighten them, if they desire to receive Your enlightenment. Love every neighbor as you love yourself, without thinking: love is simple - when you love, you will never go wrong. Likewise, without thinking, believe and trust, for faith and trust are just as simple, or, better yet, God, in Whom we believe and in Whom we trust, is a simple Being, just as He is simple Love. Amen. Again and again I will sing a song of gratitude to my Lord, my Savior: my heart was hurt and embarrassed and darkened with pity for my brother’s sweetness and grief for him; but when I said in my heart: The Lord is the cleansing of my sin, the Lord is my light, the Lord is my peace, the Lord is my space - then suddenly my Lord became all this for me, freeing me from the bonds of my sin. When you see the crucifixion of Christ or simply the cross of Christ, remind yourself of the words of Scripture: those who are Christ’s, the flesh was crucified with its passions and lusts [Gal. 5:24], and ask yourself: am I crucifying my flesh with passions and lusts: gluttony, pride, malice, stinginess, envy; Am I not cherishing my many-passionate flesh and thereby intensifying the flame of passions? Woe to me, wretched one! I do not crucify my flesh, which means I am not Christ’s. Remember, my brother, that while you are smoking cigarettes and cigars, your neighbor has nothing else to eat, nowhere to lay his head, nothing to cover his nakedness with; when you buy one or two gold watches, but another neighbor has nothing to buy bread with, nothing to invite a doctor for in his illness; you get rich furniture... and your neighbor... you decorate your home with expensive wallpaper... you dress your wife in expensive clothes... in gold jewelry... and your neighbor... you drink expensive wines, spend money on delicacies... on carriages... on houses... or you yourself live in magnificent and spacious palaces, but you don’t want to give your neighbor a corner in your house for free or pay from the excess for lodging in an apartment; You have a rich shop with various goods, but you regret giving what you need to the poor. Where is Christian love? Why do we have so many poor people? - Because of our hardness of heart... You have a gold watch... worth a hundred rubles... and your neighbor... Teach the Holy Mysteries to children (infants) with extreme caution, [in moderation], so that the most pure Blood of God does not spill on a shirt or anything else. The deacon must carefully wipe away the Blood pouring out of the baby’s mouth with a handkerchief. (Very necessary.) The Synod took the key of understanding, does not itself enter the Kingdom of Heaven and forbids those who want to, keeping the people blind. Thoughts of one secular person. Is it true? And through photography, the enemy occupies us with vanity and distracts us from the one thing we need, and cards, and even food and drink, money... I was created from nothing by the Creator, and now everything for me is the Creator, He cares for me and provides for me. Cast all your cares on Him, for He cares for you [1 Pet. 5, 7]. Why then am I stingy, why do I grieve when I unexpectedly lose money or something else, when I did not expect and did not want this deprivation? (See, everything must be according to my wishes.) Oh! Lack of faith and trust in God! Oh, pagan, domed heart! God, all-merciful, almighty and providential! How long will we arbitrarily be blind and how long will we not place all our hope, all our care on You? I thank You, Love for Mankind, for yesterday (May 18) you delivered me, a multi-passionate one, three times from darkness, sorrow, oppression and the burning of anger and contempt: the first time against the archpriest, the second against the poor, and the third against them too. With faith I applied the all-saving balm of Your name to my heart, and it cleansed, cooled and pacified my heart; only the first time it happened quickly and easily, the second time it was more difficult, and the third time it was much more difficult, according to what was said: behold, you have recovered; Sin no more, lest anything worse happen to you [Jn. 5, 14]. Oh! Damn man I am! Why does anger still live in me, why hasn’t it died? From satiety, from pride, from the secret confidence that others are nothing, dirt, that I am better and higher than others, when in fact I am the worst. But why do we despise beggars? They are in poverty because of the hard-heartedness of us rich people, and we also despise them. Do we give pennies and kopecks, and along with them we give them our malice and contempt? We give pennies and pennies, but for these pennies and pennies we are ready to eat them? Why are you hanging out here in front of our eyes, as if they can no longer stand in the church or on the porch? Oh, we, damned self-lovers! Food is the only one we want to inhabit the earth [Isa. 5, 8 ]? No, the poor are always needed in society, and the Lord allows poverty - they are needed, let us show them our Christian love, meekness, humility and generosity, let us recognize our spiritual poverty from bodily poverty, let us know that we ourselves have brought nothing into this world and cannot take anything out; The poor are needed to expose our luxury and our hardness of heart and, finally, for what? May we appear unrequited at the Last Judgment of Christ, may we justify God in His words, may He triumph over us at all times, and may He say: Depart from Me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry, and you did not give Me anything to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger, and they did not accept Me [Matt. 25, 41 – 43]. These are our future judges. Don’t be angry: they are completely human, just like us. We want to despise them, but God righteously wants to exalt them. Why are we proud, earth and ashes? May 19, 1864 Tuesday. You want a velvet kamilavka, but what kind of kamilavka did the Savior have? - Crown of thorns. What orders did the apostles have? “Not golden orders, but steel swords, and these swords beheaded them.” Do you want a golden cross? What kind of cross did the Savior have? - Wooden, and He was crucified on it. And you want to decorate yourself and show off your pride with a golden cross! What crosses were with the apostles? - Wooden, and they were crucified on them because they served to save people day and night. Oh, we damned sinners! We are lazy in deeds of piety and self-sacrifice, but we want to be rewarded for our insignificant labors. Wouldn’t you like, brothers, to receive for your service, let’s say very conscientious and successful, a cross in the proper sense, that is, lies, deprivation, insults? Wouldn't you like to receive a large reward in heaven for the fact that you do not receive rewards here for your deeds pleasing to God and useful to society? Do not look for rewards here and let the heavenly righteous Judge, Whom you serve here in various ways, reward you. Do not be jealous of the wicked, nor be jealous of those who commit lawlessness and earnestly reward themselves: they will receive their reward here [Ps. 36, 1; Matt. 6, 5] and are deprived of it there. My reward is with Me, says the Lord, to give to everyone according to his deeds [Rev. 22, 12]. (What kind of crosses did the martyrs have?) If you endure while doing good and suffering, this pleases God [1 Pet. 2, 20]. Our momentary light suffering produces eternal glory in an exceeding abundance, when 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, 17 – 18]. According to Christian humility, we should not consider ourselves worthy of reward, but of censure, for do we always conscientiously serve God and society? – We serve the Lord unworthily and deserve His wrath through our sins. The Lord is like lightning - and our soul should be the same, simple, fast; and the devil as a spirit is hellish lightning. Be wise as a serpent and safe 62 like a dove [Matt. 10, 16], like the Holy Spirit. Why do we read akathists to Jesus Christ and the Mother of God? To enter into the spirit of the Lord and His Most Pure Mother, to know the greatness of the gift revealed in the incarnation of the Savior and the redemption of us and in the gift of His Body and Blood, and to accept this gift with dignity. Take away from Me, Lord, the spirit of the devil, the spirit of gluttony, fornication, abomination, blasphemy, pride, malice, irritability; envy, covetousness, stinginess, lack of faith, love of earth, despondency, fear, wickedness, laziness, coldness and insensibility, and give me the spirit of abstinence, chastity, purity and holiness, unflattering praise, meekness and humility; goodness, patience, benevolence, non-covetousness, generosity, faith, love for things above; the spirit of hope, courage, simplicity, hard work and other virtues, that your man may be complete, equipped for every good work [2 Tim. 3, 17]. Why do I fatten and delight you, my evil, multi-passionate, unclean flesh? Is it so that you may grow thorns of passions in abundance? Truly, the more we feed it, the more it produces tares of sins and the more it wars on the soul. So, it is crazy for a Christian to delight and fatten his flesh with a lot of food and drink. We must fast. The Lord is so holy, so simple in His holiness, that one evil or unclean thought deprives us of Him, sweet, sweet, pure and pure, the peace and light of our souls. Hence the saints are all holy, all have one fragrance, like the light of the sun, like the purest air. Lord, give me this simple shrine. Before His incarnation, the Lord allowed humanity to experience all the bitterness of sin, all its powerlessness to eradicate it, and when everyone desired a deliverer, then He appeared, the wise and all-powerful doctor and helper. As they began to hunger and thirst for truth when it became scarce, then the eternal Truth came. The fire of Sodom, the flood, the execution of the Canaanites. Wonderful name of the Lord! Again and again I praise You for Your strength. All the manifold machinations of the enemy have one name - the devil: make sure of this, my heart, and do not be faint-hearted, do not lose heart in enemy circumstances, in enemy storms. Amen. May 15, 1864. Your power - that is, You contain everyone and everything in Your power and strength, including evil spirits; Yours is the Kingdom - You are the King over all, and over evil spirits; Your strength - You support everyone with Your strength; and glory - for You created everything for Your glory. Just as every good thing for us is God, so every evil, every abomination of sin is the devil. A simple heart, taught by God, knows how to unite with God and have no communication with the devil. (History.) The sacred history of the Old Testament is the history of the creation of the world and man and free obedience and disobedience to the Creator - the history of human free will, the history of God's commandments to man, the history of the devil, the history of sin and virtue and the history of the Savior of men. To awaken his dormant heart and conscience, another prayer book about himself or about people needs to be asked the following question: do you need this, what are you apparently asking for, and do you want to receive it? Do you, for example, sincerely desire correction and a holy life? One God of my heart is my Lord and my God, and He is everything to me, as everything is to the visible and invisible world, which He created out of nothing. Therefore, I must not cleave to anything other than my God, and I must part with everything that I have without regret, like the dust that is under my feet, and have one love in my heart for God and my neighbor, accepted in Christ into the unity of the Divine nature. Let us be partakers of the Divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust [2 Pet. 1.4]. Now we are children of God. Let malice, like a child of the devil, not touch our heart even for one moment; pride, exaltation, envy as well. A remarkable phenomenon in nature: when you plant a plant in a large, wide pot or tub, the plant grows strongly at the root, it grows thick, produces a lot of branches and grows poorly upward, producing few and small leaves and flowers. And when planted in a small pot, then the root is small, and the plant quickly grows upward, produces good leaves and flowers (if the plant produces flowers). Isn't that what happens to a person? When he lives in space, abundance and contentment, then he grows in his belly and does not grow tall in spirit, does not bear the fruits of good deeds, but when he lives in cramped conditions, in poverty, in illness, in misfortunes, in sorrows, in a word, when the animal side of him is suppressed, then he grows spiritually, produces flowers of virtues, ripens and bears rich fruits. That is why the path of those who love God is hard. We are all, without distinction of status - poor and rich, noble and ignorant, educated and uneducated - one body, and we must love each other as ourselves. We, who are many, are one body [1 Cor. 10, 17]. Love one another [Jn. 13:34], the Lord commanded. Your heart, which strongly resists these words in action, in everyday life, in everyday clashes with your neighbors, your self-loving, proud, contemptuous, evil, gloomy, dead, confused, multi-passionate heart, you must crucify, despise and cut off your will and follow the will of God in everything. To be a blessed string in the many-stringed instrument of the glory of God. My neighbor is another me; I alone am not me; and the whole Church, all Christianity and humanity - this is me. Let them all be one [Jn. 17, 21]. Our multi-passionate heart loves pleasure and tranquility, does not tolerate bitterness and sorrow, and does not like if someone bothers us in any way, for example, asks us to do something for him. But the Lord ordered us to reject this sinful rest of the flesh and to be a servant of all, and He Himself set an example, for He knew no peace on earth while serving His salvation for us; The apostles are also an example, especially the Apostle Paul. Our heart mostly sleeps in prayer: the outer man prays, but the inner man does not. Often we flatter only with our tongue in prayer. O wicked heart! I don’t want to bless the beggars, I don’t want to let them kiss my hand, as if because you have to rush to church or home, as if it would take a lot of time to bless five to ten people, but when you come home, you spend most of your time wandering around with nothing to do. Oh, wickedness, malice, contempt of the heart! O foolish heart! O lying, dreamy heart! Having put on Christ through faith and the communion of the Holy Mysteries, I am verbal and firm as a rock. Christ is the fullness of all good things for me, and most importantly, a sweet, sweet belly and peace that surpasses all understanding [Phil. 4, 7]. The flesh blooms, but the soul withers; the flesh is spacious, but the soul is cramped; the flesh is satiated, and the soul is hungry; the flesh is decorated, but the soul is ugly; the flesh smells fragrant, but the soul stinks; the flesh bursts into laughter, and the soul is in trouble all around; the flesh is in the light, but the soul is in darkness, in hellish darkness. Yes, and modern false enlightenment removes us from the true Light, which enlightens every person coming into the world [John. 1.9 ], and does not bring him closer to Him. And without Christ all education is in vain. Our old man with his old, devilish deeds is constantly with us and acts fatally in us, that’s why we deal with this old man and his affairs in the church pulpit, so that everyone who listens to us can know themselves and the charm of passions and kill the old man in themselves with the help of the grace of God - and we do not deal with the news of this world, for they are not our business. Thus, we teach everyone to know God, to love Him with all their hearts, and to love their neighbor as themselves, and since self-love is incompatible with love for God and neighbor, we teach, according to the instructions of the Savior, to deny oneself and crucify one’s flesh with passions and lusts [Matt. 16, 24; Gal. 5, 24]. Here is an old speech, and perhaps a new one, depending on who leads it how, whether pointing to modern human passions and lusts or speaking generally, without indicating the need to crucify the old man. What interests you and what are you looking for in life: is it the salvation of human souls and your own salvation, or are you interested in food and drink, clothing, housing, money, games, ranks and distinctions - these temporary pleasures? It's very bad if it's the latter. Everyone seeks their own, and not what pleases Jesus Christ [Phil. 2, 21]. When you feel the sting of any sin in your heart, then know that you have an unclean enemy, a slanderer and a rapist. We desire what is contrary to God - to grow fat and bloom in the flesh: become fat, expand: and leave God [Deut. 32, 15]. Like oxen to be slaughtered, we fatten and water ourselves. Sow to your flesh, from the flesh you will reap corruption [Gal. 6, 8]. If we loved our neighbor, we would buy less gold and silver items and make expensive dresses, we would feast less, and we would give to the poor, covering their nakedness, relieving them from hunger, paying their rent. Blasphemy against sacred things or thoughts of carnal impurity are the devil. When this stench from the hellish abyss bothers and suffocates you, then just make sure, just believe from your heart, that this is the work of the devil, and this rubbish will leave you behind. May the Lord enlighten and confirm. The history of the election and rejection of the Jews shows the truth that God will exalt and magnify those who are faithful to Him, and will humiliate and reject the unfaithful and ungrateful; also the truth that He is faithful in His promises and threats. You brute, my heart! You are a beast, my heart! You are an evil snake, my heart! You are a demon, my heart! You are Satan yourself, my heart! Dry straw, conveniently ignited by the hellish flames of many different passions, you, my heart! You are a restless, angry, capricious member of the household, my heart! What should I do with you, my heart? I can’t do anything with you with my own strength and my wisdom. Only the Creator can correct what is damaged, heal what is sick, straighten what is crooked, cleanse what is unclean, and renew what is worn out. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a right spirit in my womb [Ps. 50, 12]. But the more we pamper our belly and our flesh with edible and drinkable sweets, the angrier, prouder, more contemptuous, and more vile our heart is. To cleanse it, abstinence, or fasting and prayer are necessary. I despised the beggar with my well-fed and proud heart, I became embittered at the beggar for no reason, I despised and scattered the commandment of the Lord (about loving every neighbor, even the beggar, as myself, as the image of God and a member of Christ) - and for this the Lord scattered me, despised me. Glory to Thee, Lord! Glory to Thy truth. The poor do not depend on you, although you give them small alms - they are God’s, created by God, they walk on God’s earth, they are content with God’s gifts: they are illuminated by the same sun, they breathe the same air, they walk on the same earth and their bodies are from the same earth from which your body is; They have the same soul as you, created in the image of God, they are just as members of Christ as you are... and even more worthy. You give them their property and the gift of God; no one called anything of his property his own, but they had everything in common [Acts. 4, 32]. Why are you proud in front of them, disdainful, and angry with them? Haven't you yourself become sufficient and rich from being poor? Do the opposite of what the old man, the old heart, wants, and do what the new heart, renewed by the grace of Christ, should want. Not as I want, but as You want [Matt. 26, 39]. The will of God and our will must be one. Thy will be done [Matt. 6, 10]. What is God's will? Love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself [Matt. 22, 37 – 39]. I thank You, my Creator and Savior, for You have made me worthy in Your name to overcome my strong enemies who fought me, and to remain victorious in the words of Your wisdom in two classes. In the third grade, I myself was guilty of inner fire, sorrow and crampedness for the sake of doubting the name of the student in the name of the Lord. But from now on, I overcame the grief and despondency that occurred about the unsatisfactory answers of the students under the director after classes, walking along the road, by Your name, which I called upon and carried in my heart, and transformed it into peace and trustworthiness. Glory to Your power, Lord! (May 11, 1864.) You take away all our sins and our weaknesses, Love for Mankind, Lamb of God! I thank my Lord, after reading the psalm twice, Have mercy on me, O God... and: O Lord our God, who has granted repentance to men...35 who delivered me from hellish fire and hardship that befell me for my anger towards the poor woman, for my distrust and suspicion regarding her poverty and her words. You should not be embittered towards those who are already embittered, but have compassion for them in a fatherly manner and in the simplicity of your heart, not to mention the fact that you should not be embittered or upset with anyone. You must humble yourself before these poor, lesser brothers of Christ, because they bear His cross, and not be proud, for they are your intercessors before God for mercy on you at the Last Judgment of Christ. Be meek and humble in heart before everyone and learn this from your Savior. With joy, and not with sorrow, lavish God's gifts on the poor: God loves a cheerful giver [2 Cor. 9, 7]. Love gladly meets the needs of the loved one. Remember that we are all one, all children of God, all members of Christ, and for all the Lord is all. I thank You, all-good, all-holy and quick Intercessor, Lady Theotokos, for twice during Vespers and after Vespers (May 12) You delivered me from sinful sorrow and oppression through my prayer, offered to You in simplicity and with a true heart. Teach me, Lady, to do the will of Your Son. He who adorns the sky with stars, could not have adorned His mental sky, the Most Holy Virgin Theotokos, more than the sky? Could not He who adorned the earth with many different flowers and doused it with fragrances, could not have decorated and adorned His earthly Mother with many different flowers and all the colors of virtues and fragrant with all spiritual aromas? - Truly. And the Lady appeared in heaven and the church of the Divine, adorned with all Divine fragrances and fragrant more than all earthly aromas. Oh, if Divine goodness and omnipotence would beautify me, the ugly one, through the prayers of His Most Pure Mother, if only I, the stinking one, would be fragrant! All things are possible with God [Mk. 10, 27]. Though your sins be as scarlet, they will be as white as snow [Isa. 1, 18]. Consider yourself worse and lower than everyone else, worse than any sinner, for you are an all-around and cruelest sinner, lower than any watchman or servant who serves you, or a beggar to whom you often give alms, because the rank or dignity with which you are honored is a gift from God; the ability to honorably wear this dignity and this dignity is also from God; all your advantages in maintenance, in housing, in clothing, in food and drink, in honor - from God; if we take you alone into account, separating you from the gifts of God, then you will come out as insignificance, badness, weakness, abomination, or unhappy, and pitiful, and poor, and blind, and naked [Rev. 3, 17]. Acquire the good habit of not being embittered towards your sinning neighbors and forgiving them with the goodness of your heart for their sins: even though what they do against you is wrong, do not be irritated and do not pay attention to the mistake, as if not noticing it - even though it is wrong, let it be as if it were all right. And you yourself will be calm and satisfied, and things will go well, and others will be calm and satisfied. Forgiving others is great practical wisdom for a Christian. Forgive one another, just as God in Christ forgave you [Eph. 4, 32]. If you forgive people their sins, then your Heavenly Father will also forgive you [Matt. 6, 14]. You see, what is the benefit of forgiving others: God will forgive you. What about us? Every now and then we become embittered over every trifle and are ready to tear apart our neighbor. (And May 1864) Being in despair 63, I was saved by the name of the Lord for two classes from the spiritual enemies who surrounded me. Thank the Lord! They burned like fire among thorns: and in the name of the Lord they resisted them [Ps. 117, 12]. Do not shy away from fulfilling God’s commandments about love for God and neighbor under carnal pretexts. The evil flesh will always find an excuse to evade fulfilling the commandments of the Lord - despise it and say: even if you die, fulfill the commandments of the Lord. Always carry in the depths of your heart the conviction that your heart and mind are corrupted to the core and constantly cry out to the Lord for mercy and the restoration of your inner man, and humble yourself firmly as a true nonentity, badness and abomination. How to be proud of pus? A nonentity? An abomination worth every trampling? Take care that during the celebration of the Divine Liturgy, as well as any other service or Sacrament, the thorns of passions do not furrow in your heart; pay close attention to yourself, be your whole eye, put aside all worldly cares and all malice. As you begin to partake of the Divine Body and Blood of Christ, remember your uncorrectable life, your sinfulness and many passions, and cry over the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world. Do not approach with coldness and insensibility, lest you anger the Lamb of God who has been so kind to you. When you hear feedback from someone about yourself that you do not unite with your wife, you do not cleave to your wife, say: It is good for me to cleave to God [Ps. 72, 28]. Those who have wives should be as if they had not [1 Cor. 7, 29]. As the body is in the air, so the soul is in God; like a fish in water, so is the soul in God. How disgusting and offensive to you if a subordinate acts arbitrarily in something, and especially against your wishes! You want and insist that he do it according to your wishes, and not according to his own wishes, at least, perhaps, even without him, a certain thing would have been done well. So you do not according to your own wishes, but according to your boss’s wishes. It also happens that, offended by the self-will and disobedience of a subordinate, the pride of an elder or superior with zeal and fury seeks to assert its own, although one can conveniently do without the obedience of the subordinate. This is also a sin, and one should not be too jealous about fulfilling one’s will. For what is our zealous will? We must do everything with meekness and where we can forgive without prejudice, then forgive and be forgiving of the weaknesses of others. Peace of mind is a thousand times better. If a subordinate is rude, then there is no point in getting dirty with him. Leave him to the will of God by praying for him. You cannot serve God and mammon [Matt. 6, 24]. Just think about money during mass or a prayer service, just wish for it or feel sorry for it or about it, and you will immediately lose peace in your heart, sorrow and oppression will overwhelm you, and sometimes you walk in these chains for a long, long time until you sincerely say in your heart: there is only one God - the God of my heart - and thus you will again unite with Him. So, do not cleave your heart to anything other than God: everything is in God; That’s why it is said: Seek first the Kingdom (in yourself and in others) of God and his righteousness, and all this will be added to you [Matt. 6, 33]. So, seek to love God and your neighbor as you love yourself, and everything you need for life will be given to you. Don't let God out of your heart. Adam became so proud that he wanted to be god, and died for his pride. The Son of God Jesus Christ humbled himself to the point of death and revived the fallen. Oh, the abyss of humility! Adam and Eve were gluttonous - the Lord fasted for them. They disobeyed - Christ perfect obedience. Having seen a strange Christmas, let us withdraw from the vanity of the world and place our minds on God... 65 God came down to earth from heaven, and may lead us to heaven. But the devil and the flesh are drawn to the earth. Christ calls and attracts to the eternal life, but the devil deceives with a temporary life and cleaves to the temporary, hiding the eternal in darkness or leading a person to disbelief in eternal life. Notice his machinations and do not be deceived by your earthly belly. Let us surrender our whole life to Christ our God and deny our will: whether it be hard for us or easy and joyful, we will thank God for everything, for His right hand rules everything and He is with us every minute. Whatever you send me, Lord, everything is good, say it, and it will be fine. Whether the Artist throws you into the fire, be patient and say: good for me; If he dips you in water, say: good; if he throws you to the ground, say: good; if it hits you, say: good. Every pilgrim should expect illness or some kind of grief for his gluttony, so that through illness and bitterness the heart, weakened by gluttony, will be cleansed and strengthened. Glory to the Heavenly Father who graciously punishes us! “I am a good merchant,” said Elder Eutyches, “I see the goods, that is, the soul of another, good.” Seer. Do not be jealous or envy those who reward themselves or seek rewards in this life, and those who neglect you, even if you, like them, deserve a reward, for their destiny is often only this life, and they only seek rewards for themselves here, often undeserved; like grass they will soon dry up, and like a herb they will soon fall away. Trust in the Lord and do good deeds: and populate the earth, and enjoy its riches [Ps. 36, 2 – 3]. Be afraid to accept compensation for your deeds here, lest you lose it there, in eternity. Moreover, rewards are often puffed up and made into idols of the heart, partial to earthly advantages, and tied to the earth. Humiliation, sorrow and illness must be endured on earth so that the desire for eternal glory and eternal joys is kindled in the heart. Our momentary light suffering produces eternal glory in an exceeding abundance, when 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, 17–18]. In the present state, a person is completely imbued with pride, wickedness, lack of faith, doubt, unbelief, disobedience, frivolity, malice, envy, covetousness, stinginess, lust, fornication and various abominations - greed, laziness, sometimes cowardice, despondency, theft, lies, blasphemy. What great work lies before every Christian person to cleanse himself from filth and the corruption of passions. The devil usually enters us through one false thought or false thought and then acts in us and disturbs us - that’s how simple he is. Isn’t it more likely that the Lord, the God of spirits, dwells in us through a single true and holy thought and happens to us, acts in us, and becomes everything to us? So, pray without a doubt, simply, that is, in the simplicity of your heart, without a doubt: just as it is easy to think, so it should be easy to pray. The dear, holy, unique and life-giving union of husband and wife who were married, the devil detested and detests and turned it into some kind of evil deed, vile, carnal, without spiritual love. But let everyone’s marriage be honest and the bed undefiled; But God judges fornicators and adulterers [Heb. 13, 4]. One must look at the holy work with simple, pure eyes and not pay attention to demonic impurities. All my Lord's members are made holy. The attractions are opposite: Jesus Christ is attracted to heaven, and Satan is attracted to earth. When you sit at the table with guests or with relatives who often come to you, then say internally: this is God’s meal, not mine; God's, not my treat; for everyone, not for me alone, the Lord scattered His rich gifts, although out of pride we often grab too much into our hands and call what we have captured as our own, and are greedy over it, and are stingy to share with the needy brethren - the needy, I say, because the one who is not in need will not come to us to eat and drink. God! Confirm in me this conviction that the meal is not mine, but a common one, given to me from You only so that I would share it with others and thereby testify to my love for You and my neighbor, and thereby show myself worthy of the great gifts of God: What do you have that you have not received? [ 1 Cor. 4, 7]. Remember this truth: my brother and I are one, and everything for us is the Lord God. And division is from the devil, for the beginning of division is enmity. Leave all human untruths to the Lord, for God is the Judge, and love diligently from the pure heart of everyone, and remember that you yourself are a great sinner and need God’s mercy, and in order to earn God’s mercy you must have mercy on others in every possible way. Wake up! Wake up! The Lord is everything for everyone - and the Judge, and the generous Giver of gifts, and mercy, and the cleansing of sins, and light and peace, and joy and strength of heart. My mercy, my mercy, my mercy, love of mankind, I thank You for the boldness You gave me during three classes at the gymnasium, for the gift of speech and explanation of prophecies and for the victory in Your sovereign name of my passions and my invisible enemies. Glory to Thee, Almighty Father, Provider, Forbidden and Helper. May 5th, 1864. I thank You also for the victory over stinginess and the spirit of enmity towards my brother in the name of love and Your name. Approve! What a godless idol of self-love and pride is a stingy man when his brother, who often visits him, eats and drinks: he eats with him with a proud eye and an insatiable heart [Ps. 100, 5], enmity burns in his entrails, and he - alas! A captive of the devil is often funny! Well, tell me, miser, what in the world is yours? Isn't everything God's? Is it your bread? Is the water yours? Everything is God's. We ask God for bread: give us our daily bread this day. The waters are entire rivers and seas, and no one can drink them forever. But blessed is the generous man: with his generosity he constantly declares the kindness of his heart and obedience to God’s commandments about loving one’s neighbor. He does not consider anything his own and willingly shares with his neighbor what he has; he prays: give us this day our daily bread, and he justifies these words in deed, breaking up his bread for the hungry and joyfully treating those who come. He is always ready to say about himself: with a proud eye and an unsatisfied heart, I have never eaten with my neighbor [Ps. 100.5]. In addition, he is convinced that man will not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God [Matt. 4:4], and is more devoted to the word of God, neglecting bread, like the Savior, Who said: My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work [Jn. 4, 34]. At the same time, he still remembers the words of our Savior: do not worry, that is, do not worry in your soul, about what you eat or what you drink [Matt. 6, 25]... Seek first the Kingdom of God (the kingdom of love) and its righteousness (the fulfillment of the commandment of love: this I command you, that you love one another [John 15, 17]), and all these things will be added to you [Matt. 6, 33], just as earthly parents increase their love and care for well-behaved children and abundantly, without their worries and cares, provide them with everything they need. Listen to yourself, man, so that the demon of enmity and stinginess does not laugh at you. Stomach disease in a glutton or one who is greedy for food and drink is very beneficial for the heart. Usually from the heart, which is extensively nourished, come evil thoughts, adultery, fornication, pride, madness, false witness, blasphemy, the evil eye, theft [Matt. 15, 19]. And stomach disease stops all this. Therefore, we must thank the Lord for the illness of the stomach, and not at all be faint-hearted and not grumble. Yes, this is how everything in spiritual life must be done: what makes people upset or cry or howl, we must give thanks for that, for the Heavenly Father builds everything for our good, although many things seem to us to be evil. So, be the name of the Lord blessed for everything. His heart is worthy and righteous to despise, loathe and not follow him in anything carnal or sinful, for it opposes God in everything, and in partnership with the devil, to whom it has given itself over through the deception of food, beauty and knowledge, it strives to do what is pleasing to him. Diabolical haste - when, for example, in prayer, without feeling in our hearts the power of each word, we rush to pronounce the words without feeling and sometimes understanding what we are reading. That’s why there are a lot of words, but little sense and action. My flesh is a burning furnace, scorching me; a fetid pit, constantly emitting the stench of passions; a constant sting, goring my insides! Poor man I am! who will deliver me from this body of death? [Rom. 7, 24]. The more we delight the belly and larynx, the more heartache we prepare for ourselves and the more tender, impatient, irritable, lazier, colder and spiritually powerless we become. Fasting is a great thing, a useful thing! Truly, only daily bread should be eaten with water - and that’s all. Give us this day our daily bread. Who is our King? – Jesus Christ. Who is our Queen? - Mother of God. Who are the ministers of our King? - Apostles. I have appointed princes throughout the whole earth [Ps. 44, 17]. Who's behind them? - Bishops and presbyters. Make me wise and strengthen me, O Lord, to overcome evil with good [Rom. 12, 21] or apparent evil; Grant me, Lord, to take away suspiciousness and stinginess from my thoughts and from my heart. God! Give me the grace to love my brother constantly and unchangeably, no matter how many times and no matter why he comes to me; let me impute all worldly calculations and satanic pretexts to nothing. Let love be the breath of my life, the air of my heart. Wake up! Wake up! I thank You, Love for Mankind, who delivered me in the morning during Matins through my prayer, Have mercy on me, O God... from the waters of malice that drowned my heart and from the tightness of my heart and my whole being. I thank You, for You have granted me without stumbling to perform the Liturgy. And now deliver me from the waters of anger and indignation and stinginess that surround me, for Thy name’s sake. Grant me to love every neighbor of mine as myself, always and not to become embittered towards him for any reason and not to work for the devil. Let me crucify my self-love, pride, covetousness, lack of faith and other passions. May our name be mutual love, one body; Let us believe and trust that for all of us everything is the Lord; let us not worry, let us not worry about anything; may You, our God, be the only God of our hearts, and besides You there is nothing, no sweets, no corruptible things. May we be one body among ourselves - a body of love, as it should be, and may everything that separates us from each other and separates us from love be despised, like the dust that is on our feet. Wake up! Wake up! Train your heart so that it blames itself, its own evil behavior, and not its neighbor for everything. We ourselves are to blame, but we blame our neighbors for our malice. If God has given Himself to me, if He abides in me and I in Him, according to His true word, then what will He not give me, what will He spare me, what will He deprive me of, what will He forsake me? The Lord shepherds me and deprives me of nothing [Ps. 22, 1]. How can He not give us everything? [Rom. 8, 32]. So, be very calm, my soul, and know nothing but love. This I command you, that you love one another [Jn. 15, 17]. Having learned the charm and destruction for the soul and body of the sweets of food and drink, I despise them, providing them... or what am I saying? - not wanting to be seduced by anyone and to please your blind and stinking, transitory womb, but to enjoy them in time, in moderation, for the glory of God, cordially sharing God's gifts with others. Oh, that our sweet food and drinks would always be an expression of our sweet love for each other, so that our hearts would be delighted by mutual love, just as food delights us. Oh, how sweet is Your love, Lord, expressed in so many and infinitely varied sweets, in earthly fragrances, but most of all in the sweetness of Your words and in the sweetness of Your Divine Mysteries of Your Body and Blood. What will be the sweetness of the next century! God! Enlighten our hearts. My heart is spirit, and it must cleave to the one God: it is good for me to cleave to God [Ps. 72, 28], but what blindness and perversion it is! - clings to the sweets of this age: to food, drink, carnal pleasures, to money - to this dust, to clothes - to this decay, to disappearing colors, to patterns, to cuts that seduce the eye, to luxuriously decorated rest *! and the like. Strange thing! I, a Christian, a heavenly man, am occupied with everything earthly and nothing heavenly. In Christ I have been transferred to heaven, and yet with all my heart I cleave tightly to the earth and, apparently, I would never want to be in heaven, but it is better to always remain on earth, although earthly things, with their delight, burden and torment me, although I see that everything earthly is unreliable, perishable, will soon pass, although I know and feel that nothing earthly can satisfy my spirit, pacify and delight my a heart constantly troubled and saddened by earthly vanity. I'm a strange person! How long will I, a heavenly man, be earthly? As long as I am flesh, I, a child of God, am 66 born neither of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of a man, but of God in holy baptism [Jn. 1, 13 ], until I rush all the way to God? God! Draw my heart to You by Your Holy Spirit. God! Turn my heart away from earthly vanity! God! I can’t do anything without You. You did not care about human souls, but about pieces of silver, about food and drinks, about awards and distinctions; you sought reward for everything - you received yours, you accepted your reward [Matt. 6, 5]. But you have destroyed My sheep through your negligence, My sheep, which I came to gather and save, which I entrusted to your care, so that you would feed them with My word. You fed yourselves, and not My sheep; you only dressed yourself in their waves 67 and soared with your horns, despising the weak and weak and flattering the nobles of this world. Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire [Matt. 25, 41]. You have closed the Kingdom of Heaven before men! We love everything shiny on earth more: gold, silver, precious stones, crystal, shiny clothes - why don’t we love the future glory to which the Lord calls us? Why don’t we strive for enlightenment like the sun: the righteous, it is said, will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father [Matt. 13, 43 ]? - Because they fell in love with the earthly shine, temporary, perishable and lovely. But why do we have such a strong love for glitter? Because our soul was created for the heavenly light and in the beginning there was all the light, all the radiance; she has an innate light, an innate feeling and desire for light. Direct this soul's desire to seek heavenly light! When you see a beautiful maiden or woman or a beautiful young man, immediately ascend to the supreme, most holy Beauty, the culprit of all earthly and heavenly beauty, that is, to God, glorify Him for making such beauty from the earth, marvel in man at the beauty of the image of God, shining even in our damaged state; imagine what our image will be like in the state of our glorification, if we are worthy of it; Imagine the beauty of the saints of God, the holy Angels, the Mother of God, adorned with Divine glory, imagine the ineffable kindness of the face of God that we will see - and do not be seduced by earthly beauty, this flesh and blood. Lust is sweet, but sinful and disgusting to God. Do not cleave with your heart to maiden or female beauty, but to the one Lord God, who created all beauty for His own sake, and say: it is good for me to cleave to God, the only God [Ps. 72, 28], and not to transient carnal beauty. Man is God, and he will make Adam God 68. You are my goddess, Most Pure Mother of God! Everything that stings the flesh, even if it is sweet, disturbs and torments the spirit living in it (the sweetness of sugar, the sweetness of that flesh), must be despised precisely because it stings the flesh and torments the soul, and because it separates us from God. O adulterous and sinful world! How many sweets you have, inflaming the flesh and wounding the soul! O Divine sweetness, where are you? How few are looking for you! God! Grant me to despise the flesh with its sweets that wound it. The soul must rest in God. The body is spiritual, angelic. There is a spiritual body. How much these sweets violate the love of God and neighbor! How much time does this dream of the flesh occupy the soul and torment it! And you, my soul, should be with God every minute and not love carnal sweets. A person, a householder or an apartment owner, is often in such a state of mind in which he should say: is there only food on earth? [Is. 5, 8]. Or in this apartment? That is, he can be stupid and viciously proud. Then he needs to be reminded: love your neighbor as yourself [Matt. 22, 39 ], let your neighbor be like yourself. He also needs to remember: naked I came from my mother’s womb, naked I will return to the earth [Job. 1, 21]. And: everything is for everyone, Lord. Also: God of my heart, and my portion, O God, forever [Ps. 72, 26.], - and let him infuse and press the name of God to his heart, and then it will be enlightened and calm. Incomprehensible, stupid greed and stinginess in a person, or specifically in me: I don’t want to eat or have nowhere to put the money, but I’m sorry to give it to my brother; that which brings death to my heart, sorrow and distress due to my passion and abundant pleasure, I should gladly give to another, for I only need daily bread, sufficient to support life, and excesses are the property of my neighbor; Meanwhile, out of malice and deceit of my heart, I want to use God and the common property alone! Oh, idol of pride, my heart! Oh, disgusting selfishness! Oh, the most vile ingratitude before God! Provide food and drink, especially sweets, rich clothing and houses to the people of this age, and you yourself proclaim the Kingdom of God and the truth of God, remembering that the Kingdom of God is not food and drink [Rom. 14, 17]. I thank You, Lover of Mankind, Lord Jesus, for by Your almighty name, which I bear in my thoughts and in my heart, You have made me invincible from disembodied enemies for two classes, although the villains constantly approached me. I thank You, Blessed and All-Powerful! For everything, known and unknown, I thank You, Almighty, I, Your worm! Amen. And how they, ethereal villains, bothered me with carnal abominations during mass! But the name of the Lord and the intercession of the Most Pure Virgin Mary saved me. Be one body of love with all yours, so that all things may be common to you; wish for everyone what you wish for yourself and spare nothing for them. God! Help. Whatever innocent pleasure you want to have, do not deprive your family of this pleasure. The despondency that happens to us from failure in any, especially sacred, deed that we do for others, the shame on our face comes from our incorporeal enemy, who seeks everywhere to devour us, like a roaring lion [1 Pet. 5, 8], and forces us to every failure, to every sin. Therefore, in order to be stumbling-free in a matter, one must prepare for it by preliminary reasonable study of it, combined with abstinence and prayer: one must strive for perfection in everything and not give room to the devil. If you fail in business, do not give in to despondency, but, having admitted your sin and your weakness before God, humble yourself before Him, reject your pride and not be ashamed to admit your sin and your imprudence, laziness or weakness - and plunge your sin into the abyss of God’s mercy, asking for His mercy and help in the future for the good and successful completion of your work. In prayer, in every activity and in your entire life, avoid suspiciousness or doubt and devilish daydreaming, so that your spiritual eye will be simple, so that the whole body of your prayer, your deeds and your life will be bright [Matt. 6, 22]. During public prayer, let your whole heart be in God and not at all cleave to anything earthly for a moment; also have a fiery love for human souls, love for the sake of God and zeal for their salvation; pray for them as if they were in great trouble: we are all, it is said, in trouble 69, subject to the deception of the evil one. When you are hungry, do not lean heavily on food, otherwise you will burden both your heart and body. Eat without greed, quietly, with meditation, for the glory of God, remembering God the Nourisher, especially His incorruptible and heavenly food - His Body and Blood, how He gave Himself to us for love for food and drink, and about the holy word of the Gospel. Everything that worries and, as it were, undermines the heart at its foundation and torments it, comes from the devil, for he is eternal restlessness and languor. The Lord is the peace of the heart. Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest [Matt. 11, 28]. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you [Jn. 14, 27]. So many passions, so much anxiety and languor; so many addictions, so many sharp arrows piercing the heart, and so much obscurity. A person spends most of his life in spiritual darkness. The thought of self-praise and self-pleasure has come - say: I am nothing, everything good in me is done by the grace of God. What do you have that you wouldn't get? [ 1 Cor. 4, 7]. Without Me you cannot do anything [Jn. 15, 5 ]; if the thought of extinguishing comes to any member of your neighbor or your own, say: the whole person is a wonderful work of God’s hands, everything in him is arranged well. Behold, all good things [Gen. 1, 31]. I thank You, my priceless Savior, that You have now shown me the miracle of Your unspeakable goodness and mercy, having taken away from my heart through Your Divine Mysteries the rot and stench of confusion, the tightness of passions and abundantly pacified me. I thank You, for You boldly granted me freedom, elevation and peace of mind in the classroom in front of my students; I have seen Your mercy and Your power, my Savior, and with a grateful heart I confess them, so that they will not be forgotten, but the memory of them encourages me in my previous life and my feasible activity for Your glory! Master! Despise my sins and teach me to do Your will. April 28, 1864. My flesh is disgusting, nasty, blasphemous, what should I do with you? You need to be beaten, tormented, you worthless thing, and not caressed in the least with anything. Why do I, vile one, feed you, caress you, warm you? Answer, nasty one, my worst and most nasty enemy? O detestable friend of the devil, my unceasing enemy and at the same time my flattering friend, how long will I be in agreement with you, how long will I serve you? God! Do not allow me to show contempt and insolence towards my neighbor - towards a superior, or a subordinate, or simply an inferior. God! Grant me favorably, peacefully, with meekness and love, and when necessary and with humility, to listen to the comments of my wife or my relatives, superiors, or equals to me, or those inferior to me, and do not let me be irritated by impatient pride and arrogance. May Thy Spirit, O Lord, always guide me to the rightness of the earth [Ps. 142, 10 ]; Let Your Spirit live and act in me, and let the stench of passions dry up and disappear from me from the inspiration of Your Spirit. Wake up! Wake up! April 27, 1864 Wednesday of St. Thomas Week. What is your duty, communicant of the Divine Mysteries? – You must meditate on things above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God [Col. 3, 1], and not to philosophize about earthly things, for for this reason Christ came to earth, so that he would lead us to heaven62. In My Father's house there are many mansions. But if it were not so, I would say to you: I go to prepare a place for you [Jn. 14, 2]. Our citizenship is in heaven [Phil. 3, 20]. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven [Matt. 5, 3]. If your righteousness does not exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, then you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven [Matt. 5, 20]. Do you see what is the final purpose for which Christ came down from heaven to earth, for which He teaches us His Divine Secrets - Body and Blood. This goal is to give us the Kingdom of Heaven, so strive for it. Why does the Lord give me every day? For my turning to God with all my heart, for my cleansing and correction. Remember and get better. What do you have of yours? Nothing - everything is God's. Reject self-love and its offspring - stinginess, greed and hatred of your neighbor, and love your neighbor as yourself. Amen. Confirm, God! Pride is a demon, anger is the same demon, envy is the same demon, prodigal abomination is the same demon, forced blasphemy is the same demon, forced doubt in the truth is a demon, despondency is a demon: the passions are different, but one Satan acts in all; the passions are different, but they are all the barking of Satan in different ways, and a person is one, one spirit with Satan. Being subjected to the evil and furious violence of manifold passions and the gnawing of the devil while performing various works of God, accept these sufferings as suffering for the name of Christ and rejoice in your sufferings, thanking God, for the devil is preparing for you, without knowing it, brilliant crowns from the Lord. Amen. Resist the demon immediately. Every minute of my life I must love God and my neighbor, and not for a moment should I hate my neighbor, much less the Lord God. Lord, help me! I can’t do anything without You. Hey, amen! Do not be upset at people who express their pride and arrogance, or anger, or effeminacy and impatience in relation to you or others, but, remembering that you yourself are servile to them, that you yourself are subject to the same and greater sins and passions, pray for them and meekly deal with them. Brethren! If a person falls into any sin, you who are spiritual correct him in the spirit of meekness, each one watching himself, so as not to be tempted. Bear each other's burdens (if someone insults you, it is hard for you - but bear it), and in this way fulfill the law of Christ [Gal. 6, 1 – 2]. If blasphemous thoughts burst into your soul, immediately scold yourself without mercy, calling yourself a dog, a beast, a pig, and even worse, and diligently glorify the Lord, the Mother of God and the saints; if you have thoughts of malice and gloating, immediately wish and inwardly ask God for all good to the person for whom you inwardly wished evil or secretly rejoiced at whose misfortune. By doing this, you will please the Master of Hearts, who looks upon the secret work of our hearts, and you yourself will preserve your peace of mind. Observe the same with all passions. The thought of gluttony has come, and you say: man will not live by bread alone [Matt. 4, 4]...or: give us this day our daily bread; and also say: the time will come, we will sing to the glory of God, but now is not the time. A drunken thought sets in cold, say: drunkards... will not inherit the Kingdom of God [1 Cor. 6:10], and: whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do everything to the glory of God [1 Cor. 10, 31]. A thought of suspicion has come, say: who among men knows what is in a person, except for the human spirit living in him? [ 1 Cor. 2, 11]. And tell suspicion: you are a dream. Despondency comes over you, immediately cheer up, be courageous, trustworthy, complacent and calm (God grant); lustful thought - remember the holiness of God and that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit [1 Cor. 6, 19], also about the words of the Savior: be holy, because I am holy [Lev. 19, 2 ]; the thought of stinginess and love of money - say: a Christian has nothing of his own, but everything is common, we have brought nothing into the world; It is obvious that we cannot take anything out of it [1 Tim. 6, 7 ]; We are all, say, one body, we partake of one bread, and for all of us the Lord is the Provider; the thought of malice has come, and you remember the words of Spasov: This I command you, that you love one another [John. 15, 17 ]; the thought of envy chills, and you remember the words of the Apostle: be satisfied with those who exist [Russian: what is] [Heb. 13:5], or: love your neighbor as yourself [Matt. 22, 39 ]; if you wish for yourself every kind of well-being, you yourself would willingly take advantage of what your neighbor has or does, consider it as if you yourself had received or done it; We, say, are all one - and thus resist every passionate dream, internally working for the Lord and constantly calling on Him for help. The movement of impatience and irritability is confusing - speak to yourself the words of Christ: through your patience save your souls [Lk. 21, 19.], or: those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts [Gal. 5, 24], or: not My will, but Yours be done [Lk. 22, 42], or: whoever wants to be great among you, let us be your servant; and whoever wants to be first among you must be a slave to all [Mk. 10, 43 – 44]. Why does this strange phenomenon occur that when someone takes our favorite property, for example, our favorite sweets, we feel as if he is touching our heart, pulling at our soul? Because our heart is partial to this thing and is, as it were, one body with it. We must take every possible care to heal from this spiritual disease, called stinginess and greed and addiction of the heart, and cleave to the one God. This passion strongly opposes love for God and neighbor and dries up this Divine love in the heart. This passion fuels pride and arrogance in dealing with neighbors, especially relatives who come from our table, as well as envy and hatred. We must immediately eradicate from the heart voluptuousness, which gives rise to stinginess, greed, and gloominess in relation to others, distrust, coldness, hatred and disgust from them. We must carry in our hearts the words: man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God [Matt. 4, 4], and rely in everything on God, the Giver of Life and Provider. We must be jealous of love - the only one needed. Love one another diligently from the bottom of your heart [1 Pet. 1, 22]. This I command you, that you love one another [Jn. 15, 17]. Nevertheless, being in subjection to one another, clothe yourselves with humility [1 Pet. 5, 5]. Do not rush to food and drink, but rather hurry to the work of God and, while doing the work of God, do not think about food and drink. Remember firmly before Whom you stand, with Whom you talk, Whom you sing; be entirely in God, belong entirely to Him alone, pray with all your heart, sing with all your heart; Serve for your neighbors as you would for yourself, cordially, wholeheartedly, without double hearts and thoughts. God! Help me: I can’t do anything without You. God! I confess before You my daily free falls, my anger, my contempt, my pride, my stinginess and greed for food and drink, passion for monopoly, my gluttony, my addiction to food and drink, money, elegant clothes, precious things, such as books, and dislike for my neighbor due to my addiction to the vanity of the world. Cleanse me, save me, sanctify me, enlighten me and strengthen me! Behold, I surrender myself entirely to You! Update me. I am all corrupted, all rotten, all scabby. But You, as the Creator, can recreate me and from the rotting ruins of my old man create a beautiful and strong vessel of Your grace! Surprise me with Your goodness and mercy, Your bounties, Your omnipotence, Your wisdom! Your Gospel is good, but you don’t live by the Gospel - that’s what’s bad. So, your joy over the beautiful binding of the Gospel is vain. The church vestments in which you dress are beautiful and shiny, but the robe of your soul is ugly and gloomy - this is bad. Your words are good and eloquent, but your deeds do not correspond to your words - this is very bad. Your words are soap bubbles. Your flesh is elegant, but your soul is naked - this is the height of madness for a rational being! Your house is beautiful, your rooms are clean, bright, decorated, but the house of your soul is completely defiled by passions and passionate thoughts, gloomy and ugly - this is incongruous with anything. Just as the sun penetrates the air and merges with it, so the Lord penetrates His saints and merges with them. As air penetrates the body and dissolves with it, so the Lord does with His saints; just as fire penetrates the red-hot iron that is in the furnace, so does the Lord penetrate His saints, and they are all pure and holy and bright, and there is not a single spot in them. You are all beautiful, my beloved, and there is no spot on you! [Song. 4, 7]. Torment not your belly and do not satisfy yourselves, but the passion of gluttony and delicacy. You, the spiritual father, need to visit your spiritual children (and instill them in others) and see how they live, whether like a Christian, with the fear of God, whether they remember the commandments of the Lord and try to fulfill them, especially whether they live in mutual love; do they remember the promises of Christ, do they adhere to the church of God, do they read God’s word and listen to it in church; Do they go to confession and communion every year? will they not become stuck in laziness and negligence, in drunkenness and other vices - and admonish the negligent and frighten them with the fear of the Judgment of God, and encourage the pious with the promises of Christ. If possible, you should try to know all your parishioners. And for this it is necessary to compile lists of them: 1) lists of permanent Kronstadt inhabitants and 2) temporary and transitory ones. I know My, and they know My Me [Jn. 10, 14]. When you are tempted by fornication in a dream, then know that the demon of voluptuousness, which has poured out unclean sweetness and bliss in your members, is in you - and this is what you should especially grieve about, pray and cry before the Creator, that is, that you have united with the enemy, and ask God, if you can with tears, that He will cast out the demon of carnal sweetness from you. The heart is pure, so the whole person is pure; the heart is unclean - and the whole person is unclean: from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, blasphemy [Matt. 15, 19]. But the saints, through fasting, vigil, prayer, contemplation of God, reading the word of God, martyrdom, labor and sweat, acquired a pure heart - and the Holy Spirit dwelt in them, cleansed them from all defilement and sanctified them with eternal sanctification. Try above all to cleanse your heart. Create in me a pure heart, O God... [Ps. 50, 12]. Be glad to everyone, and then God’s business is to judge the behavior of your guests. Do not be angry with anyone under any circumstances. Otherwise - woe. Do not value the gifts of God at the price of silver and gold. Tune accepted, Tune be ready to give. Leave the reward for your labors to the pure arbitrariness of those who receive the Sacrament, and to those who have offered or have to offer the least payment for your spiritual labor, work with the same willingness with which you work for those who offer a greater reward. During the work of God, do not think about money, do not offend the Spirit of God and do not sell the gifts of God, so that your money does not go with you to destruction. Oh! Many actually sell, while others buy or pretend to buy the gifts of the Holy Spirit with silver, like Simon the Magus. Simony 70 is in the Sacrament Repentance, in the Sacrament of Marriage, in the Sacrament - alas! even Communion! I thank You, Love for Mankind, for through my prayer you have granted me the grace to deal with my brothers with love and unsparing earthly blessings, with a calm and majestic spirit. I thank You for helping me to overcome the passion of stinginess, hatred and contempt. Confirm and complete me in love! April 26, 1864. Fomino Resurrection. The common one of all and my Nourisher is the Heavenly Father. I don’t feed anyone, God feeds – I have nothing of my own. You should eat and drink food and drink only to strengthen your strength, and not for delicacy, and not eat when nature does not require it. Many of us, and I am the first, will, if we do not repent and correct ourselves, be condemned for eating and drinking at the wrong time and, thus, living with reason like unreasonable animals and darkening our unreasonable heart. You played with food and drink and often ate and drank when you should not have eaten or drunk. Woe to you who are now satiated! for you will hunger [Lk. 6, 25]. You have lived luxuriously on earth and enjoyed; feed your hearts as for the day of slaughter [Jas. 5, 5]. Pay the most strict and active attention to this daily action of yours, to eating and drinking, because your spiritual, social and family activity depends enormously on food and drink, on their quality and quantity. Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be burdened with gluttony and drunkenness [Lk. 21, 34], - and both tea and coffee also belong to drunkenness if they are consumed untimely and in excess. Oh, woe to us who are now saturated and often look with disgust at the gifts of the Lord! By what name are you called by faith? - Christian. What does it mean? It means that I am a member of the great body of Christ, which is called Christians, or the Church of Christ, that I am Christ’s slave and obedient. What does the name Christian oblige you to? So that I always have Him in my thoughts and in my heart, always have His spirit in all my life, imitating His life, fulfilling His holy commandments and philosophizing on heaven, where Christ sits at the right hand of God [Col. 3.1 ], despising the longer ones. By eating extensively, you become a carnal man, not having a spirit, or soulless flesh, but by fasting, you attract the Holy Spirit to yourself and become spiritual. Take cotton paper that has not been moistened with water - it is light and floats in the air in small quantities, but moisten it with water - and it becomes heavy and immediately falls to the floor. So it is with the soul. Oh, how one must protect the soul through fasting! One who feeds extensively cannot pray from the soul and fervently, because his heart is coarse and insensitive, it does not sympathize with the words of prayer and does not feel their power; for him neither promises of future rewards are desirable, nor threats are feared; as if in a bottomless and unclean spiritual abyss, all spiritual words are lost in it. The burden is heavy both for oneself and for others: a well-fed belly and heart are a nest of nasty, crafty and blasphemous thoughts. A well-fed belly is proud, impatient, malicious, envious, stingy, covetous, money-loving, prodigal, lazy, sleepy; sad, fearful where there is nothing to be afraid of, deceitful, cowardly, suspicious, full of lack of faith and disbelief; impudent, rebellious, free-thinking, pompous, angry, contemptuous, laughter-loving. Who dares to raise his head up and say that there is no God? - Gluttony. Who does not know his equal and towers above everyone? - Gluttony. You cannot drive the devil away from your heart by force of hands, but by prayer. If you say to the Lord, “You are my God,” speak truly. If He is your God, then live according to His will, and not according to your own, do not be a god for yourself, do not be self-willed. Thy will be done, it says. You say: We send glory to You, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Don't lie again. Send glory to the Trinitarian God with your heart and deeds of love, meekness and humility, deeds of communication and doing good to your neighbors, deeds of abstinence and purity. Wonderful is Your truth, O Lord, and Your name is Lord! When entering the apartment [...] of Pyotr Fedorovich, I only remembered and said with a firm conviction in my heart that everything is the Lord for everyone, and immediately the sorrow and oppression from my heart fell away, and without that they were gnawing at my insides before Vespers itself (and they came from an instant regret for my brother to eat and drink something tasty and from an internal, instant indignation at him) and during Easter Vespers: it was hard for me to serve, and the Lord seemed to have abandoned me and didn't listen to me. Wealth is a heavy, heavy shackle for the soul and body; these are satanic powerful shackles, from which we cannot get rid of unless the Lord delivers; wealth, or addiction to it, petrifies and cools the heart towards God and neighbor; He who is partial to wealth either does not pray, or prays more feignedly, hypocritically: he does not feel the power of words, he utters only words without meaning or deed. Serve Christians as Christ Himself: they are His members, although they are sinners, just like you. Be obedient to them, as to Christ, without looking at your face, even if it were the last beggar. Never be upset, do not murmur, do not be faint-hearted and do not lose heart, knowing who it is from. Humble yourself sincerely before everyone and consider yourself worse than everyone, trampled upon by everyone, unworthy to serve others; especially humble yourself before the elders and especially before your father or father-in-law, mother or mother-in-law, and joyfully sacrifice for them your labors, peace of mind, money - everything, considering it happiness to lay down your life for them, but do not be proud in front of them, do not despise them, do not be embittered at them, even if they have any shortcomings, considering yourself a thousand times worse than them. Be obedient and kind to them with respect, for this pleases God. By honoring your parents, you honor God. Consider yourself unworthy of the gifts of God, consider everything to be common property; do not say: this is mine, this is mine - my money, my food, my sweets, my drinks, my apartment - it is not true: all this is God's and theirs or common: for the family and for everyone, even strangers. During prayer, desire nothing but the Lord, saying with the psalmist: What do I have in heaven; and what did You want on earth? My heart and my flesh are gone, O God of my heart, and my portion, O God, forever [Ps. 72, 25 – 26]. So, during prayer, do not desire anything except the Lord: no money, no food and drink, no clothes, no awards, no honors, no ranks, nothing earthly, for it is impossible to work for God and mammon [Matt. 6, 24]. The need for sorrows and various blows and losses in life: our hearts are alienated from the Lord who created them from the womb of their mother and cleave to vanity - how can you bring them closer to the Lord, if not with blows, if not with sorrows, for we must let them fully feel that those persons or things to which they cleave cannot give them life, peace, joy, space, but on the contrary, deprive the heart of peace, joy, space, bliss and [so that], clinging to God, the only source for the heart of peace, joy, space, life and bliss, we love Him with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, with all our strength, as our own heart, our soul, our thought, our strength, for He really is everything for us. Looking at the icon of the Mother of God with the Eternal Child, marvel at how amicably and sincerely the Divinity united with humanity, glorify the goodness and omnipotence of God and, having recognized your human dignity, live worthy of the high title to which you are called in Christ, that is, the title of a child of God and heir to future eternal bliss. When the spirit of malice in you whispers blasphemy against someone’s holy things and greatly disturbs you with verbal arguments or arguments of the mind (that is, it demands arguments of the mind), then tell it: I renounce my reason and do not believe it, because it can be your tool; I believe the Scriptures and the Church of God simply, without any evidence of the mind! My mind is damaged, corrupted by sin, just like my heart and my will. Get out, you slacker! If you need to show obedience to your boss with the loss of your money or your property in general, in things or deeds that are not contrary to God, do not hesitate to show this obedience in the name of God. Obedience is more than 71 sacrifices, more than alms. Behold, Satan has asked to sow you like wheat [Lk. 22, 31]. This is who so greatly scatters our thoughts in church during worship, at home during prayer and everywhere; This is who distracts our thoughts from God, from our souls and human souls, from the heavenly and eternal; This is who occupies us with earthly trifles or earthly vanity, earthly insignificance, earthly delights - food, drink, clothing, housing, etc., etc., etc.! We need to pray for each other, so that our faith does not fail, as the Savior prayed for Peter [Lk. 22, 32]. Whatever you can do that pleases people, do it as you please, without grief, without suspiciousness and suspicion, in the simplicity of your heart. Love your neighbor as yourself [Matt. 22, 39]... Is involuntary, outward prayer beneficial? No, she is disgusting to God. Understand the same about teaching: involuntary, literal teaching does not bring any benefit. Just as an involuntary prayer book only goes through words, but often does not understand or feel their power and does not enlighten, does not warm and enliven his heart with them, so is the involuntary student. We must teach people to study voluntarily, we must teach them to think about what they say. For everyone, everything is the Lord God; everything is God’s good, and we have nothing of our own. If we spare any of our property for others, for example food and drink or money, then we arbitrarily enter into the rights of God, for everything belongs to God, not to us. Our daily bread, we say, give us this day, - we say: not mine, but our bread; We say: give to us, confessing that bread is a gift of God’s mercy, and not just our property; Give to us, we say, caring out of Christian love as much for yourself as for everyone, for we are one. Woe to those who seize the generous gifts of God exclusively into their own hands, who despise the lower and poor brethren and turn them away from their hearts and from their mercy. Covetousness gives rise to mutual envy and hatred. Andrey Timofeevich Sorokin, Sinebryukhov and Mukhin. The Holy Spirit is called the Comforter because He comforts a pious person in his suffering for the sake of righteousness, in the slander 72 against him from the devil and worldly evil people. The devil acts on us through our flesh and through materiality in general, as if we were flesh-bearing. So through wine, tea, coffee, through delicacies in general, through money, clothes, etc., he kindles our passions. Therefore, you must be very careful to drink a lot of wine, tea or coffee and eat delicacies, especially without other, substantial, strong and healthy food. These delicacies should be consumed after everything in the most moderate quantities. I thank You, O God of Deliverance, for yesterday through my prayer you delivered me from the evils that beset me. Oh, how much evil and weakness I have! If it were not for You, Lord, what would have happened to me? You are an abyss of mercy to me. You are an abyss of forgiveness. Don’t be proud, vindictive, self-loving, and be kind to your neighbor as to yourself. God! There is an abyss in me of self-love and manifold malice. Correct me. Behold, I surrender to You. Let me surrender to You completely. You are the Creator, You are my Artist, You are my God, You are my Savior. Without You I am woeful. On the one hand, I am nothing, and on the other, an abyss of all-round evil, an abyss of weakness and powerlessness, shortcomings and imperfections of all kinds: I am damned, truly I am poor, I am poor, I am blind, I am naked [Rev. 3, 17]. All the fullness of my spiritual and material blessings is my Savior. He is my light, peace, spiritual stronghold. He is the fullness of all good, just as I am emptiness. And sugar, and silver, and clothes, and chambers, and furniture, and silver sets, and gold vessels, and watches - all earth and water, all trampling under foot. God! Affirm this! Holy Wednesday. Confessions of high school students and cathedral parishioners. Confessing the schoolchildren and feeling my heart unfit for this great work, empty, alien to God, hypocritical, cold, unclean, I constantly asked God and the Lady with earthly worship before the confession of each student - and my prayer did not come true: I received from above the power of sincerity during confession, the power of conviction of inner closeness to God, love for the schoolchildren as for my blood children - and safely and successfully completed God’s work. For this I thank the Lord and Lady. Confessing to the parishioners, I felt good until the temptation. They approached me from behind the screens on both sides. Everything was fine so far: nobles and good people were approaching from both sides: he turned a blind eye to this; but then one homely old woman approached me from the left - and I became embittered with her, damned: how dare she approach, but how others, more knowledgeable, approached - it doesn’t matter; and from that time on, the devil jumped like lightning into my heart, and darkened, and oppressed, and stung me, like the most evil bee or arrow, and I felt sick and heavy, I became a slave: the word dried up, love and meekness towards my neighbor disappeared, I began to look at everyone somehow with hostility (I sinned against one, I sinned against everyone); I prayed and prayed - it became a little easier, but the evil one did not come out completely, and throughout the confession he remained in some cramped conditions. This is how serious it is for a priest to sin with partiality, contempt, impatience and bitterness! Save, Lord! Having already been home, he was upset with his wife, and was offended again after evening prayer. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them [Col. 3, 19 ]! I forgot this commandment of God given by the Apostle. In the bitterness of his heart he spoke to her, rudely, unlovingly, coldly - for her love, affection for me! There was a tightness in my chest, anxiety. I caressed her, made peace with her - and it became easy. I slept peacefully. And before that, he was upset that someone had chopped up the sugar, and he also got hurt and hurt himself 73 . But at evening prayer I washed away this sin with tears. An evil heart finds fault with everything in order to quarrel with its neighbors. He counted the money greedily. That we, brothers, do not fulfill the laws of the Almighty God? Didn't He know what He demanded and demands from us? Does He demand the impossible from us? Is it only for Himself, although He could rightfully demand this only for Himself, because He created everything for Himself? Isn't it for our own eternal bliss? Is His yoke evil and His burden heavy? No, on the contrary, it is good and easy [Matt. 11, 30]. What answer will we give to Him, neglecting the fulfillment of His commandments and our own eternal salvation? The Lord, as the most loving Father, is pleased when we sincerely pray for people, His children, and just as parents, at the request of their good and well-behaved children, have mercy on the unkind, capricious and malicious, so the Heavenly Father, through the prayer of His beings or through the prayer of His priests, endowed with the grace to pray for the people, has mercy on the unworthy, just as He had mercy and mercy on the rebellious and the murmuring Jewish people in the desert for the prayers of Moses. But what a fiery prayer it was! What is holiness? – Freedom from all sin and completeness of all virtue. Only a zealous few achieve this freedom from sin and a virtuous life, and not suddenly, but gradually, through prolonged and many sorrows, illnesses and labors, fasting, vigil, prayer - and this not by their own strength, but by the grace of Christ. Only the Lady Theotokos was sanctified from her earliest youth, from the very womb of her mother, and then the Lord sanctified Her into the Holy of Holies with perfect sanctification through Her unceasing prayer, reading the word of God and meditation on it, through the instruction of heavenly, pure, ethereal powers and especially through His inner illumination. The shrine corresponds in nature to the light of the sun and the whiteness and fragrance of snow. And sin is darkness, alien to light, and dirt, or rust, or stench. Consider yourself the worst, the lowest and the last of all. If someone comes or often comes to you to eat bread and salt, tea and sugar, be glad to see him and consider yourself happy that he eats and drinks with you, just as if he were the king himself or his heir, for we are kings and priests, or a royal priesthood, a holy people [1 Pet. 2, 9], children of God, heirs of God. If you are invited to do some service, rush to perform this service with joy and consider it happiness that you are asked to do a certain service, sincerely, that is, truly humbled before the one who invites you to serve him. Remember your insignificance and honor everyone, love the brotherhood [1 Pet. 2, 17]. Like a child, humble yourself before everyone. Grant, Lord! I can’t do anything without You. Why do I need an estate? In order for them to exist and live for me and my family and my relatives, in order to give to the poor, and not in order to accumulate it. Measure generously, so that God may generously measure to you according to your giving. Moreover, everything, or the means of life, is God’s, not ours, and God is the Head of life: He takes care of maintaining our life - through ourselves, or through others, or through animals, or birds, or directly. Let us give ourselves and each other and our whole life to Christ our God. We say: we need to live, but God is our life, which means that God will and will continue to give us all the means to live. If something happens beyond your aspirations and against your expectations, do not become irritated and do not indulge in anger towards those who did something against your desires and expectations (do not serve the devil, who is looking for an opportunity through you to insult God and our neighbors with malice and disturb your own spirit). Malice is crafty - it is happy to have the slightest opportunity to pour out indignation, anger and bitterness on a neighbor, especially if the neighbor is disgusting to us in some way. But often we are immediately put to shame, because what seemed, for example, damaged, lost, or not done by others according to our desire turns out to be whole and in good order, present or done according to our desire. But in any case, anger, bitterness and malice are inexcusable, because with them the harm, even actually caused to us, is not in the least corrected or rewarded, while new harm, moral and physical (in relation to my soul and body, equally in relation to the soul and body of others), sometimes arises and increases with the speed of lightning. With our angry fervor we disturb our soul, infect it with the spirit of malice, anger and vengeance, and we also deprive others of peace of mind, we infect others with the spirit of our malice and thus violate the commandment of our Savior: learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart [Matt. 11, 29]. So, irritability is, in any case, reckless, stupid and ridiculous, like any passion. We must maintain constant goodness, peace and tranquility: if you do, be by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. The devil finds fault with every occasion in our lives in order to sow in our hearts his pride, contempt, anger and irritability, his lies, doubt, lack of faith and unbelief, hypocrisy, false shame, envy, stinginess, love of money and in general covetousness, laziness, despondency, gluttony, adultery, theft, murmuring, blasphemy. O our most evil nature! When we cleanse you from all sinful abominations! A beggar came to me - I was arrogant, I despised him and often became irritated against him just because he asked me for alms or asked me to do something for him, whereas I should have turned this case into an opportunity to show him my meekness, my humility, kindness, mercy. I see the beautiful face of a woman - and, instead of looking at her with purity, instead of marveling at the beauty of the image of God in her and glorifying the Supreme Artist of everyone and everything, I often fall into carnal, unclean thoughts, etc. So, when you see the beautiful faces of women or men, marvel at them at the Supreme Artist - God, Who so beautifully created His image on earth - man, and say to yourself: this is the beauty of the image of God in man - glory to the wise and omnipotent Creator, who was able to create such a beautiful creature from the earth! But then sigh and say: how sin has disfigured and disfigures our souls and often our bodies - this is the offspring of Satan! Who does a person sometimes resemble? - At the devil himself. Alas for us! Alas for us sinners! How can we adequately pay for sin? How can we get rid of sin if we are sin-loving? How can we present His pure image – our soul – to the Creator? How I will appear to You who sits on the throne, and I will repay the word, and I will execute judgment on everyone who has done something in knowledge and ignorance 74 Be attentive to yourself so as not to become upset or angry with anyone under any circumstances, and do not be embarrassed by the instigations of demons acting in the heart. Always adhere to goodness, which does not exclude severity and righteous indignation. Imitate the meek and humble Lord Jesus Christ, your Savior, who, despite all the slander of His evil and crafty enemies, despite all the insults, spitting, strangling, beatings, even during the very nailing to the cross and the torment of the cross and ridicule, remained meek and humble, suffering, and did not threaten [1 Pet. 2:23], but He prayed for His enemies, saying: Father, let them go; for they know not what they do [Lk. 23, 34]. Man is an abyss of weakness. The Lady is an abyss of good power. Man is an abyss of sins; The Lady is the abyss of purification. Man is an abyss of evil; To the Lady - an abyss of goodness. Man is an abyss of sorrows; The Lady is the abyss of deliverance from them and an endless source of spiritual joy. To speak is not to be a hypocrite. Imitate Nathanael, of whom the Lord Himself testified that there was no guile in him [Jn. 1, 47]. Be completely straightforward in everything. Simple (with directness). Why does the Lord give man a continuation of days on earth? So that a person has time to repent and be cleansed of sins and passions, and so that truth and love completely penetrate his heart through long-term training of his feelings regarding good and evil. There is no doubt about the truth of the Gospel and church readings. Everything that is in the Gospel and in the Church is the breath of the Spirit of truth, silver is kindled, tempted by the earth (that is, alien to everything earthly, flattering), purified by the sevenfold [Ps. 11, 7], belly, peace and spiritual sweetness. Woe to the one who doubts - the spirit of lies will darken, constrain and plunge him into despondency and sorrow. Experience. Call your wife's father father or daddy with firmness, from the heart, and ask for his blessing also from the heart. Double-mindedness, doubt to call it or not, this way or that, called it or not - is from the devil, and woe to the one who doubts and hesitates. Call children children from the heart and do not doubt or consider it a favor for them that you call them that. We are not worthy to call them that, because they are the children of the Heavenly Father himself. What is the human soul? This is one and the same soul or the same breath of God, which God breathed into Adam, which God [took] from Adam for Eve, and from which the entire human race then spreads to this day. All people are therefore like one person, or one great tree of humanity. Hence the most natural commandment, based on the unity of our nature: thou shalt love the Lord thy God (First Principle, The prototype of yours, your Father) with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and your neighbor (for who is closer to me like me, a man of the same blood to me), as himself [Matt. 22, 37]. There is a natural need to fulfill these two commandments. Receive every person who comes to you, especially with a spiritual purpose, with a kind and cheerful appearance, even if he is a beggar or a beggar, and inwardly humble yourself before everyone, considering yourself lower than him, for you were appointed by Christ Himself to be the servant of all, and everyone is His member, although, like you, they bear the wounds of sins. On Holy Tuesday I noticed an officer going to a house of fornication. I wanted to stop him, but I was too late. Forbid me, Lord, from this sin! And bring this officer to his senses and punish him. What did these officers learn? Until now the Lord has not left me in anything, and will not leave me in anything until the end of my days - that is my hope! Do not disgrace him, my Lord, my Father, my Provider! August 9th, 1864. To the glory of the most holy name of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Lady Theotokos. I felt a thousand times in my heart that after communion of the Holy Mysteries, or after fervent ordinary prayer at home, or on the occasion of some sin, passion and sorrow and oppression, the Lord, through the prayers of the Lady, or the Lady Herself, by the grace of the Lord, gave me, as it were, a new nature of the spirit - pure, vigorous, majestic, bright, wise, good-natured, instead of unclean, dull and lethargic, cowardly, dark, stupid and evil. I have undergone many wonderful, great changes, to the surprise of myself and often of others. Glory to Your power, Lord! Glory to Your goodness, Lord! Glory to Your mercies, Lord, even astonishing me, a sinner. Where do the fights and quarrels come from among you? Is it not from here, from your delights that fight in your fortunes? [James. 4, 1]. Truly, sweets, especially sugar, are at war in our lives. Sugar is a great temptation for Christians. This is an idol for many Christians, and above all for me. I feel sorry for his great waste; I would be ready to guard him, like a rich man with his chests of money, and I’m afraid for him, lest he be kidnapped or the excess taken and eaten, just as a money lover fears for his money, lest it be stolen. This is the beauty of sweets! If it weren’t for life in society, if it weren’t for my family, it seems that I would have left sugar and driven it out of use, or I myself would have started to feast on it in excess and would have been very greedy for it. Oh sweetness, sweetness; oh passion, passion! How you distract the heart from God, how you entangle and penetrate the heart! Clinging to one, the heart cannot love another! So sweets fight in our lives. Cowardice and hesitation of the heart and thoughts in the truth, which occurs with blasphemous thoughts, come from our lack of faith, pride and voluptuousness. Does a person need torment in life? Needed. As you suffer in illness, or in sorrow, misfortune and misfortune, or in exhausting labor, your soul will become humbler and stronger, but without that it begins to be proud and weaken in sins. As soon as you suffer, you will know what the Lord Jesus Christ suffered for us and His labors for us, what were the sufferings of the martyrs, saints and saints, you will know, at least in part, what future torments will be - and without misfortunes, illnesses and sorrows and labors, a person becomes conceited and receives some kind of confidence that everything will be the same with him, that there will be no future torments, and he will not know the sufferings of Christ from experience, and most importantly, he will not suffer from sins. will fall behind and not be cleansed, for sin, which has penetrated our being and is pleasant to our being, is cleansed in no other way than through sorrows, misfortunes and illnesses. The slightest unrighteous thought is an abomination to the Lord, and its attack on my soul darkens, worries, irritates, oppresses, morally and physically weakens, defiles, and separates me from God and deprives me of His help - and I become, accursed, poor, beggarly, blind and naked, in a word, an unhappy person. This is what sin is: it is simple, like a thought, and contagious, like a pestilence and poison, like a fierce beast. If during the festive service the clothes of glory are stripped from you, do not grieve or be annoyed by this, but rejoice, for they completely stripped off the Savior’s clothes and carried us naked to the cross for our sake. Because of the sacred robe, do not lose love for your neighbor and peace in your heart. Take care of the splendor and purity of the robe of the soul. Enlighten the robe of my soul, Light-Giver, and save me 75. What is it if the material clothing is light, but the soul is dark? (I insulted the memory of the late archpriest and slandered him.) My Lord Jesus Christ! I have sinned before You: I have become involved in the flattery of the love of money. And for the sake of the silver of You, my world, those who were deprived, I neglected You, my world. God! Even if you deprive me of everything, do not allow You, my God, my peace, to be deprived. He entered into zeal and argument with the boss. I have sinned! He spoke insulting words to him in the heat of his life. He contradicted and thus became jealous of Koreev’s bickering [Num. 16], fell into disobedience! I have sinned, Lord! Forgive me, Lord! Have mercy, Lord! Don't let this happen in the future. Grant me to always do Your will without hypocrisy. Wake up! Wake up! I thank You, all-perfect Master, for delivering me from my powerful enemies during two classes! I thank You, all-perfect after the Lord and Lady of the Lord, for delivering me from the hand of my strong enemies through my prayer between the first and last two classes. Lazarev Saturday. (April 11, 1864) Has your meal ever become scarce, despite all its abundance and the abundance of its consumption? - No. The Heavenly Father is inexhaustible, and His Providence is unchanging. I will never leave you nor forsake you [Heb. 13, 5 ]! Why did you, while sitting at lunch and tea, often have envy and zeal in your heart for your own? Why didn’t you calmly surrender to the will and providence of the Heavenly Father? Why didn’t you keep love and peace in your heart? Our life is love and love. And where there is love, there is God, and where there is God, there is all goodness. Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you [Matt. 6, 33]. So, feed and delight everyone with joy, especially your father and those at home, please everyone with joy and trust in everything in the Heavenly Father, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort [2 Cor. 1.4]. Sacrifice what is dear to you to love your neighbor, offer your Isaac - your many-passionate heart as a sacrifice to God, slaughter him with your will, crucify your flesh with passions and lusts. You have received everything from God - be ready to give everything to God, so that, having been faithful to your Lord in little things, you will then be placed over many things: you were faithful in little things, I will put you over many things [Matt. 25, 21]. Consider all passions as a dream, as you have learned this a thousand times. Amen. Humble yourself before everyone, consider yourself lower and worse than everyone else, honor everyone - including the poor, and do not despise anyone; Know your own sins, but don’t look into the sins of others. Confirm, God! Keep and guard, Christian, your soul, and not your income, not chests of money, not shops with goods, not boxes of sugar, not clothes, not your chambers - you have nothing more valuable than your soul, everything earthly is like a ghost, like a dream, like a dream, like soap bubbles. And the demons, whose essence is a lie and a dream, are constantly intensifying to seduce us with dreamy attachment to the corruptible and fleeting things of this world in order to deprive us of peace and love and eternal salvation. Listen, Christian: all the attention of the spirits of malice and wickedness is focused on your soul, and thousands of demons are seeking its destruction; you are surrounded by thieves and invisible robbers who are looking to steal your heart, to kidnap you from God and from yourself. You are like a man who went to the marketplace with some very precious, beautiful and brilliant thing. But this marketplace is filled with cunning, desperate and evil thieves and robbers, who are looking for you to look at some foreign everyday object even for a minute, even for a second, so that they can immediately snatch your precious and beautiful thing from you, take possession of it, remake it in accordance with their designs and use it for their own purposes. This person is you, the marketplace is the world, the precious thing is your soul, thieves and robbers are demons seeking our destruction, the remaking of the thing is the distortion of it by many different passions: pride, contempt, zeal, malice, disobedience, envy, stinginess, love of money, gluttony, gluttony, drunkenness, laziness, fornication, despondency and cowardice, hard-heartedness, lack of faith, unbelief, blasphemy, blasphemy and murmuring against God, impatience and irritability, negligence about the salvation of one’s soul and other sins and passions. Every hour and minute, a Christian, guard your soul and do not be distracted by anything in the world, do not have attachments to anything, trample everything under the will of your heart; do not value anything, do not be seduced by anything, do not rejoice in the earthly success of people in their everyday affairs, and not in the affairs of God; do not rejoice in the beauty and multitude of buildings, shops, do not rejoice in the proliferation of magazines, newspapers, photographs and all the vanity of life, for all this distracts our attention from God, from our soul and from eternal life and attracts us to earthly life, forcing us to love only earthly life. Do not be deceived by money, the sweets of life, clothes, ranks and distinctions. When saving, save your soul and remember that its catcher never sleeps. While the people were sleeping, the enemy came... and sowed tares among the wheat [Matt. 13, 25]. The devil walks around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour [1 Pet. 5, 8]. Man keep in his heart, as a precious, vital balm of the soul, love for God and his neighbor. Be careful that no one takes away this treasure from you, and if someone takes or takes away something from perishable things, do not worry about it - let what is transitory quickly pass away and not occupy your soul through its attachment to earthly things. Spiritual prudence, or Christian wisdom, also requires us to thank such people for clearing the way for us, smoothing them out and making our path to heaven easier. If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor [Matt. 19, 21]. Do not demand back from the one who took what you have [Lk. 6, 30]. Whoever wants to sue you and take your shirt, give him your outer garment too [Matt. 5, 40]. For you also had compassion for my bonds and accepted the plunder of your property with joy, knowing that you have in heaven a better and lasting property [Heb. 10, 34]. Through what tube does the devil suck out our love for God and neighbor? Through addiction to wealth, to food, drink, delicacies, clothing, to houses, to furniture, to rich dishes, to books and the like. Therefore, wealth, the sweetness of food and drink, the wealth and beauty of clothes, houses, furniture, dishes should be neglected by a Christian, and his first concern in life should be pleasing God and neighbor for the good of creation [Rom. 15, 2]. Oh, how wise a Christian should be in life! He must be like the many-eyed Cherub, be all eye, all mind and unceasing meditation, except in cases in which unthinking faith is required. Christian! Remember and always carry in your thoughts and heart the great words of the Lord’s Prayer: Our Father, who is in heaven... Remember who our Father is, God our Father, our love. Who are we? - We are His children, and brothers among ourselves; in what kind of love should the children of such a Father live among themselves: if you were children of Abraham, then you would do the works of Abraham [Jn. 8, 39]. What things should we do? Hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done... Give us this day our daily bread. Our bread... (everything is common), not mine: self-love must be expelled from the hearts of the children of God; we are one. And forgive us our debts... If you want and love God to forgive you sins or people... consider it a common thing to willingly forgive the sins of people who sin against you, knowing that love is patient and merciful [1 Cor. 13, 4]... Do not lead us into temptation - and do not give into temptation yourself: Do not let your feet fall into confusion; below you will slumber, Keep you 76 [Ps. 120, 3 ]; The Lord is your cover on your right hand [Ps. 120, 5]. But deliver us from the evil one - do not give yourself over to him willingly, and the Lord will not hand you over to him. For Thy is the Kingdom - recognize the one King - God and work for Him alone; and strength - trust in His almighty strength; and glory - be zealous for His glory with all your might and throughout your life; forever - He is the eternal King, and the kingdom of Satan will soon pass away as a predatory, false one. Amen. All this is true. Remember this prayer most of all and read it in your mind more often, and think about it, what every word, expression, petition means in it! Sign of passion: darkness of mind and heart, madness, internal violence and loss of freedom of spirit, cramped conditions, sorrow. When you see money, when you see the sweets of food and drink, rich clothes, rich rooms, furniture, dishes, say to yourself: all this charm greatly hinders us from loving God and our neighbor and forces us to go against the commandments of our God and creates a strong obstacle to the salvation of the soul - and despise all this charm. Through gluttony and delicacy, through addiction to money, food, drink, sweets, clothes and various everyday things, you become a carnal person, heavy, incapable of everything Divine, greedy for everything earthly; you become a person who does not have the spirit of God in you. You feel it, you feel it. Diligent prayer in sorrow, sent by God to the soul to take away its plumpness, removes the fleshiness from a person’s insides like scales and imparts to it light, peace, freedom of the Holy Spirit and greatness of the spirit. Amen. Blame yourself for everything, not others. Hide your love in everything, just as the devil tries to hide his anger, envy, and pride in everything. Hide your love for God and neighbor in food, in clothes, in books, in everything... I thank the Lord and the Lady Most Holy Theotokos: I thank the Lord for hearing my prayer and not despising my prayer, for helping and comforting me; I thank the Lady that she did not reject my heartfelt prayer, my worship before Her icon with the Eternal Child and had mercy on me and, with great dignity and power of speech, granted me to conduct two classes (April 9th ​​day, 1864). And before the classes, what confusion, what sorrow, crampedness, and emptiness, and darkness, and whiteness, and laziness, and lethargy was in my heart! Brothers and sisters! You were born again (after being born of your parents) by water and by the Spirit; You then became children of God: tell me, are you living worthy of such a high calling? Are you living as the children of God should live? Is it clear from your actions that your residence is in heaven [Phil. 3, 20 ]? Is it clear that you are waiting again for your Lord from heaven, as He promised us this in His holy word? Do you despise life above, do you strive with all your heart for what is above? Do you not love an adulterous and sinful world? He who loves the world does not have the love of the Father [1 John. 2, 15]. Friendship with the world is enmity against God [Jas. 4, 4]. For all that is in the world: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life [1 Jn. 2, 16]. This world crucified and is still crucifying the Son of God. Brothers and sisters! Look after yourself: are you living according to the Gospel? Isn't he disgusted? Read the first chapters of the Gospel of Matthew often. Save us, Thy family, O Lady! Save us, Your half-blooded ones! Save us, Mother of the Belly and Mother of us all, although we are unworthy to call You our Mother because of our sins. But, calling God our Father, we dare to call You our Matter! Cleanse, sanctify, strengthen and save us through Your prayers. The devil doubles and weakens our heart during prayer with extraneous thoughts of everyday life, also with nasty and blasphemous thoughts or self-pity, restlessness in the bodily members (especially in the stomach), which predisposes us to sleep. We must resist the enemy in every possible way. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you [Jas. 4, 7]. I thank You, Lord, my omnipotent and most swift intercessor, for through my prayer You stood up for me and delivered me from the charm of sweetness, from pride and anger towards those who consume it, and from cramped conditions and darkness, and gave me Your peace. Truly, we cannot work for two masters - God and Mammon, for we will either love one and hate the other, be zealous for one and despise the other [Matt. 6, 24]. Thus, the Lord commands us to love God with all our hearts, and our neighbor as ourselves [Matt. 22, 37 – 39]. But he who works for wealth and pleases the belly and body, and sight and hearing, and touch and smell, cannot love God and his neighbor - he opposes the commandments of God: he does not love God, and he hates his neighbor, if the neighbor is forced to use his mercy. In all the magazines and newspapers, which have multiplied to an incredible number, there breathes an earthly spirit, anti-Christian, ungodly; while a Christian (in hope) is a citizen of heaven and must philosophize about heavenly things. Pagan ancient writing was, it seems, better and purer, more sublime in its origin and motives than the writing of Christian peoples (Pushkin). The Hypostatic Word of the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is constantly and strongly insulted by the Christian peoples (who should be primarily verbal, that is, God-like beings) in oral and printed word, which is wasted in abundance in vain, and even to the temptation of Christians, with secular writing, distracting from reading the word of God and the writings of the Holy Fathers. By multiplying words, editors and publishers of magazines and newspapers seize and deceive the verbal flock of Christ. About the Word of God! What answer will we give at Your Last Judgment! Where is now the reading in homes of the divinely inspired Psalter, which inspires such great faith in God, such strong trust in God in adversity, in illness, troubles and sorrows, and such ardent love for God? Where is the reading of inspired psalms, which was the favorite reading of our ancestors, not only ordinary ones, but the boyars and the princes themselves? If it doesn’t exist, many people don’t have faith, Christian hope and love for God and neighbor, but there is unbelief, despair and hatred. There is no fiery prayer, no purity of morals, no spirit of contrition for sins and tenderness, no truth, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Most Christians are imbued with the spirit of the world, the spirit of magazines, newspapers and secular writers in general, who themselves are in turn imbued with a pagan, anti-Christian spirit, the spirit of denying the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures and exalting themselves, their proud and pompous mind, the spirit of everyday vanity. We ourselves are mostly to blame for the beggary of the beggars through our covetousness, stinginess and hard-heartedness, and we despise them, we do not want to honor them with our affectionate glance, but we become embittered at them, with displeasure we turn our gaze away from them; but they are our brothers, because they are members of Christ, because they are children of the Heavenly Father. Well, cover their nakedness with decent clothing, and you will not be ashamed of them; give them shelter or work, and they will not catch your eye. Take care to guide the erring on the path of truth, and you will not see disgusting examples of parasitism and drunkenness. Otherwise, you know only yourself: if it were good for you, if you were warm, light, spacious, clean, if you were rich in everything, well-fed and happy, you don’t care about your members, what beggars are. Look, brothers, how will you answer at the Last Judgment before the Head of the Church, of which you are called members and of which you are also members and poor? As long as we have time, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who belong to the faith [Gal. 6, 10]. If you, as the owner, are annoyed and envious that someone else drinks tea (sitting at your table) with sugar, and you feel sorry for him, and feel a rush of indignation at him, then quickly put sugar in your glass and drink to the glory of God with peace in your soul and love in your heart for your neighbor. Observe the same in relation to other foods and drinks that are harmless to the soul and body. Do not internally condemn your neighbor for his delicacy and luxury; do not even refer to fasting, saying: now fasting - how does he or she enjoy it? But eat and drink everything with peace and love, to the glory of God (for love is dearer than all things), thanking the Heavenly Father for His countless bounties, for His innumerable sweets in food and drink, even in this short-lived life, where we are so unfaithful to Him, remember Him so little, hope for Him little, love Him little and thank Him. We get irritated with our neighbors and relatives 77 and lose love for them almost always because of something material: either because of money, or because of food and drink and delicacies, or because of clothes, or because of books, or because of furniture, or dishes, or flowers, when, for example, someone breaks something, or because of the spilling of some liquid, or because of the stench, or smoke and intoxication, or because of excessive incense - in a word, because of empty things. Oh, how evil we are and how we can turn everything into a reason for hatred or enmity! But it is proper to despise the flesh, for it passes away, but to be diligent about the soul, things more immortal; must observe peace and love, despite any irritation, and in every possible way curb his evil heart. Our anger comes from satiety with the blessings of the world, pampering and the pride that comes from it. Woe to you who are now satiated! for you will hunger [Lk. 6, 25]. Let all bitterness and rage and anger and shouting and slander, along with all malice, be put away from you [Eph. 4, 31]. Ingratitude to your father-in-law for bread and salt and for everything, to this old man, who gave his daughter for you, who loves you a lot and passionately, and his place (albeit due to illness) is pride before him, his contempt and ingratitude before him. Honor your father (for husband and wife are one flesh, and her father is your father)... may it be good for you and may you live long on earth [Ex. 20, 12]. Humble your heart before him, be respectful and kind to him without hypocrisy. Those who have sinned before You, Lord: you spared a pinch of leafy tea for your neighbor - for the one for whom heaven and earth were created; he took pity on the rubbish of the earth, for whom the Lord Himself was slain and is ever 78 slain and given as food; He spared the earth and was one in spirit with the devil, united with the devil. Human! With the will of your soul, trample on everything earthly as insignificant and do not spare anything for your neighbor, for everything is God, and we steal the honor of God if we consider everything our inalienable property. Love your neighbor as yourself. You don’t regret anything for yourself, and don’t regret anything for him either. Treasure what your neighbor eats and drinks, and the more often, the more you love him, for he is preparing for you an abundant reward from the Lord. What a bastard I am if God’s grace leaves me even for an hour! I am sometimes filled with nasty, crafty and blasphemous thoughts, and in my heart I am a fornicator, a homosexual, angry, proud, contemptuous, envious, stingy, greedy, money-loving, a thief, sad, impatient, irritable, of little faith, a freethinker! God! Do not leave Your creation, cleanse and save me! When they call you to give prayer to a mother in labor and a baby, or to baptize him, or to give communion, or to unction a sick person in a very low, dirty and stuffy hut, and your soul, accustomed to a spacious, clean, bright and dry dwelling, is indignant at this hut, then: 1) remember that Christ Himself was born and laid in a manger; 2) do not shun dirt, remembering that you yourself were formed from dirt and will turn to dirt, and that your soul is very, very unclean before God, and it is this spiritual uncleanness that you should shun and fear, and not this material one; 3) do not be afraid of damp, unclean, stuffy air: if God is in you and God is with us, then He will transform harmful air into healthy air; 4) remember that in rich dwellings there lives mostly a lack of faith, coldness towards God, arrogance, effeminacy, hard-heartedness, love of money, stinginess, often laziness, and in the poor - faith, zeal for God, patience, humility, simplicity, generosity, work and, therefore, poor dwellings are incomparably more precious and higher in the eyes of God than rich ones. The Lord looks at the heart, but man looks at the face [1 Sam. 16, 7], for rank, for insignia, for clothes, and for walls, and for money, for furniture, and for the external gloss of secular education. Do not refuse to baptize in poor huts, you who live in the city and are accustomed to the splendor of the chambers and to your spacious, beautiful, clean and comfortable home. Do not despise his low face and humble home, but humble yourself before him and be like his equal and do not despise his wretched home, lest you anger your God with pride. The gifts of God's goodness are common to all of us, children of God, therefore, when you give alms to the poor, do not spare him your alms and do not repent of it, for he has the same right to the bounty of the Lord as you do, and perhaps even more, as he is more worthy of you, although he is deprived of them for his own spiritual benefit and, perhaps, yours. Love every beggar as yourself: it pleases you to receive gifts or a reward for your labors, although you do not need anything, although you have an excess of daily food, and, no matter how much you have, you are still happy when you receive a profit. So rejoice with the beggar, giving him meager or generous alms, rejoice in his contentment as if it were your own, and do not regret that you gave to him as if when he did not need - if he did not need, he would not stretch out his hands. The Most Holy Lady Theotokos, after Her Son and God or collectively the entire Holy Trinity, is our swift Deliverer from all evils, especially from the sins of passions, misfortunes, illnesses, sorrows, spiritual coldness, powerlessness, the varied machinations of the enemy, cowardice, fear, despondency and despair, and the Giver of all blessings, all gifts of grace, all virtue and perfection and physical gifts - health, success in business. The Most Holy Virgin Theotokos is incalculably great both as the Mother of God, and as the Most Swift Intercessor and Savior of the Christian race from all evils, and the Giver, after God, of all Divine powers for holy Christian life. Oh, what the greatest evil in the human race is various temptations, sins, passions, troubles, misfortunes, illnesses, and various sorrows: they poison our life at its very source - in the heart, they oppress, weaken, suppress, darken, deprive our soul of peace, joy and contentment, poison our short-term earthly life and create a strong obstacle to the salvation of the soul. In all these troubles, the Most Holy Theotokos provides the believers and Christians who call on Her with clearly and secretly innumerable benefits, which are felt by everyone who calls on Her in the simplicity of childlike faith. For this, be She, the Lady, blessed and glorified from all Christian generations, now and always and forever and ever. Do you have humility and love? Ask yourself more often. My Most Holy Lady Theotokos, my most pure Mother, my neighbor, my half-blood (by the blood of Your Son, acceptable to me, and by descent from one Adam), save me! (April 5th 1864) Lord! May humility always be at the basis of all my prayers, heart movements, all words, intentions and actions. God! Make me always consider and feel lower than everyone else and make others higher than myself with honor. Where would you turn the generous gifts of My goodness into an occasion for mutual love, and what are you doing? You turn them into a reason for enmity and hatred towards each other, for greed and stinginess, for resentment and oppression of your neighbor! Here I am for you! You arbitrarily became evil creatures, having received so much benefit from Me! I promised you heaven and all its blessings and eternal communion with Me, with the Most Pure Mother of God and with My Angels, but you make yourselves unworthy of eternal life and eternal cohabitation with Me! So, I will send you into eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels [Matt. 25:41], whom you diligently served. Everything of God is not yours, you don’t have your crumbs; You are not worth the gifts of God, but all punishment and torment. Therefore, let others use the gifts of God given to you: you need very little. Convert them into sacrifices of love, leave debts to debtors. The opening of seas, lakes and rivers is an image of the release of our soul from our body. And in nature there is a connection between the release of seas, lakes and rivers from the ice and between the release of the soul from the body: patients often die before the autopsy or immediately after their autopsy. The waters, having freed themselves from the ice, come face to face with the air, which begins to sway them, and with the sun, which begins to bathe in their waters - so pure souls, having freed themselves from the body, come face to face with Christ, are cooled by Him and illuminated by Him. The waters, while there is an ice shell on them, are as if in prison, in chains, do not have direct communication with the air and with the light of the sun - so our souls, while they live in a bodily shell, do not have direct communication with God and with the saints, but only partly through their shell, and when the bodily shell falls off, then we will see our Lord face to face, just as the waters, after opening from the ice, are directly turned to the sun and come into direct contact with the air. Everything that the Church puts into our mouths and ears is the truth, the breath or teaching of the Holy Spirit. Reverence every thought, every word of the Church. Remember that the area of ​​thought and words is God’s property, like the whole world, visible and invisible. You have nothing of your own, not even a thought, not a word. Everything is our Father, everything is God. Merge into the general order, as gold merges into known forms, or as nature is folded into one harmonious whole. Don't live a selfish, separate life. Abstinence and fasting are practical Christian wisdom. Humility too, which is why it is called humility. Kindness too. Our soul is the image of the Trinity: thought is the image of the Father; the heart, or willing faculty, is the image of the Son; will, or active ability, is the image of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, when you pray, not only think about what you are praying for, but also desire it and try to do what you ask for. Also, when you read or listen to the word of God, then not only reflect on what you read, but also desire to fulfill the commandments of Christ in practice and fulfill them in practice. It is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but those who do the law will be justified [Rom. 2, 13]. Humility. Consider yourself to be nothing and having nothing of your own, and therefore willingly, in the simplicity of your heart, without care, thought or sorrow, share your bread and salt, tea and sugar with your neighbors, especially your own; be deeply convinced that everything is earth and water, that we are one body, that the Lord provides for everyone, that you must love everyone as you love yourself. Consider others superior to yourself and humble yourself before everyone. Don't be offended by anyone for anything; always condemn yourself and recognize yourself as worthy of any punishment, torment, deprivation; If any loss occurs, say: naked I came from my mother’s womb, naked I will return. The Lord gave, the Lord also took away [Job. 1, 21]. Just take good care of your soul and keep it in love. Keep yourselves in the love of God [Jude. 1, 21]. O Lord, loving and slow to respond! I thank You that You quickly heard me, who cried out to You for help, when the waters of anger reached my soul and a storm of evils overcame me, or a storm of pride, malice and contempt for my brother, who often comes to me. When the malice of pride drowned me, I raised the eye of my heart to You and said to You: Lord! I am grievously sinning before You, I want to get rid of my anger, but without You I cannot do anything, help me - and You delivered me from the waters of anger, peace and silence have established themselves in my soul; I felt light and joyful. And I thought that I had again become completely corrupted in my heart and that my salvation was far from me. So despair was already beginning to overcome me at the sight of my great pride and anger - but You only showed me, only made me feel how weak I am without You, how many weaknesses and passions I am filled with, that You Yourself constitute all the good, all the virtue in me, acting all in all [1 Cor. 12:6], that I believe in You the most, I trust in You and love You most of all; Let me not rely on myself in the least, and let me not think about myself in the least, as if I meant something or could do anything good without You, with my own strength. Our heart is simple, singular and therefore cannot work for two masters - God and mammon, that is, wealth [Matt. 6 G 24]; This means that it is impossible to serve the Lord firmly and at the same time have an addiction to money, to delicious foods and drinks, to beautiful clothes, to various things that occupy us to the point of passion, to an elegant home, for all this relates to mammon. And it is unworthy for man to work for wealth, for it is earth and dust. All the things shown, if we become attached to them with our hearts, weaken our hearts, earth them away from God and from the Mother of God and all the saints, from everything spiritual, heavenly and eternal, they turn us away and tie us to the earthly, corruptible, material, and also turn us away from love for our neighbor. To complete all that has been said, it must also be said that the spirit of attachment to earthly things, sparing and pitying earthly things is the spirit of the devil, and the devil himself inhabits a person through his attachment to earthly things; it often enters our hearts as an insolent conqueror through an instantaneous attachment to earthly things, not immediately rejected, darkening, suppressing, killing our spirit and making it incapable of any work of God, infecting it with pride, blasphemy, murmuring, contempt of the sacred and generally of our neighbor, resistance, malice, despondency, despair, malice. Where does bestial greed sometimes come from in a person? Having been poor and homeless, some were happy to sneak around at someone else's meal and were so modest that, it seems, they would not stir up trouble, and so kind that it seems that you could even sit on him. But as soon as he becomes an independent person, begins to obtain bread and salt and everything else through his labors, the gifts of God will generously flow to him - and he will become greedy for food, drink, delicacies, money, and clothes. He is gloomy and unapproachable to people if he sits with others at the table, so that he seems ready to devour all the food, delicacies and drinks alone and leave nothing for others, and he spares for others everything good, pleasant and valuable, and he sits with a proud eye and an insatiable heart [Ps. 100, 5], - but he will not think that he himself is not worth a piece of black bread, he will not think that he has all this from the countless bounties of the Lord, which should excite him to generosity to others. Oh, blindness! Oh, greed! Oh, pride! Oh, ingratitude! Some, even as they dress in hats and mantillas, seem to not even hear their feet beneath them and do not look like anyone on their own and walk taller than everyone else. And another, as soon as he fledges, enters the ranks, gets a warm place, begins to receive a good salary - sometimes there is no approach to him. He turns his nose up and doesn’t want to know anyone. The soul is simple, just as God is simple. Therefore, if God rests in the soul, then the devil cannot be with him, for what does light have in common with darkness? [ 2 Cor. 6, 14]. Just as where there is a devil, there is no God. However, wherever there are machinations of the enemy, and there is no consent to sin, there is God. Holy ecu, our God, and you rest in the saints 79. This is why we are overwhelmed by sorrows, this is why God allows us to be immersed in sins and passions, so that we completely hate them and do not give them the slightest shelter in our hearts. We need sorrows, for if, despite the sorrows with which God punishes us for our sins, we still sympathize with the sins and love them as if we were our own children, and blaspheme inwardly what is sacred, then what would happen to us, how we would love sins and flee from virtue and even blaspheme it, if God, this wise physician of our souls, did not allow sorrows to befall us for our sins. We would cleave completely to sin and perish in it, for the wages of sin is death [Rom. 6, 23]. And these will go into everlasting punishment [Matt. 25, 46]. But our Father in heaven does not desire that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance [2 Pet. 3, 9]. So, if you are grieving, strive to repent and correct your heart from passions. Just as in a room with mirrors hung on all the walls, people in that room see themselves in the mirror from everywhere, so the saints in God also see themselves in Him from everywhere and everywhere, and in the thing itself they are everywhere in Him. Give points leniently. I am one abomination. Who else is an abomination besides me? I don’t know this, but I know myself. What keeps us in oblivion regarding the future resurrection of the dead, the future judgment, the future torment and the future eternal bliss? What binds us to the fleeting earth that is about to burn? - Sweets of food and drink, elegant rags, the beauty of money. What alienates us from loving God and neighbor? - Same. Oh, blindness! Oh, vanity! Oh, emptiness! With spiritual readiness, meekness and love, fulfill the spiritual requests of your parishioners, no matter how busy you are or how tired you are, knowing that you are set for this, for this you live, to be a diligent servant of all the members of Christ, that is, your parishioners. Do not spare yourself, your body and the energy of your soul for them, but sacrifice for them your peace of mind, your health, and everything, and do not refer to a secondary position, if you have one, that you have no time for. Look, if you feel sorry for yourself and serve the parishioners reluctantly or with inner displeasure, then you will greatly hurt yourself, and you will not please God, and you will not bring true benefit to the parishioners. God loves a cheerful giver [2 Cor. 9, 7]. Remember: the good shepherd does not spare himself for the sheep and lays down his soul, that is, his life, for the sheep [Jn. 10, I]. God! What is this? (speaking of John the Theologian), that is, by what death will he die? [In. 21, 21]. When asking for yourself the prayers of the Mother of God, Angels or saints, you must sincerely consider yourself unworthy of their intercession, deeply humble yourself in your sinfulness before their shrine and earnestly desire to be like them in your heart, in your wisdom and especially in your life. Divine, eternal tabernacle - the Blessed Virgin! If the one who eats the flesh of the Savior and drinks His blood remains in Him and He remains in Him, then what can we say about the Mother of God, Whose most pure flesh and blood were communicated to the Son of God, and Whose flesh and blood were one flesh and blood with His Most Pure Mother, and Whose glorified flesh is hitherto one with the flesh of His similarly glorified Mother? It is worthy and righteous for those who eat and drink the blood of Your Son to magnify You, O Mother of God! For they eat and drink the Body and Blood of Your Divine Son, which He borrowed from You. Amen. (This is why the canon and akathist to the Mother of God are read before communion!) If your enemy and ill-wisher becomes ill, or his children, or his wife, will you forget his insult and ill-will and go to visit him? You say: no. But you should definitely visit, and with this visit you will extinguish any ill will in him and make an enemy, if not a friend, then a well-wisher. Conquer evil with good [Rom. 12, 21] and do not say: he or she is gossiping, dirtying us, not bowing to us. Bow forward yourself or yourself. I am all God’s - and I think in words, desires, intentions, deeds. God! Help me. Serve your neighbor with joy in fulfillment of the words of the Savior: let him be your servant [Matt. 20, 26], since the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and give His soul as a ransom for many [Matt. 20, 28]. Through many tribulations we must enter the Kingdom of God [Acts. 14, 22]. Why many sorrows? Because our heart is unclean and is not filled with many different passions. And in order to heal the heart from the passions that have penetrated it like oil to the bones, it is necessary to use a lot of spiritual cauterizations or cuttings, and all this is combined with strong internal pains, all this is reflected on the body in a corresponding way due to the close connection of the soul with the body. So sometimes it is necessary to taste the bitterness of dishonor in order to be healed of pride, so it is necessary to bear the most bitter, most acute, severe, oppressive, fiery punishment for malice and for one moment of it, endure hellish sorrow for several hours in order to be healed of malice. So it is for other passions, whenever any of them falls on the heart even for the slightest fraction of a minute, for every sin carries within itself a corresponding grave punishment according to the law of God’s truth. Therefore, no prudent person, knowing the great corruption of human nature and the need to cut off the rottenness of the heart with sharp spiritual means, will not be faint-hearted, despondent and despair in sorrows, being confident that God is the all-good and all-wise Physician of our souls and will not allow us to be tempted more than we can, but with temptation he will also give relief, so that we can endure [1 Cor. 10, 13]. So, this is why the all-good Heavenly Father allows us to be overcome by passions and endure internal sorrows or punishments that are contained in them, that is, for our purification, admonition and correction. Therefore, although it is painful and hard, endure, pray and repent, repent and improve, and know that sorrows take away the rust (aphids) of passions from the heart. When the Lord said: Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God [Matt. 4, 4], then He, of course, knew that He said that His word is truth, justified in practice. You will recognize sin by suffering with it. May you know from the temporary torments of sin the future endless torments. The brother came to us at the wrong time, in our opinion, - this is the pretext for hating him, and hatred has sunk into the heart, and he treats him coldly and carelessly. What madness! But listen: turn all events in life into a pretext for loving him and under no circumstances harbor hatred for him. Be wise as the serpent, that is, as the devil is wise in evil, so be wise in good. The devil grows stronger and manages to turn everything into evil, and for the most part of us manages to do this - you strengthen yourself and manage to turn everything, all incidents in life for good - and succeed in this. In fact, the devil intensifies in an insidious way to turn every object, every occasion, every encounter with every person into evil, into sin. Will we, the children of God, be more stupid than him? Will we doze off and always give in to him victory over ourselves? It won't happen. But let us turn everything into a pretext for love, let us extract the life-giving juice of love from everything, and let us always reject the poison of malice from our hearts. The wickedness of hell is cunning, but through the grace of the Holy Spirit who lives in us (the Spirit of God lives in you [1 Cor. 3, 16 ]), may love always prevent and overcome the evil of the devil, be it with the help of the Lord Jesus Christ, who has given us wisdom from God [1 Cor. 1, 30]. Let us therefore be wise as serpents and simple as doves [Matt. 10, 16 ], and for this let us renounce our deities, our idols, in whom we hope, to whom we have affection, namely: let us renounce the addiction to food, drink, delicacy, money, elegant clothes, elegant homes, elegant decoration, elegant books, honors, beautiful faces, noble and rich people, card games, theaters, dancing, etc. - and all our hope let us place all our happiness, all our pleasure in Him and in the fulfillment of His commandments and in simple-hearted belief in His immutable promises and prophecies; Let us live in love for God and our neighbor - for God as our Prototype, for our neighbor as His image, for One and the other, as One by the infinite mercy of the one God in the Trinity, for God united human nature with Himself. From Thee, Mother of God, the all-blessed God clothed all of me as a person and, having dressed, united to His Divinity with an ineffable union. He who walks on My Flesh and drinks My Blood abides in Me, and I in him [Jn. 6, 56]. This is the unity of man with God! Again: we will be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust [2 Pet. 1.4]. For our sake, the Lord became incarnate, suffered, crucified and died and rose again, etc. For our sake, He adorned His Mother, the Most Pure Virgin Mary, with all the virtues and provided all the Divine powers, so that She, most merciful and all-perfect, would be everything for us after Him. So, may the grace of God with which our Most Pure Lady is filled not be in vain for us. May we all flow with boldness and hope to the wonderful, all-powerful and most pure protection of the Virgin. Whether our sins oppress us, let us pray to Her, so that She, with the hyssop of Her prayers, will cleanse us from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. When we pray, then the uncleanness of our old man is indignant, and we willy-nilly we become defiled by its uncleanness, and the enemy here rushes more strongly at us with his machinations. Blasphemy and contempt for the spiritual word come from what? From the pride of our hearts, from the arrogance and satiety of our minds. You constantly notice that God does not tolerate the slightest, momentary impurity in you, and immediately upon admitting any unclean thought in your heart, the world and together God Himself leaves you, and you become the receptacle of the devil if you do not immediately reject sin, so that about every sinful thought, especially a sinful word and deed, you must say: this is the devil; and about every holy and good thought, as well as word and deed, we must say that it is God or it is from God. Imagine now what a beautifully decorated, pure and unshakable chamber of the Almighty the most holy soul and the most pure body of the Mother of God, into Whose womb God the Word dwelt and dwelt in Her as Divinity, soul and body most pure, and then dwells in Her through His Divinity for endless centuries! Imagine what an eternal, endless, unchangeable Shrine She is! Imagine what reverence and glorification She deserves! Imagine who we are. – Reeds shaken by the devil’s wind: the devil has breathed his blasphemy into our hearts, and now we are shaken by his blasphemy, confusion, despondency, when we should spit on all his blasphemies or not pay attention to them as if they were dreams. (Imagine: the Most Holy Virgin gave flesh to the All-Cunning Word, Her most pure blood flowed in His veins!) The heavens will pass by with a noise [2 Pet. 3, 10] - of course, the heavens are earthly and airy. If smoking tobacco, delicacies, jokes, giggles, reading [idle] books did not fall on the heart, then they would be excusable - but all this falls on the heart, and all of this removes it from God, all of it gives it a share of dullness or callousness. Thought, word, deed correspond to the Father, Word and Spirit (Holy Trinity), for example, in the Holy Scriptures, in prayers, in the works of the holy fathers, in the words of true believers and pious people. Just as in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are inseparable, so in prayer and in our life thought, word and deed must be just as inseparable. If you ask God for something, believe that what will happen will be done according to your request, as God pleases; If you read the word of God, believe that everything that is said in it was, is and will be, or has been done, is being done and will be done. So believe. Speak like this, read like this, pray like this. The great thing is the word. A great thing is a soul that prays, speaks and acts - the image and likeness of the Almighty Trinity. Human! Know yourself, who you are, and behave according to your dignity. When the devil stirs up unclean and nasty lust in your heart and sets your insides on fire with unclean fire, tell him that lust was given to me for the reproduction of the human race from my lawful wife, and the reproductive member exists only for her, for an honest union with her into one body - and for no one else. Any incitement against anyone other than her (and against her only at the right time) is an abomination to the Lord and lawlessness and a dream of yours, my enemy, which I do not want to follow. Amen. But how people testify to the goodness and truth of the Creator! The Lord reveals the abyss of His goodness in people - in their creation, general and special providence, namely: in giving people His Only Begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the constant cleansing of their many sins. Man is God, and he makes Adam Godb9. In giving them the most pure Body and His most pure Blood for their purification, sanctification, decoration and affirmation of spiritual and eternal life. Never mind if by chance the gifts of God given to you sometimes go to waste, and do not regret it at all, for this is earth and ashes. Don’t be especially sorry for your neighbors – never, never. Remember how much grain the Lord destroys with hail or drought, how much is destroyed by fire, how much is drowned in water, how much thieves steal, how much mice destroy - earth will go to earth. And you should be afraid lest you offend your neighbor by word or heart, that is, by thought; make sure that he is happy with you and without sorrow. Do not attach your heart to earthly things - attach your heart to the Lord God, and to the Mother of God, and to the heavenly angels, and to the saints of God, and to your neighbor. One elder, who was honored to be the monastery of the Trinity, predicted about a certain priest that he would be an archpriest, an archimandrite and a bishop, and while he was a bishop he would have great zeal for the flock entrusted to him. March 31st day 1864. Good Lady! Reveal and manifest Thy dominion over me and Thy people, God-fearing and well-behaved, by delivering us through our prayer from nasty, evil and blasphemous thoughts, from all sins and passions and from all the snares of demons, as the good Mother of God and together we are by grace and by the Body and Blood of Thy Son and, as we are the body of Christ, we have adopted us through Your intercession to God and You through the inner, heartfelt assimilation of heartfelt purity and holiness and liberation from the work of the enemy - wake up, wake up! Amen. Pray to the Lady Theotokos, the holy Angels and all the saints as a simple shrine, as the Holy Spirit Himself, and even more so as the Holy Trinity, which sanctifies them and rests in them. May they be one in Us [Jn. 17, 21]. Holy ecu, our God, and you rest in the saints80. Amen. Be glad to every well-meaning person when you invite him to visit you or when he has already come to visit you, and do not spare anything for him, especially do not be alienated from him and do not grow cold towards him, do not neglect him. The devil, through every little thing in life, tries to stop us in our love for God and our neighbor, His image, and tries to turn everything into the pretext of hatred for our neighbor. A neighbor has come to eat and drink bread and salt, tea and sugar, especially if he comes to us often, or if we don’t like him - and immediately immediately instills in us contempt, disgust and some kind of hatred towards him. Who should we pay money to? Again, coldness and almost hatred towards him inspires and settles. Elder Eutyches responded about the sermons delivered by Father Matthew in such a way that he smears them like fairy tales, that is, hypocritically, and he was sick about him. We all live in some kind of lovely eclipse of the heart and mind. But the Lord Jesus Christ is our enlightenment. All creation testifies to the infinite goodness and truth of the Creator; Satan himself and his angels, by their shameful existence and all-evil machinations over people, prove the immeasurable goodness and truth of the Creator, for who was before Satan and his angels, what lights, what treasuries of so many blessings and what they lost due to their decidedly arbitrary ingratitude, pride, malice and envy against the Lord! Didn’t they fall completely deliberately, intentionally, with the goal of eternally fighting against the Creator and His rational-verbal creatures - people? Judging by the evil actions of Satan in the world, by their multitude and strength, we can guess what a great, powerful spirit Satan, the former Dennitsa 81, was! Judging by the multitude of darkness and his charms in people scattered throughout the world (flatter the entire universe [Rev. 12:9]), one can guess how bright and full of truth he was before. He was in the sweetness of God's paradise... he was adorned with every precious stone [Ezek. 28, 13]... Judging by the all-evil carnal and unclean lusts induced from him, one can conclude how desirable and lovable he was in the goodness he received from the Creator! Judging by his cunning and evil machinations, one can guess how smart he was and how much good he could bring, how much he could serve his Creator in His providence for lower spirits or people! By this evil, huge colossus of Satan, judge what a great, good, adorned, bright, powerful, intelligent creature Satan was before! How much he contained within himself the gifts of the Creator’s goodness and what he lost due to his evil and deliberate madness. Judge by his malice in people how good he was before; judge out of envy his former benevolence; by his enormous stinginess in people, judge his generosity; according to his pride - about his greatness borrowed from God; according to his despondency in people, boredom, melancholy, sometimes unbearable - about his bliss! For he was as good before as he is now evil! It is an eternal lesson of humility and submission to the Creator for all heavenly Angels and for all right-thinking people, for no matter how perfect the Angels are or no matter how smart people are, and in general, no matter how perfect they are in anything, they have all this from the sole goodness of the Creator, and not from themselves, and must thank the Creator for everything and pray for everything with undoubted faith in His goodness and omnipotence, with the hope of receiving everything from Him. Evil spirits fell out of pride and malice - this is a lesson for all Angels and people: to humble yourself before the Creator, to consider yourself as nothing and to attribute everything to the Creator and to live solely by the Creator and the fulfillment of His will. – And your works are wonderful, Lord! What Dennitsa, with all her wisdom, could not and did not want to acquire, was acquired by the Virgin from both the mortal and the spiritually immortal race: the Most Holy Virgin Mary acquired for herself unparalleled humility, which Satan did not want to have; She acquired the same or even much larger shrine that Dennitsa had previously had. Rejoice, full of grace, the Lord is with you!.. [Lk. 1, 28] The Lord has looked upon the humility of His servant [Lk. 1, 48]. Likewise, all of us, as being small in ourselves, as having everything from God except sin, must constantly and deeply humble ourselves before the Creator, resorting to His mercy in everything. There is no need to be irritated, but we need to be pleased with the many different pretexts that our brother makes to get closer to us or to eat and drink from our table, because truly or hypocritically he still seeks communication with us, and this communication can be used for our benefit, both for us and for him: we can show our love for him, and we can teach him something good by our example. In general, it is necessary to expel in every possible way from the heart hatred that arises and intensifies under various pretexts, and turn everything into an opportunity to show love. If it happens that after being tempted in a dream by unclean ghosts of the devil and upon awakening from sleep with a firm memory of the temptation, we will be in a feeling of carnal bliss, insensitive to this fall and, having stood in prayer, will not feel the need for repentance, then we must convince ourselves that our sin, which was in a dream, is very important, because it is an abomination before God, and our sleepy fornication has made us unclean and bad before God; The very insensibility of one’s sin, the very pain of the flesh felt at that time, must be considered as moral weakness and misfortune and pray to the Lord with warmth and contrition of heart, as a condemned and vile sinner. The cause of temptation is tasty and nutritious food, the well-being of the body, pampered by prolonged sleep and a walk in the fresh air, and sometimes actual thoughts of voluptuousness in reality; Often the reason for this is the envy of the enemy, who cannot tolerate our fervent prayer in the evening, as at any time. A dream drives away a dream. Because of food and drink - the dreamy, charming, perishable blessings of the century, we often harbor hatred - a demonic dream - towards our brother. And with you, let truth drive truth: despising perishable food, always have incorruptible love for your brother. God! Enlighten, confirm and perfect me in Your commandments. Amen. Love is God: whoever or what turns away from the love of God and neighbor, that or that turns away from God and combines with the devil, the hater of God and the hater of man. This must be firmly remembered. God! Help. Most Immaculate Lady and Mother of the All-Good God and the Most Swift Intercessor of all Christians! Thank You for delivering me from the mire of uncleanness that the enemy brought upon me during the communion of the faithful on Saturday of the Middle Week of the 82nd of Lent! Thank you for your mercy, most merciful! Do not leave me, unclean and nasty, outside of Divine grace. I thank You, Almighty Master, for You delivered me in the classroom from the fire and crampedness of passions - in the fourth grade from malice, in the fifth - from carnal abomination. I thank You, for You did not allow me to be carried away by evil and uncleanness, and You granted me to know in Your light that all this is an abomination, although it is pleasing to the flesh and delightful to the old man. In the foreground, Master, do not leave. Amen. Saturday of the Week of the Cross. My Lord hangs on the cross in terrible agony; He endures this for me, a sinner, - I would have to languish forever in the cruel torments of hell for my countless falls into sin, but He, the infinitely great, holy, eternal Son of God, deigned to endure my eternal torment and all people. Truly! Oh, endless mercy! Oh, immeasurable love! What will I bring to my Lord for such a priceless boon? - I have faith in Him and mutual love for each other. Love one another [Jn. 13, 34]. This is His last testament. (Crucified for us... 83) God, who fenced the sea with sand, also fenced the insatiable belly of man with shores beyond which it would not pass, no matter how greedy man was: otherwise he would cause extreme harm to himself. Therefore, do not have hatred for the one who, without shame, often comes to you for free to eat and drink - he will not take all your bread, salt, tea and sugar into his belly, but he will eat and drink a few, and then say: that’s enough, I can’t take it anymore; and the righteous and providential Heavenly Father, whose children we are all, although unworthy, will send to you for his share; your job is to keep love and trust in God. For your testing, confirmation in love, for the eradication of hatred, addiction to earthly sweets, God allows others to overeat and drink you, but you rejoice in the Lord if you really hunger and thirst for the sake of preserving love for the brethren; in general, rejoice when others take external goods from you in one way or another, give up everything willingly; let everything go as a sacrifice to love. But do not give it to the rich or to the dissolute and drunken, and if they take it by force or by untruth, do not resist. Don't resist evil... Whoever wants to sue you and take your shirt, give him your outer garment too [Matt. 5, 39 – 40]. We are all God’s, and the food and drink are God’s, and God, the all-good, generous, merciful, inexhaustible Father, will reward a hundredfold for love and loving forgiveness of debts to one’s neighbor and sociability with him. For the sake of Christ, for the sake of the Lord’s commandment to love one another, for the sake of the fact that your neighbor is a member of Christ, for the sake of the confidence that you yourself are the number one sinner, unworthy of mercy God, love him, feed him freely when he needs it and asks verbally or by coming to dinner or tea. Without the Savior you cannot overcome a single passion, not a single sin: always ask Jesus Christ, your Savior: for this He came into the world, for this He suffered, died and rose again, in order to help us in everything, to save us from sin and from the violence of the passions, to cleanse us from our sins, to give us in the Holy Spirit strength to do good deeds, to enlighten us, strengthen us, pacify us! You say: how can you be saved when there is sin at every step and you sin at every moment? The answer to this is simple: at every step, at every minute, call on the Savior, remember the Savior - and you will be saved, and you will be saved. Use My gifts not especially as self-lovers, but as My children, who should have everything in common, not sparing to offer others the fruits of My hands, the works of My hands, remembering that I also give them to you freely according to My Fatherly goodness and generosity of philanthropy. This happens in families. When a father, or mother, or brother brings gifts, he gives them to all his children or his brothers, and if the children, brothers and sisters all live in mutual love, then they do not consider themselves contented and happy if the father or brother surrounded any of them with gifts and did not give even to one of them what he gave to others. Why? Because out of mutual love they feel like one body, because they are all like one me, like one person. - So do each of you. Be all as one. And I know how to reward you for the love that is so pleasing to Me. If I show mercy to those who do not keep My commandments (a certain rich man was pleased with 84 fields [Luke 12:16]), then will I not show mercy to My true children, for whom I, in fact, intended all My bounties? Hey, I'll spoil it. And I will have mercy, even if I am merciful, and I will show mercy, even if I am generous [Exod. 33.19]. The Great Litany, pronounced daily in church, is a wise litany, a litany of love: in it, living Christians and deceased saints are represented as one great family of the Lord Jesus Christ. They are beautifully covered with the last exclamation: The Most Holy...Virgin Mary with all the saints, having commemorated ourselves and each other, let us commend ourselves to Christ our God. The special litany is also beautiful... The departed are also remembered there. The petitioner is also wonderful. We're used to them. But let’s imagine that we are listening to them for the first time, and put ourselves in the place of foreigners. Everything that is pleasant to the taste and beautiful to look at and flattering for knowledge from worldly things, which can only feed our pride and arrogance, must be despised, because it turns our heart away from God by its very pleasantness and beauty and the charm of worldly knowledge, which does not lead to piety. (Amen.) If you love very sweet pies, sweet tea, sweet wine, generally tasty dishes and drinks, do not eat or drink them, but choose everything simple, or at least eat them in the most moderate quantities and do not spare them for your neighbors as a delight that turns your heart away from God; Also, do not make yourself very elegant clothes that would delight your eyes, touch and heart. Let this occupy the children, but we are Christians, who must be perfect in mind and care first and foremost about pleasing the Lord God by fulfilling His holy commandments and about the salvation of our souls. We must philosophize on heaven, not on earth [Col. 3, 2]. Everything is God’s: my thought is God’s, and my word is God’s, and my work is from God, and my body is the work of God. You, Lord, are my long arm: through You, Who exists throughout all creation, 85 I will reach everyone. Take care of your heart so that you do not despise or hate any of your relatives or neighbors because, for example, they smoke tobacco, play cards, or often come to visit you or invite you to business, but consider yourself truly worse and more sinful than everyone because of your internal sins, because of your multi-passionate and unclean heart, you despise and hate yourself, and your neighbor, as the image of God, as a member Love and love your body more than Christ’s always and honor it, considering everything as rubbish - tobacco, food, drink, money, and willingly sacrifice everything when circumstances require it - and pray for those who sin. Examine with your mind your thoughts and movements of the heart, whether they agree with the law of God, namely with the Savior’s commandment about love for our neighbor, according to which we must sacrifice everything for the good of our neighbor, even our lives; see if your thoughts, your heart movements, your words, your actions are not permeated with pride, arrogance, contempt and hatred towards him. If so, woe to you: quickly turn your heart from your evil intentions and humble yourself before your brother - and remember that you should never put your neighbor on the same level as money, food and drinks or clothes, because all this is rubbish, earth, water, air and fire. Amen. A person’s devilish hatred of his neighbor is hidden in stinginess and greed, so one must value food and drink, money, clothing at nothing, and consider one’s brother as one body with oneself. Oh, hatred! Oh, malice! Where are you not hiding? How you penetrate our heart! How oil you have sunk into our bones! Oh, damned pride! You must be crucified completely. Let us deny ourselves; you need to love yourself not only in yourself, but in humanity. Loving only yourself is ugliness! Our Father... our bread... leave us... do not lead us in... Sorrows and illnesses, no matter how difficult they are to endure, are very useful for the human soul, taking away from the heart its fatness and coarseness, or carnality, or taking away from it the scabs of sin and the aphids of passions and driving out from it the devil, who enters our hearts through carnal passions. The stronger the sorrows, the more effective, powerful and, so to speak, more firmly they cleanse our heart. It is good for me, for you have humbled me, so that I may learn through Your justification [Ps. 118, 71]. Much sorrow to the righteous [Ps. 33, 20], but there are also many wounds for the sinner [Ps. 31:10], although they serve one to benefit and another to harm, because they harden him and serve as God’s righteous punishment. If the words of any prayer, song or conversation during a service seem to you to have been said foolishly or inappropriately, in a word, when you feel contempt and blasphemy towards them, which you did not feel in yourself before, for example, when reading at home, but on the contrary, you found them clever and perfectly corresponding to the essence of the matter itself, then know that the spirit of pride and blasphemy is at work in you, which means you yourself have allowed ascend to this spirit, and repent immediately, if you can, with tears. Oh, how guilty, vile, unworthy of God and His saints you feel at this time of contempt and blasphemy, what a devil! How easy it is for a person to quickly fall through the heaviest fall! And You allow this to be in us, O our God, so that we learn to constantly look to You alone, to Your infinite wisdom, and consider our minds foolish and foolish, so that we do not attach our hearts to anything earthly, so that we always remember our damnation, our poverty, poverty, blindness and nakedness and, remembering this, we are always humble before You and before ours. neighbors, considering themselves truly the most sinful, the worst, the stupidest and the last of all, so as not to condemn their neighbors, to be lenient towards their infirmities, weaknesses and passions, considering their sins to be incomparably graver than their sins, respected and loved them and thus fulfilled your first and main commandment: love one another [Jn. 13, 34]. Nothing makes us so blind and uncommunicative with our neighbors as pride, and it is deeply rooted in our hearts: it is this that must be eradicated from the heart by all means; it is this that the Heavenly Physician, who knows all the secrets of the heart, expels from us at the right opportunity (if we do not resist Him), through various misfortunes, sorrows and illnesses. While healing her, the Lord sends unforeseen and sudden temptations upon us, which we would not like to bear and about which, however, we must say to the Lord: Lord! if possible, let this cup pass from Me; however, not as I want, but as You want [Matt. 26, 39 ] Lord! Thy will be done [Matt. 6, 10]. This is where you submit where you don’t want to. This is where you humble yourself, where your pride falls completely to dust, where you turn out to be a nonentity, an abomination of sin, an abyss of evil of every kind. Do not judge your brother and do not say: he serves God without a soul, hypocritically, and do not exalt yourself at his expense, saying secretly: this is how I serve unhypocritically, from the heart - so that if, in fact, by the grace of God you served from the heart, truly, then God would not deprive you of His grace for pride and you would not serve without a soul, without the warmth of faith, hope and love, hypocritically. To serve God always from the heart, sincerely, is the great gift of God, which is given to the humble, self-controlled, kindly and impartial to earthly things! There are few such servants of God! On the other hand, coldness and hypocrisy in prayer are often the fruit in a person’s heart of the devil’s action, the devil’s darkening, the bondage that, although a person feels and from which he wants to get rid of and strives to get rid of, he cannot without the special assistance of the grace of God, which leaves us for a certain time to feel our weakness and our insignificance, our sinfulness, our blindness and recklessness in life and for our conversion to the path evangelical We must look at the end of all things, all earthly blessings, and not at their beauty and pleasantness - then their charm will lose strength and heat, the addiction to them will cool down. Ask yourself: what will be the beauty of women and men? What will be the food and drink? What is the beauty of clothes and various decorations? What will all the decorations of our homes be like? What will the money be? What is the whole world? Is it not earth and dust, is it not pus, is it not a heap of ashes? What am I saying? – won’t all this disappear? It will disappear, like a burning candle disappears, like burning firewood, burning houses, burning forests disappear: everything will disappear and turn into insignificance. The earth and all the works on it will be burned up [2 Pet. 3:10], says the word of God; will burn out like a candle burns out. For all the elements that are burned will be destroyed [2 Pet. 3, 12], and when the elements are destroyed, that is, when the very foundations are taken away, then, obviously, the earth will disappear in the immeasurable space of the universe, for, tell me, what will its ashes rest on after it is burned, on what basis, when both the earth and the mountains melt and everything burns up? Oh, the terrible time of the disappearance of the earth! Then, then, they will know all the charm of earthly blessings and how they vainly and madly chased after its blessings and clung to them with their hearts, neglecting the only thing they needed - love for God and neighbors! (Amen.) Then the miser will know the madness of his stinginess, the lover of money - his love of money, the envious man - his envy, the thief - his theft, the glutton - his gluttony, the drunkard - the madness of his drunkenness, the greedy - his greed, the dandy and the dandy - his foppishness. Then the proud man will recognize the folly of his worldly pride, the lustful man will recognize his lust, the adulterer his adultery, the lazy man his slothfulness. O Most Righteous Judge, Lord Jesus Christ, before our end, enlighten the mental eyes of our hearts and let us know all the vanity, all the charm of the blessings of this world, not attach the least of our hearts to them and strive with all our hearts for the blessings of the heavenly, eternal Kingdom of Yours. We seek not the imams of the city that is here, but the one to come [Heb. 13, 14]. By the many grave misfortunes of man in this life, by the multitude of his sins, passions, fierce sorrows, illnesses and the most severe torments, know how necessary the Savior is for people, know His pricelessness, His beneficence, know the greatness of the Heavenly Father’s love for us in the gift of the Savior and hasten, immediately hasten to use this gift of love and all the means given from Him to eternal salvation. Listen: death is terrible. If it’s scary to suffer for an hour, then what is it like to suffer forever! Oh, verily, in hell there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth! Simply believe the truth of the Gospel! Walk always in peace before the eyes of the Heavenly Father, in love for Him and for His children - people (Our Father, we all say), with unceasing gratitude to Him in your heart for His countless mercies, manifested especially in redeeming us from sin and eternal death through His Only Begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and which are constantly revealed in countless numbers. Amen. Hallelujah! Do not be faint-hearted if you suffer from the enemy the violence of crowding, darkness, opposition, malice, contempt, envy, murmuring, blasphemy, stinginess, and do not say: God has forsaken me, but say: I will accept what is worthy according to my deeds; endure all kinds of intrigues of the enemy, all the hordes of passions that he directs at you, but do not agree with him; just strictly observe the following condition: do not attach your heart to anything earthly, do not please your belly, consider all the blessings of the world as rubbish and dung, and do not have voluntary pride or malice, but always be humble and gentle - and you will happily escape the machinations of the enemy. Otherwise, you will easily get stuck in its nets - and it will hurt, it will hurt you, it will hurt mortally. On the Annunciation (March 25, 1864), on Wednesday of the Week of the Cross, I felt grief during Matins and Mass. Some kind of callousness, dryness of soul! Crowding, darkness, despondency, voicelessness! And at mass the devil gave me a hellish damnation for my momentary pity on the skufia, so that wax from the candle of the altarpiece would not drip on it. Throughout the entire mass, starting with the Gospel, I had no peace in my heart, but I felt in my soul sorrow and tightness and darkness, and confusion, and hellish despondency, painful impatience, almost murmuring and blasphemy against the Lord and all His holy things, or His saints. Attachment to earthly things is a satanic spirit. Therefore, Christians are told: seek the things that are above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God; Set your mind on things above, and not on earthly things [ Col. 3, 1 – 2]. The Spirit of Christ is the mind of heavenly things. What do we have in common with the earth, we, children of God, born of water and the Spirit, having received the promise of a new heaven and a new earth [2 Pet. 3, 13 ]? Cursed is the earth in the deeds of man [Gen. 3:17] - note, not in itself, but in his deeds, because human deeds are for the most part contrary to God. What do we Christians have in common with the earth on which our Lord Jesus Christ Himself was crucified? - Nothing. And we must only expect the crucifixion of our flesh with passions and lusts and voluntarily crucify them, crucify the passion for money, for clothing, for food and drink, and so on. Sometimes extreme sorrow and cramped conditions also come from the weakness of our bodily organism, from insufficient reinforcement of ourselves with sleep; The devil takes advantage of the weakness of the body and conveniently produces in it sorrow, cramped conditions, darkness, despondency, despair, impatience, bitterness, irritability, and so on. Relax afterwards and things will become easier. This often happens too. We must endure everything and pray. Temptations and misfortunes of many kinds must be with us, so that we can recognize ourselves, see what we are like, how weak, sinful, damned, poor, poor, blind and naked we are, so that it can be seen that we both know how to receive good things from the hand of the Lord and endure evil. If good things are delivered from the hand of Gospoani, will we not endure the evil ones? [Job. 2, 10]. What is the true use of wealth? In 1) to satisfy your spiritual and physical needs through it and 2) to give to the poor, to the churches of God, to charitable institutions, etc. But according to the devil’s teaching, the rich man uses his wealth falsely, and woe to the rich man who uses wealth only for himself or even keeps it locked in a chest. It will testify against him after his death before the Creator and will condemn him for hard-heartedness and stinginess, for lack of trust in God and ingratitude towards Him, for the gifts of God are common to everyone, excluding idle and depraved parasites. What is the true use of books of spiritual content? It is to diligently read and do what is written, and give it to others to read, for these are Divine gifts, these are spiritual treasures left to us by the holy apostles, prophets and holy fathers, the common heritage of mankind, and not of us alone, for we are one body, and individually we are members of each other and must care for each other, just as members in the body take care of each other. Apply the same to food, drink, clothing and housing. Whoever has two clothes, give to the poor, and whoever has food, do the same [Lk. 3, 11]. Likewise, he who has two books, especially if they are of the same content, should also give to the poor and those who need it. A student has a question on geography: what city should a Christian most know and remember and strive for? – Answer: Heavenly Jerusalem, city of the Living God. Through His incarnation and through the mediation of the Most Pure Virgin - His Mother, the Lord united with Him human nature, torn from God and desecrated by the devil through various passions and abominations - and the enemy, the devil, seeing the devastation of his vile kingdom and the gradual liberation of God's chosen ones living on earth from under his dark, vile power, attacks with all his fury against them and instills in their minds and hearts nasty blasphemies against the Most Holy and Most Pure and Ever-Virgin Mother of us who became incarnate for the sake of the Son of God, against the Highest of the heavenly powers and the Pure of the lordships of the sun. Woe to us, sinners, unclean and nasty, that he makes our vile hearts, albeit for a moment, an instrument of his pre-pride and disgusting blasphemy against the Most Pure Virgin, from Whom God was incarnate and the Child was our former God 86 . He does not tolerate the incomparable greatness and shrine of the Mother of God and the countless mercies of God, poured out through Her by God on the human race and poured out unceasingly; cannot tolerate the constant belittlement of his victims through the intercession and intercession of the Lady of the world, the savior of the Christian race - and so the accursed one barks, through us sinners, at the Most Holy and Most Gracious Mother of God and together our Most Immaculate Mother, and with his barking he greatly chills us, like an ardent dog at the sight of those approaching the house that he is guarding. But, O Lady, give us the wisdom and strength to impute his nasty barking to nothing, and to honor You without silence. Rejoice, all-blessed Mary, from You the all-blessed God has clothed all of me as a person: and having clothed yourself, united to Your Divinity, an ineffable union... Rejoice, O Most Blessed One, the joy of the whole world. Rejoice, banisher of evil spirits 87. 1) All earthly goods - earth, ashes, water; 2) we are all children of God, members of Christ, temples of the Holy Spirit; 3) we have nothing of our own, everything is God’s; 4) our inexhaustible treasure and our only Treasure is the Lord God, from whom all good things are given and who has to reward us for love and generosity. Keep this in your thoughts when frequent guests flood your house, and do not be at enmity with any of them because of dust and water, but always love everyone as yourself. Constantly carry in your thoughts the commandment of the law: love your neighbor as yourself [Matt. 22, 39]. Again, ask yourself the question more often: how is it that I trample on the same dust and the same water, and again, on the contrary, make it an idol of my heart? How is it that I both despise the same substance and cling to it? How is it that I consider him both dust and the god of the heart? Ash when I trample it underfoot - God, when is it on my table? Oh, blindness of passions! Oh, living and creator God, God of my heart, enlighten my wisdom with Your light, so that carnal passions do not carry me away, but I impute all the skills of being in order to acquire You, for it is impossible for You and Mammon to work [Phil. 3, 8; Matt. 6, 24]. If you sin in any way before God (and we sin a lot every day), immediately say in your heart with faith in the Lord, who hears the cry of your heart, with a humble consciousness and feeling of your sins, the psalm: Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your great mercy... [Ps. 50:1] and read the whole psalm heartily; If it didn’t work once, do another trick, just read it even more heartily, even more sensitively, and then you will immediately receive forgiveness from the Lord, salvation and peace to your soul. So always repent. This is a true and proven remedy against sins. If you do not receive relief, blame yourself: it means that you prayed without contrition, without humility of heart, without a firm desire to receive forgiveness of sins from God; It means that sin has slightly hurt you. Always remember that if a brother hungers and thirsts, then it is the same as you yourself hungering and thirsting, much less Christ Himself, and just as you yourself immediately seek to quench your hunger and thirst, so try with joy to quench his hunger and thirst. The whole earth is at the service of man. Possess it, it is said [Gen. 1, 26]. How can you seize into your own hands the monopoly of earthly goods out of pride? Crazy. Everything is common to everyone. Many people - multiple people. Love your neighbor as yourself [Matt. 22, 39]. O great commandment! O Divine commandment! Oh, truly a wise commandment, oh, a gracious commandment. Oh, truly a righteous commandment! So, joyfully use everything in common with others, as one with them, and thank the Lord that He deigns you to serve Him in the person of His members and show them love in His name, amen. (Remember the incident with Stark or, better yet, with you before second grade on Monday.) Remember how you need a little, how unworthy you are of even this little, and how the Heavenly Father continually cares for you! Just as you consider it an unfair thing for others to cause you offense, so consider it an unfair thing to inflict offense on others, but be meek and kind to everyone, as to the images of God, as to the children of God, you, the most sinful of all. Don’t say: I’m a priest, I should be respected, they should give in to me, they should forgive me if I say or do something wrong. No. You respect, you give in to others, you apologize, but always humble yourself and be as strict with yourself as possible. Be before people like a meek, humble, kind, compliant, simple-minded child. Surrender your will. Surrender to the will of God. Our will is proud, evil, capricious, picky, vague, destructive for the soul and body, and not only for us, but also for others - in a word, an old will, the will of evil and death. We are all one body, and for all of us everything is inexhaustible God. May love remain constant. Confirm, God! No matter how you look, my five fingers are always with me, they are inseparable from me, and I take care of them equally. Hand – humanity, especially Christians; fingers are people, each separately. We are one body and we must protect and love each other according to our strength. God! Let love be our breath. And the Holy Mysteries will not help when you doubt them, and doubt is from the devil - a liar, slanderer and blasphemer, like any blasphemy against God and His saints. And so it happened. But it’s strange how, having experienced their life-giving qualities for yourself, you can doubt them! Forgive my sin, Lord! After the Mysteries I felt more overwhelmed by sin than before the Holy Mysteries. But why did it happen that after communion of the Holy Mysteries you did not have peace within yourself? Because the day before he was gluttonous, he ate and drank a lot with the guests - and received communion unworthily. How well you felt, how peacefully, easily, in what spiritual strength, when on the eve of communion you ate and drank little! So, you yourself are to blame, and the Holy Mysteries are without temptation. Whether after communion or without communion - at all times, be without doubt regarding them, humble yourself and repent, and the grace of God will be with you. Do not let your feet become troubled [Ps. 120, 3]. God bless! He who loves his neighbor as himself rejoices in the happiness of another as if he were his own, and if someone does something for him that brings material or spiritual benefit, he considers it as if he had done it himself. So-and-so, he says, did this thing for him, from which I received some benefit: but it’s the same as what I did. The saints always see us by the grace of God, because they are in God and God is in them; they are one spirit with the Lord, and the Lord sees everything, hears everything. Therefore, when looking in church, for example, at the faces of the saints of God, believe that they see you, and most of all, your heart. No matter what passions your enemies fight you with, endure without despondency, without bitterness, with meekness and humility, and do not allow impatience, anger, murmuring and blasphemy to move in your heart. Shake your bag thoroughly, beat your bed - flesh and heart. The stinking vessel is the heart. Without enduring sorrows, a sinful person cannot taste future bliss, for sin enters in sweetness and comes out in sorrow, enters in joy and comes out in sorrow, enters in laughter and comes out in tears. The works of the spirit and the flesh are disgusting. If you don't eat the bitter, you won't see the sweet. Through many tribulations we must enter the Kingdom of God [Acts. 14, 22]. Just as fragrant or fetid air locked in a vessel, when the lid is opened, spreads far and those in the room or on the street near it feel the aroma or stench, so the spirit living in a person - the spirit of meekness or malice - upon the opening of human lips (as if some lid or door) comes out and spreads to those around him and imparts to them either the fragrance of meekness and humility, purity and other virtues, or the stench of anger, pride, envy, stinginess, impurity and other vices. And since there is a lot of evil in us all, we must often pray: Set, O Lord, a guard against my mouth and a door of protection over my lips [Ps. 140, 3 ]; or sometimes we must be dumb in order to lock up and suppress the ferocious spirit of anger or other passion within us and not infect others with it. To the stingy (that is, me). Strange thing! Why is it that you feel so sorry for someone else at home, that on the street every day without any pity you trample under your feet, that is, money, bread, various fruits, tree leaves and sweets and water (for example, tea, wine and other things, also clothes and shoes), because all this is earth and water and animal skin? Is it because this earth is organized, refined, softened? But still, it remains earth, and sometimes it takes a little time for you to be convinced tactilely that all this is earth and water, as well as your body itself. So, do not be seduced by foods and drinks and various sweets, and by your very body, especially your taste and belly: all this is earth and water, which we trample daily under our feet. Food is for the belly, and the belly is for food; but God will destroy both [1 Cor. 6, 13]. Caress your father, may he pray for you, may you be well and may you live long on earth [Ex. 20, 12], and do not upset him with anything. Nourish, delight and give peace to his old age. All our alms, hospitality, gifts are seeds. They will sprout and bear fruit thirtyfold, sixtyfold and a hundredfold. Calmly! Calmly! - say to yourself in your heart when the evil spirit begins to disturb and worry you. Do not dream of defeating the enemy with your wisdom, but with faith in the all-powerful power of Jesus Christ. So that in the vanity of life we ​​do not forget the great works of God - creation and providence, and especially our redemption through the suffering and death of the Son of God, the Church depicts them to us in the evening, morning and mass services. Everyone needs to know and understand this. Whatever passion begins to confuse you, tell yourself firmly: I despise you, my accursed, blind, dead flesh, killing my spirit. To take gold and silver from oneself, to give it to the poor, means to take away the snake from the heart or to put out the fire: and all this is from the devil. Jesus Christ was crucified for us, and we will be crucified with Him and die for His sake through worldly indulgences: gluttony, delicacy, gluttony, drunkenness, love of money, envy, theft, laziness, pride, malice, flattery and hypocrisy, false witness and various carnal lusts. If we have delighted ourselves with carnal sweetness in abundance, then spiritual sweetness will no longer stick to the heart until we have somewhat mortified the flesh and extinguished the carnal sweetness. For a person cannot work for two masters (and in us there are two masters): he will love either one (flesh and carnal pleasures), and hate the other (spiritual objects): or he will hold on to one, but will begin to be careless about his friends. You cannot work for God and mammon (womb or wealth) [Matt. 6, 24]. If the soul is holy, then the body is holy, permeated by the soul, like red-hot iron with fire. A soul defiled by sin also defiles the body. If the Holy Spirit comes upon someone and overshadows him, then that person becomes completely holy. What is the shrine of the Mother of God, upon whom the Holy Spirit came and upon whom the power of the Most High overshadowed? From which God the Word became incarnate? Just as God is called the Most Holy, so She is called the Most Holy. O ark, bound everywhere with gold [Heb. 9, 4], glory to You! The proskomedia mentions: the Lady, as having served the mystery of the incarnation; the prophets, as having foretold this mystery; the apostles, as those who preached it; saints, as successors of the apostles, pillars of faith and lamps of the Church; martyrs, as having sealed the faith with their blood; saints who, by mortification of their flesh and many spiritual fruits or virtues, have delighted and beautified the Church of God; unmercenary, as non-covetous, setting a good example of non-covetousness to the faithful - all are saints... Having such a cloud of witnesses around them... [Heb. 12, 1]. The enumeration of many vile sins should humble the soul, and not lead it into false shame - a sign of pride. I praise You, God my Savior, that through the communion of Your Holy Mysteries you saved me from the languor of mental sorrow and bodily weakness, and you transformed my despair into hope, sorrow and crampedness into peace and spiritual space. Glory to Your Divine Mysteries. (If you quarrel with someone, pray for him.) My thought is from You, Lord: cleanse my thoughts. Not that we are satisfied [Russian: were able] to think that it is from ourselves, but our contentment is from God [2 Cor. 3, 5]. Do not be angry with him for any misdeed of your neighbor. Amen. God's truth. God commands. Malice is the devil, and in no case should it be combined with him. Malice is a demonic dream, but we are from the truth and must live for the truth. Cry and grind your teeth. And now the devil upsets you so much, scorches you, oppresses you, darkens you, that you can even cry and grind your teeth. Think to what extent the words of the Lord are true: there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth [Matt. 13, 42]. And how great is the mercy of the Lord, who saves us from the claws of the spirits of wickedness in high places!.. Remember to report in your affairs! Should something damaged need to be damaged more? Shouldn't it be fixed? But don’t you damage more than what is already damaged when you become embittered at the wrongdoer, truly or imaginary? And you yourself violate the integrity of your soul and damage yourself. No matter how charming and sweet malice and hatred may be to your corrupt being, hate it completely and reject it from your heart. It pleases you when others honor your mother - how much more does it please the Lord when His Most Holy Mother is honored by earthly people and reverently pray to Her! We do not have a sincere feeling of our sins and a feeling of God’s endless mercies towards us. The Apostle Paul needed the prayer of others. How much more so am I! The prayers of others, especially the saints of God and especially the Mother of God, strengthen me. Humility is when a person endures with meekness the troubles that come upon him. Sin is our terrible enemy: it disgraces our face often when we most need elevation and peace of mind, and it disgraces us so much that we are ashamed to show our face to people: one is full of such dishonor, such internal humiliation. What to do here? It is here, as at any other time, that we need a Savior - the Lord Jesus Christ, for except Him no one saves from this inner dishonor and this inner tightness, but He faithfully and quickly saves if we remember with sincere faith that He is our deliverance and salvation. Amen. Have high respect for every person, for he is the image of God, a member of Christ, a partaker of the Divine nature. Moreover, by honoring another, loving another, you honor and love yourself, for we are one body, whose Head is the Lord. Walk reverently, with humility, meekness and gentleness before this invisible Head of the Church, who is His body [Eph. 1, 22 – 23]. Yesterday I left the house to fetch my family and at first walked so quickly and easily, and then I turned the corner - and a strong wind met me, which stopped my impulse and slowed down my pace. It’s the same in spiritual life: sometimes you move forward quickly and easily, but sometimes such a nasty wind blows that the flow is accompanied by great difficulty and slowness, and sometimes our spiritual feet stop altogether. We must then endure and pray. I glorify Your great mercy, O Lord my God, for You have freed me from the sorrow and oppression of sin through my prayer. On the way to church I read heartily: Have mercy on me, O God, then: Lord our God, who has granted repentance to man...35 twice, and again: Have mercy on me, O God, and it became easy, easy. The Lord took away my sin. You yourself receive everything from the Lord as a sinner, give it to others, don’t regret it, and don’t be embittered. Remember that we are all one. Fight for one thing. If you thirst from God for the forgiveness of sins, thirst to forgive others, thirst and rejoice that you have the opportunity to forgive someone some sin or offense against you and show love and obedience to the Lord, and somewhat satisfy His truth. (Everything carnal, pleasant, sweet debilitates, doubles, weakens and deadens the heart. There is no need to have any attachment to sweets.) What kind of Christian am I if I do not leave debts to my debtors every day? How can I dare to say to the Heavenly Father: forgive us our debts, just as we forgive our debtors (that is, spiritual and material debts), when I do not actually forgive them or am also fighting against my debtors? What about meekness? What about kindness? And what about philosophizing about things above and contempt for things below?.. Everything is the Lord’s, every good thing, and the Lord generously measures to us for the benefits given freely to our brethren. The priest especially does not need to grieve about this. The Lord says to him: the worker is worthy of food [Matt. 10, 10]. Or: I will not depart from you and will not leave you [Nav. 1.5]. When going to class, drink no more than one glass. Pray about your brother’s sin as if it were your own, regret his sin as if it were your own - be sorry, but do not be embittered towards him, do not ask the Lord for vengeance on your brother for his sins against you or others. When your brother, a subordinate, disobeyed you in some way, although he had previously been obedient, then carefully consider your actions, did you yourself retain love for him, did you not in absentia show hostility towards him in bitter reviews of him, in reproaches to him, did you condemn him with malice? But his soul senses this, although it is unclear, because we are one body, and just as you alienate him, so he alienates you. Who is to blame? You yourself, you don’t know how to get down to business. Pay attention: do not be angry with any disobedient person, but pray for him. And how do you want perfection from another when you yourself are so imperfect? How do you want to correct someone else when you yourself are faulty? Doctor, heal yourself [Lk. 4, 23], and then heal others. Grant us, Master, to preserve mutual love, which has nothing dearer. And defeat all temptations against love, especially selfish and ambitious ones. The Lord is simple and easy, like a thought; Angels and holy men of God are also simple and light, for they are one with Him, as His images, as His thoughts. The devil and his minions, as opponents of God, as creatures turned away from God, alienating man from Him through deceit, are difficult and difficult. If there is no easy simplicity in the soul, it is a sign that the devil is in it. Under no plausible pretext, even under the pretext of sacrifice to God, do not shirk obedience to your boss or parents. Whatever prayer you read, read it as if you were reading it for the first time, with such sincerity, interest, greed, and desire. God is always the same. Christians, especially Orthodox Christians, will give a strict answer to God for trampling the priceless treasure of faith with their lives, inconsistent with the Gospel, with their negligence, laziness, and passions. We must be especially attentive to what we hear, lest we fall away [Heb. 2, 1]. All holy Angels, holy men and the faithful on earth are one, because they all have one Head - Jesus Christ, they all have one Spirit of God, they all have one Father - God. Look at the words and actions of your neighbor with simple eyes, and not with crafty and evil ones. I will sing thanks to You, Master, blessed and all-powerful, for the victory through Your truth over your incorporeal enemies. May I attribute all the machinations of the enemy to my dream, both now and all the days of my life, and may I not be embarrassed by them. Amen. If you are the owner of the house and suffer from stinginess and greed for earthly goods, especially sweets, remember and always firmly remember that a person needs very little - both for you and for everyone who eats and drinks from your meal; Fill yourself with the glory of God and do not regret the Lord’s gifts to the people of God, especially those close to you, cast everything pleasant and precious at their feet. Yes, remember also that these people who eat from your table eat the Body and drink the Blood of their Lord; remember whose children they are, how dear they are to their Heavenly Father, and feed them with joy all the days of their lives. Anger has no basis or sufficient reason, although the flesh finds pretexts and reasons. So is every passion. Orthodox Christians are a family, children of Jesus Christ, and in a good family the mother is always held in high esteem (the Mother of God), just as the older brothers are respected and honored by the younger ones, and these latter imitate the former. Lutherans and Englishmen! Why don't you have this? Why doesn’t the Mother of God receive due reverence and solemn veneration and worship from you? Why do the holy Angels and holy men of God not enjoy solemn reverence and bows? Why don't you want to imitate them? Or do you honor God alone, do you worship Him alone? But you must remember that the Mother of the Lord Jesus Christ, holy Angels and holy men are pure images of God, children of God, friends of God, just as Abraham was called a friend of God. How can one not worship the living images of God, the children and friends of God? Know, man, and constantly remember that there are two principles in you: good and evil; everything good in you is from God, everything evil is yours and the devil’s. Know that there is an abyss of evil in you, and little good, and that is not yours, but God’s, for without God we cannot do anything, and even think of anything good. Therefore, at all times, have deep humility before God and your neighbors and constantly, day by day, put off the old man with his deeds, crucify your flesh with passions and lusts: greed, gluttony, gluttony, drunkenness, laziness, fornication, stinginess, love of money, theft, deception, deceit, pride, arrogance and condemnation, impatience, irritability, malice, envy, despondency, murmuring, blasphemy, contradiction, resistance and disobedience. Humble yourself constantly, watch and pray, so that you do not fall into misfortune [Matt. 26, 41]. Moreover, heed yourself according to Spasov’s words: look after yourselves, so that your hearts are not burdened with gluttony and drunkenness [Ac. 21, 34], the source of all evil. Eat fish occasionally, and consume meat and milk only occasionally and in very small quantities. Eat more cooked grains, especially grains or barley. Demonic ventriloquism arises from gluttony, over-eating and over-drinking. From the same comes the hardening (whitening) of the heart, internal binding, coldness of the heart towards God and neighbor, hypocritical prayer and hypocritical treatment of one’s neighbor, extreme self-love, stinginess, malice, envy, pride and arrogance, murmuring and blasphemy and all sorts of prodigal uncleanness done according to the teachings of the devil; despondency, despair, moral, mental and physical inaction, irritability towards those who require our labor for themselves, lack of communication with people and selfish loneliness. When they want to pour something fragrant into a vessel that previously contained some unscented liquid, they first wash, smoke or scrape out that vessel so that the fragrant liquid can be stored in it. This is what happens to a person, this animated vessel. In order to pour into him the grace of the Holy Spirit, he must first be cleansed by prayer and fasting, repentance and tears, otherwise the grace of the Holy Spirit will not stick to him, because his insides, due to the carnal, sinful stench, will be unable to accommodate it. A true child of the Heavenly Father always tries to be worthy of this name and diligently cleanses himself constantly from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, while an untrue child neglects what is sacred. Our flesh is blind and stupid in all respects - it fears and runs away from what is useful for it, and joyfully rushes towards what is harmful to it. For example, spiritual and material labor is useful for it, because it strengthens spiritual and bodily strength, but meanwhile the flesh runs away from labor, fears labor and loves idleness. Idleness is harmful to the soul and body, weakening mental and physical strength, and the flesh loves idleness. Gluttony and delicacy are harmful to the soul and body, pampering the spirit and flesh, making the heart rough and stony, and yet we willingly strive for delicacy, with pleasure we indulge in gluttony! Who is a wise Christian? Whoever understands this and acts in life against the desires of his blind and multi-passionate flesh is a slave of the devil, in order to receive great and rich mercy from Christ God. (After the work of confession, I am always healthier, calmer, and to strengthen my strength I need very little sleep - five to six hours.) I glorify You, Most Immaculate Mother of the Most High God, our most swift Intercessor, as yesterday before and during confession, you quickly delivered me from the enemy through my prayer and strengthened my spirit in the matter of confession. Help us always, Most Pure One! March 20 (1864) Third week of Lent. Teach students and people how to fight sins in the name of the Lord and how to be cleansed from sins (penitential psalm). A custom has been established - to drink tea twice, so it seems that one should not lag behind the custom; or have lunch and dinner - the custom cannot be abolished. No: during Lent these customs must be changed: sometimes you must either not drink tea at all, or not have lunch, but only have a light dinner, or have lunch and not have dinner. Don’t look at the screamers when they say: oh, you’ll die of hunger. You won’t die of hunger, but fasting will humble your soul. Even if you fall, rise up and be saved 88. You are a sinner, you constantly fall - learn to rise, take care of gaining this wisdom. This wisdom consists of this: learn by heart the psalm Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your great mercy [Ps. 50], inspired to the king and prophet David by the Holy Spirit, and read it with sincere faith and hope, with a contrite and humble heart - after your sincere repentance in the words of King David, forgiveness of sins will immediately shine from the Lord, and you will feel the peace of your spiritual strength. The main thing in life is to be jealous of mutual love and do not judge anyone for parasitism, or laziness, or lack of prayer, or smoking at the wrong time, or idle talk. Everyone will give an answer to God for themselves, but look at yourself and beware of anger. When you call the Most Holy Theotokos your Lady, as you should according to the leadership of the Church, then be in relation to Her as a true, obedient slave, casting aside your will, your sins, passions, and bad habits. For a slave for his master renounces his own will in order to fulfill the will of the master. Even more so, be the same towards the Lord Himself. If someone falls asleep on the floor during prayer, do not be upset with him, although you will be frightened by this unexpected fall, but cover his weakness with love and raise him up with meekness and kindness. To instill in every Christian that in his soul he belongs to the spiritual, eternal world, to the angelic world and to the world of the saints of God, rejoicing in heaven, with whom he can communicate through prayer, and in his body - to the material, temporary, transitory world, so that he directs all the powers of his soul more often to the heavenly world, to his true fatherland and despises the earthly - everything that flatters the flesh in him: sweets food and drink, money, carnal voluptuousness or the beauty of the flesh, the sophistication and beauty of clothes, temporary housing, temporary vain amusements and vain games, secular books that breathe the charm of light and chain the soul to the visible world. But first of all, O priest, do this in practice yourself, so that you can teach others, so that they do not say to you: doctor, heal yourself [Lk. 4, 23]. May everyone be equal for you, O priest: the noble and the simple, the rich and the poor, the happy and the unfortunate, and when you have to deal spiritually with your parishioners, do not despise in your heart the ignorant or the poor and unfortunate, but consider it a special happiness to serve the poor and unfortunate, and do for them spiritual works of faith with special readiness and pleasure. Do not serve your belly, for those who please the rich, noble and happy and despise the humble, poor and unfortunate truly serve their own belly. Thought, word, deed are one, just as the Father, Word and Holy Spirit are one God. Understand what I say. And doubting the truth is a lie, just like the devil. So, when you pray, make sure that thought, word and deed are one. Through the mind and in the bodies of the saints, God indwelled, so that every particle of their body, like a particle of the Body and Blood of Christ, is filled with the Holy Spirit, not to mention the simple soul, which is all fiery, all light, all enlightened by the Holy Spirit and in which there is no place for a single sinful thought, for the Holy Spirit (like the soul) is a simple being. What will I bring to You, Lord, in thanksgiving, or what will I repay You for Your infinitely great mercies, poured out and constantly poured out! What will I bring to You, what sacrifice for the fact that You brought me from non-existence into being and creation, a fallen, evil, ungrateful creature, with much passion, cleansing and delivering from eternal death, you make it a god, communicating to it all of Yourself both now and to endless ages! God! You Yourself teach me to thank You worthily. A greedy and stingy person often eats only in order to absorb everything on the table and not leave it for anyone else; whereas he should have not eaten, being content with the old food. A greedy person, because of his belly, avoids communicating with people, because at home he eats without hesitation, as much as he wants, and because food is more dear to him, dearer than people. Greedy is a monster! I am a monster of sin! I have surpassed everyone in my iniquities, for all these traits of sin are found in me. A greedy person does not have the time and opportunity to write letters to relatives, friends, if he has and may have them (for his friend is food, drink, money), or acquaintances, because he is constantly in the bonds of gluttony and gluttony. The greedy person brings a cold prayer to God, more a prayer of the lips than of the heart - he flatters before the omniscient God with his tongue and, as a worthy retribution, has restless sleep, pain in the back, tightness in the chest, as if there were iron chains all over the body. The gait is heavy. Moves like a turtle. How long will I resist my Savior's plans for me? How long will I remain uncorrected? How long will I live in enslavement to passions and not be a true slave of my Savior? How long until I hate every sin, especially greed, gluttony and gluttony? How long will I despise the sufferings of my Savior for me? God! You came down from heaven in order to raise me to heaven, but I resist You and cling to the earth as much as possible. Damn man I am! Long-suffering Lord! Be patient with me more and more, and give me the heavenly grace to philosophize, despising the worldly things, and take away from Me all the evil thoughts of this visible life! ABOUT! What a heavenly title does the glutton despise! God! I have desecrated Your Pentecost with gluttony and gluttony. I don’t eat fast food, but I’m satiated with fasting. Children! Now you all eat together in harmony, like children of one Father. Love to share your table with your neighbors even after, when you live independently, without giving in to the passions of pride and stinginess. Be hospitable, hospitable, loving of the poor, friendly, and generally sociable. The Heavenly Father sent His Only Begotten Son for us to call us to heaven, but we do not go. The Heavenly Father’s love for us, His spiritual and mortal children, was and is constantly expressed in the fact that He grows and gives us many different pleasant and nutritious fruits for food, and His bounties have no end. Express your love for your neighbor by warmly treating your neighbors with God's gifts, hospitality and hospitality. Let your table be generous, and let your heart be with your guests, with your relatives who come and with strangers, with gatherers and gatherers, or with the poor and needy to whom you give. Your armor is iron, but my armor is Christ. O my Christ! You are my indestructible shield! I boast in You, I rest in You, I rejoice in You, I am strong in You! Everything is Your grace, my Lord, Lord: I am nothing, Lord! I thank You for deliverance, in Your sovereign, all-powerful name, from the deceit of the spirits of evil in high places in the apartment of my relative Nikolai Matveevich, March 15, Sunday evening, at 10 o’clock. Amen. Do not regret that you spend a lot of something for nothing on relatives, acquaintances or the poor - the more abundantly you sow, the more abundantly you will reap. All these costs are a sacrifice of love, and what is more pleasant to God than love? The greater the sacrifice, the greater the reward from the common Heavenly Father. How pleasant it is for you, how fun it is when you find some lost, necessary and valuable thing! You are ready to jump for joy. Imagine how pleasing it is to the Heavenly Father at the sight of His lost child - a sinner, but found, at the sight of His lost and revived sheep, at the sight of His lost and found drachma, that is, this living image of God - man! It is impossible to describe this joy, just as God Himself is indescribable and infinitely perfect in all His properties! The Heavenly Father’s joy over His lost and found prodigal son is so great that the entire loving and benevolent heaven strives for joy, for there is joy among the Angels of God over one sinner who repents [Lk. 15, 7]. Dying brothers and sisters! Return from the path of destruction to the Heavenly Father. Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand [Matt. 3, 2]. It is a triumph for a greedy and stingy person when he eats and drinks alone, without witnesses, and alone consumes the gifts of the Lord; he then quickly runs with devouring gazes over the food and drinks, ready to devour everything alone, and indeed quickly and greedily absorbs what is on the table, like a wolf or a lion its prey; he eats, even if he doesn’t have to eat, because there is a lot [...], and if he eats a lot, he rejoices that he absorbed a lot of food and drink (especially if it is very pleasant and valuable) and left little and worse for others! This is the property of greed, it is so monstrous: man’s animal self-love is wild, stupid, and unkind! How do you recognize a person in such an action as a rationally free being, a being created in the image of God? A greedy man, like Esau, sells his birthright, the birthright of his soul, his flesh - for what? For food and drink. He constantly burdens his poor soul with food and drink and does not allow her to live the spiritual life that is akin to her, suppressing her spiritual, heavenly needs with food and drink. Who does not see now how necessary fasting is for a person? In order for the spiritual side to take precedence over the flesh, abstinence and fasting and alienation from all greed are necessary; You also need to warmly treat your neighbors and communicate with them at meals. One must have a thirst for love for man, especially for God, a thirst for enjoying the Lord and His image - with the human soul or human souls. A car on a ship - all the power and essence is on the ship; in a person there is a heart. Damage the car and the whole ship becomes damaged; spoil the heart - and the whole person is lost. The driver can fix the car. God is the heart. Do not put too much wood and fire under the boiler of the car, otherwise the boiler will burst; one should also not eat and drink a lot - that is, put this firewood in the stomach, where the heart is located, otherwise passions will flare up and cause great harm and ruin to the whole person. Humility also consists in not considering ourselves worthy of God’s mercy without the prayers of the Most Pure Mother of God, the Angels and the saints, for we have endlessly angered and anger God and are unworthy to open our lips before God. The abyss of our sins and our insults to God. Lord, help me improve! However, make every effort to correct yourself. I thank You, Lord for Humanity, for You have delivered me from strong and fierce enemies through my prayer, and You have granted me to celebrate the Liturgy peacefully, and You have granted me the gift of communion without condemnation. God! Thus always grant me triumph over sin and the spirits of malice and gluttony, but never allow You to be tempted by any sin. I kiss Your merciful right hand. God! I glorify Your Fatherly compassion, Master! If the enemy, during prayer or when communicating with people, bothers you with thoughts of doubt or blasphemy or evil thoughts, then hold the name of the Lord firmly in your heart and in your thoughts and resist them in the name of the Lord. If you are carried away by a stream of nasty and evil and blasphemous thoughts regarding saints or living people, tell the slanderer: we are all people of God, children of God, we are all the property of God, the royal sacredness (because we are sanctified and sanctified by the Lord through the Sacraments, home and public prayer, especially through the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ for us), that we are a holy tongue (holy people), people updates [1 Pet. 2, 9 ] (renewed people, reborn through baptism, renewed through repentance and communion); although we are sinners, we are God’s, although we are defiled, we are sprinkled with the most pure Blood of the Lord, who cleanses us from all sin. As for the saints of God, they are one spirit with the Lord [1 Cor. 6, 17], - the Lord is in them, and they are in Him; they are in God, like hot coals in a burning furnace, completely bright, all fiery, not having any stain of sin by the grace of the Master, for the sprinkling of His blood, for they washed (purified) their garments in the blood of the Lamb [Rev. 7:14] as we make the garment of our soul white with the blood of the same will of the Lamb of God who was slain for all. God! Grant me to explain to Your people in a generally understandable way, with much power, all Your Gospels and Apostolic Epistles. Amen! God! Let me also explain to them all the church services and sacred times of Yours - the holidays of Your Church, fasts, Sacraments, rituals. Never be arrogant, disdainful of your neighbor, especially of the poor to whom you give alms, or of a relative or acquaintance who often comes to you to eat and drink for free. Do not be proud [for this] and do not despise him for your bread and salt, but, considering food and drink as earth and water and considering them a gift from God and a common property, love and caress him as yourself, and do not allow the spirit of enmity, malice, envy and stinginess to settle in your heart. Remember that we are sheep of God's pasture, not ours. Just as sheep calmly graze in the same meadow, and the meadow is their common property, and there is no malice, envy or stinginess between them, so you and your neighbors calmly graze yourselves in the pastures of the Lord; Let the people of God eat and drink among you, as with the Lord. Do not consider anything yours (for we brought nothing into the world; it is obvious that we cannot take anything out of it [1 Tim. 6, 7]), but everything is God’s, for the earth is the Lord’s, and its fulfillment [Ps. 23:1], and cheerfully treat your neighbors with the gifts of God, thanking Him that He gives you the opportunity, means and occasions to show, through the willing distribution of the gifts given to you from Him, love for your neighbor, and for Him, for whoever loves the image of God loves God and exercises his hope in Him, the common Father of all, who cares for us: your Father knows what you need [Matt. 6, 8], and if only we would seek the Kingdom of God (and God reigns in us through love: where there is love, there is God) and its righteousness, and all this will be added to us [Matt. 6, 33]. So, love only God and your neighbor, and everything will be given to you. (Amen.) Avoid sins - this untruth, and do good deeds - this truth, and everything will be added to you. Amen. You see how the devil is furious to put everything on his own. Don't give in to him at all. Beware in every possible way of the pride that penetrates you. Pride alone can kill you. And he is proud who despises his neighbor, who hates him, who considers him for nothing. We are the work of God, we are His children - He provides for us. He who did not spare His Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also freely give us all things with Him? [Rom. 8, 32]. Will a woman forget her suckling child, so as not to have compassion on the son of her womb? but even if she forgot (although there are some cruel mothers who forget their children), then I will not forget you [Isa. 49, 15]. If he gives everything in abundance to those who do not ask, will he not give what is necessary to those who ask? And we ask daily: give us our daily bread this day. You drink the Divine Blood into communion with God Himself - welcome everyone who comes to you with cordiality and love, especially your family (your own, relatives) to commune with your meal, trusting that God, inexhaustible in gifts, will not leave you, but the more you give to others with love, the more He will send you. Amen. If someone told you, that is, your old man (and you have almost no new one), that you are stinking feces, he would tell the absolute truth, for you are truly lifeless, barren, stinking feces, because you are all sin, all passion, all spiritual stench, worse than any cesspool. If you are such, which is certain, for you yourself feel it in your heart, then how can you not humble yourself, consider yourself the last of men and the first of sinners? How can you not honor and love every person as better than you? How can one not pray to God with all fervor, feeling one’s wretchedness, poverty, misery, blindness and nakedness? So, I am all sin, all abomination, I am unclean feces, I am the trampling of all. If there is anything good in me, then it is all the work of God’s grace, everything is God’s. Great Martyr Catherine (Pesotskaya). Sometimes meek and humble people suffer (the daughter of Archpriest Alexander - Ekaterina). They are affected by serious and unusual diseases. What does it mean? If they do this to a green tree, what will happen to a dry tree? [ OK. 23, 31]. They are burned like gold in a crucible. These are they who came out of the great tribulation... [Rev. 7, 14]. Look: if you love money, you cannot love God; if you love food and drink, that is, enjoying them, you cannot love God. Love God with all your heart, and consider everything worldly as rubbish. I count all things as rubbish, that I may win Christ [Phil. 3, 8], for otherwise there is no acquisition... And they immediately, leaving the wilderness, idolized Him [Matt. 4, 20]. This is impartiality towards earthly things! This is love for God and man! This is simple, childlike obedience! Oh, if only we, like the apostles, having heard the call of the Lord, immediately leaving each of our bonds with which we are bound, followed after Him to proclaim the Kingdom of Heaven and go to the Kingdom of Heaven. The words of prayers are the deeds of others, the fruits of spiritual activity. Prepare yours. One line should not be uttered in vain in prayer. Remember Spasov’s commandment: love one another [John. 13, 34], carry it in your heart and observe it every day, hour, minute; Let no worldly delights - neither money, nor food, nor drink, nor housing, nor clothing, nor anything else turn you away from loving your neighbor, who takes what is yours or often asks for what you have given you. But the more you serve someone from your property, the more you love him as your benefactor, who is preparing heavenly crowns for you, for for all the Lord, the Heavenly Father, of whom we are all children, will reward you; and besides, they take away your excesses, unnecessary worries about property and the burdens of life from you and do not allow you to cleave tightly to the blessings of this world, giving you wonderful opportunities to experience their vanity and transitoriness. Remember the Lord's prayer, which we pray: Our Father... you see whose children we are all, you see what kind of Father we all have, how rich, all-good, all-generous, omnipresent, all-knowing, all-righteous, all-powerful, unchangeable, all-content and all-blessed. Look, do the will of the Heavenly Father - and His will is mutual love between people and our holiness. Hearken: the devil turns us away from love for God and neighbor through our addiction to food, drink, money and the goods of this world in general. Despise them for the sake of love for your neighbor, which there is nothing dearer. Love people as your brothers, as eternal children of God. God! I can’t do anything without You. Help! Any feeling of hostility towards our neighbor is from the devil, no matter why this feeling appears in our soul. Have respect for every word, even for every feature of the Holy Scriptures, the writings of the holy fathers, as for the Hypostatic Word Himself, as for the truth itself. In grief we need to feel and say: will we really accept good from God, but not accept evil? [Job. 2, 10]. In grief you need patience with humility. When it is necessary to take away the whiteness of the flesh, the fatness of food and drink, to refine the heart and awaken fiery prayer in the soul (for the soul falls asleep in sensual pleasures and does not have warm prayer), then the Lord sends us an alarm clock - the devil - to confuse us, plunge us into shame, humiliation, sorrow and oppression and pierce our insides with fiery arrows, so that we awaken from sinful sleep. My flesh is the villain! Enemy, destroyer of my soul! You love only what is pleasant and voluptuous, but you do not want to endure what is unpleasant and difficult, although it serves for the good of your soul and for your pacification. No, sinner, ever-adversary to my God and to me, His unfaithful servant, endure sorrow, shame and every misfortune, for everything unpleasant serves for the good of the soul. Now Lent is a time for crucifying one’s flesh with passions and lusts, especially gluttony, and yesterday I feasted on it with my guests. Here is a new apology for the sin of gluttony: I feast on it during Lent, so as not to fall behind people, as if for the sake of Christian love, although Christian love does not condone carnal life. I prefer, damned man, to Christ. Alas for me, wretched one! Do not fill your belly with delicacies, especially during Lent: you are filling it with demons if you feast on it. In general, don’t worry about this bag (I mean the stomach) and don’t cherish it with sweets, despise it and you will gain great peace of mind. The womb is Satan! Through the bread... Satan entered Judas [Jn. 13, 27 ]! The womb is a flattering and treacherous friend. Eat, he says, pleasantly and satisfyingly - for this God has given us everything abundantly for enjoyment; and as you eat, you will soon feel death in your soul and the machinations of the enemy in your heart. The womb is a home trap in which Satan catches my poor chick - the soul. Rejoice in the happiness and contentment of another (innocent) as if it were your own, and do not be envious. Especially do not be upset with your family members or relatives because of purchases made with your money: consider everything as rubbish, keep peace with everyone. Amen. God! Cleanse my sin. God! Extinguish the fire of pride, my carnality, stinginess, envy and dislike, dislike for my neighbor. Everything would be for yourself, but for the other nothing or little, and worse. And how pleasant it must be for others to purchase new things, when they are so pleasant for you too. But whatever you want for yourself, don’t deny it to anyone else. Love your neighbor as yourself. Amen. Sin - violence, bondage, oppression, a sting (like a wasp sucks the heart), carnal or spiritual sweetness (for example, pride), a ditch of uncleanness, darkness, in short - the devil himself, sometimes with bitterness, sometimes with sweetness, forcing us to sin - resist him (always) with firm faith [1 Pet. 5, 9]. Do not trust your flesh even one bit in the movements of passions, pleasures and lusts and recognize these movements as decidedly sinful, remembering that the Lord was crucified in the flesh on the cross and thereby showed us to crucify our flesh with passions and lusts. Consider both your own and other people's flesh, both your own and other people's goods, other people's attractive things as the earth, as the dust that is under your feet, and the passions and sweets of the flesh as delusion, as demonic fire. The devil is a carnal king. The heart should not cleave to the flesh, but to God and to one’s neighbor for God’s sake and in the Lord. ABOUT! If those who eat sweetly and extensively (with many different dishes) knew that the sweetness, fatness and abundance of food they eat is a deposit of their unclean voluptuousness in reality and in dreams, that they are preparing for themselves a cruel and tedious, unclean, not without falls, war with the spirits of lust, if they knew how they anger the Lord with their gluttony, then they would not eat generously and sweetly, especially during Lent, and thereby help the spirits of lust and your multi-passionate flesh to overcome yourself and plunge you into sinful feces! God! In this I have sinned, and for this reason my voluptuous flesh and the prince of darkness and passionate sweets, the parent, created me captivated, and like a humble servant, he sweetly forced me to work 89 with the desire and desire of the flesh! Take away from me, most pure Lord, my uncleanness and my unrighteousness and forgive me all my iniquities and do not enter into judgment with Your servant. Amen. This is why fish should not be eaten during Lent: it leads to impurity of voluptuousness at night and in the waking state. Do not turn my heart into words of wickedness, do not bear the guilt of sins 90 [Ps. 140, 4]. And now the evil light considers all sins excusable and even permissible. He considers dancing during Lent to be permissible, theaters too, fast food too, card games, feasts with wine and sweets, too, reading novels too. And whoever begins to say that this should not be done during Lent is told: this is a prejudice, there is nothing sinful in our affairs, these are innocent activities. But, let’s assume that these are innocent activities, although this cannot be said, why don’t you do directly good deeds, which are so necessary to do during Lent: why don’t you read the Gospel and the writings of the holy fathers during Lent? Why do you allow yourself to get carried away by these apparently innocent, but empty activities during Lent (and you must give an answer to God for idle word and deed [Matthew 12:36])? Examine yourself carefully, your heart, and impartially, and you will see what you need to do during Lent. You will see that you have a great task - internal self-purification, without which no one can enter the Kingdom of Heaven and no one will see God. So, we ourselves destroy what we create and reject what we ask, saying: do not turn my heart into words of wickedness, do not bear the guilt of sins, and we ourselves constantly excuse our sins with various pretexts, and everything sinful is excusable for us. Since we have pampered our flesh with pleasant foods and drinks, it has become lazy, impatient and irritable: it does not tolerate anything that requires time, labor and anxiety; if something happens not according to her wishes and expectations, she becomes irritated, in a hurry, faint-hearted, and despondent. Do not rejoice at the lightness of your flesh after ejaculating semen in a dream or after eating various sweet foods and drinks: this is the lightness of a carnal person, a dreamy, demonic lightness. When the flesh is easy, then the soul will soon be hard; when the flesh rejoices, the soul is in poverty; when the flesh blooms, the soul stinks; when the body is well-fed and strong, then the soul is hungry and weak. Everything is the opposite. When I am weak, then I am strong, says the Apostle about himself [2 Cor. 12, 10]. I thank You, Love for Mankind, Lord, Father, Son and Holy Soul, for Your wondrous help to me, a sinner, during three classes (Tuesday, March 10). And I thank you for the past, and I thank you for this, and I thank you for the future - for in the future, do not deprive me of Your help, Most Generous Father, Almighty Father! Wake up! Wake up! Our carnal, old man would eat and drink everything himself, but would not give anything to another; when the need to give comes, he regrets giving and is annoyed and irritated with the recipient. On the contrary, a renewed person is ready to deny himself everything and willingly, with joy, with a face beaming with pleasure, to share everything he has: money, food, drink, housing, books, knowledge, advice. The old man would always rest, delight and pamper himself with pleasant food and drink, pleasant sounds, reclining on a soft bed, sitting in soft and restful seats, rest and console himself with soft, elegant and expensive clothes, inaction, good and bad sleep, idle games, idle talk, condemnation and slander, reading secular books. On the contrary, the new person rejects pleasant food and drink, as well as the pleasant sounds of a soulless instrument or secular songs that pamper the soul, despises a soft bed and prefers to lie down on the bare ground, or on a hard bench, or on the floor; despises clothes that are soft and pleasant to look at and pamper the spirit and body; seeks activity like a lion of prey, and rejoices in his work; sleeps very little, so as not to soften his flesh with prolonged sleep and thereby weaken his soul; games are provided to people with childish minds who never rise to a correct outlook on life; He is afraid of idle talk, knowing that for every idle word he will have to give an answer on the day of judgment [Matt. 12, 36 ]; he does not dare to condemn anyone, because he recognizes God alone as the Judge, and he cannot, because he considers himself the first sinner; does not tolerate slander, because he learned from his Savior to bless everyone, even his enemies; He does not like or read secular books, because he remembers the words of the Apostle: the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God [1 Cor. 3:19], or the word of another Apostle: do not love the world, nor the things that are in the world [1 Jn. 2, 15], or: They are of the world, therefore they speak in the worldly language, and the world listens to them [1 John. 4, 5]. Our flesh is lazy, and the carnal man is furious when he is called to work; the spiritual man rejoices that he can serve his neighbors, that he is given the opportunity to tire himself and crucify his flesh with passions and lusts. A carnal man loves sweets and does not shun voluptuousness; a spiritual man fears sweets like fire, knowing that they inflame the flesh. A carnal man becomes embittered when he sees that someone has not given him the honor due to his rank and title - a spiritual man is always kind, always condescending to others, because he is always meek and humble, and he even rejoices that others do not flatter his pride and look at him as an ordinary sinful person, very small in his deeds. The old man stinks of unclean thoughts, desires, ideas, words and deeds - the new man smells of purity of thoughts, desires, ideas, prudence of word and deed. The old one is proud, the new one humbles himself; this one is envious, this one is well-wishing; This one is stingy - this one is generous; he is a lover of money - this one counts money as rubbish; one lives the present life - this one lives the future; the one by flesh - the one by God; this one is lazy - this one is thorough; that one is cowardly and despondent - this one is generous and cheerful; This one is ungrateful - this one thanks for everything. Sometimes a person has both a thought about love and a word of love, but there is no spirit of love in the word, but the Trinity is consubstantial and indivisible, but a person is the image of God - mind, or thought, word and spirit - and must sacrifice [all of himself in practice] to the Trinity. According to the trinity of powers of the human soul, the whole occupation of a Christian in this life consists of faith (relating to the mind, or thought), hope (to the heart) and love (to the will or to the spirit - the spirit of love). Believe in God, trust in God, love God and your neighbor; believe in your neighbor, that is, that he is the image of God, a member of Christ, the temple of the Holy Spirit, before whom the whole world with all its blessings is nothing. Believe in God, that He exists, that He is the eternal, all-holy, all-good, all-knowing, omnipresent, omnipotent, all-righteous, all-satisfied and all-blessed Spirit; Trust in God, that He cares and provides for everyone, as the most loving Creator and Father, that He works everything in everyone, that He created us from nothing, and He will raise us up and save us. Love Him more than anything in the world, or, better yet, love Him with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your thoughts, with all your thought process and with all your strength, that is, without sparing yourself in the least for Him; nevertheless, consider everything worldly - money, food, drink, clothing, homes, jewelry - as rubbish, as dust and ashes, as they really are. How much my soul and body have become and are constantly tired of food and drink - this earth and water, especially delicacies and satiety; How much the spirits of malice that come out of a person only through prayer and fasting have bothered me and continue to bother me through her! You must despise her, the murderer. The abundance of bread and the abundance of wine plunged Sodom and Gomorrah into the abomination of lawlessness and became the cause of their terrible destruction! It is not in vain that the Lord showed us first of all the example of fasting and neglect of bread. And we must neglect stomach, food and drink. So, be afraid to eat enough bread, or pies, or meat, or fruits and drink wine. Don't eat sweet soup, don't eat fish. There is cabbage, cucumbers, porridge, and pearl barley soup. In post. And the earth needs rest: not everything needs to be respected, but our body also needs fasting. Do not allow insolence and contempt to be in your heart for even a minute before God and the Divine; If something painful or sorrowful happens to you, then generously endure everything and humble yourself, truly considering yourself to be a weakness, a sin, and nothing. Insolence, murmuring and contempt are the breath of the devil. Pay attention to yourself. By submission to the will of God, patience, meekness and humility, simplicity and goodness of heart, save your soul. Be lower than every word, every thought read in sacred books or even in worldly books of good content, for (mostly in holy books) every word is an image of the supreme Mind and Word, Which are simple in their essence, like our thought and word, or infinitely simpler. See to it that God (the Trinity) is the basis of all your thinking, speech, and activity, just as air is the basis of the articulate sounds of words. A lot of food has been prepared - there will be some left over, you say. If it remains, animals or birds will eat it; they won’t eat it, it will go into the ground: insects or worms will eat it in the summer; if they don’t eat it, it will turn into the ground, from which it was taken and into which your notorious, multi-passionate and multi-caring body will turn. There is no excuse for stinginess and greed! How many fruits and various mineral wealth of the Lord, like simple land, remain unused! And there is no need to regret it - everything is earth, everything is temporary, everything can turn into delight for us and can stop our soul on the path to eternal salvation! A Christian must love God and His image—the neighbor—so ardently and firmly that he can always say: what will separate us from the love of God and our neighbor: sorrow or distress, or nakedness, or misfortune, or the sword [Rom. 8, 35], or money, or the sweets of food and drink, or a rich home, or care for clothing, or various everyday pleasures?.. But I consider money, food, drink, clothing, housing as rubbish, and the pleasures of life as a dream. I attribute the errors of my neighbor to the corruption of nature, the action or machinations of evil spirits, insufficient or bad upbringing, unfavorable circumstances of life, the properties of parents and educators... Knowing my own sinfulness, my passions, my malice, greed, uncleanness, my weakness, I cannot hate fellow people like myself, who have the same weaknesses and vices, for I must love my neighbor as myself, and I love myself, although I know my countless sins; finally, we are one body. Pay attention: for cleansing your heart from sins you will receive an infinitely great reward - you will see God, your all-good Creator, your Provider; It is a difficult feat to cleanse the heart, because it is associated with great hardships and sorrows, but the reward is great. Blessed are those who are pure in heart: for they will see God [Matt. 5, 8]. They say: God is merciful, He will have mercy on us. Of course, God has infinite mercy. But if God is infinitely merciful to us and generous, then why do we arbitrarily offend Him with our iniquities? The more we are blessed by Him, the more we must love Him, be grateful to Him and obey His holy commandments or commands - where is this love, this gratitude, this obedience? Elder Eutykhios says that he is like a candle before God and always burns. He had many sorrows and labors in his life, for whose complacent patience the Lord entered into him. He speaks simply and captivatingly about God, about our salvation in Jesus Christ and about eternal bliss. An angry and proud person is ready to see only pride and malice in others and is glad if to any of his acquaintances, especially those who live happily, richly, but are not close to him spiritually, others say bad things, and the worse it is, the more internally he rejoices that others are bad, and he is perfection in front of them and is ready to see in them only one evil and compare them with demons. Oh, malice! Oh, pride! Oh, lack of love! No, you find something good in an evil person and rejoice in this goodness and speak with joy about his good qualities. There is no person in whom there is not at least some good, but the evil that is in him, which you are not alien to, cover with love and pray to God for him, so that the evil God will create good with His goodness 91. Do not be an evil pit or an abyss. Despise the flesh and everything carnal - despise it like a ghost, like fog, like smoke, like a cloud, like snow or like a soap bubble playing with rainbow colors for a few moments. Christian! After all, the Leader of your faith was crucified and left you a cross. How do you live in luxury, in space, in bliss, in idleness? He suffered dishonor and commanded you for the sake of His name not to shun dishonor, but you seek honor. Look often at the Crucified One and learn your duties. Those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts [Gal. 5, 24]. A hair of your head will not be lost [Lk. 21:18], that is, the holy thought of your mind will not perish not only for God, but also for people. For we see that the holy thoughts and feelings of the saints of God before us were preserved intact, having been written down on a charter. In whom is the solid foundation of everything visible and indestructible? - In God. And God is invisible. Reverence the invisible God, strive for the invisible God. God is spirit [Jn. 4, 24 ] eternal, all-holy, all-good, all-knowing, all-righteous, all-powerful, all-present, unchangeable, all-satisfied and all-blessed. And you, the image of God, be spiritual, despising the flesh, a temporary home, be holy, good, knowledgeable, just, cheerful and courageous, unchanging in goodness, satisfied with everything and happy with your God. Whoever has built a house for himself should by all rights live in it. We are the houses of our Creator, He created us for Himself, for the Lord made everything for His own sake [Prov. 16:4], - He must live in us, and not the devil, this murderer, thief, predator, this deceiver. God! Come and dwell in us. We will come to him and make an abode with him [John. 14, 23]. Do you not know that you are the church of God, and the Spirit of God lives in you? [ 1 Cor. 3, 16]. Every person should know and remember the simplicity of his soul, which is God’s breath. God is simple and the soul is simple. And since the soul is simple, it in no way can love two opposing objects - God and something worldly: a person and something material, very pleasant for our carnal man. To love God with all your heart, you must certainly consider everything earthly as rubbish and not be deceived by anything; In order to love your neighbor as yourself, you must neglect money, not be seduced by delicacies, outfits, distinctions, ranks, praise or human opinion. The simplicity of the soul must be protected especially during public and domestic prayer, while reading the word of God and the writings of the holy fathers, and in general during any important matter. No one can serve two masters [Matt. 6, 24]. Reverence every word, every thought of the word of God, the writings of the holy fathers, including the various prayers and hymns that we hear in church or say at home, because all of this is the breath and words of the Holy Spirit. This, so to speak, is the Holy Spirit Himself, interceding for us and through us with groanings that cannot be uttered [Rom. 8, 26]. Most generous Master, I thank You for the abundance of my meal; Grant me to rejoice that I can generously treat Your children with Your bounties, and do not allow me to enviously, with greed and stinginess look at the abundance of Your gifts at my table and grieve that many different dishes have been prepared for me and for my neighbors. Don’t let me, because there is such demonic envy in me. God! Grant me to wish for my neighbor every good thing, every contentment in abundance, as well as for myself. Amen. Wake up! Wake up! I’m full myself - I can’t eat various pleasant dishes, but I’m sorry to give it to others. What pride! What envy! What ill will! Oh, satiety! Satiety! How you degrade a person to the level of not only an animal, but the devil himself! How pleasant it is for a mentor to hear kind answers from students in front of the boss, so, and even more pleasant, it was I wish I could hear your kind answers at the Judgment of Christ. Why does our sincere prayer for each other have great power on others? Because I cleave to God during prayer, I become one spirit with Him, and those for whom I pray, I unite with myself through faith and love, therefore the Spirit of God, acting in me, acts at the same time in them, as if fulfilling everything 92. We are many in one body [1 Cor. 10, 17]. One body, one spirit... [Eph. 4, 4]. The peace of mind and sweetness that we feel from time to time in the church of God with the harmonious singing of the choristers and the intelligible reading of the reader and clergy is a deposit for us of that infinite sweetness that will be felt in ourselves by those who eternally contemplate the ineffable kindness of the face of God. We must be jealous of harmonious singing and intelligible reading. Coming to the church of God to pray, we must know and remember that we are children of the Heavenly Father and have come to His house, we must stand with filial feelings - sincere love, gratitude, with fiery prayer. Our spirit must cry out: “Abba, Father!” [Gal. 4, 6]. Do not be discouraged by grief, crampedness, coldness, powerlessness and insensibility of the heart during confession, but even in crampedness and insensibility, do God’s work, constantly sighing to the Lord for mercy, knowing that hordes of evil demons are treacherous over you. However, train yourself in advance for confession by reading the Holy Scriptures and the writings of the holy fathers or their lives. Love your wife as yourself or as your mother, caress her, take care of her. Do not be grieved towards her, do not be her master as a servant, and do not despise her. Don't look at the bitch in her eye, look at your log. Consider yourself worse than her, consider her more worthy than yourself, as indeed you really are. Yes, yes. (Experience.) Love is peace, enmity is languor and oppression. By calling the saints of God by name in prayer, we encourage them to pray for us. The world is home. The builder and owner of this house, the Creator, the Father of the people living in it, Christians, is God. Mother - the Most Holy Theotokos. Walk always in the presence of your Father, in love and obedience to Him, and equally in the presence of our common Mother - the Most Holy Theotokos, in holy love, reverence and obedience to Her. In your spiritual and physical needs - in sorrows, misfortunes and illnesses, turn to Her with faith, hope and love. Be holy, as holy is the Lord God - your Creator and Father, as holy is the Lady Theotokos, Mother of God and according to the Savior, our great Brother, our Mother. Woman, behold, your son... behold, your mother [John. 19, 26 – 27]. So that we do not doubt the exalted Mother of the Most High God, the Most Holy, Most Pure, Most Blessed, Glorious Lady, to call our Mother, Her eternal, Divine Son - the Lord Jesus Christ, resolved our doubt, directly allowing us, or those of us zealous for holiness, to call Her our Mother. Behold - your mother. For in the person of Saint John the Theologian this is also said to us Christians. Yes, She truly is the most tender, providential, all-holy, and guides the holiness of us, Her children, our Mother. You see very clearly that it is extremely difficult for you and without the grace of God and diligent prayer and abstinence it is impossible to change for the better; you feel in yourself the action of many passions: pride, and anger, and envy, and greed, and gluttony, and stinginess, and the love of money, and despondency, and laziness, and adultery, and impatience, and disobedience - and you remain with them, and you are often bound by them, and the long-suffering Master tolerates you, waiting for your conversion and correction and with all the gifts He rewards you with his goodness. Be lenient, long-suffering and loving towards the sinful people living with you, defeating all evil with good and, most importantly, pray to God for them, may he correct them, may he turn their hearts to Himself, the source of holiness. Do not help the devil in expanding his kingdom. Sanctify the name of the Heavenly Father with your deeds, help Him spread His Kingdom on earth: we are fellow workers with God... [1 Cor. 3, 9]. Be zealous for His will to be done both on earth as in heaven [Matt. 6, 10]... Leave debts to your debtors with joy, as a good son rejoices at having the opportunity to fulfill the will of his beloved father. See in your parent, as it were, God, who benefits you, and, as if Christ himself, honor him and be grateful to him for everything. He who does not love his brother whom he sees, how can he love God whom he does not see? [ 1Jn. 4, 20]. Every family in heaven and on earth is called after the Heavenly Father [Eph. 3, 15]. You see - in the earthly father we must honor the Heavenly Father. Besides other sins - blasphemy, murmuring, cowardice, despondency, laziness, fanaticism, blasphemy. What an excellent bearing you have and maintain in front of people whom you respect, before whom you seem small to yourself, how carefully you behave in front of them in every word, look, movement, with what attention to yourself and to him: with attention to yourself - to your thoughts, feelings and movements of the heart, with attention to him - to his words, facial expressions and body movements - in a word, what a respectful posture you have towards him save! Now tell me, my friend, how you should be in prayer before God at home and in church and at all times, because we are always before God. How should you behave mentally and physically, what kind of bearing should you have, what kind of heart, what kind of thoughts, what kind of spirit, how to speak, how to stand, how to look? – So, my friend, so that it can be seen from the outside that you stand before the Being (the Being of all beings), the Beginningless, all-holy and all-good, omniscient, all-righteous, omnipresent, omnipotent, unchangeable and all-blessed (He is the Father of countless intelligent, luminous beings and the Creator of infinitely many creatures), so that it can be seen that you are completely immersed in God, in His omnipresence. But who is capable of this [2 Cor. 2, 16] without the dispensation of God? For Himself, Lord, do this with us. And we are earth and ashes. And without Your Spirit we cannot do anything; Without Him, the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of the Son, we are cold and dumb. Services are the personification of faith. I fell into sin and corruption, but by eating, that is, by the Bread of the Animal, the Body and Blood of the Lord, he is delivered from sin and corruption. Why do many poor people exist? So that we [could] show them deeds of mercy and so that they and we would be saved into the Kingdom of Heaven: they are for patience, for poverty, and we are for mercy. Wonderful are Your works, O Lord! It is not without reason that it is said: let us remember the poor [Gal. 2, 10]. Look dispassionately at the complexion: clean, so clean, and unclean, so be unclean; ruddy or pale, plump or thin - it will be all the same to you; despise the transitory flesh, sinful, unclean, ungodly and opposed to God. Through greedy enjoyment of food and drink, disgust from God enters the soul; A heart greedy for delicacies is cold towards God and neighbor and shies away from the Ruler of its belly. In order for the soul to begin to feel love for God again, it is necessary to tear and furrow the heart with some great grief, for sin, entering our soul as sweetness, leaves it as bitterness. (Experience.) This is why there are various diseases, sorrows, troubles (fires), misfortunes. Compassionately endure everything that unpleasantly affects the senses of a carnal person - sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, that is, everything that does not flatter sensuality and beats it; By doing this, you will crucify your flesh with passions and lusts. On the other hand, do not be deceived by anything that flatters the external senses and the external person, that in a carnal way flatters the sight (for example, gold, silver, etc., beautiful faces), hearing (secular songs), taste (delicacies), smell (various incense) and touch (soft clothes, etc.). All this is dust, a dream, everything is ephemeral and everything does not contain life and bliss for the heart. And to cleave to anything earthly is sin, sorrow and oppression. (Experience.) One God is life, peace and bliss, and it is worthwhile and righteous to cleave to Him alone. (They laugh at you, you are in dishonor - you accept what is worthy according to your deeds. Give thanks to him who humbles you and humble yourself through dishonor.) Prayer is an exercise (practice) for our love for God and neighbor. Pray to God with all your heart if you love Him with all your heart, and pray for your neighbor with zeal and sincerity, as for yourself. And this happens both during public worship and at home prayer. When you stand for prayer at home or come to church for public prayer and stand during divine services, you feel lethargy and sinful relaxation, aversion from prayer, some kind of muddy and gloomy flood, the intrusiveness of unclean and nasty thoughts, condemnation, coldness towards God and people and suggestions by them. This is a devilish obsession. With diligent prayer it goes away. You just need to force yourself harder to pray. For the Kingdom of Heaven is in need, and the needy women delight it [Matt. 11, 12]. Others may even be Satan himself, but why should you be Satan, that is, why have anger at those who offend, at those who spoil, and in general at those who sin? Be kind in any case, regardless of any mistake of your neighbor. God! I am unkind, greedy, stingy - correct and cleanse me. When we say: Thy will be done, then we express before God, our Father, the desire to cut off our own will and follow His commands. What is our will? Evil - to be proud, irritated, angry, envy, covetous, stingy, covetous, gluttonous, lazy, idle, flattering, condemning, despondent, laughing, gloating, malicious, fornicating internally and externally, stealing, deceiving, blaspheming, indulging in unbelief, drunkenness, fighting, swearing, use foul language, shout uncontrollably or be treacherous, take advantage of others, etc. For your countless generosity to me, Holy Father, how can I not be generous with Your gifts? How can I skimp? Enlighten, O Master, the eyes of my heart every minute of my life, so that I may not become stubborn in the deeds of darkness, but may I get rid of them. O Holy Father, Generous Father! May I never anger You with my stinginess. Grant me, at Your first request, to part with Your gifts willingly and with love for You and my neighbor! I can't do anything without You! Children! Remember that in school you lay the foundation for all future life and for eternity itself. Observe all the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, laying them down in your heart. Remember that our heart is as simple as a thought, and watch its movements vigilantly and vigilantly. In an instant, the spirit of hell can infect him with the breath of malice, or envy, or pride, or doubt about the truth, etc., etc. No matter how you commit lawlessness, no matter how you stray from the path of truth, God will certainly lead you to the conviction that you must love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. There will be no peace in your soul without fulfilling these two main commandments. He who pleases the belly often envyes, and is stingy, and loves money, and hates, and deceives, and steals, and scolds - and all for the sake of the belly! Moreover, for the sake of his heart he has little faith, or betrays his faith, or becomes cold towards the Church; for him he blasphemes, sacrileges, etc. What is a hangover? - New drunkenness. It’s the same as if someone ate too much in the evening, and then the next day he started doing the same thing again. Incontinence cannot be cured by incontinence. We often regret that large pieces of sugar are chopped or large pieces of sweet cake are cut - why? Because others will eat them, not us - it wouldn’t hurt for us to have more and tastier ones. Oh, self-love! Oh, selfishness! Dream away! Inject more sugar lumps! Cut more pieces of the pie and generously treat those who come with your goodness, as you love, so that you are treated just as generously and good-naturedly. Despise all the vague, absurd uprisings of carnal wisdom! Christ, help! I doubted the elder, but several times I was internally punished for doubting. When you say something wrong in class or in church, or lie unintentionally or with the knowledge of a lie, do not be ashamed and do not be discouraged, and do not add a big sin to a small sin. This is the shame of pride, this is the despondency of pride: how, they say, I humiliated myself by saying something wrong. Instead of pride, instead of shame and despondency, one must humble oneself and secretly repent before God, but it is a sin to become despondent, especially before a gathering of disciples or listeners in general. What, in fact, are you perfect, are you more perfect than everyone else, are you without stumbling blocks like all people, that you are ashamed and despondent and blush from your mistakes? Is it really possible for a person not to make mistakes? The one of us who makes the least mistakes is perfect. But everyone is wrong. It’s a wonderful thing to seek perfection, but perfection is achieved only through mistakes, just as a child begins to walk and cannot gain its footing unless it has failed many times before. To be as stumbling-free as possible, prepare well for the class. And don’t be afraid or ashamed of stumbling blocks and mistakes. It is human nature to make mistakes and fall. That's why we are all sinners. But Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom, say, I am the first [1 Tim. 115], - that’ll be all right. The devil himself incites you to sin and, when you sin, he says: you are now mine - and he begins to torment you with despondency. And you say to him: no, not yours, but even though I am a sinner, but God’s, my Lord has cleansing for all my iniquities. And I consider your despondency a dream. My hope is the Father, my refuge is the Son, my protection is the Holy Spirit 93. Resist firmly all passions instilled by the devil, including the passion of despondency. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you [James. 4, 7]. But do not be afraid of its bitterness, fire, darkness and burden. The Lord will not hand you over to his teeth to devour you. He is constantly in the hands of the Lord. His shovel is in His hand [Matt. 3, 12]. Only the faithful servants of Christ give true value to the incarnation of the Son of God and the vision of God the Father and the entire Holy Trinity for the salvation of the human race, only they truly appreciate the most pure Body and Blood of Christ, and the people of this age, of whom I am the first, live like senseless animals - in the sorrows of everyday life and in sensual pleasures, not valuing either the incarnation of the Son of God or His most pure Secrets. However, I value this last very much, 94 I am a great sinner, but I live in the sorrows and joys of life. So, just as God’s elect value as they should the works of God and God’s endless love for an adulterous and sinful world, God also values ​​them and does wondrous works through them: the Holy Spirit dwells in them together with the Father and the Son, and from their wombs flow rivers of living water [Jn. 7:38], and those who know God go to drink from them as to sweet springs. Let us all be servants of Christ. The spirit of laziness and relaxation nests in human hearts, which is why they are lazy and inactive and do not want to fight it, sparing their flesh. Elder Eutykhios, like Moses, breathes all his love for God, for the Most Pure Mother of the Lord Jesus Christ and for people. His prayer to God is fiery, like the prayer of Moses... His faith corresponds to love His... This is a servant of God, a faithful doer of Christ's commandments. Amen also means: I want this to happen, that is, I really ask. Our prayer should be completely free and heartfelt. For every idle word that people speak, they will give an answer on the day of judgment [Matt. 12, 36]. Why will idle talkers be punished so severely? Because with their idle talk they corrupt the souls of men, which Christ came to revive, and weaken the power of the word of God: people, corrupted by idle talk, accustomed to consider the words of idle people as nothing, easily look at the word of God and think that it is given only to scratch the ears, like the idle speech of men, that it cannot be strictly fulfilled in life. Have I sinned - the Lord is my cleansing; whether I am sad and gloomy after sin from the insults of the enemy - the Lord is the destruction of my despondency and the resurrection of my boldness. All for me is the Lord, truly this Lord, glory to you (whose, that is, the Existing, Being of beings); O my Parent, from Whom I all came, glory to Thee! O my Parent, who reborn me in baptism and adopted me, glory to Thee! O my Provider, who never leaves me, glory to You! The liturgy is a visual depiction in persons, various things, words and actions of the birth, life, teaching, commandments, miracles and prophecies, suffering, crucifixion, death, resurrection and ascension into heaven of the Head of our faith, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God. During the liturgy, He Himself is invisibly present, He Himself acts and accomplishes everything through the priest and deacon, who are only His instruments. The Holy Spirit, like air, is just as easy for a believer to attract into himself; like air, He fills everything and penetrates everything. He is everywhere and fulfills everything92... He who prays fervently attracts the Holy Spirit into himself and prays with the Holy Spirit, just as the external word is pronounced through the Holy Spirit. For where two or three are gathered in My name, there I am in the midst of them [Matt. 18, 20]. Why are God's co-presence promised primarily to two or three? Because where two or three are gathered in the name of Christ, there is the Church, the unity of faith and love, there is mutual love. By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another [Jn. 13, 35]. So as not to be embarrassed by certain personalities, imagine that the Lord is in everyone and everything. Christ is all and in all [Col. 3, And], according to the Apostle, - that Christ is also in you. My brother Konstantin showed great humility before me today in church upon receiving the prosphora from me. We must respect him and imitate him, the servant of God. (He has a peculiar character.) God rests in the saints and in their very name, in their very image - you just need to use their images with faith, and they will work miracles. Grant to me, Lady, purity of heart, simplicity of heart, filial trust, devotion and love for You always, now and ever, and forever and ever. Amen. Learn, all of you, this wisdom - to love every person as yourself, and consider everyone your neighbor, and not distant. Love for oneself only for oneself, or selfish love for others based on calculations of pride, and not on respect for man as the image of God and a member of the body of Christ, is called selfishness, selfishness. We love our neighbor as we love ourselves when we also wish for others everything that we wish for ourselves and, if possible and necessary, we give to him from the heart, without regret, with pleasure, when we do not wish him anything that we consider harmful to ourselves or that, in our opinion, could be harmful to him, when, finally, we try to do for him everything that can be useful to him in need, when we console him in sorrow, help him in trouble and need, or when we visit him and help to him in illness, when we teach the ignorant and do not neglect him, we direct the erring one on the path of truth and goodness, when we treat our enemies meekly, when we do not take revenge with insult for insult, when we protect the offended, reconcile the hostile, feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, clothe the naked, give shelter to the wanderer, those who have no shelter or have no money for staying in the house, we give shelter or money, when we give shelter or money to everyone, what is pleasant for us, for example, pleasant foods and drinks, we willingly share with him, and do not greedily absorb it ourselves, in the confidence that all earthly sweets, all the products of the earth are given for everyone, and not just for some. Achieve this wisdom in life, so that you can consider everyone as one with yourself, so that you can all be one body. May they all be one, just as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, so may they also be one in Us [Jn. 17, 21]. But personal, individual love is absurd, ugly, lawless. If we love those who love us, then this is the same self-love. We must love our enemies, bless those who curse and do good to those who hate; we must regret the error of their hearts and neglect them, not value ourselves when they hate us, suffer about their heart disease, extinguish their enmity with meekness, humility, and helpfulness, pray for them to God with all our hearts, as for ourselves. I thank You, Lover of Mankind, Your many-sinful servant, that You surround me with the joys of deliverance. You led me through three classes victoriously, and I emerged from them like a hero after a victory, rejoicing in Your strength and help, in Your all-saving, all-powerful and all-conquering name, Lord! February 8, 1864. The soul of truth - that is, of everything truly conceivable. All true thoughts are the breath of the Holy Spirit. Truth is so simple, easy and convenient and life-giving for a person, like thought, like breathing. Corporal learning (worldly sciences) is useful for a little, but godliness is useful for everything [1 Tim. 4, 8]. The sun is shining. The mental sun - God - constantly shines in the souls of the chosen ones. Moral teaching. Be patient, and let nothing irritate or embitter you against your neighbor, for anger is the greatest evil and, so to speak, the devil himself; consider all everyday troubles as smoke; Consider everything temporary as a dream. Through your patience gain your souls [Lk. 21, 19]. May all love be with you [1 Cor. 16, 14], that is, do everything, treat everyone with love. God! Grant! I can’t live without You. So, if you are choked with tobacco smoke in your apartment, be patient and do not become embittered, endure it with love, considering it better to swallow the smoke and harm your eyes than to become embittered; they laugh at you, scold you, betray you, deceive you, despise you - endure and love your sick enemies and pray for them. They take what’s yours - don’t be sorry, but give more if you can. Endure everything and love everything. Malice should not be tolerated under any pretext, for it has no basis, no sufficient reason; she is a malicious chimera, a demonic dream, which cannot correct any mistake in another, cannot correct any matter, but only perhaps both yourself and the other, and can upset any matter - in a word, increase evil, just as fire increases from the addition of another fire. Never trust your blind, dreamy, sinful flesh when it forces you into impatience and anger at your neighbor because of something carnal. For example, when they unpleasantly affect your feelings with something, or take yours, or damage what you have, then consider all this as a dream and just be patient and love your neighbor; everything worldly - both the flesh and everything carnal - will pass away, but love will live forever. Never change love, don’t lose it for anything. Amen. If someone is looking for you - love; if he rages, threatens to erase you from your place and from the face of the earth - love, beats you - love; bothers you with something, bothers you - love, asks you constantly - love, takes yours constantly - love; Perhaps untimely and frequent caresses bore you - love, love everything. And consider every evil of the heart, every sin, passion of the heart as a dream both in yourself and in others and conquer the dream with truth, evil with good. A person subject to passion is like one infected and inflamed with poison or driven mad. We must feel sorry for such a person, we must take a living, compassionate part in him, we must treat him with the word of truth and the spirit of meekness. Anyone who is angry with his neighbor for some of his misdeeds or shortcomings commits a paradox: he becomes angry with another for something for which he should pour out anger on himself. But just as we usually forgive ourselves or ask the Lord for forgiveness, we must do the same with others. Love yourself as you love [Matt. 22, 39]. One holy father says: a person will never offend another, will not hate another, will not blaspheme him, unless he first rises above him in his heart, does not humiliate him in his thoughts 95 . The same applies to God and the Lady, to the Angels and saints. In pride, a person equates himself with God or even places himself above Him mentally, and is ready to prescribe laws to Him Himself. From pride comes all evil, just as from humility all good. Humility is obedient to all the laws of the Lord. Trample your self-esteem to please your neighbors in the Lord. Look not at what your heart wants, but at what the Lord wants, that is, do not do the will of your heart, but the will of the Lord, love God more than anything and your neighbor as yourself. If you love yourself, a sinner, love your neighbor, even though he sins. I thank Thee, Lord, for even now, in the power of Thy name, Thou hast vouchsafed me, a sinner, to teach Thy law to Thy servants with boldness and strength and wisdom. February 10, 1864. How much space do you need, man? Three arshins in length and an arshin in width: everything else is God’s and your neighbors’, and the place that you will occupy in the tomb is also God’s. God bless! Imitate the Blessed Virgin Mary in Her highest purity, humility, patience, devotion to the will of God. If anyone wants to have life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking flattery (lies) [Ps. 33, 14]. You watch this. Avoid slander, slander, condemnation, foul language, blasphemy. Be happy with everything and everyone. The pole asked the curly birch, hitting it on each branch: touches one branch and says: who is it? She answers: it’s me. The other one asks: who is this? She answers the same: it’s me; So I tried all the branches, and about each branch the birch said: it’s me. So it should be said about people: there are many people, but they are all like one person, like one tree. Eutyches is true. The heart feels it, the mind confirms it, it is reflected in the will. He spoke, and said everything that was true and useful. Malice is heavy, bitter and vague, just as love is light, sweet and peaceful. If you love only those who love you, those who look at you tenderly and smiling, and do not love your enemies or those who look at you gloomily, hostilely, proudly, what reward do you have for that from God? No, you conquer evil with good and warn everyone with love and affection, not allowing the spirit of hatred to flare up in yourself and in your neighbor. Love your enemies [Matt. 5, 44]. They turn you away, but you try to cling to them with love and consider for a dream, a demonic lie, in [reality] all coldness and aversion to our neighbor, whom, according to the Gospel, we must love fervently, as ourselves. Whatever pretext, carnal or spiritual, Satan presents for malice against your neighbor, do not succumb to it and be resolutely gentle, saying to the action of every passion that begins within: why be a demon? Let us suppose that my neighbor sins against me in this and that, but why should I be a demon? - for example, a hater, a lover of money, greedy and stingy, irritable, vague, proud, etc. Away with all the flattery of the enemy. May unceasing peace settle in my heart and may I grant the right hand of communication to everyone who comes to me. May the words of the Master resound in your soul more often: we leave our debtors [Matt. 6, 12]. Perform them as often and as perfectly as possible. Whom we love, we forgive a lot. The Lord God loves us immeasurably and therefore forgives us without number; then it is said: Lying in the abyss of sin, I call upon the unsearchable abyss of Thy mercy 96. And most importantly, remember the word of the Master: we forgive our debtors. Ask the Lord to strengthen you in this good deed. Love is patient and merciful [1 Cor. 13, 4] – these are the first fruits of love! The love of money is a demonic lie in action: we love money, we put our lives in money, while we must love only God and cleave to Him alone as the only Source of life. Denouncing false hope in money, the Lord says in the Gospel: a person’s life does not depend on the abundance of his possessions [Lk. 12, 15]. Greed for food and drink and pity for their neighbor is also a demonic lie in action: a person cleaves his heart to the sweets of food and drink and places his life in them, while not bread alone, not many different sweets serve as the source of our life, but the Lord Himself and His holy word. Therefore, exposing this real lie, the Lord says: man will not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God [Matt. 4, 4]. God! Deliver me from thoughts of pride and conceit. The enemy is fighting me with his gums and neck. God! Grant me to sincerely consider myself the first sinner and feel it, for I really am. Gluttony truly turns the heart away from love for God and neighbor and turns it into a stone, insensitive. Experience. The hearts of these people are thicker [Matt. 13, 15] – why? From gluttony and covetousness. Judas is an example. Voluptuousness, or seduction by women’s faces, is also a demonic lie in action: we obey the charms of the enemy, wanting to enjoy the game and pleasant irritation of the flesh. But every human face, every human flesh is earth, water, air and warmth; After a short time, every person turns into earth and decomposes into the elements from which he was composed. This means that all sinful voluptuousness, all passion for human faces is the charm of the enemy. What and who should a priest be afraid of during worship and especially the liturgy, for example at the Great Entrance? The Lord is near [Phil. 4, 5]. We must fear Him alone, and rely on Him alone. But there is nothing to be afraid of people - they are your sheep, no matter who they are - should a shepherd be afraid of sheep? What mother does not care about the well-being of her children? How much more does the Mother of God care about us, the children of God? And so we ask Her: Good King, Good Mother... With Your prayers, guide me to good deeds... 97 Love for mankind Lord Jesus Christ, almighty and all-good, my most swift help! I thank Ty, because you helped me wonderfully during three classes! Help us in the first place too! Amen. Rejoice when you see that a proud person softens and humbles himself as a result of your kind words, and do not, out of pride and envy, regret that you have treated and honored him, just as a stingy person often regrets that he treated his guests to rich dishes. Don't give the slightest reason for disagreement. Imagine the holiness of the Mother of God and Her greatness: She is more honorable than the Cherubim and more glorious, without comparison, than the Seraphim. I am amazed at Your greatness, O Mother of God! As the Son is holy, so is the Mother holy, just as the Son is holy, so is the Father holy! However, the Most Holy Theotokos has created holiness, because She too is a creation. You get angry at your brothers-in-law and become embittered with them for their visible, minor sins, for example, for idle talk, laughing, smoking tobacco, and you consider yourself to have some right to be angry with them and even despise them. Unhappy! What are you doing? You are in the greatest error of heart, you yourself are the greatest sinner and the first of sinners, you are the devil, for pride and malice live in you. Your brothers sin with external sins, while in their hearts they have no malice, no pride, no envy, no stinginess - but you sin internally, gravely, devilishly! Arise, weep for your damnation and say: God! Be merciful to me, the first of sinners, and before everyone be humble, meek and kind, and remember that if, despite all your virtues, you are infected with pride and malice or stinginess, then all your virtues are nothing, and you, like the devil himself, are the first of sinners. Do not judge anyone, lest you be judged [Matt. 7, 1]. You don’t know anyone’s insides, anyone’s heart, you don’t know what is hidden in it: perhaps, despite all the external sins of your brother, humility and kindness are hidden in his heart, and if pride and malice nest in your heart, then your brother is far, far above you, because his humility and kindness cover the multitude of his sins and can always attract to him the grace of God, which saves the humble and gentle. So, take heed to yourself. I thought this way, and the Lord had mercy on me. I thank You, Love for Mankind, for You have greatly consoled me with the success of teaching Your Law in the classroom - I peacefully, majestically held myself in the name of the Lord. February 17, 1864 Monday. Mortify your flesh with passions and lusts [Gal. 5:24], that by killing the flesh you may revive your soul, so that even if you lose this temporary life, you may inherit eternal life. Respect the holy order as one who has apostolic ordination. It’s enough for you because of your wife, like Adam because of Eve, to indulge in gluttony and insult the Lord! Love abstinence and meager and harsh food, not dainty food. The spirit is vigorous by nature, and the flesh is weak - but the spirit must triumph over the flesh and must not lose heart from the despondency and suffering of the flesh. We must remember this and strengthen ourselves and take courage in sorrows and hardships. The shame of some unseemly or dirty thing, for example, one’s clothes, a book, especially a sacred one, or something else, is a demonic dream, which is why it confuses the soul so much. Amen. We must despise everything carnal and count it for nothing. True. (February 16, 1864) And gold and silver, and velvet and silk, and coarse rags and dirty rags, and the dust of the earth - all earth and ashes, all rubbish. Meanwhile, my enemy is - alas! I was embarrassed today during baptism because my Trebnik was dirty. This little thing worries me! I'm a petty person!! A man of exalted spirit would not even pay attention to this! Do not eat or drink greedily or in excess after communion of the Holy Mysteries. For God's sake, don't be a glutton. Look how difficult it is for you to deal with your enemies for gluttony on holidays! Hell of a burden! Whatever unpleasant thing happens to you from people or from the enemy, blame yourself and your sins for everything, and do not rebel against God or people. Consider yourself worthy of all shame. On February 16th (Sunday, the Sunday of the Prodigal), at the wedding of the Turigin clerk, the enemy cruelly laughed at me for my gluttony and voluptuousness that day at Fedorov’s christening. I could not say any litanies or prayers; I became like a horse and couldn’t move my tongue - I reared up, but I couldn’t read. At home I greedily ate veal and soup. Do you think in your stupid head that you are an enemy of God and the Most Pure Mother of God, the Angels and the saints for your gluttony? Yes, you are an enemy of God if you indulge in gluttony. Do not be upset that your relatives are entrusting you with food, accommodation for the future mother and caring for her with the costs of this, but remembering that we are all children of God, that we are not our own and that everything that is not ours is God’s property, joyfully make a sacrifice of love to your relative, thanking God, who deigns you to serve Him in the person of your neighbor. This is the whole arrangement of God who saves you. Do not listen to your carnal man. It’s not castles or chests, but God who saves property. Money, food, drink, clothing - land and water. Food is firewood, money is stones and decay. What is there to be seduced by? To God and to man - that’s who you need to cleave to. Not fortresses and not guns, but God saves cities and states. It is a great thing to rejoice with those who rejoice and to weep with those who weep [Rom. 12, 15]. Not many people behave like this. Most people don’t care about someone else’s grief. From them I am a sinner. By sparing a new skufia for your father, you value the skufia more than your father. Well, what is your skufiya in front of him? - Nothing. How does she match the old man’s gray hair? Elder Eutyches recognizes women's secrets, while I did not suspect. He recognizes the most fluent thoughts. Be careful, consume only the essential amount of food and drink, that is, sufficient to strengthen your strength, and not excess: otherwise Satan will enter you, who, like the Lord, enters a person, among other things, through food, for example, with excess, with delicacy, with greed. Do not drink [...] a lot of tea, coffee, or eat a lot during lunch or dinner. Try to acquire ardent love for God and for human souls. Put the salvation of their souls above all else. Pray harder to God for their salvation. You hear the smell of fish in the fisherman’s rooms, and you are disgusted by the smell. How can you dirty your very insides by eating salted raw fish - herring, and stink worse than that smell in the fisherman's room! But you are still preparing your entrails for a dwelling place for the Lord Jesus Christ! Do not be angry with the parishioners who lie to you in order to hurry you to the service at a time when you have no time for it, perhaps, but, remembering your many sins, and in particular how often you yourself flatter God with your tongue in prayer, humble yourself before God and leave your neighbor his debt and pray for it, so that God will forgive you your sins. What to do? We are all sinners. We must correct those who sin with meekness and under no circumstances become irritated or angry. We must sincerely wish for health, prosperity, long life, salvation and every good thing for our relatives living with us, who feed on our labors and the bounty of the Lord, and suppress selfish malice, or the desire for death for ours, especially for God’s parasites: the Heavenly Father will have more than enough for all the gifts of His goodness, if only we lived in mutual love and goodwill, so that we would be diligent in fulfilling His commandments and achieved perfection in love. This is what our Lord wants from us! This is why He rewards us with His benefits! Let them be perfect in one [Jn. 17, 23] – this is His last wish! Our selfish, self-righteous heart is eager to put everything on its own: they sing wrong - it should be like this, they read wrong - it should be like this, it goes wrong, etc., etc. Although it may be true that others do not do as they should, we should not be irritated and embittered by them. We must crucify our will and our malice everywhere and humbly endure everything, considering ourselves the worst in action. Remember that the Lady prays for the whole world day and night, and especially for those who honor Her, and Her prayers are effective and omnipotent. Look with faith, hope, reverence and love at the raising of Her most pure hands. Always resort to Her with humble faith and hope. To whom God commands what to give freely (whoever comes), give with cordiality, generously, because the Lord freely gave you life, all the gifts of existence, His Body and Blood and the future endless Kingdom. Don’t say prayers hypocritically for too long. And when you pray for a long time according to ready-made prayers, it is easy to become hypocritical. - Not much, but from the heart. Do everything with love: receive with love, treat with love, speak with love; although what you say in excess with love is not a problem: love covers a multitude of sins. From now on, be sure to drink more than just water, but use a little wine [1 Tim. 5, 23]. Otherwise your stomach will stop cooking. When dealing with any Christian person, have the following thought to warn or overthrow the devil’s wickedness: Christ is in all things and in all [Col. 3, And], and have respect for everyone as a member of Christ, as for Christ Himself. Amen. I am a glutton and greedy, I punish myself with my gluttony. Having eaten another meal last night (after a treat at N.P. Ivanov’s) at home, I soon felt heavy and, having prayed half-heartedly, went to bed, and had a bad dream all night, my chest felt heavy, my left arm felt some kind of paralysis; At night I had restless dreams, which, among other things, exposed my greed. God forbid there are two meals in the evening, and especially sieve bread or cod. One beauty! Gluttony, greed and gluttony are criminal in that they take our heart away from God, that the gluttonous man places his pleasure, the pleasure of his heart and his life in food and drinks and in general in sensual pleasures, and not in God - His eternal, beautiful, all-blessed Prototype. A glutton is likened to senseless cattle, while he is created in the image and likeness of God, and thus he distorts his nature, defiles the image of God, and corrupts the church of God. Gluttony is idolatry. A glutton is incapable of engaging in mental work: he becomes overweight and dumb, like a barrel. My wondrous, all-good, most generous, all-powerful, sweet, most worldly help, Lord Jesus, I thank You that You wonderfully save me from the snares of the enemy, both in the classroom before my disciples, and at a party before the glorious and rich of this world, or before the riotous 98 of this world, and everywhere at all times and in every place. Love rejoices at the opportunity to make a sacrifice of love for one’s neighbor, and also rejoices at the fact that unnecessary decay, such as money, clothes, food and drink, is deprived and, therefore, unites more closely with God. But dislike or love for perishable things and stinginess grieves, becomes faint-hearted, and becomes despondent when, willingly or unwillingly, he makes a material sacrifice of love for God and neighbor, because he loves material more than God and neighbor, and does not trust in God, who promises to measure to us with the same measure with which we measure, who says: give, and it will be given to you [Lk. 6, 38], or: love your neighbor as yourself [Matt. 22, 39]. He forgets that for everyone everything is God, rich in mercy, and he should not humbly expect reward and gratitude from those who have benefited, because it is not we, but God who does good for everyone. He has mercy and mercy on everyone, but we have nothing of our own: our labors are unworthy, imperfect, and for ourselves due, necessary and useful. And the reward for them is directly a gift from God. The worker is worthy of food [Matt. 10, 10]. So, do not consider anything of yours to be yours, but God’s and common to you and to the family members entrusted to you by God and other poor people: everything is the gift of God, and do not be proud of your own as if they were their benefactor, but consider them your benefactors. Oh, how necessary it is for the head of a house to have humility! Take precaution: the business of worldly, external, vain wisdom is to monitor in scripture the correctness of signs and the correct use of particles of both. – Pay attention to the inner, to the spirit of scripture. I strive for Your works 99 I must strive for the works of God, and not for the works of the flesh and sin or for the works of the devil. By nourishing the flesh extensively, resting it in long sleep, dressing it in soft, beautiful and expensive clothes, cheering it with a beautiful and spacious home, we pamper it and intensify its passions. On the contrary, the more we deprive her of delicacies, the less we feed her, sleep peacefully and disturb her by getting up early, the more simply we dress and the more simply we live in a simple apartment with simple furniture, the more we trouble our flesh and soul, disturbing them - the better for us, the more humble, patient and kind we become. So, smaller and simpler eat and drink, sleep less, dress more simply, decorate your apartment more simply, have less acquisitions - and you will have Christ in your heart, and you will be strong. Rise upon me a sinless day... 100 - this is the top desire of a Christian every day - to spend the day sinlessly and completely please your Master and shame our common enemy, the crafty and evil devil. I thank Thee, all-merciful and well-behaved Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who called me to You for salvation from the passion of avarice; You mercifully and quickly heard and took away the oppression and darkness and shame of the enemy from my heart. I felt sorry for my brother this and that, but my brother left long ago, and the passion was an obvious dream. Oh lies! Oh, deception! Oh, the dream of the enemy, truly the dream of the enemy, every passion! Another prays, apparently, to God, but the devil is in his heart and does not allow him to pray sincerely, and every word he says is cold and false, because it does not come from the heart and his heart does not at all desire what he asks for with his lips. Oh, woe [what], Christian brethren, woe to us from our enemies and from our passions and addictions, warring in our lives, woe to us from our love for our many-passionate flesh! Those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts [Gal. 5, 24]. What is the post for? To fight with the flesh, to strive for passion. Fight, strive for passions, eradicate them with the help of God. You ask God in prayer - so ask heartily and don’t forget, don’t chat lazily, drowsily, unconsciously, insensitively; If you intercede, ask for someone, intercede heartily, with liveliness, with zeal, and not only mutter unconsciously and without any feeling and desire of the heart with your lips. Sacrifice your heart to God. Not only humans, but also animals - fish, birds, insects, and reptiles - have a sense of self-preservation, which prompts them to defend themselves from ill-wishers and pursuers, and they take on a stern and sometimes formidable appearance when they see their enemies. Respect the sense of self-preservation in every person, do not despise the sometimes stern look he turns towards you. This appearance means that he suspects you to be his ill-wisher and enemy, against whom, out of a sense of self-preservation, he wants to protect himself; try to assure him with sincere affection of your true goodwill towards him and, especially if you are the eldest in the house, do not have a stern and disgusting look towards him: look at him cheerfully, with love, which endures everything and conquers everything. What we should be surprised and in awe of (for example, the reproductive members of a man and a woman), according to the teachings of the devil, we look at with unclean eyes; What should be sacred to us, we turn in thought, and sometimes in deed, into abomination. Oh, woe to us, unclean, vile and nasty! Woe to us that we take demonic dreams for something real and listen to these dreams. Woe to us that we commit lawlessness, knowing that it is lawlessness! Because when is it necessary to connect? When God bless. And God bless me, saying: grow and multiply [Gen. 1, 22]... To whom you feel dislike, try to love him sincerely, and try to show him more mercy or signs of love: give someone something to eat and drink, always speak kindly and humbly to someone else. You're angry - this is your medicine. Anger is cured by love. This is the will of the Lord: And if you love those who love you, what gratitude do you have for that? for sinners also love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what gratitude is that to you? for sinners do the same [Lk. 6, 32 – 33]. And if you greet only your brothers, what special thing are you doing? [Matt. 5, 47]. Lord, help me! Our bodies after the resurrection will be spiritual, not earthly; everything earthly will remain in the earth. Let us, Christians, remembering this future life of ours, gradually renounce everything earthly. At the resurrection of the dead people will be like angels in heaven [Matt. 22, 30; Mk. 12, 25], so spiritual! That is why there will be no food, no drink, no clothing, no air, no warmth to nourish, warm and support our bodies, but truth, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit [Rom. 14, 17]. Now our earthly bodies are supported by the earth, that is, by the earthly elements, but then the elements, having flared up, will be destroyed, the earth and all the works on it will be burned [2 Pet. 3, 10]. So, remembering these future revolutions in our destiny, in our bodies and in our lives and strangely 101 seeing God incarnate, let us withdraw from the vain world, and let us place our minds on the Divine: for this reason God came down to earth, so that he may lead us to Heaven. The spiritual body... The spiritual is directly opposed to the material, elemental. May God be all in all [1 Cor. 15, 28]. Since the Lord composed us from two principles - spiritual and material, from a rational soul and a material body, which has a need for material support, although in all things the same God acts all the forces - then the devil, in spite of God and us, tries in every possible way to benefit from this very duality of our nature, inclining us to trust not in God, but in carnal things and through the flesh [involving] us in all sin - gluttony, fornication and all uncleanness, love of money, covetousness, envy, laziness, theft, stinginess, hatred, murder. So, for example, he inspires us, he forces us to rely not on God, but on money, on food and drink, on human connections, on ranks, distinctions and advantages, on the nobility of the family, on intelligence, on education, on books; inspires us to seek pleasure in food, drink, in clothes, in secular concerts, in theaters, in laughter, in idle talk, in wordplay. But the true servant of God always and in everything relies on his Lord, who acts all in all, the common Father and Provider of all, hearing the saying: Cast all your cares on Him, for He cares for you [1 Pet. 5, 7]. By the confusion and violence beginning in your soul, recognize Belial and immediately oppose him with a stone - Christ - Belial will break his teeth on Him, but it will not reach you. But see, love everyone as yourself. The Lord God shared, so to speak, His endless life with us, making us some kind of gods, for we are all deified by His most pure Flesh and Blood, united with the Divine. Az reh: you are gods, and you are all sons of the Most High [Ps. 81.6 ] (Our Father, Who is in heaven) - should we also share, according to His will, that which serves to support our soul and body - our mind, knowledge, our material property with our neighbors, while He Himself promised us not poverty, but an increase in the talents entrusted to us and increased by us. With the measure you use, it will be measured to you [Matt. 7, 2]. If God accepted us into the communion of His Divinity, into the communion of His Flesh and Blood, then we must have everything in common, without indulging in idleness and parasitism, that is, the rich must help the poor, give alms whenever possible, receive the strange, visit the sick, comfort the sad, instructing the ignorant, admonish the erring, forgive offenses, remembering that we are all Christ’s and Christ will reward everyone and everything. I was hungry, and you gave Me food... and so on [Matt. 25, 35]. The cross and the sign of the cross are the power of God, because the Lord is always inherent in it. In the same way, images of the Lord, the Mother of God, holy Angels and holy people can also be the power of God for believers and work miracles over them. Why? Because by the grace of God the Lord, the Lady, Angels or saints are inherent in them, that is, they are always so close to us, and even closer than these images. True. Experience confirms this quite often. What do theaters bring into human hearts? The spirit of this age: the spirit of idleness, idle talk, idle talk, ridicule, cunning and deceit, the spirit of pride, arrogance - and good morality does not give anyone at all. Writers, like actors, convey to the people what they have within themselves, their own spirit - no more, no less. Do writers and actors think about folk morality? Do they intend to correct popular morals? - No no. How a carnal, pampered person conveniently gets irritated and becomes embarrassed and embittered by every little thing! Anyone who emits a stench is often irritated and embittered by this person (even if he were his wife), sometimes he despises him, is disgusted, while he himself does the same, both intentionally and unintentionally, for we are all gluttons, all smelly. But he willingly forgives himself everything, but not the other, he does it himself - the other shouldn’t do it. He willingly endures his own stench and even intentionally smells what it is like, but he is disgusted by others - and why? Because he doesn’t love another person as much as he loves himself, doesn’t consider him to be his member, doesn’t consider his mistakes as his mistakes, his stench as his stench; sees in him only a stench and this time does not see anything good and worthy of love in him, although perhaps this person has many wonderful qualities, for example, he is tenderly kind, helpful to the point of selflessness, and so on. We must crucify our flesh with passions and not allow them to be in our hearts for any reason, suppressing them in every possible way. For the stench of passions is a thousand times more disgusting to the Lord, holy Angels and holy men than the stench of gases. Let the stench of our neighbor be like incense for us, let love cover everything, all the infirmities of our neighbor, as if it were our own. Let us feel mutual love for each other and remember that there is no greater stench than the stench of passions: anger, irritability, impatience, pride, envy, stinginess, love of money, gluttony (the winds of man are not evil, but gluttony is evil), laziness, idleness and idle talk, stubbornness, disobedience, rudeness, insolence, cruelty, perjury, blasphemy, deceit, etc. Despise the flesh and everything carnal, but be diligent about the soul, about immortal things, especially about mutual love. We live in the air and by the air, and just as winds are necessary in the air, so in our body, which, by the way, consists of air or gases, although our winds are fetid. But we must consider ourselves worthy of every stench for our sins and love the one that emits the stench as our own flesh (not for the stench, because it is naturally unpleasant); 2) because he is another me, a sinner, like me, that this is characteristic of both him and me. How long will we rise above each other, how long will we despise and hate each other? Let nothing be an earthly barrier to love. Let us remember that we are all one stench. But let us take care that in us there is not the stench of passions, but the fragrance of virtues - meekness, humility, patience, kindness, love, etc. We consider others stinking, but we forget about ourselves that we are the same stench and even much worse. Let us in every possible way despise everything carnal - both the stench and the fragrance; we will neither get carried away by it, nor be effeminate and impatient with it; to consider everything as nothing, as a dream of our proud self, or our voluptuous flesh. By praying to the Mother of God, the Angels and the saints, we recognize them as one mystical body of the Church, to which we also belong, although we are sinners, and we believe that out of their love they pray to God for our salvation; praying heartily for the different classes and persons of the earthly fatherland and for the whole world, we also recognize ourselves as one great body with everyone in the spirit of love and wish everyone the best as much as ourselves; finally, praying for the repose of the departed (heavenly, earthly and underworld [Phil. 2:10]), we consider them to be one body with us, a spiritual body, and wish them peace and tranquility in the land of immortality, confessing that they are alive in their souls and that we, too, perhaps very soon, will go to them. This is the fruit of the faith of Christ - the unity of love with everyone: with those in heaven, on earth and in the underworld! How high is the spirit of the Church! Oh, that we would rise to this spirit! Delve into the spirit of Christian worship, into the spirit of litanies, prayers, Sacraments, rituals, and become imbued with it yourself. Woe to those who move away from the Church - they are completely overwhelmed by the spirit of the world, the spirit of malice. You hear that your comrades or anyone else who scolds you is denigrating your honor - do not be angry with them, but wish them all the best from your heart, speak well of them, pray to God for them. If you do this, you will act in a truly Christian manner. Bless those who curse you [Matt. 5, 44]. Undoubtedly, firmly invite anyone to your place, and do not say to yourself: what will I treat everyone who comes to me? He who feeds countless creatures from His countless and inexhaustible bounties will feed both you and your guests and, according to the least measure, He will measure it to you, according to the word of the Savior [Matt. 7, 2]. Put your trust in Him. Your Heavenly Father knows that you need all this [Matt. 6, 32]. Cast all your cares on Him, for He cares for you [1 Pet. 5, 7]. Monasteries that feed pilgrims with gifts never become poor, but grow rich, on the contrary. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything [Phil. 4, 5 – 6]. Give glory to the Heavenly Father, who created you from nothing and provides for you - he will take care of your affairs. He who feeds the birds of the air, neither sowing nor reaping, nor gathering into barns, will feed you and your family and your guests. May faith, hope and love always live in your heart. Be kind to everyone as you are to yourself, and rejoice in every success, every well-being of others as if it were your own, and do not grieve over it, for this is the devil’s envy. Consider nothing as yours and be impartial to everything, even to your own (physical) life, so as not to rely on yourself. Look at the sky, at the earth, at the luminaries, the planets: they do not toil, do not sow, do not reap, do not gather into the granary - and for so many centuries they remain intact, beautiful, rotating in an unchanged order! Will the Heavenly Father, who cares for heaven and earth, abandon you, your body or your soul? Should you cling to earthly goods? I thank You, Lord, my most gracious, most swift and most generous help, for You quickly and graciously save me from the violence of the passions, when I cry out to You in my distress. Do not leave me the rest of my life. What am I without the Lord, without His gracious help, what am I without prayer? - Infirmity. Humiliation and shame come over me. Is it for this reason that your eye is evil, because I am good? [Matt. 20, 15]. So I am crafty, envious because our common Lord and Benefactor is good to everyone. I have, for example, enough content - but why, I think, does such and such a person known to me have as much or more than me? Or one good person gives me a certain amount of money and, together with me, my colleague in the service the same amount or more than me, let’s assume that not for work, or much less work than me, or even for free - and I envy my neighbor, saying to myself: why give him, or: why does he need so much, and not less, why was he compared to me? Where is brotherhood, humility before others, goodwill here? Thus, we are crafty and envious because our Lord is good. I want to give this last one the same as I gave you; Don't I have the power to do what I want? Or is your eye envious because I am kind? [Matt. 20, 14 – 15]. You should not care about bread, as if not paying attention to it, when you see, for example, a piece of it carelessly thrown down to be eaten by cockroaches. His vague pity and annoyance at those who laid him in an open place are from the devil. In general, one must look at bread as a piece of land and not care when it is destroyed by others - people, animals or insects: that is why it exists. How varied is our attachment to bread! Whether you invite someone to visit you - this attachment immediately vaguely manifests itself as embarrassment, doubt and insincerity of the invitation and some kind of fear of impoverishment! Obviously, this feeling of embarrassment, fear, and apprehension should be considered a dream by the enemy. The Lord the Provider is everything for us; and our body, food and drink, clothes, money, furniture, dishes - all this is earth, dust, which is not worth dealing with, which is not worth appreciating, which is not worth regretting and which is not worth worrying about. Amen. Pagan celebration of Sundays and holidays. On Sundays and holidays, we do not visit the sick, we do not help the poor, we do not rush to the church of God, we do not read the Gospel, we do not engage in soul-saving conversations, but we go to visit people to kill time in idle talk or idle play, we worry about delicacies and indulge in delicacies and intemperance in food and drink; many indulge in drunkenness deliberately on holiday; We go to the theater or club, or at home we read empty books, such as magazines, newspapers, novels, etc. Oh, adulterous and sinful world! The Savior is not only to save us when sins and passion have overcome us, when we are already entangled in them, but also to save us through our prayer when sins and passion are still intensifying to break into us, when they are fighting us. We must not sleep and give up cowardly when passions overcome us, but at this very time we must be on our guard, stay awake and pray to Christ that He will not allow us to sin. It is not necessary to save a house from a fire when the fire has already spread everywhere in it, but best of all when the flames are just beginning. So it is with the soul. Soul is home. passions are fire. Give no place to the devil [Eph. 4, 27)]. Thus, yesterday I got rid of stinginess and the spirit of hostility towards the brethren, who often come to me for tea. As soon as I felt the attack on the heart of stinginess, some kind of enmity and embarrassment, I immediately turned to the Savior with a prayer, so that He would not allow me to sin not only externally, but also internally and would give me the strength to treat my brethren with love - and as soon as I called out to my God, my Savior, I immediately felt that the embarrassment and the spirit of stinginess and hostility left me, I felt the peace of God and strength in myself spiritual, the strength not to spare anything for the brethren, as for oneself, and to treat them with brotherly love. Glory and thanksgiving for this to my Lord, my Savior. Do not be afraid of the struggle and do not run away from it: where there is no struggle, there is no virtue; where there is no temptation of fidelity and love, it is unknown whether there is fidelity and love for the Lord. Our faith, hope and love are known in adversity, that is, in labor and difficult circumstances, external or internal - in illness, in sorrow, in deprivation. One woman in the church asked me to pray for her husband John, who was living with her in enmity and running from her. I immediately knelt down and began to pray, and the devil, who tries to put his barriers to us everywhere, put doubt in my heart: will God hear me without the stole, and my soul became heavy from doubt. I went to the altar and put on the stole; then he knelt before the throne and began to pray, but did not have peace and boldness in his heart because he doubted whether God would hear me without the stole, as if grace was not in me, but in the stole, which is one sign of grace, just as, for example, at a school there is a sign - a board with the inscription: school. Then, leaving the church with a tightness in my heart, I repented of my ignorance and doubt, remembering that many saints in different places prayed for themselves and other people without stoles (especially since many of them were not priests and were heard by God) and that I myself mostly pray to God without stoles at home or on the street, and the Lord hears and saves me just as much as in the church - and my tightness passed, my heart was pacified and expanded. In this life, lend in every possible way to the Lord in the person of your neighbor, so that in every possible way you can intercede with Him for eternal life. By showing disrespect and hatred for one person, you lose internal respect for every person, for we are all one body, and you internally humiliate yourself and feel this humiliation, for I and my neighbor are one, and by respecting my neighbor, I respect myself, and by humiliating him, I humiliate myself. Amen. Esau and Jacob. Fasters delight in the blessing of the Heavenly Father and the Kingdom of Heaven from gluttons and those addicted to the blessings of earthly life. Esau found his brother not eating a meat pot, but eating a simple stew made from seeds. This shows Jacob as a faster, and Esau showed his greed for food and drink and exchanged the blessing of the birthright for stew. Esau depicts Christians who are greedy for food and drink and, in general, for earthly goods, who exchange the heavenly inheritance and the eternal blessing of the Heavenly Father. (Come, ye blessed of My Father [Matthew 25:34].) My characteristics: proud, proud, disrespectful, grumpy, impatient, irritable, angry, dissatisfied, deceitful, flattering, lazy, prone to laughter, cunning, deception. A glutton makes his heart morally powerless for prayer and for any virtue: he wants to pray sincerely but cannot; the heart, like a burden, distracts his thoughts from heavenly blessings and does not feel the proper respect and reverence for them. He would like to be completely imbued with the feeling of the greatness of God or His infinitely great mercies towards us, he would like to enjoy the contemplation of the economy of our salvation, he would like to be an obedient servant of the Lord Savior - but he cannot: the heart is like a stone, insensitive and powerless due to gluttony; I would like to repent - but I cannot. During Lent, do not go to dinner parties, do not play cards, do not drink tea, do not smoke tobacco. Along with greed when consuming food and drink, especially if they are tasty, the spirit (devil) of greed, weakness and weakness of the heart and body enters the heart and remains in it until it is driven out by fervent prayer. Oh, how delicious food and drink pamper the flesh, relax and kill the spirit, making it incapable of spiritual affairs: for composing spiritual works, for example, sermons, discussions on spiritual subjects, for teaching, for heartfelt prayer, for reading the word of God, for composing letters. Why do many people fail in spiritual matters? - From carnal delicacy. The heart of an unclean, vile person is ready to blame heaven itself for uncleanness rather than itself, but it itself is pure. Such rubbish! After communion directly, the Lord instructs me with both bitter and sweet experience that He is everything to me and that I should consider everything in the world - food, drink, money, clothing and various decorations made of matter - as nothing, and not to spare anything and, if they offend, take away - not to take revenge, for He Himself is both vengeance and reward. Amen. How sweet it was for me to be convinced that everything is the Lord for me and everything earthly is nothing. Poor in spirit [Matt. 5, 3]. A person who is poor in spirit will not condemn another, or be angry with him, or envy anyone, or offend anyone. He condemns himself, and only himself, in everything, he is a blabbermouth, he tries to tear out his own log and does not concern himself with his neighbor’s twigs; he is embittered towards himself alone for his countless sins, but he is forgiving towards his brother because he knows the common weakness: he does not envy anyone, because he considers himself unworthy of what he has; mourns the impurities of his heart: his inner adultery, deceit, hypocrisy, laziness, blasphemous and nasty thoughts. They collect visible wealth and neglect the collection of spiritual wealth, the only one needed. Theme is the word on the Entry into the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary. About taking children to church as the best place for education, and about church as the best place for general education. What a treasure came out of the church - the Blessed Virgin Mary! An ordinary word, even a word of love, for example brother, sister, spoken with a spirit of unlove, pride, disdain, coldly, is often insulted to the core. The kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and worthy of people’s approval [Rom. 14, 17–18]. Looking at your bowel movements, remember that you are made of earth and water, and even stinking ones, and humble yourself very much, and do not be captivated by the charm of food and drink, seeing their end. If you want to be a human being, eat and drink less and do not consider it a loss if you did not have lunch or drink tea, but on the contrary, consider it a gain. God! I thank You that I am not like other people, robbers, offenders, adulterers, or like this publican: I fast twice a week, I give a tenth of everything I acquire [Lk. 18, I – 12]. Oh, Heartbreaker of all! Many of us are indeed like this Pharisee, and I am the first. Inwardly, in the secret of our hearts, we boast, we exalt ourselves before our brothers, and especially in the church, before Your face, where great humility is primarily required of us, we secretly list our virtues, we delight in them, and we viciously humiliate our brethren, turning them into nothing, as if they were nothing, considering them alien to all virtue and full of all evil, not imagining that, perhaps, my brother at that very time, as I condemn him, he sincerely, ardently repents before You, and You, who know our hearts, have already been reconciled with him in Christ Jesus, the Lamb of God, who took upon Himself the sins of the world; in fact, we point out known sinners to God, as if asking for His judgment on them, and we ourselves place ourselves high, high above them! In fact, we list our virtues, imaginary or true, and say: I am pious, but he is not; I sincerely pray, but he is a hypocrite; Here I am fasting, but others are not fasting; Here I give alms, and others are stingy, unyielding - as only the earth bears them! Yes, I am a perfect person in comparison with such and such and am worth the great mercies of God! How am I still not higher in service than so-and-so? How can I not take advantage of the advantages and benefits that are greater in comparison with it? Or how does he still occupy such and such a place? How is he still living? Why doesn't he die? Why am I, so perfect, in a low place? Why am I not rich? Not the boss? And so on. This is our pride, this is our anger! Oh, truly, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven [Matt. 5, 3 ]! If you want the Heavenly Powers, the Forerunner and all the saints to listen to your prayer, fast. Be obedient to the commandment of fasting, which the Lord, the Forerunner and all the saints preached both by word and example. Similis simili gaudet 102. Be like the saints in the holiness of your life - and they will always be obedient to you. I confess to You, Most Righteous Judge and Love of Mankind, my sins: I broke my fast because of man-pleasing and gluttony; I laughed out of man-pleasing, forgetting You; I overate, got drunk, became greedy, doubted, calling on Your name at the table. Cleanse, Lord, my sins and do not remember them, because of the multitude of Your mercy and Your mercies, and teach me to do Your will. Give me the grace to refuse funeral dinner parties, especially during Lent. When praying to God, one must always imagine His infinite greatness, the worship of Him by a thousand thousands and the darkness of heavenly angels and saints; also His omnipresence and omniscience, His infinite goodness, truth and holiness. Pray slowly, calmly, feeling in your heart the truth of every word. When in prayer you call the Most Holy Virgin Mother of God Most Holy, Most Pure, Most Immaculate, Most Good, imagine that Her very being is eternal holiness, unshakable, unchangeable, unimaginable, inconceivable and in the eyes of Angels 103 . Think the same about all the Angels and saints, that is, that their essence is holiness and goodness. It’s good not to eat in the evening: you feel prayer better, you pray more heartily, with a contrite heart, but when you’re well-fed, you pray – the words of prayer seem to lie in some kind of mud and have no effect. The miser, sparing something for his neighbor, is mistaken in his heart in the sense that he considers the common wealth only his own, considers the gifts of God to be his exclusively property, does not love his neighbor as himself, considering him something alien to himself, far from himself, and, finally, lawlessly and unnaturally clings his heart to the dust, valuing it more than his neighbor and forgetting that the whole earth is subjugated to man with everything, what fills her. May there be unity between us! We will begin to consider everything earthly alien and distant from ourselves! Let us remember that everything for us is the Lord, our Heavenly Father. Just as we ourselves love the generosity of God and man, so we ourselves will be generous to others. We are amazingly proud and stingy: for example, we put three pieces of sugar or more in our glass of tea, and you drink two or three glasses - and it doesn’t matter, but it’s a pity to give the servants three pieces of everything. Ugh, what disgusting pride! Or again - you drink too much - nothing, frequent guests or relatives drink too much - trouble. My heart is breaking. What affection for the dust! What hope for dust and water. What a lack of love for one's neighbor, for whom everything is. If necessary, my boots will not wear out and my clothes will not tear, although I will wear them for a long time, because I remember God’s poor people and feed them. We must remember whose sheep these are. Their owner is the Creator and Lord of heaven and earth, the Lord and Father of Angels and men. It is a wonderful thing to cover with love the mistakes of our neighbor against us and not impute them. Good conquers evil and immediately places our enemies in our favor. Always consider it a great happiness to talk in prayer with the Lord, or with the Most Pure Lady Theotokos, or with Angels, or with holy people, and with joy, and with awe of reverence, always pray to them, remembering with whom you are talking, unclean and insignificant worm. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory – and not ours. We ourselves would like to reign with our passions, that is, to put everything on our own: we would rely on our own strength, and not Yours, we would seek our own glory, and not Yours, - but this desire in us is demonic. We must submit everything to Your will, seek Your power in everything we do, and do everything for Your glory. Do everything for the glory of God [1 Cor. 10, 31]. Before the Iveron Mother of God, read the canon of Hodegetria. It is a grave sin when someone responds to malice with malice, but it is incomparably graver when someone responds to tender love and affection with malice and irritability of the heart. This is close to the malice of Judas, who paid for the Lord’s love for him with malice and finally concluded with betrayal. One must respond to love and caresses with all possible love and caresses and not get tired of them. Pure love is the breath of the Spirit of God, and to be angry with the lover means to be angry with the Spirit of love Himself. There are such greedy people who don’t want to eat, but eat. I, the damned, greedy dog, belong to them. What grace, what peace, space, what joy there is in my soul when I eat and drink in moderation, when, for example, I don’t eat anything in the evening, but just drink tea, and in the morning I just have a little snack of white bread! What clarity in the soul! How conveniently in the name of the Lord I fight against opposing forces and how conveniently I defeat them! What a stream flows from my tongue and heart when I speak in class! How free I am with my students! Golden abstinence! You completely free my hands! Stay with me! Otherwise, the habit of chewing and tickling the taste overcomes me! I am still a child, although I have long since reached manhood. God! Help! Do not hesitate to welcome everyone whom the Lord sends to your table; Nourish and warm them like your own flesh. This is the law and the prophets [Matt. 7, 12]. And don’t feel sorry for anyone but yourself. May we all be one, and may there be unity in everything. With your humble and meek behavior, set an example to the proud how they should treat you and others. With a proud and pompous address you will only teach pride and pompousness - and do not complain later if your household becomes proud, wayward, capricious, angry and disobedient. What else shows that God is one? From the fact that the Gospel and sound reason require from people unity in thoughts and life as the highest virtue, as the height of desires to which holy faith strives. Az reh: you are gods, and you are all sons of the Most High [Ps. 81, 6]. With great humility, kindness, generosity and long-suffering, treat your neighbors as gods, as sons of the Most High, although they bear the wounds of sins. Remember that, according to the word of Scripture, they are gods. Treat them cordially and generously, tolerate their mistakes, insults and shortcomings, and meekly and lovingly correct those who are in error. Consider yourself lower and worse than everyone else, do not get angry at anyone for anything, even if you have sinned against God, remembering that God is long-suffering and abundantly merciful. But where prudent severity is needed, do not hesitate to use it, only with love. Holy men of God are restored images of God. Through various virtues in life, through labor and sweat, they achieved the complete image of God and serve for us as living examples of pleasing God. This is why we honor them and make their images, so that, looking at them as if they were alive, honoring them and worshiping them, we look with our minds and the eyes of our hearts at their faith and virtues and imitate them and thereby sanctify the name of the common, their and our Heavenly, Holy, Blessed Father. Lutherans and Englishmen do not have these living examples of faith and virtue before their eyes. Why, they say, should we look to the examples of saints? We have the best and highest example - Jesus Christ Himself. - So, He is truly our highest and most perfect example, but very many consider this example inimitable for themselves: after all, He, they say, was the God-man, and we are people, weak creatures - where can we imitate Him? But the saints, by their lives, show us that it is possible and convenient to imitate Jesus Christ and become like Him, that whoever believes in the works that the Lord did, he will also do, and even greater things than these [Jn. 14, 12]. How can one not venerate the saints after this? Not to honor them means not to honor virtue, not to honor God Himself, who rests in the saints, means to spontaneously deprive oneself of examples of virtue and make it difficult for oneself to succeed in faith and virtue, which means to deprive oneself of prayer books before God. The element of light was first created, and then, as it were, poured into vessels - into celestial bodies. So God is endless light, an abyss of light; He created the intelligent firmament - the heavenly powers, and sanctified them with the light of the Divine, and consecrated them as vessels of light and shrines. Likewise, holy people are vessels of light and shrines. By repeating twice in prayer: Saint NN, pray to God for us, we thereby show a living faith in his prayers and a strong desire for his prayers and a strong desire for spiritual benefits. For if we strongly desire something, we ask for it not once or even twice, but many times. The wisdom of a Christian is to cut off one’s own will and follow the will of God in everything. Amen. What do you have that you wouldn't get? [ 1 Cor. 4, 7]. Did you not receive your very birth from God? When standing in prayer and calling on the name of God, remember that the God you call upon is everything for you at all times and pray with ardent love and reverence. When giving alms to the poor or teaching a blessing to parishioners approaching the blessing, address yourself graciously, meekly, kindly, cordially, calling them your lords and mistresses, for this is acceptable in the sight of the Lord who is in them. Tell me: how will you love communication with the Lord when you love communication only with food and drink and money, that is, when you cling to them with your heart? Who instills in us a passion for external splendor in clothing and decorations on the body and in the home? Anyone who generally instills a passion for earthly goods, so that we do not cleave to God and do not think about the eternal blessings of the Kingdom of Heaven, is, in a word, the devil. I thank You, Lord Jesus Christ, God of peace, for You have reconciled our warring hearts through my prayer. Amen. Do not be embittered in your heart against your wife when she, like a dove to a dove, comes to caress you, even if you are doing the work, especially if it is mechanical or something that can conveniently be put off for a few minutes. Woe to the embittered: sorrow, oppression and darkness will remain in his heart. Even do a good deed (for example, hosting strangers for the night) with the consent of your wife, so as not to destroy the mutual family peace, which there is nothing more valuable. Amen. About the prayer to the Most Holy Lady Theotokos. What kind of mother is there who, when her son or daughter asks for bread, will give them a stone, or, when they ask for a fish, will give them a snake? If an earthly mother, being a sinner, knows how to give good gifts to her children, then how much more so than the Mother of God [Matt. 7, 9 – 11 ], all-good, all-holy, Mother by grace of all Christians, especially the Mother of those who with faith and love partake of the most pure Body and Blood of her Son and God and are zealous for the Church of God, will she give blessings to those who ask Her, for example, the blessings of meekness, humility, purity of heart, spiritual wisdom of healing, etc.? I thank You, Most Holy, Most Gracious and All-Beneficent Mother of our Peace - the Lord Jesus Christ, who has pacified and reconciled my restless and embittered heart with my wife. I thank You that You also surround me with the joys of deliverance, just like our Lord and Yours and Your Son. Amen. When something arouses laughter in you and your insides rush to laughter, say to yourself: how dare I laugh in the face of the Lord God, before whom one should always be with fear and reverence? Laughter rekoh: sin [Eccl. 2, 2], also say through the mouth of the wise Solomon. Try to read your evening prayers heartily, even though you feel sleepy; Do not spare your body for the Lord. Why do you know: will this be your last evening prayer? Maybe you’ll go to bed and not wake up, or you’ll wake up feeling unwell. Therefore, always, child, cleanse your sins in the evening with fervent prayer. When the Lord tells you to be an archpriest, gather together His scattered children, protect them all with the stronghold of God’s commandments, give them all food: the Gospel words and lives and the words of the saints, pluck from them by the grace of God the tares of many different sins - idleness, absent-mindedness, laziness, idle talk, carelessness about one’s salvation, covetousness, etc.; try to raise the children of God for eternal bliss in the abodes of the Heavenly Father. Instill in parents that they must educate children of light not so much for the light, but for the adulterous and sinful world, which lies entirely in evil [1 John. 5, 19], which passes away, and for the Heavenly Father - so that first of all they themselves know and teach children to know the Gospel, this highest and at the same time the simplest Christian science; so that they worry and speak not about many things, but about the one thing that is needed [Lk. 10, 41 – 42 ]; so that they try to make their children not only happy here, but, what is most necessary, blessed in eternity; so that the Christian foundation is laid stronger in the hearts - love for God and neighbor, faith in Jesus Christ, hope for the resurrection of the dead, universal judgment and fear of an eternal ill-fated fate in hell along with the devils. And yourself, leave behind relaxation and lethargy of spirit and try to bring everyone out of this disastrous state. While the people were sleeping, the enemy came... [Matt. 13, 25]. Everyone dozed off and fell asleep... [Matt. 25, 5]. Instill in everyone that the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God [1 Cor. 3, 19], so that they do not blindly follow the rules and customs of worldly education and worldly wisdom; say that they are Christians and first of all they must know their Christian science - the Gospel, and then on this cornerstone they built other temporary knowledge useful for life. Say that at the trial all other knowledge will turn out to be straw that will burn. When compiling the Old Testament history for children and speaking about God the Creator and about the beginning of all things and man, instill in all children to arrange their lives according to the commandments of God, as all bodies in heaven (the firmament of heaven) and on earth follow these commandments; inspire that man is the image of God, and his duty is to become like the holiness of life to his Prototype and unite with Him, to be one spirit with Him, since our body is one with the air, water and earth around us; that we must love Him with all our heart and soul and with all our strength, since He is everything to us; that since we all came from one blood, from one person, and most importantly, from one Heavenly Father and are quickened by His Spirit alone and all benefit from the blessings of His Fatherly hands, then we should all live in mutual love, feeling complete contempt for malice, envy, pride and other passions that come from the devil, the enemy of God and ours, who seeks to constantly keep us at enmity both among ourselves and with God (point to the first sin, as the source of all sins, the entire abyss of sin; for the sin of Cain, for subsequent sins). What useful science can be made from Old Testament history, what bright and simple idea can be carried through all of history; it must be prominently displayed everywhere at every opportunity. Help me, God! Display everywhere the purpose of a person, his duties to God and neighbor, church, civil, family duties; show examples from the same story of how to perform them. Point out to both Orthodox pastors and laity that Christians of other faiths live incomparably better than theirs: they spend holidays well, in reading Gospel, do not get drunk, pray well at home and in church, with reverence, and in general fulfill Christian duties better than the Orthodox; They prepare well for communion. When presenting Old Testament history, follow the prophecies and show them [by example] that they were fulfilled in the New Testament, and when presenting New Testament prophecies, say that they will certainly come true, just as the Old Testament ones came true: the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, Dathan and Abiron, Uzzah, 250 rebels. Eutychy the Elder is a wanderer, a simple, unlearned old man, but an old man of holy life, who has nothing but his staff, but in his soul hides and carries spiritual wealth - the abundant grace of the Holy Spirit; he is a great zealot for the glory of the name of God; he sees with spiritual eyes the state of modern society, sees the coldness of the shepherds, especially the chief shepherd living in the capital; he sees the state of mind of people, especially everyone who talks to him. He loves the Lord Jesus and the Blessed Virgin Mary. Through his prayers, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner, and enlighten and strengthen me. Amen. I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You hid this from the wise and prudent and revealed it to babes. Hey, Father! For such was Your good pleasure [Lk. 10, 21 ]! Story. To instill that the image of God in man is broken, crushed, although not destroyed, and that it had to be restored and renewed. And who could do this except the Creator? Who can fix a broken watch other than a watchmaker? So it is here. We needed a Savior, the Son of God Jesus Christ. To instill faith in the One Crucified for us and in the sign of the cross, so that he is depicted well. Humble yourself before your brothers, always receiving them with love and affection and cordially inviting them to the table for dinner or tea. Be constant in love. You are the same ecu [Ps. 101, 28]. Beat the worm of pride when reading any sacred book, which moves in the heart and humiliates both the author and his words. Beat the worm of pride and coldness towards your neighbor and always kindle love for your neighbor; always be ardent in love. The Kingdom of Heaven is taken by force [Matt. 11, 12]. Deny yourself, for it is said from the Lord: whoever wants to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and come after Me [Mk. 8, 34 ]; let him deny himself, that is, his old, many-passionate man, who is corrupted by his deceitful lusts [Eph. 4, 22]. How to do this and do it? Yes, that's how it is. A brother who often comes to you to eat and drink (this is what a carnal man thinks, although a brother also comes out of a feeling of familial love or loneliness, to spend time with someone): a vague feeling of hatred for him is immediately born in your heart, you don’t want to see him - why does he come so often? Cut off and immediately cut off this feeling and always accept it with unchanging love and affection, as you would yourself, and do not regret anything for it, as for yourself. If you do this, you will deny yourself; or, for example, someone treated you rudely, viciously - do not be angry with him and do not repay rudeness for rudeness, insolence for insolence, and bear with this act of your brother with meekness, not allowing in your heart [to be indignant] the slightest feeling of hatred and revenge towards your neighbor. When you do this and continue to do so, you are denying yourself. When you do not want to go to church for divine services on holidays, but you, having overcome laziness and the aversion of the flesh from the church of God, force yourself and will always force yourself to go to divine services and stand in it with reverence, attentive meditation and prayer, then you deny yourself. If you overcome your carnal reluctance to read the Gospel and sacred books and read them with meditation and desire, putting into your heart what you read, then you are denying yourself. If you overcome laziness in prayer and cleanse yourself through repentance and communion, and you pray at home every day with zeal and start fasting, confession and communion every year, then you will again do the work of self-sacrifice. Thus, reject everything multi-passionate, carnal man. Our carnal man does not love God with all his heart and his neighbor as himself, but loves only himself. But we must deny ourselves, crucify self-love, or self-love. Or here’s another thing: an unclean thought has come into your head, sank into your heart and is intensifying to arouse unclean movements in the flesh - drive it immediately out of your head and heart with the image of the Lord standing before you, for Whom an unrighteous and unclean thought is an abomination; If a blasphemous thought about any sacred thing or doubt about any truth of the faith has sunk into your soul, cut it off immediately with the sword of the word of God (and for this, study the word of God, especially the Gospel) or with the faith of the entire Church and common sense. All passions, all bad, crafty and blasphemous thoughts are like birds of a feather, they all grow in the fields of demons, and by confusion and carnal pleasure, by their captivating power, you can immediately recognize them, whose generation they are. Consider them a dream and cut them off immediately. A nasty, crafty or blasphemous thought comes to you with violence, confuses, darkens, oppresses, torments you, say: I know you, where you come from, I despise you, I spit on you; I doubted the presence of the Lord in a certain place, you were embarrassed, doubt darkened you, plunged you into sorrow and distress, say: I know you, where you are from, I neglect you. Someone came to visit you, for example a relative, an acquaintance - you feel disgust for him, embarrassment, and sometimes hatred, say: I know, my heart, what you are infected with: a misanthrope and a miserly devil nests in you - I don’t listen to you, I want to caress my neighbor and so I kindly, certainly kindly ask him - as I want to be received affectionately, as they really accept me affectionately. For it is said: in everything you want people to do to you, do so to them, for this is the law and the prophets [Matt. 7, 12]. The feeling of disgust towards one’s neighbor, an unpleasant, painful, violent feeling, confusing, darkening the soul, comes from the same devil from whom all the previously mentioned thoughts and feelings come, for the fruit is the same - the fruit of mental death and physical tightness. By their fruits you will recognize them [Matt. 7, 16]. My simple soul! You know where all the tightness comes from. You are simple, but here you feel cramped. This means that someone is oppressing you, someone is acting differently in you. But our God has space and peace. I put the ecu on my spacious nose 104 [Ps. 30, 9]. Izvedemyan latitude 105 [Ps. 17, 20]. Widened the ecu of my feet 106 [Ps. 17, 37]. So, in a moment, guess from whom the tightness comes to you and what it brings - it is from the devil and brings sin, for example, the tightness of hatred towards your neighbor. Reject it instantly along with sin. Plant faith, faith in the hearts of children and adults, then they will be happy here and blessed in eternity. Love a person, despite any of his whims, like a temporary illness, just as you want to be loved, despite any of your whims. Melancholy, despondency, despair torment your heart - immediately call the Savior for help or the Mother of God - that’s why the Savior is there, that’s why Mati Spasova is there, to save us from all evils, troubles and misfortunes. You gave someone something for free and regretted it - and sorrow, crampedness, despondency, darkness took you - this is a demonic action: call on the Lord immediately for help or call relentlessly until the pity, crampedness, despondency, darkness passes. Make sure that everything earthly is rubbish, do not value anything and do not attach your heart to anything; make sure in your heart that you should love your neighbor just as you love yourself, wish him as much contentment and happiness as you do yourself, even more, for out of love for him you must sacrifice your contentment, wealth and tranquility, and even honor, security, and life itself. An evil thought came into your head during prayer and sank into your heart and stung you, oppresses, scorches and darkens you - again know that this is a devilish obsession, a demonic dream, and again call on the Lord to help protect you from the abominations of the enemy. You feel coldness and disgust in your heart from your wife caressing you or from relatives, acquaintances, comrades who come to you, and at the same time despondency, melancholy from their presence - again make sure that this is a demonic obsession and fight it internally, calling on the Savior, or the Trinity, or the Mother of God for help, and you will get rid of the all-evil enemy. Try in every possible way to acquire the one, everlasting, unchanging spirit of love and be faithful to this spirit constantly, despising any spirit of hostility, not tolerating it even for a minute. Do not seek in everything what is pleasant and pleasing to the flesh, otherwise you will have an aversion to everything that is unpleasant, and since these unpleasant things have contact with a person or are in him or on him, you will have an aversion to the person himself, and through this you will act contrary to the commandment of God and you will lose your spiritual peace, not having it until then, until you repent of your folly. You must be indifferent to everything in the world, except sin. True. When you make lunch (mass) or dinner, do not invite your friends, nor your brothers, nor your relatives, nor rich neighbors, so that they do not invite you and you receive reward. But when you make a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind [Lk. 14, 12 – 13]. Do not be partial during mass, do not send prosphora only to the noble and rich. I thank You, Lord, for You have delivered me from the sin of bearing false witness against Your poor, from the sin to which my boss, evil before them, forced me. The holiday of the Nativity of Christ is approaching. How do Christians prepare for the holiday? All the concern is about appearance, about vanity: they clean the rooms, clean the dishes, prepare new things; those who have children prepare a Christmas tree; No one even thinks about spiritual preparation through abstinence, reading the Holy Scriptures, church and generally sacred or spiritual books. Let us spend some time reverently contemplating the purpose of the coming of the Son of God into the world and how we could better and more conveniently meet this purpose! Oh, what a great mystery of piety: God appeared in the flesh [1 Tim. 3, 16 ]! Man is God, and the chosen humanity that came from him will make Adam God. Me, an insignificant creature, is elevated by God the Word incarnate to divine dignity! Ole benevolence! Ole terrible sacrament! To be equal to my desire by placing the all-evil serpent in the Creator, as if to capture a captive: By You, O All-Pure One, I would call, having been most truly deified: For you, O Mother of God, gave birth to me who deified me ecu 107. Arise, Christian man, from your sinful slumber, shake off the earthly vanity from your thoughts and hearts, rise from the earth and look to heaven: there God the Word, incarnate and made man, wants to lead you to endless life. Tell me, do you clear away the thorns, do you cultivate the field of your heart? Answer. Spare not your flesh for the good of your neighbors, and especially for God, and nothing of things. Work joyfully and worry about your flesh and soul for your neighbors, joyfully give to those in need and in demand. Do not covet the flesh and have no attachment to anything material. If someone else’s flesh tempts you, say to yourself: this is earth, but about the person himself, about his soul, say: this is the image of God, and the image of God must be holy, like me, for I am the image of God. Remember officer Chebunkin. Remember Elizabeth drinking. Good-looking and pleasant-tasting food and drink are the same charm as a beautiful, white and ruddy face, or just white, and he who is greedy for food and drink, for delicacies, is also greedy for beautiful flesh; his voluptuous heart would be ready to use all beautiful flesh as a means to satisfy the voluptuousness of the flesh, if it were not for the Gospel and conscience and the opinion of others that held him back. Why was the Blessed Virgin Mary betrothed to Joseph and called his wife? Because sin and death entered through the wife: it was necessary for salvation to shine through the virgin wife. Prayers must be heeded with the heart, because they are the voice of the heart; as well as reading. Since Adam and Eve fell into the sin of eating from the forbidden tree, food for me has become a delight and a reason for sin. With the cross and in the cross, just as in the sign of the cross, the Lord Jesus Christ, as living and life-giving, is always with us and always works various forces for our salvation through faith in Him, our God and Savior. Glory to our Lord for this, who is always with us. Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen [Matt. 28, 20]. Just as the Lord is simple in His holiness and in all perfections, so is His Mother, the Most Holy Virgin Mary. Amen. Jesus Christ, the Son of God - wondrous and glorious and the greatest sacrament and miracle is Her fruit (like an apple is the fruit of an apple tree), one with Her. What a close union! What communication! The blood of Mary and the blood of Jesus Christ are one blood! The spirit of Mary and the spirit of Jesus are one spirit! Participants of the Divine Mysteries! Know how you most sincerely commune with the Lord and the Most Pure Virgin Mary if you commune worthily! What boldness do you have towards them! What friendship with Them! What purity they must have, purity in thoughts, desires, words, actions! What love for God and neighbor! What meekness, humility, gentleness! What dispassion for earthly things! What an ardent desire for heavenly, purest, eternal pleasures! I marvel, Master Lord Jesus Christ, my God, at the almighty power of Your Divine Mysteries, which delivers me from so much heaviness, crampedness, weakness, and sinfulness immediately after communing them. Oh my God! What a blessing! What an obvious miracle! What obvious mercy! Truly, Your power is made perfect in weakness [2 Cor. 12, 9]. There is no need to eat a lot on the eve of the Liturgy, especially fish with black bread, and especially raw fish, meat, butter, milk; be content with more tea. Glory to the power of Your Cross, Lord! When evil demonic despondency overcame me on the evening of December 28 and the enemy bound both my heart and tongue in silence, I crossed my womb three times, for the glory of the Trinity - and the evil despondency disappeared, I felt at ease and at peace. New Year is just around the corner. What about me? Will I really remain an old sinner in the new year? With the beginning of the new year, won’t I begin to improve my life? Will I really remain the same greedy glutton? God! Let the rain make a good start 109. God! Let me put on the new man! Gain patience. To endure everything, not to be irritated by anything, to reprove and admonish with meekness and love. The spirit of impatience and irritability towards our neighbors for their misdeeds means that we do not love them, but love only ourselves because they do something unpleasant to us, and that they cause mental and physical harm to themselves, and anger God with their sins - we do not grieve about that. We need to root for them and feel sorry for them, pray and cry. We tolerate a lot from people we love and respect, but we do not tolerate unpleasant trifles from those we dislike and disrespect. Truly there is a Lord in this place, but I do not know! [ Gen. 28, 16]. The Lord is constantly with me and saves me, the calling one, from the fire and crampedness of passions; but I often walk around, act as if He did not exist, and forget about Him. We must set the Lord before us, for He is at my right hand, so that I may not be moved [Ps. 15, 8]. Do not assert what you do not know for certain, so that you do not soon be ashamed of being caught in a lie. Don’t be ashamed to say: I don’t know when you really don’t know something. At least he should have known that. Remember who is the father of all lies. When depicting the sign of the cross, believe and constantly remember that your sins are nailed to the Cross. When you fall into sin, immediately condemn yourself sincerely and make the sign of the cross on yourself, saying: Lord! You nailed our sins to the cross, nail my real sin to Your cross and have mercy on me according to Your great mercy, and your sin will be cleansed. Amen. All kinds of sins and passions are ready to break into the soul and are intensifying to burst into it every minute, but courageously and vigilantly fight them until your last breath, considering them to be a dream of the imagination. For the sake of humility, we must not forget our primitive state - the state of poverty, the state of rank, ignorance, insignificance. Today (January 5), during Matins, I was a completely indecent vessel of the Lord in soul and body: my heart was occupied by the enemy, my throat was clogged, I had no voice, and the service was heartless, dull, worthless, and all from what? - From gluttony and overeating, and specifically from crackers with cream, and even raspberries. True. Here's a treat for you. Through delicacy we connect with the devil. This is confirmed by the word of God, and my constant experience! God! Help me stop gluttony. Give me the grace to eat only black bread with water or milk and never eat white bread crackers. God! Enlighten my mind, so that I do not believe that life and pleasure lie in overeating, so that I do not think that a large amount of food strengthens me. Whether you pray or read, think about everything. Be so sure of the Lord’s closeness to you that you feel that when you pray to God, you are touching Him not only with your thoughts and heart, but also with your lips and tongue. The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart [Rom. 10.8], that is, God. May the following conviction always be inherent in your heart: all of us, people, are one (brothers), and for all of us, everything is God, the all-good, all-powerful, inexhaustible source; but the devil, the enemy of the human race, can and does act in everyone, whose evil produced in people must be overcome with goodness, patience, meekness, and condescension. Always be simple - one love. Do not confuse man - this image of God - with the evil that is in him, because evil is only his accidental misfortune, illness, demonic dream, but his being - the image of God - still remains in him. Always be clothed in Christ. I thank You, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, for the miracles of Your power in me, a sinner. Forsake me not, Lover of Mankind, Creator, Provider and Savior, all the days of my life. By your destinies, deliver me from the evil and all-evil enemy of the devil with his angels, and grant not only to me, but to all Your people the grace to destroy all his machinations, like a weak web, and to be saved into Your Heavenly Kingdom. Amen. All passions are the children of demons; out of love, humility, meekness, he immediately disappears. What sorrow and oppression, what darkness, what spiritual impotence of passion! I experienced this myself. But what happens to me also happens to others: I want them to take pity on me, to caress me in this state, so that they don’t demand from me, don’t treat me rudely, especially in this state - I also need to feel pain for others, cry and pray when they are in a state of passions! There is no need to discipline them strictly, no need to treat them rudely, but we need to anoint their troubled hearts with the oil of meekness and humility. Amen, Lord! Make me wise to do Your commandments through the prayers of Your Most Pure Mother and all the saints. I always want to love my enemies, for the Lord commands it, although it is disgusting to me; I want to overcome all evil with good, for the Lord commands it; I want to be completely good, for all evil of the heart is the devil, all evil is sin. And how can I, a sinner, hate sinners? I love myself, a sinner, and I must love sinners too, for we are all one spiritual body. Help, Lord! Most Holy Theotokos, help! Holy apostles, help me with your prayers. Amen. There was no wine in the house here: where could he get drunk on this spiritual wine? Understand. Brother Alexey has changed for the worse because he doesn’t keep the fast, and so do all of them. One must have such simple, undoubted faith in the Gospel as children have in the words of their parents and teachers; one must have faith as simple as the word and the thought contained in it. For example: tea of ​​the resurrection of the dead 110. In the resurrection of the dead one must have such a simple faith as simply thinking and speaking about the resurrection of the dead. So the whole Gospel must be believed. In humans, the inside is filled with heat and has emptiness. And the earth, as a physical body, is the same - it also has fire and emptiness or molten mass inside it. But you need to deal not with this molten mass, but with your heart, so that it burns with the fire of the Holy Spirit, with the fire of faith, hope and love. Inside a person there is, as it were, lava in the stomach and intestines, gases and winds that erupt at a certain time. There is also a molten mass in the earth, like food and drink in the stomach, and there are gases and winds in it that spew lava out through the openings of the fire-breathing mountains. Through these eruptions, the interior of the earth is cleansed of accumulated gases, just as the human body is cleansed and relieved of charred food through an eruption. And at the piano you will give God an answer if only secular songs are played on it. Oh, godless vanity! the piano is vanity, not the best for playing cards and dancing, which it often serves. What a fuss is being played out on them! Oh, adulterous and sinful world! You have completely abandoned your Lord, your Heavenly Father! There are only two beginnings: good and evil. One is God, the other is the devil; one is truth, the other is a dream. When the enemy begins to tempt you, oppress and darken you, then remember what he does to you when you pray to the Lady, how he blasphemes Her, the Most Blessed, oppresses and darkens you and brings despondency, and consider all his machinations, thousand-shaped, or countless in manifestation, as a dream, as smoke, and be courageous and alert always with the help of God. Amen. Do not for a moment harbor a spirit of enmity towards the brethren because of any sweets or bad habits or their passions, because you yourself are the number one sinner and you should be harbored the most enmity towards you. But always treat them with a spirit of love. Be simple. Understand in an instant where the wind is blowing from, that is, understand in an instant the spirit of hostility, and do not submit to it for a moment, knowing that you are commanded to love your neighbor as yourself, and that the disposition of the heart contrary to this commandment is from the devil. Conquer evil with good [Rom. 12, 21]. Do not reprove anyone with a spirit of hostility, because such reproof will not correct, but will irritate. Let everything with you be done with love [1 Cor. 16, 14]. Love is long-suffering, merciful, loving... does not become arrogant (humbles himself), is not proud, does not act outrageously... [1 Cor. 13, 4 – 5]. Remember that man is the breath of God, the image of God, a little god; love him, because love is from God; do not despise him for his sinful ulcers, do not push him away from your heart, for in such cases you yourself would have to be pushed away by everyone. God has made us some kind of gods relative to each other. He gave us the power to forgive each other's sins and promised us forgiveness for our unforgettable malice. If you forgive people their sins, then your Heavenly Father will also forgive you [Matt. 6, 14]. Do not repay with insult for insult to you: that you were insulted, others, out of pride, might not notice, but that you insulted another, they will not only notice it, but will also exaggerate it a hundred times, even if you accidentally insulted; They won’t forgive you if you don’t ask for forgiveness or if you don’t explain yourself. In general, never take revenge for an insult. Just like yesterday (January 10), the Lord humbled me in class, disgraced my face, although, however, not completely! The enemy overpowered me, confused me, kicked me, pressed me and fired me! I cried out to the Lord for a long time, and He did not heed my prayer. Already in the second grade he heeded me somewhat according to my heart. And all because after communion I ate a lot and drank a lot of warmth - I relaxed my heart! Or what am I saying? Or rather, for an instant addiction to money. Look kindly at those who look at you unfriendly; just look at those who look at you slyly and mockingly. Conquer all evil with good. Fasting is beneficial for the soul and body; Like fasting, I am healthy in spirit and body. But these quick butters, cream, meat, even fish are bad for me. The serpent devil, because his actions on the soul are always poisonous, always stings. Love them, said Elder Eutyches, to his fellow priests, knowing my heart that I do not love them very much; let them act more - serve prayer services, christenings, give communion to the sick, etc. They say: tears are weakness; It’s not true, tearlessness is weakness – we experience this in prayer. Beggary is an exposure of the whims, luxury and cruelty of man. Moderate your desires, give up lust and luxury, give the excess to those in need - and beggary will disappear. The more delicious food we eat, the more we pamper our flesh, our insides, and the more carnal passions rise up against us: anger, envy, pride, love of money, stinginess, laziness, etc. We must prefer rough food. When the devil’s fire of some passion embraces you, burns you, draws you into its depths, then quickly run in solitude to pour out your soul before God in repentance. Do not give in for a moment to feelings of passion, for example, feelings of anger, revenge. So that you do not get bored with your prayer, always read it with meditation - then it will be pleasant to you, like sweet food. Let your prayer be a living, respectful conversation with God as your Father. How can I immediately know that the devil is at work in me? Our Lord Jesus Christ says: Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest; take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls; for My yoke is easy and My burden is light [Matt. 11, 28 – 30]. From these words of our Savior it is clear that the devil is in us whenever we feel hard work, burden, languor in our souls, when we feel anger, irritability, pride and contempt for others in ourselves, when we feel evil and heaviness, sorrow, tightness and darkness in our hearts. Amen. And when we feel at peace, when we feel peace of conscience, meekness, humility, kindness towards people and lightness of soul - then the Lord is in us. Do not despise any enemy of yours (even if he were your relative), but consider yourself worse than him and justly worthy of his hatred of you. With meekness, humility, prayer, and charity, try to turn him into your friend. When your heart desires or regrets any earthly treasure, for example money, do not desire or regret, but say: The Lord is my God in the Three Persons or my Lord Jesus Christ is my treasure. He is my every good. Elder Eutyches is a man of God, and the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son rests in him. His memory of God is always constant, his prayer to Him is fervent. This is evident from his insight, strong faith in God, in the Most Pure Mother of God, in Angels and Saints, from fervent prayer to God and to the Mother of God, from his boldness before God and the Lady and holy Angels and holy men; from the wisdom and purity of his word, as the word of God, from the spirit of salvation, which he is imbued with and which he wants to convey to everyone, out of love for people, out of his love for our mother the Church and by the mortification of his flesh: he sleeps on an almost bare floor. From the mouth of the elder flow rivers of living water [Jn. 7, 38]. Oh, that God would give me such a spirit, unworthy! But I am an unclean vessel! All-good and all-powerful, all things are possible for You [Mk. 14, 36]. God! We tempted Your elder and caused him grief with our inquisitiveness. Have mercy on us! Confirm us! Elder Eutyches is a seer. He knows what we were and what we are, and gives advice according to each person’s state of mind. Let sweet and bitter, honor and dishonor, shame and glory, praise and blame be the same for you, that is, put to death all carnal passions and be impartial to everything, zealous only for the glory of the name of God and the salvation of your neighbors or the children entrusted to you. When the devil puts you to shame, do not be discouraged: this is what I deserve, careless, lazy, crafty, unfaithful, proud, evil, rebellious, envious, money-loving, stingy and subject to all kinds of sins. The evil one spanked you - don’t be timid, don’t lose heart, but just as a student flogged with rods after a beating soon forgets that he was flogged, forgets his shame - so do you. Live your life as if nothing had happened, but just be careful. When the devil tries to reign in you before the Lord, say to yourself: stop! - I am the servant of the Lord, not yours; The Lord is first of all from eternity, and everything stands in Him, and you are a liar, a dreamer. And when he forces you to sin, for example despondency, resist him, calling on the Lord. Remember the words of the Apostle: Rejoice always [1 Thess. 5, 16]. The spirit of despondency is a demonic spirit, a dream. Should a Christian be discouraged? Should one who believes in Christ lose heart? To bear sin, conquering God's love for mankind 111. All the gifts of the Holy Spirit rest on Elder Eutychia. He is true, like truth itself. My all-joyful, most simple, most swift help, Lord Jesus Christ! I thank You for Your help, for Your strength and for the joy that You have given me today (January 15) from early morning until now (5 o’clock in the evening); especially for Your help to me, when I stood and sat in front of the elder Eutyches, Your servant, and in front of the students of the gymnasium. Your name, carried in my mind, has clothed me with strength and boldness. Oh, if only You would always do this to me, Lord! Wake up, be with the prayers of our most blessed Lady Theotokos! When Satan defiles or denigrates one of God’s saints or you yourself, washed from the sins known to you by the Blood of Christ, tell him: what God has cleansed is, do not defile him [Acts. 10, 15]. And also say: I am God’s – a body built with God’s soul, built by God’s most pure hands; I want to be completely holy and I strive for that. I don’t want to drown mentally in any abomination. It is harmful to health to read a lot of secular books. The common people conveniently believe in God and in God's holy men, for example, in the seers who turn on earth, but the educated people, proud of their reason and their education, are cunning and distrustful. He even condemns and persecutes the common people with slander for their gullibility. But this people are ignorant of the law, he says, they are cursed [Jn. 7, 49]. But in fact, on the contrary: God reveals to him His heavenly wisdom. He hid this from the wise and prudent and revealed it to babes (common people) [Lk. 10, 21]. Men of God, like babies, are simple, sometimes whimsical. Today (January 17) in class (and often comes) despondency and cowardice, fear and melancholy, anger and irritability came over me and lasted for almost both classes (fourth and first), and after class and then in the house where I came to give prayer. Without even giving a prayer, I read the Lord’s Prayer before the appetizer - and all my despondency disappeared as if by hand - a sign that this was the work of the devil. And I doubted in class whether it was from the devil, and that’s why my despondency did not go away: I thought that it was a matter of food, a physical abnormality in the stomach. However, in fact, eating and drinking a lot can be the reason for our powerlessness against the devil. We should not be at all concerned that one of our neighbors, for example relatives, who often come to us, brazenly indulges in the luxury of sugar when drinking tea, that is, as they say, pours it into the cup in droves. With all his greed, he will spend no more than 15 silver kopecks; and you yourself, remember, often spend 40 and 50 kopecks in one day or evening - and it doesn’t matter. And you must love your neighbor as yourself. We must remember the words of the Apostle: you accepted the plunder of your property with joy, knowing that you have in heaven a better and lasting property [Heb. 10, 34]. God is a simple Being, since thought is simple, and all His Truth is as simple as thought, for what is simpler and easier than to think something about something? Therefore, when you feel spiritually simple, when you feel purity and lightness in your thoughts, feelings, words or when doing anything, then God is in you. And when you feel impurity and heaviness in yourself, then you are the devil. It is a great thing to achieve perfect simplicity, purity and holiness in everything. One should not doubt the known or revealed truth; one should not doubt to fulfill the known commandments of God, but immediately and without thinking, fulfill them. The simplicity of our soul is very conveniently violated by heavy drinking and overeating. Just as it is impossible to keep the stench from the right places when they are cleaned, so it is impossible to keep the stench of unclean spirits, their attacks on us, without being completely contained in God, in His simplicity. Speak to a contradictory brother without being irritated by his contradiction, otherwise you will be the reason that he will remain in error both regarding known truths and regarding you. Polyeating extremely weakens (empowers the soul) and makes a nest of an incorporeal enemy. It’s hard to both serve God and teach children to be polyvorous. There is no courage, you lose heart, you become embarrassed without knowing why. Every man is his own master, because every man is the image of God, endowed with reason and freedom; everyone has a conscience, and we must be careful not to hate the bitch in our brother’s father, not to worry about him to the point of pettiness, because this would be an insult to his reason and free will and a desecration of the image of God; especially not to tell him when he satisfies hunger and thirst, for even animals, by natural instinct alone, know how to eat and drink as much as they need, not only humans, rational beings - so, we must discard this restless and petty concern for our neighbor who lives with us. God Himself, acting entirely in everyone, guides everyone in everything. And we must know ourselves, so that our hearts are not burdened with overeating and drunkenness [Lk. 21, 34]. The first coming of the Savior was predicted - and He came; the second thing was predicted - He will come another time. (Like terms of a proportion.) Gluttony is truly idolatry and an abomination to the Lord and a disaster for the glutton, especially the priest and teacher of the law. Tried and retested. – Grace abstinence. “I left so many crosses,” said Elder Eutyches. And he meant me here too. I thought that the enemy’s attacks on me intensified because of the elder. But that's a lie. I blame them myself! Elder Eutychius distributed everything he had collected in Kronstadt to the poor in St. Petersburg. By their fruits you will recognize them [Matt. 7, 16]. Charity is the fruit of the Spirit [Gal. 5, 22]. God! Restore Your image in me completely. God! Let me always remember that I am Your vessel, let me remain in holiness all the days of my life, so that I will be holy to Your people, and they too will be holy not for my sake, but for the sake of Your Only Begotten Son, who is in us together with You, with Your Holy Spirit. I am an imperfect mentor, and it would be ridiculous if I began to seek the opinion of myself as a perfect mentor, for there is no perfection on earth, and you, children, should not look for complete perfection in any of us. Our only perfect mentor is Christ. We teach lessons to the best of our ability. Don't judge us harshly. The priest must fast for the intemperate people; for those who do not pray - pray day and night or early and late; for the hard-hearted - to be merciful. After the christening, they sit down to play cards, and often the godfather and godfather themselves. So to show them that they lied, saying: I deny Satan and all his works 112, they immediately refute their words; the love of money, which drives the game of cards, is the work of the devil; idleness and absent-mindedness too. To refute the excuses: I’m not a gambler, they say I only play a little, but those gamblers who play a lot and lose at night. So, it seems, there are no sinners. Before christenings, ask (if in the house): will the room be kept sacred? Will the works of the devil be done in it? If you see, for example, people playing cards in this room, denounce them, referring to their own reason and the rules of decency, even secular ones. Do not be proud of anyone and do not despise any beggar, ugly-faced or hunchbacked, even if he often approaches you, but consider yourself worse and lower than the lowest beggar, remembering that he is the image of God and, perhaps, more worthy than you in the eyes of God. Today you despised a beggar with an unattractive face, in rags and ugly - and for that what hellish fire has engulfed you! How cramped! What a delusion! Hardly fervent prayer saved you. Remember that we are all one body, we are all the image of God, although we bear the wounds of sins, we are all children of God and the Lord undoubtedly dwells in all of us. Don't you know... don't you know? like the natural church of God... [1 Cor. 3, 16]. Let all the lessons from the Catechism always be the greatest and most pleasant news for you; never neglect them, oh, don’t neglect them! – And do not be ashamed of them, as scientists and overeducated. Oh, don't serve the devil. Do you notice that the devil, through the false shame of old lessons, instills in you the shame of the Lord Himself! Try to always have a bright, cheerful face, a courageous and majestic spirit in the class. Sometimes a sullen face can alienate all your students. Be strong and of good courage, John, like Polycarp of Smyrna. Wishing every good thing for another, you intercede this good for yourself: the righteous and all-good God arranges it this way. With the measure you use, it will be measured to you [Matt. 7, 2; Mk. 4, 24]. You must love your neighbor as you love yourself. How long will I have a cunning and stingy eye, how long will I regret wasting aromatic tea, supposedly consumed too much? How long will I not charge everything as rubbish? How long, how long, how long? God! confirm! - exchange everything for nothing, spare nothing, and the Lord will send you everything for such wisdom. Remember that by clinging to earthly things, you are detached from God, you are exchanging God for dust, for water; That’s why you lose your spiritual peace when you have pity on something earthly, for pity means attachment of the heart: I count everything as rubbish in order to gain Christ [Phil. 3, 8]. You see, in order to gain Christ, in order to have Him living in your heart, you must count everything as rubbish. Yes it will! God! Help! I can’t do anything without You. Oh, how simple I need to be at communion. Then I am deified, divine. Most simple Lord! Establish and keep me in Your simplicity. (January 21). I thank You, my most merciful Savior, my Lord Jesus Christ, who saved me many times today with a wondrous, gracious, powerful, wise salvation. During Matins, with the frequent sign of the cross, I drove away the evil spirits nesting in my heart. During mass, I doubted the words of the blessed elder Eutyches that Angels served with us during the liturgy on the previous Sunday, and this doubt greatly stung me; Having realized the lie of this doubt, its futility, and having asked for mercy from God in doubt, I calmed down. In the gymnasium, the enemy attacked me with instant anger towards the Pomeranian boy, and again he was wounded, and the name of the Lord, called upon diligently in a feeling of repentance, saved me - I spent all three classes almost until the very last minutes with decent importance, victoriously. At home twice the enemy hurt me with ill will towards my neighbor, pride and irritability towards my wife. I got down on my knees both times, read from my heart “Have mercy on me, O God,” and then: “Lord our God, who grants repentance to man,”35 and sorrow, crampedness and darkness left me. Leopardov Autonom came: the enemy was annoying with his abomination and stinginess, but in the name of the Lord I defeated him. Popov’s enemy had a cold, but even there he resisted him in the name of the Lord. At home, the enemy stung me with stinginess for my wife: I got down on my knees, read Have mercy on me, O God, and O Lord our God... and the tightness disappeared! Glory to the Lord about everything! To the chosen victorious Voivode, as if he had delivered himself from the evil ones, thanksgiving... And today (January 22) during early mass or after it, the Lord miraculously saved me from burning anger at one simple woman. Glory and thanksgiving to You, Lord! You feel sorry for the grass, the tree leaves that fall to the ground and are trampled underfoot and turn into pus (I mean tea)! Oh madness! Blindness! Don't regret anything! Disregard everything earthly as rubbish! Everything is decay! To value only the human soul, or even more so to man, and to spare nothing for him, for everything is subjugated under his nose. Possess... the earth, it is said [Gen. 1, 28]. Despise soulless and corruptible dust! If you constantly trample it with your feet, trample it with your heart and do not cleave to it, but thank the Creator for the dust that served you in this temporary life. Amen. Do not eat oily foods, for example, very oily fish (even light ones). Don't eat cream, much less drink. Don't drink a lot of tea. Two, many three glasses, don’t drink any more. Anything beyond this is from the evil one [Matt. 5, 37]. Tested. The body is a rag, food is earth, drinks are water. How long has the Lord taught and is now teaching you not to worry about food and drink, not to worry, but to cast all your sorrow on God, to despise food and drink as rubbish and the very flesh and to be zealous about prayer, abstinence and fasting and about mutual love - but still have not learned! Learn to look at everything as earth and pus. If you have it, thank you, and if you don’t, thank you; but there has never been a day when you didn’t have something. Give thanks a lot, and don’t worry a little, but give thanks too. It comes out soon - then rejoice that the current passes, reminding you of the unceasing. I am your blessing and must bless everyone not only with my hand, but also with my heart, that is, to bless not only those who are favorable to me, those who are kind to me, but also those who are rude to me and my enemies. That's why I am the shepherd of Christ's flock. My Christ was meek and gentle. I must rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep [Rom. 12, 15]. There is nothing to be ashamed of through blind pride in a teaching book; The point is not to tell you the lesson well by heart, but to explain it well, albeit from a book. There is no point in turning the sacred subject of the Law of God into a reason for pride - away with all self-love, so that there will be one glory of God here. It is fitting that the Lord covers your face with shame if you turn it into a reason for self-love. (January 25, 1864) I thank You, my Lord, my Savior, that You helped me in all three grades to boldly teach the Law of God and delivered me from the shame of the enemy. I thank You that You strengthened me and delivered my soul from all the snares of the enemy. Confirm, O God, this which you have done in me; give me good and perfect hope in You all the days of my life. The Lord was in my heart and in my thoughts, and all the intrigues or arrows of the enemy were broken on this stone. Be complacent in being in the community of those who sin, just as the Lord tolerates being in our community, and love sinners as you love yourself, a sinner, for you must love your neighbor as you love yourself. If you do not like smoking tobacco, do not be angry with your neighbor because he smokes in your home, but maintain love and respect for him, despising his sin. Be forgiving and patient. With patience, it is said, love one another [Eph. 4, 2]. They read all the earthly news, but do you read the heavenly ones (the Gospel)? The entire earthly department will burn, including its records, and the remainder will be ashes. And the heavenly department is eternal. Our soul is a heavenly citizen: there is no need to stuff it with everything earthly, we need to think about heavenly things. Cream and butter, consumed in significant quantities and raw, are a real lubricant of the devil for the heart. Experienced it many times. In the Gospel narrative or the Church and Patristic narrative, faith is required during prayer, hope is required in petition, and love is required in repentance, doxology and thanksgiving. During prayer, faith, hope and love should always act together. Do not become embittered towards him because of any mistake of your neighbor, because embitterment is the greatest evil, the devil himself. If your neighbor has committed a crime against you, forgive him his guilt, his debt, according to the word of the Lord: and we forgive our debtor. If it is against God, admonish him meekly and with love, and where necessary, with severity, but in any case, without bitterness... During the celebration of the Sacrament of Marriage, the enemy filled me with anger at my brother because he did not help me reveal the Gospels, and I vaguely and in a cramped spirit finished reading the prayers, with shame and disgrace on my face. For an hour later this state continued. After the prayer, the street passed. Remember the words of David: I walked through my kindness [Ps. 25, 11]. Do not spare your flesh, do not be afraid of labor and anxiety, and if someone deprives you of peace or forces you to raise labor and anxiety, do not be irritated with him. Amen. What is the most common and easiest way we can exercise and strengthen our love for our neighbor? If we live an independent life, then with food and drink, clothing, money, that is, treating them, giving alms, clothing, lending them and giving them money without giving back. Love for God among the first people should have been manifested in their obedience to not eating what was forbidden by God. The commandments are the gymnastics of our love for God: through the fulfillment of the commandments, our love for God is strengthened and purified. Yesterday I sinned to the Lord with impatience and indignation at the bride and groom who were getting married in the Hospital Church (I did the wedding), that they came late, that they forced me to marry them in the Hospital Church, in which the air was very close; I was faint-hearted because I puffed up my chest a little, saying prayers strongly in the bad air. Oh, cowardice! Oh, impatience! Oh, effeminacy! Oh, lawless pity for your sinful flesh, which must be crucified with its passions and lusts! Oh, disrespect and lack of love for your neighbor, for whom you should not hesitate to lay down your very life. We are all one body - rejoice that your brothers eat, drink and talk together with you; everything is God's, everything is common to everyone. Give us this day our daily bread. Everything is earth and water, and fire, and air (that is, food and drink). The gifts of the Lord are inexhaustible, because the Lord, as the omnipotent and infinite Creator, is inexhaustible. Jesus, incorruptible treasure, Jesus, inexhaustible wealth; Jesus, strong food (strengthening the soul and body), Jesus, inexhaustible drink... Jesus, bright clothing. ..from Everything for us is God, infinite and all-good. The righteous one himself is a verbiator in the first word [Prov. 18, 17], that is, the righteous person with his first word condemns himself, condemns himself in every sin, and not others; he considers himself the most sinful of all, the worst of all, and therefore behaves humbly before everyone. So, sitting in the circle of your neighbors, do not weave condemnation against them in your heart, but look at yourself and condemn yourself. But without You, Lord, I cannot do anything. Remember that love covers all things, endures all things [1 Cor. 13, 4 – 8]. Don't be afraid of anything so much as anger. Don’t begrudge anyone anything like land and water, for we don’t feel pity for anyone on land and water, no matter how much we take of it. Do not oppose anyone out of pride and malice, but be as obedient as possible to everyone, even children, that is, if the children begin to ask you very much, be ready to immediately fulfill their request. Be extremely humble, making yourself lower than everyone else. Everything is God's, not mine. I must be impartial to everything and be carefree about everything. Pray to God with childlike hope, with sweet confidence to receive His mercy. Do not be offended by anyone, considering all evil in yourself and in others to be a demonic dream; Consider your touchiness as a dream too. In order not to be offended by others, remember the corruption of human nature, which is common to all people; take into account the character of the person, the circumstances of his upbringing, the environment in which he lived and lives, his spiritual and physical infirmities; forgive everyone for everything, forgive everyone everything and pray for everyone. By doing this, you will receive forgiveness of all sins from the Heavenly Father. And in order to do this, be convinced that you yourself are weaker, more sinful, more passionate, worse than everyone else - in a word, consider yourself as nothing, and in others honor the image of God, the members of Christ, the temples of the Holy Spirit. Consider yourself vile, worthy of all contempt, do not seek or desire honor, do not be offended by those who dishonor, but rejoice that you suffer unjust dishonor from someone, and if it is just, grieve for sin and repent, but do not become discouraged and do not despair; do not complain about dishonor, but give thanks for it; Christ endured and endured such terrible dishonor - should you seek honor in this world? Christ prayed for those who slander and crucify - pray and love, and do not become embittered. Lord help me! Our soul, like God’s breath, is simple and light; sins, the devil complicate and burden it, and any combination of the soul with anything material confuses, burdens, burns it. Understand what is being said and why. How, with what purity, love and reverence we should look at our bodies and souls after the Lord took upon Himself all our nature and gave us Himself for food and drink. How we should love each other! What unity they must have! If the archpriest asks you to serve mass or matins as soon as possible, do not hesitate and do not resist in your heart or in words to fulfill his request and show obedience. Mentally, you can soon perform Matins and Liturgy. Obedience is better than sacrifice [1 Sam. 15, 22]. If you feel a vague, anxious resistance in your heart during or outside of the service, know that it is from the devil and do not listen to him. Look again: is there in your heart hatred and contempt for the boss who ordered you. If there is, then know that it is a thorn and pull it out immediately. Look again: is it not because of money, is it not because of your own selfishness that you have heartfelt disobedience to your boss. Know that this is also from the devil. Remember more often about the simplicity of your soul, which came from a simple God, and cleave to Him alone, as your Prototype, and to your neighbor. How the evil one, through our pride and self-love, works diligently to dry up in our hearts all love for our neighbor and instill hatred towards him! I notice this. But, Lord, may my malice not overcome Your unspeakable goodness and mercy114. Look: do not tender the insides, that is, the belly, but strengthen, that is, do not pamper, but use strengthening food and drink. When darkness and the fire of the accursed embrace you, read Our Father, but only heartily - he deceives and deceives: while the class continues, here he pours his arrows, it’s over - and he stopped shooting. May I not be satisfied [Russian: having had enough] I will lie [Prov. 30, 9]. We must always remember these words and never eat enough, so that our heart does not immediately become evil and deceitful. Tested. All the temptations of the enemy are allowed upon me by the Lord so that I may be completely cleansed of all sinful charms and attachments and be simple and holy, just as the Lord God is simple and holy, so that I love Him with all my heart, most of all, and consider my neighbor as myself, all earthly things as dust and rubbish, trampled under foot, using them without any attachment, as much as it is needed to support the corruptible, earthly, the body stinking of passions, which is also dust, trampled underfoot by us, for it was taken and constantly feeds from the earth and will again turn into earth. This is Christian, simple, true wisdom! White bread, especially sieve bread, is a delight and a net; prefer black, and only eat white if necessary; Drinking a lot of tea will make you fatter, you will lose the Holy Spirit and become associated with the devil. Tea is very soothing to the flesh and relaxes the body and spirit. Oh, how many attachments we have! Instead of the soul clinging to God alone, it clings to thousands of worldly sweets. God! Help me to be content with meager and harsh food and simple, strengthening drink. At home in the evening, before a glass of tea, drink a glass and snack on herring with black bread. Don't eat white bread. The larynx becomes clogged and the whole body becomes tied up; In addition, it strengthens. Woe I felt for the morning of January 30th from drinking a lot of tea the day before and eating sieve bread. I was completely upset. I couldn't pray. I couldn’t take control of my heart. I offended two people who invited me to serve a prayer service. Tea has the ability to irritate the nerves and spirit. Let both sweet and bitter, honor and dishonor, shame and glory, praise and blame be the same for you, that is, put to death all carnal passions and be impartial to everything, zealous only for the glory of the name of God and the salvation of your neighbors and the children entrusted to you. When you see someone cold, disrespectful to yourself, do not be offended by him, but consider yourself worthy, saying to yourself that he alone understands you and treats you as you deserve, while others are mistaken and give honor, as a sinful person, inappropriate, but only as befitting a priest; therefore, when you see respect for yourself, rejoice in the kindness of people and their faith in Jesus Christ and their love for Him, for for His sake they honor you; If you see coldness and indifference or contempt for yourself, consider yourself deserving of it and from the heart love those who despise you, as a carnal, sinful, multi-passionate person, worth trampling on from everyone. When the devil puts you to shame, do not be discouraged, but say: this is what I deserve, careless, lazy, unfaithful, proud, evil, rebellious, hypocritical, envious, money-loving, stingy and subject to all kinds of sins. Be filled with the Spirit, not with tea. Full of undead flesh. Why are strong temptations and sorrows sometimes unleashed on us? So that we learn not to become attached to anything earthly: neither to food, nor to drink, nor to money, nor to clothing, nor to various pleasures, but always remember the only thing we need - God and the salvation of our souls, and our neighbors. Drinking especially a lot of strong tea (three, four and five glasses) is a disaster for a priest: it greatly irritates the nerves and drives out the Holy Spirit. Experience. Don't feast on it. Strong tea, like tobacco, is irritating. No matter how much the enemy torments the insides and the entire being of the glutton’s soul and body, no matter how much the very delicacies, dishes and drinks subsequently gore the insides, the glutton is still itching for everything - such a calf! This Taurus is me! Give to the poor without doubt: truly the Lord will always provide for their share. So now I sent three rubles. January 30, 1864 If the Lord gives the grace to chosen people to recognize the thoughts and heartfelt dispositions of others, then how does He Himself, our Creator, know our entire soul at every moment, and with what caution we should behave at all times. Look with love at every person who comes or approaches you, no matter why he comes and no matter what his rank and condition and appearance. All malice is the dream of the enemy, whether it is in you or in others. Don't know her. You love yourself, a sinner, the greatest sinner, you nourish and warm your flesh, and love every person as yourself, although he is a sinner, although he may be guilty against you or not at all guilty, but it only seems so to you; nourish and warm him as you would yourself, forgive his mistakes, as God forgives you; Be patient with him with love, as God is patient with you, bear with him his infirmities, as God bears with yours; How do you want people to bear your infirmities and not exact from you for them. Remember that God nourishes and warms all sinners, starting with you. (Amen. I wrote it and calmed down.) Eutyches, the servant of God, warns my thoughts. There is no need to reprimand anyone out of suspicion or in a restless spirit. You will get into trouble, you will insult someone else in vain and you will cause shame to yourself. Be patient. Cut off the will of your heart, your passions, especially covetousness and stinginess. Be sure that nothing in the world is yours—everything is God’s. And there is no one of our own - everyone is God's. Remember, covetousness... is idolatry [Col. 3.5]. You yourself love to eat and drink sweetly from others, how can you not tolerate your neighbors and even your relatives eating and drinking yours, rather than God’s? Who are they? After all, children of God - always remember this. Don't they say every day: Our Father, who is in heaven? Do not know how to rejoice in demons. Your real sorrow and oppression and demonic fire show what a great delusion of the heart it is to feel sorry for anything earthly, edible and drunk by our neighbors. These lines show the absurdity of your heartfelt disposition. It's a dream, it's stupidity. To regret nothing, to despise everything, to be ready to give everything away with joy, to cleave to one God - the Creator, Father and Provider. Cast all your cares on Him, for He cares for you [1 Pet. 5, 7]. I have an eternal, ever-present, omnipotent, omniscient, all-wise Father. He constantly takes care of me, both during life, and in death, and after death... and even before my birth He took care to create me and from the creation of the world determined to redeem me with His sufferings and death. Gadflies will fly here and bite. Words of Elder Eutyches. And you and I will quickly carry Matushka and pray there. Some who believe in the Lord and who work diligently for Him treasure His descent to earth and the economy of His salvation. Treat the Lord God with such reverence, with such faith, hope and love, as if for the first time and suddenly you received perfect knowledge of Him. It is the same with holy Angels and holy men of God. Treat people the same the first time and every time. Be unchanging in your love for them; Pray and weep for their sins as if they were your own. Listen, look to yourself: pray for your brother’s sin as if it were your own (we are one body), regret his sin as you regret your own, and do not be embittered at him, do not ask the Lord for vengeance on your brother for his sins against you or against another, just as you do not want others against whom you have sinned to ask for vengeance on you. When your subordinate brother disobeyed you in some way, although he was previously obedient, then carefully consider your actions, did you maintain your love for him, did you not in absentia show hostility towards him in bitter reviews of him, in reproaches to him, did you condemn him with malice? But his soul senses this, although it is unclear, because we are one body, and just as you alienate him, so he alienates you. And who is to blame? You yourself don’t know how to get down to business. And if you had come to him yourself and asked him in kind, he would have listened to you. But pay attention: do not be angry with any disobedient person, for how can you want perfection from another when you yourself are so imperfect? How do you want to correct someone else when you yourself are faulty? Doctor, heal yourself [Lk. 4, 23] and then heal others. Look at food as firewood, which will soon turn into stinking coal. Who spares wood, ashes, coals? Look at money like stones under your feet. Don’t be so absurd as to exchange firewood, ash, coal for a person or a stone for the same person. This is madness, insanity. Will you exchange firewood for a house, for your furniture for your images (icons)? Always have common sense. What is it for a brother to feel sorry for something pleasant? It is envy of man's bliss and dislike for man. Whom we love, we rejoice in his well-being, we rejoice in his contentment as if it were our own. We imagine how pleasant our service, our gift is to him, and we rejoice. Love does not value anything earthly for one’s neighbor; it throws everything at his feet. And how much is needed to please a person? Very little. Remember how God is generous to you, as generous to humanity, how many sweets He created and, finally, He gave Himself endless sweetness for food and drink, and especially for you. Be generous yourself. Do not forget Christian wisdom while eating and do not eat or drink greedily. Share everything with your neighbors out of Christian love. Do not hesitate to wish every neighbor, even your enemy, as much good as you wish for yourself. Amen. Fulfill the Lord's law exactly. Be, Lord! Help, Lord! And if you even instantly wish him harm, immediately make three bows before God for him, asking him from the Lord for every good thing. Every minute we need God's mercy; every minute be ready to show mercy to everyone, especially to your friends or relatives. Remember that nothing is yours, everything is God’s. Crucify your self-love. Share the latter with your neighbor. Whom the heart does not love, try to love most of all. Love your neighbor as yourself. If you love those who love you, what gratitude do you have for that? for even sinners (pagans) love those who love them [Lk. 6, 32]. Are not all children of God, are not all one? Let them all be one [Jn. 17, 21]. Put down the machinations of the enemy: they are always noticeable, they always begin with mental confusion, powerlessness, infatuation, crampedness, darkness. By its fruit you will know it [Matt. 7, 16]. Our flesh, sinful, evil, abhors and disdains simple and cheap things, not shiny, although pure; it admires magnificent, shiny, precious things and cleaves to them; in food - he sticks to sweet, expensive things, but he disdains simple, unpalatable, inexpensive things, or at least does not regret them. But everything magnificent, pleasant, expensive is lovely. And we must choose the simple and unattractive. Consider any embarrassment, regret for something pleasant, any feeling of hostility and disgust, hatred of your neighbor as a demonic dream. It's about time! Accept with joy the plunder of estates [Ev. 10, 34], or your sweets, so that you may be worthy of spiritual, eternal sweets; Do not count all carnal sweets as anything, knowing that they greatly separate you from God, as I have experienced this many times, and even the mediastinum between your neighbors and you becomes strong, as I have experienced a thousand times. Deny your heart, despise it, trample on it. Amen. Tea relaxes the heart and prevents it from lamenting sins; it generally soothes the flesh. A Christian should not drink tea, nor should he smoke tobacco. Gambler! spending time playing cards! The features of the image of God have been restored in you and you have nothing else to worry about? Have you already accomplished the feat of heart cleansing and self-improvement? Treasuring time, because the days are evil [Eph. 5, 16], - that is, both people and demons who tempt us day or night are evil. Kostya, my brother, has his own, cheerful character, and everyone has a unique character; You can’t demand that everyone please me: such a demand is proud, and I have to adapt to everyone. Honor everyone, love the brotherhood [1 Pet. 2, 17]. Consider yourself lower than everyone, more sinful than everyone, worse than everyone, and therefore be kind to everyone, courteous to everyone, don’t be angry with anyone, because just as you yourself are worse, more sinful than everyone, so who should you be angry with? Treat everyone from the bottom of your heart, but don’t over-indulge. It is up to everyone to eat and drink as much as they want. Don't regret anything. Do not suppress man's freedom, but give man freedom. Don't be arrogant about anyone. Don't be upset when children don't take off their hats. You should shoot for them - they are more worthy than you. When the devil torments you in the classroom with discouragement and despondency, then immediately throw away this dream of his in the name of the Lord and tell him: I did not come to teach these children discouragement, gloominess and despondency in the class, but cheerfulness, joy and exaltation of spirit and cheerfulness in adversity. I don’t want to, say, listen to you, damned one, because that despondency is obedience to you. Like a lion, I trust in the name of the Lord in adversity. You incite me to anger, envy, pride, cowardice, but all these are your soap bubbles. I don't pay attention to them. Even in the church, the enemy, you are constantly ready to cast a shadow of cowardice, despondency, and false shame on my face, especially immediately after communion and when addressing the people, but, trusting in the Lord, I defeat you. I will always win like this. I will be calm and cheerful, not indignant at any antics of others. Yes, not only by word, but also by example, by the very appearance of your face, you must teach the children entrusted to you by the Lord. And what evil is loss of spirit and despondency in a teacher of the law. The whole class, the whole gymnasium can be relaxed. All sins are contagious—the spirit of known sin spreads comfortably! And despondency is perhaps the most contagious of all: it can lead everyone to confusion. The spirit in a teacher of the law is a very important matter. The spirit of a teacher of the law must always be calm, meek, loving, sovereign, strict, like the spirit of a prophet and shepherd, like the Spirit of God. The priest is the guardian of Jesus Christ, and Christ Himself teaches and acts through him. As for the forgiveness of sins, you must believe and trust in the name of the Lord: your faith has saved you [Matt. 9, 22]. Believe only in the Lord and you will be saved. Though your sins be as scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they be red as crimson, they shall be as white as wool [Isa. 1, 18]. Ranks, distinctions, noble family - all this is earthly, elemental. For a man of God this is nothing. For him, piety is most valuable. See the image of God in the poor and always respect them; despising them, you despise Christ, their Head, who, being rich, became poor for our sakes, that we through His poverty might become rich [2 Cor. 8, 9]. Do not despise any sinner, for you yourself are a sinner. Do not be angry with anyone, for you yourself are worth contempt and hatred for your many sins. Believe and trust that just as it is easy for you to breathe the air and live with it or eat and drink, so (and even easier) it is easy for your faith to receive all spiritual gifts from the Lord. Prayer is the breath of the soul. Prayer is spiritual food and drink. The name of the Lord, the Lady, the Angels and the saints serve instead of themselves, or - they themselves. Therefore, one must pronounce them heartily, with living, clairvoyant faith (Amen) and with reverence, especially with a pure heart. For the Lord, that person is pleasant who, out of love for his neighbor, shares with him the last piece, simple or tasty, who does not consider anything his own, who rejoices at every opportunity to crucify his will, for example, the will of stinginess. People have deep-rooted, false beliefs, for example, that guests and even close relatives should not come to us often, and every time we feel hostility and even hatred towards them because they come to us, and this hatred increases more and more over time, especially if they eat and drink with us! O blind men! Blind people, of which I am the first! Oh, madmen! Oh, evil and proud! How dare we call anything ours when everything is God’s! How dare we boldly and viciously tear away from ourselves the image of God - our neighbor, to whom the whole earth is subjugated and who has the same rights to everything as we do! O righteous God! O God, generous! Have mercy on us! Correct us, Holy King! Let us be one! May we consider our property a common property and sacrifice it to love for our neighbor. What an abundance of the Lord’s sweets on earth—various fruits, but they are all for all people, and not only for certain people, just as bread is for everyone, and not just for some, just as the Savior came down from heaven for everyone, and not just for some. Only sinful pride appropriates everything pleasant to itself, and deprives others of this pleasant thing or does not share it with them! We are all God's children, all sinners, deprived of the glory of God, justified by the grace of Christ, all unworthy of the gifts of His goodness! On what basis do many of us appropriate so much for ourselves and do not want to share with others, the poor or the poor! Let us share until the end of our lives with the poor or needy or with those whom the Lord sends to us, considering everyone to have the same rights to the gifts of the Lord and trusting that the Heavenly Father will reward us a hundred times more than what we give to others. Amen. It is also necessary to observe regarding the students, so that they do not act wisely about themselves and begin to humiliate the teacher, and sometimes it is necessary to cut them off. A teacher should never lose heart. This is a great evil. God! Save. February 4, 1864 To the chosen Voivode and Lord, as if you have delivered from the evil ones, I will write a note of gratitude to Thy creation and servant. I sat through three classes safely, not overcome by dark forces! But at home, a sinful man, he was overcome by stinginess, gluttony and overeating. I ate a lot of nuts and raisins, and almost one more! Damned selfish man! Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer [1 Jn. 3, 15], and I am this murderer. God! From now on I want to love everyone, despite any pretexts for hatred, plausible and unseemly, because they are all empty pretexts. Help, Lord! I can’t do anything without You. Even if you take everything from me, Lord, give me love to preserve, give me the strength to forgive everything and love to preserve, so that otherwise I will not destroy my soul forever. Amen. Love is poured out in the voluntary giving of something that belongs to us as a gift to our neighbor. Because of what trifles, because of what dream, we often hate our brother! As if we have any right to hate him, and we ourselves become more guilty than our brother, even if he has sinned in something, because we hate him, for hatred is the greatest sin, it is murder. Oh, when we learn to work for the Lord of our belly and the Judge of the whole world with a pure heart! When pure love, indestructible love, settles between us! When will we begin to place all our hope, all our sorrow on our Heavenly Father, who cares for us, His children! Father! Father! Father! How can we forget You and Your providence, the Nourisher of every creature? As long as we despise the words of Your Son: With the measure you use, it will be measured to you [Matt. 7:2], and: Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you [Matt. 6, 33 ]? Father! Give me the strength to place all my hope in You! Grant me to despise demonic dreams and not obey them. Pride, contempt, malice, irritability, stinginess, which so often revolt our hearts, are the dreams of the devil. Do not be ashamed to call older students children, as they should, and so that they remember who they are and are not proud. God! Grant me to educate Your servants in Your spirit! Wake up! Wake up! How hard milk is for me, it’s like a butt hit! (And what do the city cows eat!) What fatness, callousness of heart! What a huge lack of love for God! I'm very weak! The Savior means there is a destroyer. Who is this? - Devil. Church . Doesn't the devil have a church? There is: theater. They also have their own priests - actors. What about moral ideas? Sometimes the devil, as it were, transforms himself into an angel of light [2 Cor. 11, 14 ]; he fights with gums and neck. Somehow he needs to lure several pious people into the theater - so he tells them: do not be afraid of the theater, because there are pious performances there. What kind of piety is that? Jokes in a word, laughter and temptation. Pray for Andrei Petrovich. An hour or an hour and a half before nightfall, do not eat at all, especially salted fish and especially with black and white bread. Borscht soup is very heavy. Do not eat veal jelly. Self-control, or abstinence of passions. Give prosfira to Postnikova. The devil, pure darkness, is the most senseless and absurd, besides other epithets - evil, proud, envious, etc. What nonsense and absurdities he whispers to a person and teaches him to do them! O most disgusting animal! O perverter of God's creation and my perverter! Do not sleep during the day, except occasionally: the blood thickens. How hard it is to get up in the morning after drinking vodka the night before and eating herring and black bread! Do not eat or drink unless necessary or especially late at night. The more tender the flesh, the worse it is, and so is the soul. Gymnastics for high school students and the fast food table are always pampering; abolition of punishments - too; ignorance of nature. Deviation from the biblical spirit. Eat one black bread with or without butter, washed down with tea, and white bread only occasionally. He fastens [...]. Avoid excesses in food and drink, for excesses lead to excess, addiction and hardening of the heart. True. Tea with raspberry jam is very good for the stomach. Don't eat meat. Eating less of any kind of porridge causes contamination. After high school classes, I need to eat something very light, for example, a white roll with tea, especially next week. Otherwise, a fish or meat table is difficult for me. A glass of milk is good soon. Bream with rice in vegetable oil is extremely hard on the stomach. It sticks terribly. And apples, especially Crimean ones, and beautiful gingerbreads have a beneficial effect. If you woke up at five o'clock in the morning, don't go back to sleep. Very harmful. Experience. Remember that when you eat too much, you become a stinking asshole. But such people will not enter the Kingdom of God. You, scrofulous, must avoid food, drink, sour and salty things. Especially marshmallows and jams, do not eat salted mushrooms, potatoes, caviar. Don’t eat semolina porridge with milk: it irritates the nerves and makes you feel bad. Semolina porridge, especially milk porridge, is trash for the stomach. Choose meager and harsh food, such as black bread. Strong tea gets hot and leaves a poisonous sediment at the bottom of the belly. Do not eat cream and crackers, and indeed milk and dairy products: it is terrible how the devil binds with sweets. Cream with white bread is fortified. Lemon in tea is often inappropriate and only harms with its acidity. Never drink Bitora115 with vodka. The most unseemly place, in our opinion, is how well arranged by the Lord! - just like the most beautiful thing, for example, a face, and Percy, and Lyadvia116. He created all wisdom ecu [Ps. 103, 24 ]! The beauty and splendor of members! God! May charm be removed from our hearts and thoughts. May the man of God be perfect [2 Tim. 3, 17 ]! My heart! My mind! Be heavenly! God is everything and in everything! Podvizati (Church Glav.) - exhort, encourage to do something. Ulstiti (Church Glav.) – to flatter, that is, to be cunning, to deceive, to deceive. Sadness (Church Glav.) – care, care. General troparion to the monk. Acquisition (church glory) – acquisition, property. Diligently (Church Glorious) - diligently, diligently. Obnosti (Church Glav.) – to carry around, to distribute. That is, the icon standing in the local (first, or lower) row of the iconostasis. That is, I sang a song of thanksgiving to You (to sing (church glory) - to reward, to send up). Diligence (church glory) - stick to something; to care, to work diligently. Succession (church glory) – improvement. Tune (Church Glav.) - for free. Zeal (Church Glav.) – zeal, diligence, care, diligent activity. Nazirati (Church Glav.) – to notice, to observe. Ossetit (Church Glav.) – to surround with nets, that is, to captivate. Flattery (church glory) – deception, lies, deceit; seduction, temptation. Excess (Church Glav.) – to free oneself, to get rid of something. Abie (Church Glav.) – immediately, immediately, immediately. The 10th prayer of the lamp at Matins. Negligent - here: dismissive, contemptuous (from the Church Slav. “neglect (negligence)” - leave without attention, put in nothing). Belial (Heb.) – lit.: insignificant, worthless. In the Bible, this word is applied to all depraved, wicked and evil people, but especially to Satan, as the main culprit of all wickedness and evil. Justification (Church Glav.) – law, institution. Irmos of the 6th song of the Sunday canon at Matins, tone 3. To be brushed off (Church Glav.) – to lose, to become empty (vain), to be left with nothing. Verbal (church glory) – spiritual, reasonable. To give birth (Church Glav.) – to revive, to give a new birth. Abiding (Church Slavic) – unceasing, eternal (from “abide” – to remain, to last forever). Kindness (church glory) – beauty. Istniti (Church Glav.) – trample, crush into dust. Besprikladny (church glory) – unparalleled, incomparable. Seated (Church Slavic) – seated next to (together with) someone. The image of a slave (Church Slav.) – the appearance, image of a slave. From yinuda (Church Glav.) - from the outside, from another place. Akathist to our Lord Jesus Christ, kontakion 1st. Gregory (Postnikov; 1784-I860), Metropolitan of Novgorod and St. Petersburg. In 1814 he graduated from the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, where one of his mentors was St. Philaret (Drozdov), who had a great influence on him. Since 1819 - rector and ordinary professor of the St. Petersburg Academy; maintained strict order at the Academy, improved educational programs, and improved the financial situation of students; taught theological sciences, Holy Scripture, participated in the translation of Holy Scripture into Russian. His lectures were distributed in printed and handwritten form to many religious educational institutions. The works of Metropolitan Gregory laid the foundation for official spiritual journalism in Russia: in 1821 he founded one of the first spiritual magazines in the country, Christian Reading; in 1855, the Orthodox Interlocutor magazine began publishing in Kazan; in 1857, the Spiritual Conversation magazine, intended for the laity, was founded. In 1822, Gregory was consecrated Bishop of Revel, vicar of the St. Petersburg diocese. In 1825 he was appointed to the Kaluga See, where he began to actively engage in missionary activities among the Old Believers. In 1832 he headed the celebration of the discovery of the relics of St. Mitrophan of Voronezh. In 1848 he was appointed Archbishop of Kazan and Sviyazhsk. He paid special attention to missionary activity, took care of strengthening the common faith, and headed a committee to translate liturgical books into the Tatar language. At his insistence, missionary departments were opened at Theological Academies and Seminaries in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Kazan, and Kyiv. Bishop Gregory was a major specialist in the history of the Old Believers. His book “The Truly Ancient and Truly Orthodox Church of Christ” (1854) was published four times during the life of the saint. In 1856, he was elevated to the rank of metropolitan and transferred to the St. Petersburg See, and from that time on he was a first-present member of the Synod. Metropolitan Gregory was a tireless preacher; he preached at every service, addressing the listeners with simple, brief, but succinct instructions. Metropolitan Gregory was a member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (since 1821), an honorary member of the department of Russian language and literature (since 1841) and the general meeting of the Academy of Sciences (since 1856). He led a strict, ascetic lifestyle and was distinguished by generous charity. He was buried in the Holy Spiritual Church of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. Glorification is the name of a pious custom when clergy on certain holidays walk with a cross and icons through the homes of believers, where they glorify God and His saints. Such prayerful praises are accompanied by sprinkling of holy water and blessing of the believers. No language is able to praise you at your true worth, and even the highest mind of the world is lost - how to sing praises to You, Mother of God... Irmos of the 9th song of the canon at Matins of the Feast of the Epiphany. In the foreground (Church glory) - in the future. Packs (Church Glav.) – again, again, again. Asps (lat. Elapidae) are a large family of poisonous snakes, which today includes 347 species, united in 61 genera. The scientific name comes from the Greek. aspis, aspidos – “poisonous snake”. The prayer of St. John of Damascus “Master, Lover of Mankind, is this bed not for me...” from the sequence of prayers for the future sleep. The exclamation of the priest at the liturgy after the transfer of the Holy Gifts. The good that you want... - that is, the good that exists in a wish, in a thought (a hedgehog (Church Glorious) - so that). Close to me - that is, close, inseparable from me (diligent (Church Glav.) - to be, to be nearby). Impute (Church Glav.) – pay attention, attach importance. Kontakion 8th Akathist to the Sweetest Jesus. Whole (church-glorified) – simple, pure, immaculate. Despair (Church Glav.) – despair, confusion. With zeal (church glory) - with annoyance, with anger. Akathist to the Most Holy Theotokos, Kontakion 8th. Izhe (Church Slav.) – which. Wave (Church Slavic) – wool. Stichera on the praises “Even from eternity the mystery has been revealed today...” of the Feast of the Annunciation, tone 1. Troparion “The incorporeal nature of the cherubim...” from the service of Lesser Compline. Simony is the sin of sacrilege, when sacred positions (and other church sacraments) are awarded not according to their merit, but out of self-interest, for money or other gifts Pache (Church Slavic) – here: higher, better. Libel (Church Slavic) – assassination attempt; intrigues, slander. Uranity (Church Glorious) – strike; I’m hurried - I’m suffering, I’m tormented. Stichera on the verse, voice b: “Not one on earth...” from the service with an akathist to the Sweetest Jesus. Troparion “Behold the Bridegroom comes at midnight...”. Do not let your foot stumble: your Guardian will not sleep (translation by P. Yungerov). Prisny (Church Slavic) is always a close (native) person. Ever (Church Glorious) – always, constantly. The exclamation of the priest at Matins. Koliky (Church Glorious) - how great, how many. Dennitsa - lit.: morning star or dawn; the chief of the fallen angels, so named for his brilliant perfections with which he was gifted from God, overthrown for pride and exaltation before God. This is the name of the fourth week of Lent, following the Week of the Cross. It is called the Middle of the Cross because on Wednesday of this week Lent reaches its midpoint. The fourth member of the Creed. Ugobzisya (Church Glav.) - brought a lot of fruit, turned out to be fruitful. That is, present in all creation. See the stichera on the Lord I cried “To You, O Lord, who exist in all creation...” on Saturday evening, tone 6. Prayer “He rejoices in You...”. Canon of the Most Holy Theotokos Hodegetria. 1st and 2nd troparia of the 8th canto. Prayer at the unction “God the Great and Most High...”. The prayer of St. Basil the Great “Pack the comma...” from following the rule against desecration. Do not turn my heart to evil words, to invent an excuse for sins (translation by P. Yungerov). Prayer read by the priest after the presentation of the Holy Gifts at the Liturgy of St. Basil the Great. Prayer to the Holy Spirit “Heavenly King...”. Prayer of Saint Ioannikis from the sequence of prayers for the future sleep. A glare of power (Church Slavic) - how much power there is. “It is impossible for anyone to be angry with his neighbor unless his heart first rises above him, humiliates him and considers himself superior to him” (Rev. Abba Dorotheos). Irmos of the 6th canon of the Sunday canon at Matins, tone 2. Prayer to the Most Holy Theotokos from the sequence of prayers for the future sleep. Buiy (Church Slavic) – crazy, ignorant. The prayer of St. Macarius the Great “To You, Master of Humanity, having risen from sleep, I come running...” from the sequence of morning prayers. Prayer of St. Macarius the Great “Rising from sleep...” from the sequence of morning prayers. Strange (church glory) - wonderful, inexplicable. Lat. proverb: “like rejoices in like.” Ikos of the 1st akathist to the Most Holy Theotokos. I set my feet in the open (translation by P. Yungerov). He brought me out into the open (translation by P. Yungerov). You have expanded my steps (translation by P. Yungerov). Rus.: The desire to become equal to the Creator was instilled in me by the all-evil serpent, who kidnapped me like a captive into his power; By You, Most Pure One, I was liberated, truly uniting with God, for You, Mother of God, gave birth to Him who made me a partaker of the Divine. Theotokos of the 1st hymn of the canon to the apostles and St. Nicholas the wonderworker. Tolikiy (church glory) – so many, so great. Prayer of St. John Chrysostom from the sequence of prayers for the sleep of the future. Twelfth member of the Creed. The prayer “As in Thy terrible...” from the follow-up to Holy Communion. The rite of renunciation of Satan from following the Sacrament of Holy Baptism. You might be interested in: