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Thursday. How can I glorify the mercy and power of my Lord and His Most Pure Mother, revealed to me during today’s Matins to save me from the deceit, embarrassment and fear of evil demons, when I prayed with all my heart to the Lord and the Most Pure Mother of God? The Lord immediately stood up for me, saved me, had mercy and preserved me from troubles through the prayers of His Most Pure Mother. I served Matins with the Six Psalms calmly, firmly, evenly. I bitterly reproach myself for the fact that after a hearty lunch (one and a half plates of soup, meat, roast, salad, milk) I drank coffee (two glasses with a roll and a glass of tea) and then went to bed with a full stomach. During Vespers, I was a toy and a laughing stock of the devil: from embarrassment and fear of the demons I could not speak the litanies; I prayed to the Lord, but he did not listen to me, and did not intercede, and did not save me. Serves it right! And how much shame and disgrace I suffered on my face! No account! I thank the Lord for the ineffable gift of His mercy, for the All-Good and All-Merciful One soon helped me, through my prayer, to peacefully perform Matins and early mass and partake of the life-giving Mysteries in the most peaceful, all-easy and sweet communion with my Life-Giver. May the Lord of my life grant me His mercy now, as He usually has, may He grant me, in holiness, boldness and strength, to perform both Matins and the Liturgy and to partake of His most heavenly and life-giving Mysteries, and may He grant me to successfully pass the exam in the 7th grade. God! Open our mouths, and our lips will proclaim Your praise [Ps. 50, 17]. You've seen our deeds. Give me the fruit. Wake up! You are our God, You are our hope! You are our help, our success, our glory, for in You we boast. I thank the Lord for His ineffable mercy shown to me in the celebration of the Divine early Liturgy this day and in the non-judgmental, peaceful, sweet, life-giving, joyful communion of His Most Pure Mysteries - His Body and Blood. Oh, holy faith in the Mysteries! Oh, Holy Mysteries! Glory to Thee, Lord, glory to Thee! Even if I stumble with the envy of the enemy after receiving the Holy Mysteries, I will only sincerely believe that the Lord is in me, in the Holy Mysteries, and I will pray to Him, who exists in me, that He, for the sake of these Holy Mysteries and these Mysteries, will have mercy, save and cleanse me, pacify and comfort me, as now salvation comes to me precisely from the Holy Mysteries and through the Holy Mysteries, through them. Oh, the greatness of the Mysteries! Oh life-giving, oh almighty power! Oh, all-saving power! At the exam in the seventh grade, it was quite difficult and embarrassing for me, due to the students’ not entirely correct, correct, logical answers, but the result came out good: everyone was satisfied with their answers. May God grant them to be good Christians. Thank God for the gift of rain: it has been raining for three days now. And how long he was gone and how difficult it was for him to get ready! After how many storms and howling winds! Saint Elijah the Prophet, together with the Most Pure Mother of God, through our prayer, asked for abundant rain for us. Glory to the Lord! Accept, O Lord, the confession of Thy mercy and Thy power, Thy Providence, Thy goodness. June 3. Saturday. Oh, the crafty, deceitful and diverse heart, in thousands of crafty forms, changing by the action of the evil one! Humble simplicity and humiliation in a simple person, although equal to you, he despises and laughs at; to a majestic, brave, proud face he subserviently, humiliates himself before him; he is afraid of a commander, especially one who is rarely seen, although he is not a beast. This is a strange, wild, absurd kind of partiality! One must have the same disposition of spirit, simple, sincere, well-wishing towards everyone, respectful towards everyone, not humiliating [anyone] before anyone, not fearing anyone except God. Glory to the Holy One, the Consubstantial, Life-Giving and Indivisible Trinity, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, who made me, the accursed, worthy to serve Him, my life, on a special day dedicated to the Life-Giving Trinity in the Church of the Dormition of the Mother of God. It was difficult for me to serve before communion of the Holy Mysteries due to the extreme tightness in my insides and the bondage from the enemy, which in turn came from intemperance in the evening - from drinking a glass of vodka and eating sprats late in the evening with black bread. It was like thorny thorns within me all the time, from the morning when I began to serve prayer services until communion. And in communion and after it, what grace, life, silence, sweetness, freedom, what peace and space, calmness I felt! I can’t say how happy I was. How glorious are the life-giving Mysteries of Christ God! How life-giving! How powerful that such sorrows and oppressions suddenly, instantly destroy! Today I learned decisively that my cramps most often come from a strong stomach, or indigestion. Today at Dr. Alaniev’s after the christening I drank good Strauch port wine, ate some strawberry jam, then drank sweet tea with milk, ate a homemade bun with saffron - and the result was wonderful... [...]. It is also useful for me in the need to be, to speak, to be in tension with my whole being. Thank God for everything! Trinity day. 11 pm. Light. At customs it was difficult to baptize a child due to weak digestion in the stomach and after an afternoon nap at home. Monday. Whit Monday. Here I am again reaping the bitter fruit of intemperance. In the evening I drank milk with cheesecake, ate fish pie and drank tea, whereas two hours before I drank tea with milk and homemade bread at Dr. Alaniev’s. How to take it down? How to endure? I complain to myself about myself! And how I grieve with this the humane womb of the Lord God, who created me in His image! I enslaved myself to sweets and desecrated His image; I voluntarily bowed down to the aphid, the accursed one, instead of loving incorruptibility, extreme abstinence, prayer, vigil, mental work, activity for the benefit of others! My God! How can You still tolerate my sins! I glorify Your long-suffering, which repays me not according to my iniquities, but according to Your ineffable mercy. We judge others for being greedy, but we ourselves are no worse than them! We just eat and drink and dress up, stare, and collect money. The demon of the love of money again seduced me with silver during the communion of the servant of God Nadezhda Kozminishna Prokofieva, confused me, constrained me, blocked the lips of my heart and body so as not to speak, caused a cooling both to the Holy Mysteries and to the sick one, until I woke up - before what and before Whom I stand, how infinitely important and high is what and Whom I stand before (the Saints Mysteries, the Lord in the Holy Mysteries, sick with my eternal destiny), and how insignificant is what, out of senselessness and passion, I consider coveted (money). Oh, the disposition of a money-lover and not a lover of God and not a lover of humanity! O lover of voluptuousness, more than lover of God [2 Tim. 3, 4 ]! Oh, how the Lord is insulted even by us, the teachers of Israel! Teachers, but until now they themselves have not yet learned the alphabet, they have not learned to deny themselves, to despise sweets, money, and earthly honors! But without our care, the providential Lord gives us everything we need for temporary life, He Himself puts it in our hands - just take it and do, without distraction, with all your heart, the holy work of serving the salvation of people! God! It's true for you, but it's a shame for me. But when will I be wise by You? Today I was at the grave of my father’s father Konstantin and two mothers - step-native Anna Petrovna and dear one - Feodora Vlasyevna and served a litya for the repose. Burning candles and lamps are kept warm in front of the icons of the saints in order to clearly show that the saints are burning and shining lamps, and if we diligently run to them with prayer to intercede for us before God, then they will make us, cold and darkened by sins, with their prayers sincere, fervent, spiritually enlightened before God and people; A candle is placed in front of the image of the Lord as a sign that He is the true Light, Who enlightens every person coming into the world [John. 1.9], that our God is a consuming fire [Heb. 12, 29], that He came to bring fire [Russian: bring down] to the earth [Lk. 12:49], frozen by our sins, that is, fire into our hearts, cold and ungrateful, so that we all burn in spirit, working for the Lord, according to the Apostle: burning in spirit, working for the Lord [Rom. 12, 11]. This is how important lamps are. Parts in honor of the saints at the proskomedia are taken out from the middle of the prosphora, on which is the inscription Ι C Χ C ΗΙΚΑ, as a sign that they are written in heaven, in Christ Himself, with whose help they overcame sin, their flesh, the world and the devil, and that we must also, like them, defeat our enemies by Jesus Christ and the crucification of our flesh. He will come in and go out, and find pasture [Jn. 10:9], that is, a person will enter through the door - Christ into His gracious Kingdom and will come out of this life into another, or from this body, and will find pasture, that is, the spiritual pasture of Divine illumination and enlightenment, the pasture of God's word, prayer, fear of God, truth, peace, joy in the Holy Spirit. Establish, O Lord, on the stone of Your commandments, my struggling heart 33 - why are the commandments of God inscribed on stone by the finger of God? – For the sake of showing their eternity, immutability and firm fulfillment by everyone. Thou hast commanded Thy commandments to be kept strictly [Ps. 118, 4]. Father Nikolai Bolshoi is carried away by the modern conclusions of science and considers the writings of the holy fathers, the lives of the saints, and the Holy Scripture itself to be nonsense. Alas! God! Turn him to the path of truth. In “Bulletin of Europe” I read from him how one landowner beat her pretty servant girl to death, having become jealous of her favorite servant. I had a hearty lunch at Father Deacon Al’s name day. Ivanovich Taratin (oh, these feasts! I ate pie, meat, drank wine, fought a fight at home 34, and in the evening after the all-night vigil (and even before the all-night vigil, I drank tea with cream) I drank tea with sugar and ate a herring or two with black bread - and I became satiated, and my body became itchy, and I couldn’t sleep at night: I got up many times. Here’s to gluttony and drunkenness! And for At the all-night vigil, my heart was cold - no tenderness, no tears: this is how sweets have a detrimental effect on the soul and body. And your mouth is dry. Don’t eat any pies, don’t eat herring at night, or just a little! Let the Word of God dwell in you richly [glory: richly], it is said, speaking to oneself in psalms and songs and spiritual songs [Col. 3, 16; Eph. 5, 19], - and now among us the word, not of God, but of man, richly dwells in people: newspapers, magazines, novels; the word of God does not dwell in others at all, and that is why they are completely ignorant of the faith and dead in spirit. By morning the prodigal warfare was intense. Something is wrong: this is due to excess in animal food and sweet tea. Sleep by morning. It’s like I’m on a big ship, like a warship, with a lot of people. We are going to sail somewhere. The waves are terrible; they even pour into the stern of the ship, although it is at the pier. I decided to get off: fear took over me - well, we’ll all drown, I think; came down, although they held him tightly; left the umbrella - again trouble. Let's search (they are searching on the ship). And it was a pity for him - they found him, I’m glad. Ship - Church; strong storm - violent demonic temptations; The water pouring onto the deck is the water of fears, worldly passions, brought on by the devil, reaching the hearts of believers. That is why a Christian needs, it is necessary to fast, so that excess food and drink does not burden our fragile vessel - body and soul, so that we are spiritual, comfortable with grief, and do not cling to the earth on which the devil circles, bringing terrible misfortunes on people. June 11th. Morning. Resurrection. I had lunch at Taratin's yesterday. The Sunday of All Saints was memorable for me because of the torment that I endured during the service of early mass in the Cathedral. Yes, from these torments I took away the conviction that feasts, like yesterday at the deacon’s, are deadly for me and that I need to eat only once a day, and not drink vodka at all and not eat fish pies. My bag is full of devils, and I didn’t know where to go with it: they were in me, in this bag, I mean the body and especially the womb, and they were mercilessly dirty, confusing, darkening, stumbling me, not allowing me to utter certain words. From demonic violence and impudence, I almost screamed with all my might that I was being offended. It was so hard for me. That’s how harmful it was for me to have dinner with two salted herrings and black bread, and before that to be at Father Deacon’s name day! I disappeared during prayer services and at funeral services in church! So Belial pestered me, pestered me, pinched me! But after communion of the Holy Mysteries, I calmed down, especially after the final consumption of the Holy Gifts, I was completely at peace, spreading into my heart! I thank the Lord, who crushed in me the dirty tricks and all the machinations of the enemy! Oh, disgusting satiety that has no end! How long will I burden myself with dinner at night? How long is the fish for the night?.. The body is burdened - it’s hard to sleep and get up, like a heavy iron bolt - but everything seems to need extra food and drink! Where is the mind? Where is the thirst for spiritual food and the neglect of bodily food? Where is the rational purpose of life? Am I an unreasonable animal, should I only eat and drink? Everyone says that the Empress Empress is a very pious person, like Empress Maria Feodorovna, the wife of Emperor Paul I, who founded so many charitable institutions in St. Petersburg and Moscow. They say about the empress heiress that she is also very pious and kind and simple. Glory to the Lord, who raises up good mothers for His people! What was I aiming for when I rushed to lunch with Father Deacon Sofronov? – To the dreamy, to the burdensome, satiating, spiritually disfiguring. So, I strove in vain. I won’t do it in future. Enough of the same old nonsense. Again I ate fish in the evening at night, having come from the gymnasium, where I drank tea (two glasses), and again I don’t feel very well: I shouldn’t eat fish, and in vegetable oil, which produces heartburn, with black bread, but I should refrain from eating thick food at night, because such food is heavy! How does the Holy Church fulfill the Lord’s commandment about our love for each other in the likeness of the Lord’s love for us, or that we love our neighbor as ourselves? - Daily prayer for everyone, as everyone prays for himself - sincere, warm, filled with perfect goodwill towards everyone, even towards enemies. For example, Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy on us... Lord, have mercy on us... Open the doors of mercy to us. Such are all the litanies, such especially the prayer Our Father, the Most Holy Trinity, the Heavenly King, etc. As a result of eating fish on the night of June 16th, there was extremely strong tension in the genital penis, which bothered me all night, and an extreme pressure of seeds. Oh, don't eat fish! Otherwise it is difficult to maintain chastity! Don't drink sweet tea! Be content with eating kutya, cook it. Fish greatly strengthens the stomach; it is good to use against diarrhea. When will I be renewed in spirit? When will I start a new life? When will I be a Christian in deed, and not just in name? On June 17th. Sleep in the night. I'm a prisoner. I scream, the deliverers are coming. God! You were pleased to surprise me with Your mercy and this day twice before this hour, when I cried out to You for mercy. I thank Your goodness and power, Lord, with all my heart. Glory to Your magnificent glory. A woman came with a baby so that I could pray for him. Baby Nadezhda is pale as death, the tongue is white, especially at the end. It's a pity for the innocent child who is suffering terribly. God's servant Jacob came, suffering from seizures, and we prayed together. I prayed with boldness, faith and hope, and he with zeal. What will the Lord give? For my gratitude, grant them, Lord, healing, but do not remember my sins or theirs. By Thy mercy, remember us, for the sake of Thy goodness, Lord! [Ps. 24, 7]. We do not dare to consider ourselves worthy of Your mercies, for we have done nothing good before You. The abomination of desolation, standing in the holy place [Matt. 24, 15]. These are shepherds whose souls have become desolate, that is, they have become empty of faith, hope and love and all virtue, as it is said: I am empty of pious virtues 35 . Beware, shepherds, of the abomination of desolation. Avoid drunkenness and gluttony, O priest, for one who is drunk and overeating is incapable of the work of God. I celebrated the All-Night Vigil for Sunday, June 18, with God’s help, both safely and not: safely because in some places, while reading the prayers, I had a spirit of tenderness and peace; unfavorably because when saying some prayers, it was Christ, the true Light, who had a spirit of demonic confusion and fear and could not pronounce it, and said only the first and last words and was ashamed. I got drunk again - I ate and got drunk last night due to the weakness of my nerves that was revealed at the all-night vigil (in the very thing - from the impoverishment of grace in my heart), and to top off my madness I smoked tobacco with some kind of despair. At night there is heavy sweating and sleep is quite restless. How long will I be mad? For it is obvious that food and drinking strong tea were unnecessary. Scorching the sinful substance, burning the thorns of passions 36. The Holy Spirit in the Holy Mysteries and through the Mysteries scorches the substance of sin, burns the thorns of passions, and before the Second Coming the earth and the deeds on it will be burned, sins and unrepentant sinners will be consigned to eternal fire. Let us prepare for repentance while there is time and grace still burns sins, and not sinners. Glory to God, who is patient with us. Seeing art, I imagine the Artist and marvel at Him for his artistry, and I thank Him, and I love Him secretly. So, seeing a person, the work of God’s hands, gifted with reason, freedom, a slender and majestic body, I am amazed at his Artist - God, and I ascribe glory to Him, and in the image I honor and love the Prototype. Resurrection. Late mass. Woe was to me during mass after I had dinner the night before (ruff fish soup and fried perch with black bread) and drank sherry, and besides, I drank strong tea and smoked a cigar - I was completely in the clutches of Satan, I did not have peace and freedom, but I felt tightness, fear and apprehension in my heart; at the great entrance I did not say a single name from the reigning house and generally spoke with difficulty, especially in the concelebration of Father Deacon, my spirit was dead from gluttony and the long deprivation of the Holy Mysteries - he was bound, rejected from God and deprived of the Holy Spirit. So, I thought with food and wine to strengthen my nerves and partly my soul, but the opposite happened: I extremely weakened my nerves and upset my soul. The result is that I need fasting and fasting - not eating fish or meat and not smoking tobacco, which is deadly to me. For a long time I prayed to the Lord to grant me, without stumbling, with boldness, with faith, love, a grateful and reverent heart, to celebrate the Divine Liturgy, and for the sake of my many sins I was not heard and was not worthy of help, especially for the sake of the new golden (silver-gilded) pectoral cross, which with its brilliance doubled my heart and, due to the weakness of my spirit, made me suspicious. My entire soul was constrained during mass. My God! What misfortunes! Where can I find solace? Hell captivates me, but there is no intercessor. My overflowing sides, tightly packed with vital moisture, worry me extremely and serve as a container for hordes of demons. Should I endure this for maintaining the integrity and purity of my body, even after the loss of chastity in my youth, in childhood, in my apprenticeship? – I don’t know what to think. Or do human sins oppress me, especially those whose money I have to distribute to the poor? But this money is all being distributed and will be given to the poor. Am I serving too few of my own? “But I squander mine even on the poor.” Without working for God, we inevitably work for passions and the devil. How necessary it is to always serve God! But we are lazy in serving God and zealous in pleasing our own whims, in serving the world and its corrupt customs! That is why we are weak in spirit and body, that is why we fall and are broken, and that is why we are deprived of the grace of God. I thank the Lord, who saved me from hostility towards brother Alexei through the prayer of my repentance and who gave me peace. The night from Sunday to Monday, after serving the liturgy with a sermon, after a light dinner of pie with wine and tea, and especially after the long singing of sacred songs in my rooms, I spent very well by the grace of God: I slept soundly, peacefully, without any pain in my back, and got up cheerfully and freshly. The Divine Mysteries healed me, singing filled me with the Holy Spirit. - God bless! Temptations were beneficial. Thanks be to God for everything! I thank the Lord for the successful celebration of the Divine Liturgy and the non-judgmental communion of the Divine, holy, immortal, life-giving and terrible Mysteries of His Body and Blood and for the pronunciation of the names of the reigning house, a free and even reprimand, only at the prayer behind the pulpit I missed a few words due to split thoughts, may the Lord not impute this to me. I thank the Lord for the rain, but it’s not enough: grant more, Lord! Have mercy on our weakness. Due to the strong excitement of reading Massillon 37 and Bossuet 38 in the presence of Alex. Moiseevich Fedorov, an officer I know, after a walk and an evening snack of herring and onions and drinking orange and orange vodka (pie with vizig 39), at night I began to experience a profuse flow of scrofula from my right ear. I thank the Lord for expelling scrofula from the inside out, for freeing it from its shackles, from its rottenness! How good it is to excite yourself! (The sleep was very peaceful, despite the fact that I did not walk outside after having snacks and tea.) On the same day, he served the Liturgy safely, although in weakness of spirit, cramped conditions and with obstacles from the evil one. I took communion into the world of my spiritual powers. Father Archpriest was in the church on his birthday. May God grant him many years of good health. After mass I had guests: Father John Al. Pesotsky and father Nikolai Vetvenitsky. In the evening at 10 o'clock I was extremely tempted and upset in spirit because the soldier rudely refused to let me into the northern rampart, fulfilling his duty and the law. I imagined that this was his whim and disrespect for the priest; I wondered if he was a schismatic or a Pole, although even in that case there was no need to resist, much less be offended. I must learn from the soldier to stand firm in the service, without the slightest fear of all the mighty of the earth. Moreover, I must remember that this refusal of the sentry to me is righteous retribution for me for refusing to the beggars the alms that they earnestly asked of me. I thank the Lord, who gave me a tearful prayer while reading the canon of Hodegetria and with this prayer saved me from the oppression of the enemy and from my sins and gave me peaceful sleep. Countless are Thy blessings, Thy mercies, O Lord! (The dry marshmallows with tea turned out to be quite heavy.) An old prosphora lying in the buffet, crumbled into small pieces, which I partly consumed, caused me a lot of unbearable hardship during Matins: I could hardly speak, and I could not speak otherwise due to the scrofula spreading inside me; like chains, she bound my insides. Blinov embarrassed me by leaving the church early. May the Lord forbid him - do not go if you are too lazy to stand, but do not violate the order of worship. The wine that the archpriest drank also hurt me: it hardened my stomach along with the prosphora. Kvass in Botvinya is also harmful for me. I couldn't eat any fish at dinner. Kvass and lemon are very unfavorable for me, especially in large quantities: they agitate my scrofula. I read too much during the morning, I was exhausted. After the liturgy. I thank the Lord for the immeasurable mercy revealed in the communion of His Divine life-giving Mysteries: the thorns of passions that tormented me were suddenly felled and taken away, the terrible oppression disappeared, peace, freedom, and joy were established in my soul. Glory to Thee, Lord! All through mass until communion I struggled with my cramped conditions, and it hurt, it hurt. It is pitiful and annoying that until now I am a miserable slave of the womb, mocked by the devil, who daily seeks my destruction. Here is another bitter experience: last night I drank two glasses of beer, a glass of vodka and then two glasses, or almost three, of tea, ate first fried fish and a roll, and then with black bread (two slices), ate several gingerbread cookies, and what happened? Firstly, that I was half-drunk and satiated, secondly, I was bound in heart and tongue by the demon and had difficulty speaking with my acquaintances in the engineering garden (with Yankovsky and Brylkin), and this morning I felt an extreme obstacle from the spirits of evil in my ministry: extreme weakness of spirit and body (inside, not out); I still feel tightness in my sides and a scrofulous sharpness from excess. I sinned before God and myself. The lesson from now on is: don’t eat at night, and be moderate at dinner, otherwise you were still full at lunch, but in the evening you started eating again. Don't drink beer: it contains demonic machinations (that's right)! Gluttony, like drunkenness, can and does turn into a disease of the soul and body. When the seeds are not consumed for whole years, you need to eat very little, and even when your stomach is extremely strong. The particular harm of gluttony and drunkenness is that the heart of the glutton and drunkard completely cools towards God and neighbor, becomes coarse, becomes cruel, evil, greedy, envious, selfish, unbelieving, partial to earthly things, alien to heavenly blessings. I thank the Lord for the heavenly, divine peace of mind given to me, unworthy, after communion of the life-giving Mysteries at the liturgy, which I performed, and for the removal of mental and physical tightness and for the gift of health. I thank the Lord, who accepted my prayer of repentance after the storm and confusion before the all-night vigil, of which I myself was guilty, and who transformed the spiritual storm into silence and confusion into the peace of God, guilt into justification by grace. I glorify Your mercy and the long-suffering of God, I glorify Your merciful intercession, for I was like a leaf tossed by the wind, and my voice was exhausted and trembled, and my thoughts were all confused, and when You had mercy on me, O God! and I myself calmed down, and my voice became clear and sonorous, and prayer flowed from the depths of my soul in peace to the Lord, and I performed the entire all-night vigil without stumbling. (Before the all-night vigil, the deacon and all the sextons signed the papers of the dean’s father; wasn’t it earlier at home and not in church? The Lord will judge.) For the sake of addiction to earthly goods, the Jews did not recognize the Messiah and crucified the King of glory; for the sake of the same worldly passions, many do not know their Savior, many Christians even today do not believe in the Gospel, do not live according to the Gospel, but according to the lusts of their hearts. Woe to those who are addicted to earthly things: they destroy themselves because of them. None of those who are called will taste my supper, for many are called, but few are chosen [Lk. 14, 24]. I am a damned man: and I am one of those partial to the blessings here. But heal, Lord, the sickness of my soul. Both in reality and in a dream, the disembodied villain acts to cool us mutually and to arouse and intensify enmity between us, if it has already been sown. Therefore, it is extremely necessary for us to arouse fading love in ourselves, to make up for its lack, to be forgiving, to be patient, and not to be irritated. (Dream for June 23; Anna Konstantinovna and her children.) The only thing needed (love) must be acquired most of all - for this, nothing should be spared: neither oneself strongly, nor strong affections. I turned out to be extremely bad in my heart when I met on the Oranienbaum steamship with one family (the Onatskys), who suffered a terrible misfortune from a fire that turned their daughter (body) and all their property into ashes: I did not find sincere sympathy in myself, I could not sympathize with those who had lost so much: my heart was cold and sly from gluttony and drinking wine in Sergievskaya Sloboda with priest Nicholas Afanasyevich Vetvenitsky was as insensitive as a stone. How could I, a great sinner, still be angry at those who show hostility towards me, or envy, or disobedience, or rudeness toward me, when I myself am constantly obsessed with these passions? There is nothing more common and easier than sin between people - it is a common disease, a pestilence. How do we look at it in others as something extraordinary, new, amazing? I thank the Lord for His immeasurable mercy, shown to me during the celebration of the Liturgy in delivering me from the fierce malice of the devil, which was planted in my heart yesterday at the all-night vigil and today at the renewed mass before the Great Entrance. God! You saw how this anger drowned me, how I trembled, was embarrassed, tried to free myself from it - and could not; how embarrassed I was at the great entrance when pronouncing the names of the royal family (I couldn’t pronounce the empress), I had difficulty pronouncing the rest of the names. But before communion and through the communion of the Holy Mysteries, You delivered me from it, sovereignly overcame it through my prayer, and with great boldness I read the prayer behind the pulpit and the dismissal, and performed the water-blessed prayer service to the Mother of God in full, pronouncing all the words that had not been spoken before. I praise You. Completely destroy my anger in me. Smoking is harmful in every possible way: no matter how light and no matter how good the cigar I smoked last night was, my nerves were upset and I couldn’t really sleep; then there was pain in the lower back and my mouth felt as unpleasant as if I had eaten tar. Quit smoking. The flesh whispers: if you smoke a little, then half a cigar, for example, is useful: nonsense, I answer, and even that is harmful; and besides, how to resist smoking when you have a whole cigar in your teeth is tempting. No, I should definitely leave it. And waste of time when you smoke. Or does it excite the nerves and the soul? and good thoughts are born? Expect this in a different way, not from a cigar, but from God in fervent prayer and in reading the word of God and the writings of the holy fathers. June 24, 1872. Well, tobacco! How harmful it is! I walked for an hour, and the pain in my back from the cigar I smoked in the evening did not subside! How harmful it is to those who smoke constantly! Will I stop smoking after this?.. I also rarely smoke - once or twice a month, and even then it has a harmful effect on me! June 24. Serving the liturgy was quite a difficult test for me, especially at the great entrance when pronouncing the names of the royal family, during the invocation of God the Father to perform the Sacrament and at the prayer behind the pulpit: it was because of smoking tobacco that the enemy visited me and did not allow me to utter certain words; also at the prayer service, when reading the Gospel: Ask, and it will be given to you... in words: if his son asks for bread [Matt. 7, 7 – 9]... I was annoyed with myself that yesterday I smoked a cigar, this damn icicle, this is a mockery of the organ of taste, or of the mouth, which should arm itself against the lusts of the flesh, and not serve them themselves. But I thank the Lord - after consuming the Holy Gifts, the bodiless enemies were all burned and driven away, the oppression and opposition of the enemy were no longer there, and I completely rested in the Lord God, my Savior. For this I thank Him with all my heart. After lunch, I visited the sick servant of God, artillery lieutenant colonel Ivan Dmitrievich Goremykin, blessed him, consoled him, gave him prosphira, drank a glass of Madeira, two glasses of tea; then he was with Adrian T. Sorokin: he marries his daughter Maria to a second lieutenant of the Omsk regiment; I drank two glasses of port wine from him (merchant Gerasimov's wine trade) and two glasses of tea. I came home at almost three o’clock, had a snack: botvina with whitefish, roast perch with cucumbers, and sinned again: I drank two glasses of tea and ate red currant berries. Sorokin said about Father Porfiry of Nadporozhsky, the priest of the Omsk regiment, that he went everywhere to do his duty and got very rich, which is why he became arrogant - he laughs at church regulations in the company of officers. But God will humble and punish for blasphemy and for the very wealth collected in tuna, but not in squandering, but in saving. He also said that the cathedral fathers, except me, are lazy and proud: they don’t go everywhere when they call, of course, to insufficient people, they don’t want to go to others at all, for example, to sing requiems and see off the dead - that’s why the parishioners call more of a foreign priest, namely the Omsk regiment Porfiry. The sun of our daily services, from which they borrow their light and warmth and strength, is the liturgy, and in it Christ is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets. Christ is the subject of the Old and New Testaments, or the Luminous Sun for the Old and the New, all [notifications] or prophecies of the prophets relate to Him, the apostles speak about Him, as witnesses and His servants, sent by Him to the whole world to preach His word, the martyrs testified about Him, the saints who ascended to the height of Gospel perfection were glorified by His grace, by His grace the unmercenary rejected the self-interest of the world. In the Church, as in the wonderful world of God, everything is arranged beautifully, in an amazing, wise order - all the parts of the church and the accessories of each of them, icons, the service itself, the attire of the sacred persons, etc. This is the truly grace-filled Kingdom of Christ. How else do we love carnal life and, in general, this here, temporary, fleeting life, when our nature has long been ascended to heaven and seated on the throne of the Divine in the face of the Lord Jesus Christ, when He, our Lord and Savior, is glorified by His holy friends - His Most Pure Mother, the apostles, prophets, hierarchs, martyrs, reverends and all the saints. Is it not foolishness to be enticed by the things here and to cling to the earth, which one day will be burned up with all its deeds [2 Pet. 3, 10 ]? Let us awaken, let us awaken from the sleep of sin and begin to create holiness in the passion of God [2 Cor. 7, 1]. June 25. Resurrection. Morning. Having written these words, I immediately, during prayer, became concerned about what kind of cake to make today for the holiday, and in fact violated my pious intention - not to cleave to anything here! Oh, a disastrous skill! Oh, inveterate greed! And after mass and the terrible Mysteries of Communion and after christening, he really ate with greed ahead of time, when there was still no proper appetite (desire) for pie and other dishes, and thus again satisfied his greed! After mass. I thank the Lord, who delivered me through the communion of His Holy Mysteries from the terrible burden brought on by the enemy and my sins and especially by vain enmity against Elder Pavel Aleksandrovich Mikhailov, a retired major, who stood at the altar, precisely because he stood at the altar, and not in the church. I repented before God of my insane, involuntary enmity and forced myself to thank God for the fact that there was a zealous prayer-goer with me in the church, taking a living part in such a great Sacrifice (he was on his knees throughout the Liturgy of the Faithful, and then at the thanksgiving service; he was waiting for the prosphyra, apparently, but I didn’t give it, I was stingy). And also [...] I came home - there was no reason, not for honor, not for glory. After consuming the Holy Gifts, driving away all invisible enemies from my soul, I felt blessed, most peaceful, most joyful, light, heavenly. Glory, glory, glory to the Conqueror of hell, Christ our God! The prayer service was completed safely and the prayer of thanksgiving was read calmly, with feeling, all the way to the end, except for two or three words at the end. Thank the Lord! At the liturgy before the Transubstantiation of the Holy Gifts, during and after, the temptations of the enemy, who was embittered against Pavel Aleksandrovich Mikhailov for standing in plain sight in the altar (and he stood and prayed earnestly), were difficult for me. This is hellish, incomprehensible, violent anger! Damn you, accursed one, from now on and forever! May you never be renewed in my heart again! Wake up! With a strong cry, I begged the Lord to take away the violent anger from me and throw me into hell, and as soon as I begged the Lord to take it away from me, it took root in me as an evil habit. Oh, people are so angry! And I am more angry than anyone else! Evening. 11 o'clock. Another most sensitive, most difficult lesson is not to eat or drink beyond the need, as today at lunch I was hungry and drank beyond what was necessary (vinaigrette, fish soup, fried fish with a capsicum (not lean) sauce with carrots, then three glasses of tea. It was hard at the unction, as hard as it is hard for a mouse in the paws of a cat; he took possession of me, overpowered me Belial is evil: I could not utter many, many words; I was darkened in my thoughts, embarrassed, morally killed, I was bound hand and foot in my soul; I was trying to speak and in some places I could not pray for the sick! Oh, my damnation! the attack of unclean sensations when the sick old woman was tossing about and somewhat naked. In general, I felt very paralyzed in soul and body from the devil. This is our priestly fate - to forever suffer from the horsemanship of the most wicked and all-nasty and all-violent Belial, that is, Satan! Woe to gluttons like me! The demons fiercely mock them, and the fasting people laugh at them, easily destroying all their machinations! For a few hours of easy service in three or four days, the generous Lord sometimes sends you so much money that you can feed your mother-nurse and her children for a whole month. Therefore, do not skimp on what you need and do not spare money and give thanks to the Generous One with generosity and love for your neighbors, without growing cold in love for them, much less avoiding in every possible way the spirit of dislike and enmity. Let not your goodness be blasphemed. This good is not yours, but God’s and your neighbors’ – only partly yours. I thank the Lord, who has vouchsafed me, without stumbling and loudly, to freely celebrate the early liturgy in the Duma church for the deceased servant of God Nadezhda Prokofieva and to partake of the revitalization, cleansing, sanctification and strengthening of my soul, and also of my body, to partake, I say, of the Holy, most pure, life-giving Divine Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Christ my God. Before mass I had diarrhea, which made me weak, but my voice was clear and sonorous. This means that the resolution of the stomach contributes to the purity of the voice, and when the stomach becomes stronger, then the voice weakens and becomes unclean. I sinned before God after mass, when I came home, by being stingy: I spared an extra fourth bottle of milk a day for my family - I ordered only three to be carried, at seven kopecks per bottle. What a terrible connection of sins: it is impossible, while pitying something earthly, any good for one’s neighbor, at the same time sometimes not at all to feel sorry for one’s neighbor, for whom God created everything; one cannot help but be imbued with coldness, dislike, even a hostile disposition towards him: where a piece has fallen into the environment, a carnal man cannot avoid enmity. Here you have Christianity, which preaches that the Kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit [Rom. 14:17] as food is to the belly, and the belly is to food; but God will destroy both [1 Cor. 6:13] that you do not destroy with your food the one for whom Christ died [Rom. 14, 15], or: strive not for food that perishes, but for food that endures to eternal life [Jn. 6, 27], or: do not seek what you will eat or what you will drink... seek most of all the Kingdom of God, and all these (external blessings) will be added to you [Lk. 12, 29; 31]. Having regretted an extra bottle of milk or an extra lump of sugar, I fall away from God, I am embarrassed, I am extremely constrained, deprived of freedom, peace, light, boldness, I die in spirit. Have respect for your high rank, the rank of Christ, and do not be embarrassed in spirit before any high-ranking or rich persons, for in the face of God they are nothing, sinners stinking of their sins; Have respect for your human dignity, which is the same for you as for all nobles, although you are not of high breed, born in a village and in poverty. Remember that the Lord humbled himself for us, in order to teach us humility by example, he was born in poverty, in a wretched manger, and all his life he had no place to lay his head. Convict the rich of luxury, arrogance, and hardness of heart. Do not look at appearance: before the Lord it means nothing - look at everyone with your inner gaze as the image of God, as a member of Christ, as at the rod of the Vine - Christ, as at the verbal sheep of the flock of Christ, and at yourself as a shepherd. I thank the Lord for the repeated, all-merciful hearing of my cry for salvation when I was in cramped conditions, fear and sorrow, and for saving me, a sinner, especially during the liturgy; I thank the Lord, as he sovereignly quickly delivered me from anger and rage, or from their bad consequences in the soul - oppression and darkness and shame, and from grief and annoyance in the soul for the late brother of Father Gregory and sister Anna Konstantinovna. I realized my stupid malice and asked for healing and mercy from the Lord - and was pardoned. Eleven o'clock at night. Early mass from the Prokofievs. I thank the Lord, who has given me the strength to perform the Divine Liturgy in a clear and loud voice, without stumbling, and to partake without condemnation, for the revival, joy, health and strengthening of my soul and body of the Holy, most pure and life-giving Mysteries. Oh, what a holy, life-giving warmth I felt in my sides after receiving the Divine food and drink! But the brazen struggle of opposing forces continued throughout the liturgy! At home I drank three glasses of fresh milk, then fell asleep soundly and sweetly and was almost defiled by the dream through the work of the devil. Milk contributed to strong tension in the reproductive organ; I woke up in time and brought a cleansing prayer to the Lord. He looked (sinned) at the innocent baby with the eye of envy because of his mother. Why do I separate myself from them? They and I are one: one spirit of love (like common material goods) should unite us. Because of them, the grace of God rewards me with its blessings. I am unworthy of them due to my evil nature and my countless sins. It’s also a lot that I enjoy my health. If I look upon them with love, then perhaps the Lord will have mercy on me because of them. God! You unite us into one spirit of love! You see how the spirits of evil constantly tempt me, instilling anger, envy, stinginess and other passions into my heart! Milk intensifies the natural burning sensation of sinful thorns to the extreme and incites extreme anger towards innocent households and envy, gloominess, and melancholy. You need to have a lot of movement. Irmos of the 3rd song of the Great Penitential Canon of St. Andrew of Crete. Drachena is a dish prepared from flour, eggs and milk, like an omelet. Troparion of the 1st song of the Great Penitential Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, read on Wednesday of the First Week of Great Lent. Troparion of the 9th song of the canon from the sequence to Holy Communion. Massillon (Massillon) Jean Baptiste (1663 - 1743), Bishop of Clermont, famous French preacher. The main properties of his sermons were sincerity of religious conviction, subtle psychological analysis, truthfulness of denunciations, lack of affectation, clarity and simplicity. About a hundred sermons have survived from Massillon. He had the gift of praising the worthy, avoiding flattery, and fearlessly exposed the vices of the royal court and society. The Russian translation of “Selected Words of Massilien, Bishop of Clermont” went through three editions. Bossuet Jacques Bénin (1627 – 1704), famous French Catholic bishop, preacher, historian and theologian. Since 1659 he has lived in Paris; his successes in preaching Catholicism won him the sympathy of the court and King Louis XIV, who in 1670 appointed him tutor to his son. Bossuet began to record his speeches and work on dogmatic works only at the age of forty, but still, with the exception of Voltaire, no French writer wrote as much as he did. The main idea of ​​all of Bossuet’s preaching activities was the desire to bring Protestants closer to Catholics, which explains his gentleness and compliance in the fight against the enemies of Catholicism. Viziga is a product made from the dorsal string (chord) of sturgeon fish. Rozga (Church Glav.) – branch. You might be interested in: