Сентябрь

Grant me, Lord and Master of my life, to repay for enmity with love, for pride with humility, for cursing with blessing, for annoyance with pleasure, for disrespect with respect, for insult with patience, so that in this way the devil’s machinations will be defeated in us, like yesterday, September 1st, because of the drunken hieromonk who scolded my sister-in-law for her careless word. He said to his sister Anna: I’m sorry, forgive me, that yesterday I carelessly let out a swear word, and she, ready by God’s grace for peace, told me the word of peace: I’m not at all angry with you, - and now it became easy for me when I from the heart forgave her her sin, and she to me: and I, she said, can also say a careless swear word, just like you, because no matter how many times it happens to us at home trouble, I'm not angry. I thank the Lord, the King of peace, for the gift of peace, may there always be peace in our home. September 2, 1872 The basis of all prayers, all litanies, all Sacraments, all worship is the love of the Lord and His Church for His children, no matter who they are; How can a priest who does not have love for God and humanity truly pray to God for everyone? He will be a hypocrite. Oh, how a priest needs, above all others, love for God and neighbor! But how this love is opposed in us by earthly love, earthly passions: self-love, voluptuousness, greed, ambition, or the glory of this world! Priest! Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Christ. And here on earth, in anticipation, how sweet are Your spiritual blessings, Lord! More than all material, earthly goods. May you receive eternal blessings and despise temporary ones as if they are perishable. The love of gold (of the pectoral cross) causes me so much mental and physical harm, so much shame, embarrassment, fear, darkness, powerlessness (during worship) - and don’t I still consider gold and its shine as rubbish? God! Help and be wise! Let us neglect gold. Behold, I am testified by the Holy Mysteries, even before my face. Fornication is served by food, and clothing, and jewelry, and braiding of hair, and gait, and smile, and words, and facial expressions. We care about everyone (to judge and order), but it’s as if we don’t care about ourselves: so and so, they say, is stingy, a miser, a lover of money, evil, malicious, or so and so loves honor extremely; but we don’t want to know what we ourselves are like, our eyes are closed to ourselves, only open to others. We see or suspect evil in others, but we don’t seem to notice the malice that consumes us, as well as pride, envy, greed, laziness - we have all sorts of sins in abundance, a heavy burden, an ugly sight, but it’s as if we don’t feel our burden, we don’t see our ugliness. During the service, the Lord God, the Most Holy Theotokos, the holy Angels and all the saints are represented in prayers, chants, and thanksgiving as inherent in us, as they truly are. Lord, give me freedom of thoughts, words, movements and actions in the church during worship and all the Sacraments and prayers. Oh, what nasty winds there are when serving God in the church with a crowd of people! Oh, how fierce the demons are! Oh, how they want to devour and almost devour me, passionate and sinful! O grace that saves and helps! Glory to you! The Holy Church, our Divine Mother, wisely educates her faithful and obedient children through divine services, Sacraments, fasts and rituals; everything is weighed in her: our deep fall and corruption, the terrible inclination to sin, the inflammation of the flesh with passions, and our desire for holiness, goodness and perfection, and our extreme weakness to acquire them on our own; in accordance with this state of ours, she instituted both worship and the Sacraments, singing, reading, prayers, fasting, rituals, in which her motherly desire to save us from corruption and destruction, to restore the fallen image, to decorate it and raise it to ancient kindness, or beauty, and to the first bliss, is completely clear. Blessed is the Christian who is obedient to his holy Mother. The Christian faith, although it is an ancient faith that existed from the beginning of the world (He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world [Eph. 1:4]), is eternal news in itself, always renewing those who hold it with all their hearts and are guided by its rules; sin, passions, customs and rules [of the world], no matter how plausible and attractive they may seem, lead us into decay, ugliness, no matter how hard we try to seem beautiful and good. Blessed is he who always abides in faith and acts according to it. Pea sheep 55 . Will not, says the Lord in the Gospel, leave the ninety-nine in the mountains and go to look for the lost one? [Matt. 18, 12]. (Litany.) The Lord Himself is everything in everyone. He is the Shepherd of His people; He gives His sovereign spirit, judgment and righteousness to kings; to shepherds judgment, truth, holiness; judges are judged - everywhere in the world His love, reason, wisdom, power, and protective providence operate. Plant your unceasing fear, Lord, into my heart, so that I will always be clean from all sin. The fear of the Lord is pure, abide forever [Ps. 18, 10]. Wars and wars of one people with another are necessary in the moral world, like strong thunderstorms for vegetation, and sometimes internecine wars are also necessary - for the punishment and cleansing of souls deeply immersed in sins. And for every time and for every hour... Christ our God accepts due worship of Him in heaven and on earth at every time and for every hour, but we, sinners, bound by everyday worries and deeds and most of all by sins, must at least devote some hours, determined by the Church, to prayer and worship of God, namely: the first, third, sixth and ninth, although we should truly serve Him unceasingly day and night, like saints in heaven. Marvelous is the greatness of our Lord Jesus Christ, seated with the Father and the Holy Spirit on the throne of glory; marvelous and filled with infinite goodness, wisdom and power are all His works in heaven and on earth; it is worthy and righteous to worship Him at all times and at every hour. Resurrection. Early mass. I thank the Lord for His great and rich mercy towards me, shown in the communion of His most pure and life-giving Mysteries, which took away my spiritual death through the cleansing of my many and great sins (irritation due to a drunken monk), revived my whole being, pacified my soul and strengthened me. Oh, how peaceful, light and sweet it became in my soul after consuming the Holy Gifts, after that mental and physical weakness, that despondency and that bitterness and fear with which Belial entangled me! The cross, the heavy cross, serving the liturgy for me on holidays! But here’s a lesson: I don’t need to eat in the evening, especially on the eve of an early mass or even a late one. Through food the enemy does a lot of mischief in me, deposes me, plunges me into weakness. I, as a warrior of Christ God, must constantly be armed with spiritual weapons: prayer and fasting. Fasting must be my constant companion and must never be abandoned, for spiritual enemies do not sleep, but are always awake and fighting and do not know a truce. Before the rain, my nerves drop greatly: my voice trembles, timidity, fear, fear. I sinned before the Lord: at a general prayer service before the image of the Iveron Mother of God, while reading the Gospel of the Blessed Water, I was carried away, like someone with an unclean, prodigal heart, by a prodigal ghost before the word Bethesda, remembering Russian foul language, consonant with this word. Oh, how the enemy scolded us in our reproductive organs, so purely and wisely and graciously created by the Creator. How does it happen that the Heavenly Father forgives the sins of those who forgive their neighbors? Here's how: you quarreled with someone or were insulted, and you get angry, and your heart hurts from anger at your neighbor, it burns, it presses you like hell. But put aside all anger towards your neighbor, overcome yourself, ask for forgiveness from the one whom you have offended or even from the one who offended you, even if you were not to blame, but he only considers you guilty, ask sincerely, and you will immediately feel silence, calm, joy, lightness in yourself. This means that the Heavenly Father has forgiven you your sin, your untruth and your malice. And without reconciliation and humility you will not be forgiven. Why do invisible enemies often laugh at us through our own passions, although we, apparently, are trying, more in words than in deeds, to leave them behind? It is precisely because we handle our passions and bad inclinations and habits very carefully, we feel sorry for them - we only cut off the branches when they, even with their roots, are already very annoying to us and shame us, and we leave the roots within ourselves to grow and strengthen. Let us remember the martyrs and saints, with what mercilessness of the flesh they went to torture or exhausted their flesh in every possible way: and deprived it of food and drink for a long time, and of all softness and beauty in clothing, of space, beauty and comfort in the home, and wearing iron chains on the body, and reclining on bare earth and stone, and standing in prayer for several hours, etc. What is our life in comparison with their life? Constantly pleasing the flesh, sin, passions - and we don’t count that as sin. We add pride and an unrepentant disposition to carnal knowledge. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the Gospel will save it [Mk. 8, 35]. The Emperor travels for us, cares, works, and we, so many of his people, rest in prosperity. And how he rewards us! Are we grateful to him? Do we love him from the bottom of our hearts? Do we sincerely pray for him? Oh, how many worries and affairs the sovereign has! How little sleep he gets! Monday. Early from [Korovnilovs] after Alexei (father and husband). This mass cost me terrible internal labor and struggle: I spoke with difficulty - there was a terrible soreness in my chest and throat; the enemy was cunning tirelessly and viciously; before the great entrance, the priestly diaconate could not remember, on the throne of glory of the Kingdom... too, God with prayers... too. But after communion, thank God, I felt life, peace, strength, and at the end of consuming the Gifts, complete peace. I thank the Lord, for He illuminated me with His sun every day, for He gave me His air, revived, refreshed, strengthened me, for He strengthened me with varied, pleasant and healthy food and drink, for He warmed me and decorated me with clothes, for He comforted me in a spacious and clean, well-decorated dwelling, for He abundantly sent me the means for this temporary life and none of us ever saw need; I thank the Lord that through His generosity to me, my relatives were, if possible, satisfied and lived comfortably; I thank the Lord, for the Lord disposed the hearts of many towards me and in them glorified me, even though I was unworthy, for the glory of His holy name, as it is written: Hallowed be thy name [Matt. 6, 9], or: So let your light shine before people, so that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven [Matt. 5, 16]. I thank the Lord, who helped me through His great mercy in all my good deeds. I thank the Lord, who cleansed all my iniquities and healed all my illnesses; I thank the Lord, who was patient with me in my many and cruel sins; I thank the Lord, who sanctified me with prayers and the Sacraments and during prayer sent down to me the spirit of tenderness and repentance with tears. I thank the Lord, who even until now has not put me to shame because of my iniquities, but has rewarded me with a good name and is rewarding me until now. Bless, my soul, the Lord, and all that is within me, His holy name. Blessed be ecu, Lord [Ps. 102, 1; 118, 12]. Glory to God that I am a member of the One Holy, Great, Catholic and Apostolic Church, my Divine Mother, and I benefit from her inheritance; Thank God that in it I always find salvation from my sins and hope to find, by the grace of God, perfect salvation. I was often out of order and very often in the service of Vespers, Matins and Mass, the Sacraments and prayers; insincerely, coldly, lazily and carelessly corrected and read them, sometimes with grumbling and indignation. He taught the blessing on the name of the Lord carelessly and coldly. Sinful before God and people! Sins and passions, like painful abscesses, ripen and burst - some for life, some for death, for some they pass in tears of repentance and tenderness, for others in despair and irrevocable bitterness and in suicide. The latter happens especially often these days, and the former often happens too. Without seeing pride (a proud person) rising and towering before you, you cannot learn humility, but when faced with contemptuous and arrogant pride, you can see all its madness and learn humility as Christian wisdom and acquire high wisdom through humility. Thank God for everything, and for the fact that He sends you proud relatives and comrades to live with. Tonight, from a night dream, I drowned in prodigal uncleanness: there was an outpouring of semen from excess in the evening in drinking milk on a fast day. And he allowed me to drink milk because it seemed to strengthen my stomach and there was no appetite for lean food (M. Dmitriev drank sherry without any taste), and this was before heavy rain at night; know ahead. At night he got up, washed his hands, and read the prayer of purification with tears. Glory to God's patience! Depart from the evil, promising, but every hour I sin. In advance, do not eat milk unless absolutely necessary on a fast day. Those who go to the liturgy, delve into, always enter into the spirit of the Savior’s love, especially when the priest pronounces His words on behalf of Jesus Christ: Take, eat... and drink of it, all of you... And bring this love into homes and in every place, imbued with it towards all people, especially those close to you in the faith. I thank the Lord for taking away my uncleanness and the gore that was in my insides, against which it was so difficult for me to fight; for peace, for freedom and the joy of communion with God. Oh, the abyss of mercy! And I'm not abandoned yet! Glory to You! Stand daily in full spiritual armor against sin, especially against pride, malice, envy and worldly addictions. I pamper my flesh in every possible way: with sweets, sleep, clothes, an effortless life, that is why it is so comfortable and quick to be inflamed by all sorts of passions. What should I do? Lead a very difficult life with voluntary deprivations. It was extremely painful for me to serve early mass today: there was extreme tightness in my chest, an unclean voice that was difficult to come out, extreme temptations from enemies; the incorporeal one, wrapped around my ribs, pressed, embarrassed, raped me. The prayer service was served with difficulty. At the great entrance of the words: May the Lord remember... could not speak. After mass, prayer services were held in two places: in the maritime club and in Rumyantsev’s house on Vladimirskaya Street, he served with difficulty; When I came home, I was quite depressed, I wasn’t happy with life, I looked at my family suspiciously. Watermelon asked, ate - it became easier; went to bed, rested, cheered up. And at the table there was again an angry despondency and melancholy, he was angry with everyone - everyone was disliked, everyone seemed to be enemies. After dinner I barely begged the Lord to take away my passions and my ethereal enemies from me. I calmed down. I sinned - I shouted at the beggars, scolded them, was furious: I will destroy them, I told one of them; called them mazuriki. My self-love, greed, envy and voluptuousness were expressed in an excessive form in the fact that I was upset at Dr. Shvonk’s frequent visits: it cures whooping cough in infants and, perhaps, [will cure]; What, I think, should he travel often? He gave advice, prescribed medicine for a whole week, and away with it for a whole week! I have sinned before God and my family! I should feel sorry for the poor and give them help, and not be irritated with them for coming to me. Thank God that they come to me and save me the trouble of going to them and looking for them. May I not forget that they are in the image and likeness of Christ, temples of the Holy Spirit, children of God, children of rebirth, sealed with the precious seal of the Holy Spirit, as the priceless property of the Lord God. God! I thank You with all my heart, peaceful and joyful and expansive about You, for I am now rich in You, in Your most pure and life-giving Mysteries, which I tasted today during and during the early liturgy. Glory to Thee, who cleansed my sins, burned their thorns, and crushed the wiles of the enemy! Glory to Your liturgy, renewing me, resurrecting me! What effect should there be in our soul from listening to the liturgy with compassionate attention? – Ardent love for the Savior, whose love for us surpasses our understanding, and mutual love. 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]. Understand what Divine spirit of love breathes throughout the liturgy. So, after each liturgy, take away from the church the deep conviction that there is one bread, one body, we are many [1 Cor. 10, 17], that we are all one, and separately we are members of each other and must take care of and love each other, that without love and mercy a Christian is not a Christian, that it is necessary to love each other, to be forgiving, tolerant, to be benevolent, to keep ourselves and our neighbors pure, to value their name and peace, etc. During church, home or public prayer, every Christian needs to bring on his own a humble reflection, a sincere feeling of God’s countless blessings to him from the beginning of his life until now, a sincere desire for correction, virtue and spiritual blessings in general, a good intention or determination for the future - then the prayer will be sincere, zealous, ardent, fruitful and life-giving. Don’t eat yesterday’s old soup, even if it’s meat-based: it hurts your nerves; sweet jam too: it has the same effect; coffee too. An angry hurricane hit me at home today just before the Sunday all-night vigil (in vain I went home - my wife locked me in when I was in a hurry to go back). I myself was not myself during the all-night vigil: upset, embarrassed. As soon as I repented, I came to a semi-peaceful state (I didn’t have to go home and change the cross!) The soul, created in the image and likeness of God, died in us with sins, and we are careless, we are not busy with it, but with empty deeds: gluttony, carnality, clothing, collecting perishable wealth; Because of empty things we quarrel, quarrel, envy, lose peace of mind, peace with God and people! Oh, things are crazy! What answer will we give to the Lord, the righteous Judge! Is this, is this what our holy, heavenly faith teaches? Hurry up, hurry up for your soul! I have taken my soul to You... Lord, I have fled to You. Teach me to do Your will [Ps. 85, 4; 142, 9 – 10]. You need to eat and drink less, I repeat. Yesterday, during the all-night vigil, during the passionate agony, during confusion and cramped conditions, I felt that the strength of the enemy in me and my weakness lay precisely in the excess of food and drink, which is why I felt tightness in my sides. On the night of September 10, there was an unclean dream and an outflow of semen. Suddenly a spiritual hurricane of the spirit of malice attacked and knocked me over internally yesterday. Oh, how I was troubled in spirit when my wife locked me up while I was in a hurry! Throughout the entire night vigil I could not control my heart, although I prayed strongly to God for mercy and peace. He read the Gospel in a trembling voice. We expect incorruptible, spiritual blessings, according to the promise of our Savior God, but we love corruptible blessings, we are addicted to corruptibles: is it possible to love both corruptible and incorruptible together? Impossible. A heart that has not learned to love imperishable blessings here and has not strived for them will not be able to enjoy them there. And he who loves imperishable blessings here already anticipates their sweetness and is ready to jump for joy when he listens or reads about them. I thank the Lord, who by His power stopped the fierce agony of passions in me for the tears of my repentance when I read the canon and akathist to Him, the Sweetest Lord, and the canon and prayers for communion on the morning of September 10 (Sunday), and who established peace in me (and because of the clothes of Father Grigory Tsvetkov - fur coats). Grant me, Lord, love for my relatives who live with me, enduring their weaknesses, faults, falls, bitterness, and establish the gift of love in me and in all of us. Grant me to grow rich in love, humility, kindness, patience, abstinence, purity, obedience, diligence in matters of rank and position. Everything is a dream, decay, except love. I have many motives and reasons to love my family: everything comes from them, all the many blessings given to me by God through them. And they also take care of me in every possible way. And the devil arms against them. Yesterday, before the all-night vigil, I was so excited because of the trifles that they locked me up in my quarters. Treasure humanity and each person in particular, as the Lord cherishes them, for the sake of their salvation He suffered in the flesh and shed His blood and died; value yourself in the sense of not desecrating yourself with sin, but carefully moving away from it, and not in taking excessive care of yourself and your property, not devoting it to the poor, not in standing up before others, making your worth known, coveting the honor and glory of this world - no: He who loves his soul will destroy it; but he who hates his life in this world will keep it to eternal life [Jn. 12, 25]. Treasure the peace, prosperity, and honor of your neighbors as if it were your own; patiently correct their shortcomings, endure weaknesses and failures, supply the poor according to your strength; In dealing with everyone, be simple, meek, and kind. September 10. I thank the Lord for the grace of celebrating the Liturgy and for partaking of the most pure and life-giving Mysteries: the Lord has also cleansed my many and fierce sins, sanctified me, pacified me, revived me, comforted me, and calmed me down. Come to Me, all you who labor and are burdened with the violence of the passions, and I will give you rest [Matt. 11, 28]. Words of the Lord. At Vishnyakov's christening, he stuttered from demonic cowardice. I am afraid of the spirit of unbelief and denial and the frivolity of officers and secularists. Vishkyanov’s son, a guardsman, was his successor. But this is where calmness and firmness and the importance befitting the dignity are needed. The firmness of principles, or the truths of faith, gives us the right to do so. Vespers was served poorly due to intemperance in wine; the litany did not speak. I have sinned! Don't drink too much ahead. Always know when to stop. And yesterday I treated the sexton harshly. How long will it take to fall? Do not judge, do not get excited, but correct with meekness. Monday. Matins. He was deeply indignant in spirit, grieved and deeply indignant at sexton Kamnev because he smelled strongly of wine - and could not serve due to his indignation and malfunction; He even hated him for his drunkenness, being fiercely wounded by his own hatred. Why am I embarrassed and stung by the sting of anger at the sight of the sexton’s disorder in the church? Don't I have weaknesses myself? This is due to lack of love. Love regrets and prays for the sinner, and does not become indignant and does not despise him, does not enmity against him. Doctor, heal yourself [Lk. 4, 23]. Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not feel the beam in your own eye?.. Hypocrite! First take the log of pride, lust and malice out of your eye, and then you will see how to take the speck out of your brother’s eye [Lk. 6, 41 – 42]. With the help of God and the Queen of Heaven, he spoke the great litany well, in a clear and sonorous voice, but he spoke the small litanies, pleading and intense, very poorly, in embarrassment because of the sexton, and did not pronounce many words. A painful state! The enemy burns, oppresses, outrages, and rages in you! Ready to tear the skin off the culprit! God! Correct us with Your goodness, meekness, wisdom and strength. September 11th. Seven and a half o'clock in the morning. Woe to me, who have lost patience. Grant me this, Lord! I thank the Lord for honoring me with the communion of His Holy Mysteries; during mass today I experienced terrible violence from the enemy, especially before the transubstantiation of the Holy Gifts during the invocation of God the Father; He didn’t let me talk, and in general, I was bitter about what I think was yesterday’s gluttony at Vishnyakov’s christening and clinking glasses with the mother in labor. Here are brothers and sisters - partakers and communicants of the Body and Blood of the Lord: today the Lord has descended into your souls, like rain on a fleece, and like a drop falling on the ground [Ps. 71, 6], - quietly, imperceptibly, beneficial, cooling, soothing. You are filled with the Lord, cleansed, sanctified, enlightened, comforted, confirmed in the faith, for you have tasted and seen that the Lord is good [Ps. 33, 9]. Give thanks from your heart to the Lord, who has wrought such a good change in you, and preserve the gift you have received through constant prayer, abstinence from sins, and practice in good deeds. He sinned against the Lord - he tore out the hair of two beggar boys, quite old, for annoyingly asking for alms. God! May I not become rigid in cruelty and stinginess. The owner, a glutton, welcomes guests with whom he can eat and drink in pleasure. And here the flesh benefits. But Abraham treated, and he only served. Lord, have mercy on me! We, the highest in rank and dignity, only consider ourselves entitled to enjoy certain pleasures, for example, taste (eating and drinking) or indulging in sensuality, and we persecute the lower ones when we notice the same inclinations in them. That is why I remain uncorrected, cursed, because my determination to abandon sin and adhere to virtue is weak, for example, to abandon gluttony and greed and adhere to fasting and a harsh life. And I am happy to eat and drink if there is a good, healthy urge to eat. Tuesday. After late mass. I thank the Lord for His immeasurable mercy given to me, indecent, in the communion of His holy, most pure, divine, life-giving and terrible Mysteries, for the life-giving currents, for the cleansing, pacifying, strengthening currents that penetrated my entire being. O Savior, good Savior, all-powerful, glory to You! Glory to Your communion with God with us, unworthy, sinful and humble. I thank our Lady Theotokos for quickly hearing my prayer for help and for soon showing me help in pronouncing the Great Litany at Matins. I thank the Lord, who has saved me many times now through my prayer and, by the way, in Rusanov’s house, in the apartment of Alexei Fedotovich Brovtsyn. I thank the Lord for yesterday’s ruble to Hieromonk Palladia, who sent me two rubles today. He served Matins with temptations from the sexton Yakov Mikhailovich Kamnev, who smelled strongly of tobacco and wine. God be with him. From now on I’ll stop noticing him. Because of him, I suffered a lot in my soul from evil demons; they arm me against him. I will tell him something with bitter annoyance, and then my heart will be tight; I repent and pray to the Lord that I may admonish him with meekness, for we are all fallen, weak, passionate people, we all need condescension, meekness, patience and long-suffering. The fire is burning, scorching in my bones, and I am weakened everywhere, and I cannot bear [Jer. 20:9]... Let me reprove, correct, and renew myself with the grace of God, for all the oldness of sin remains in me. I sinned before God and my family by entering the house from the gymnasium after a lesson in an angry spirit at my family, especially for spoiling the air in my room and for eating lean food, prepared in small quantities, while every day, not excluding fast days, they cook a lot for themselves: soup and roast. Should I, a communicant of the daily Divine Brush, start a quarrel over the Brush of a perishing man? They hardly know this imperishable Brash, and, naturally, they have developed a greed for perishable food. Let them eat to excess and become satiated: soon this greed will tell on them - maybe then they will remember about fasting. On fast days I need to eat in a special room so as not to see their mess and not get irritated. I thank the Lord, who once again gave me heavenly peace and heavenly joy after communion of the Divine Mysteries and who cleansed my sins, burned the thorns of passions and gave me new life. Five and a half o'clock in the evening. The Kingdom of Heaven is taken by force, and those who use force take it away [Matt. 11, 12]. Today this word of the Gospel has been fulfilled on me. At first there was in me the kingdom of earthly passions, the kingdom of the earth, but through intense prayer of repentance it was replaced by the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, the Holy Spirit descended on me and cleansed me all, sanctified me, brought me to tenderness, granted tearful prayer for people and for my family, peace, silence, freedom from evil, boldness before God and people - so that everything is for the good of God. I performed the litia and the blessing of the loaves without stumbling, and said a prayer to Christ, the true Light, and without haste, I calmly, clearly said, and asked for forgiveness of my sins. I thank the Lord. I thank the Lord for the good change of my family, my wife and sister Anna K. Grant me, Lord, good and not evil thoughts about my family, remember the words of Anna Konstantinovna that I raised her, got her married, in general, her gratitude and some humility. I thank the Lord, who took away from my soul the feeling of demonic enmity against my sister Anna Konstantinovna through my secret prayer. Grant me, Lord, to constantly have in my heart the words of the Apostle: One body and one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all [Eph. 4, 4 – 6]. We are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones [Eph. 5, 30]. And you are the body of Christ, and individually members [1 Cor. 12, 27]. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body [1 Cor. 12, 13], as expressed in church services in prayers and supplications... Grant me the spirit of love, the spirit of love, Lord! Grant meekness and condescension to those who sin and offend me, O Lord! I sinned before God and my neighbors: in domestic quarrels I justified myself, represented myself as offended, and my family as offending me, although I myself often gave rise to a quarrel with my whims or obstinacy, discontent, rudeness, anger, stinginess, envy, pride, etc. There is still a lot, a lot of bitterness (tar) of passions in me, a lot of thorny thorns of sins, a lot of food for the fire of hell, a lot of evil, pride, envy, anger, greed, stinginess, greed, lust, unclean carnal movements, guile, coldness towards God and neighbors, hardness of heart, contempt for those who offend, negligence, laziness, idleness, absent-mindedness, despondency, partiality, false shame, fear and fear, despondency, murmuring and cowardice, negligence about the work of service (about the salvation of souls), rancor and gloating, etc. Many times, if not always, I carelessly blessed parishioners with my hand, especially the poor, carelessly prayed for the dead, carelessly performed many prayers, services: Vespers, Matins and Mass, some of the Sacraments - an abyss of sins in me! But wallowing in the abyss of sin, I call upon the unsearchable abyss of Thy mercy: from aphids, O God, lift me up from my sins 57 . It was not suddenly that Judas the traitor became Judas the lover of money: the seed of sin grew in him until it ripened into the terrible fruit of betrayal of God. So among us, lovers of money and traitors to Christ do not suddenly become such, but gradually, as they nourish their favorite passion, they diligently satisfy it. Leopardova said yesterday that it is difficult for our widow Anna K. to live with us, that she looks around at every step and feels even more awkward as she caresses us. But I think that Anna K., my sister, is not the kind of woman to stand on ceremony. As a consequence of the fall of the first people, that is, eating the forbidden fruit, people were seized by an extreme addiction to earthly goods: food, wealth, honors, so that man began to consider God and corruptible things, or creatures, on an equal basis, and even placed and still places creatures above God; So the glutton puts his belly, delicious foods and drinks above God, the lover of money puts money and treasures, the proud person puts himself as an object of adoration, the ambitious person puts distinctions and advantages. Because of a tasty morsel, because of a shiny trinket, because of money, because of an offensive word, a person is ready to sacrifice both faith and the well-being of his neighbor; the laws of eternal truth, God, the soul in the image and likeness of God, death, resurrection from the dead, judgment and reward to each according to his deeds, eternal life or eternal torment are forgotten. Terrible blindness! Terrible madness! Terrible corruption of verbal, rational, human nature! These are the sad consequences of boldly eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil! This is how the tempter caught us, tricked us into his bait! And after this, many reject the need for fasting, abstaining from sweet and fatty foods on certain days in order to curb the sinful nature, the nasty, violent, passionate flesh! Come to your senses! This is the teaching of the devil, a murderer from the beginning [Jn. 8, 44 ]! Look at the example of our Savior! First of all, He legitimizes fasting by fasting for us and for us for forty days and nights and not eating anything during these days. One passion paves the way for another: gluttony and delicacy - fornication and hardness of heart; love of money is the same as hardness of heart, and in general it is the root of all evil [1 Tim. 6, 10]. How firm and holy and venerable and ancient is our faith! It was predicted and foreshadowed by the patriarchs, forefathers, and prophets; the writings of many of them or legends about their words and deeds have reached us and are read or sung in our churches and homes during worship! Our faith began with the first people, with the promise of the seed of the woman, even much earlier - with the eternal council of God about the creation of the first man and his redemption! How we must adhere to it, our all-wise and all-saving faith! How many people were saved by her at different times! How many wonderful examples for us of firmness in faith and hope and love, examples of courage, patience, abstinence, purity, non-covetousness, obedience and other virtues! Our faith, that is, the economy of our salvation, is the all-good, all-wise, greatest work of the all-good and all-righteous God, a wonderful combination of His Divine goodness, truth, wisdom, and omnipotence. Only God-enlightened reason comprehends it, and then only partially, and not completely, for God’s love for us and His deeds in the world surpass reason. That is why daring and unenlightened minds stumbled over the stone of faith and perished. We serve the image and shadow of heavenly things [Heb. 8G 5]. Before serving the Lord our God in heaven, He prepares us for it here - in images. We read and sing the Psalms and other readings of the Old Testament because of the deep spirit of piety, repentance, tenderness hidden in them and because our Lord Jesus Christ in the Old Testament was predicted, typified, sung by the forefathers, patriarchs, and prophets. Before Abraham was, I am [Jn. 8:58], said the Lord. Before even the mountains did not exist and the earth and the universe were created, and from century to century You ecu [Ps. 89, 3]. Our faith did not appear yesterday, but from the beginning of the world. The deacon censed to the Lord, preparing the way for the Lord coming in the small entrance. Divine services are performed so that we are imbued with the spirit of our faith and the knowledge of it; the spirit of faith, hope and love, repentance, compunction, holiness and truth, praise, thanksgiving, petition [1 Tim. 2:1], the spirit of unity among ourselves, for we, who are many, are one body [1 Cor. 10, 17], starting from the Holy Synod (the Council of the Fathers) and the royal house to the last poor man; Our head is Christ, to whom we, members, must be conformed in inner life, especially in the spirit of holiness, love, meekness, humility, patience, obedience, etc. The devil inflates and strengthens in our hearts the sinful love of the world, self-love, greed, love of money, pride, ambition, luxury, fornication, vain games: gambling, theatrical, literary (books by Renan 58, Bauer 59, Buchner 60. For what? So that people forget both God and their purpose, the image of God in themselves, the duty of holiness, truth, mercy, helping each other in needs and troubles, in a word, to completely distort our nature, lead us astray from the path of salvation and destroy us along with ourselves. Glory to the inattentive! Glory to the Church of God, to this saving ark, or ship of salvation, sailing among the storms of life, among the multitude of those who perish, not belonging to the Church. Glory to this star of God, showing us the way to the eternal! heavenly haven! Where is the sage? where is the scribe? where is the questioner of this century? [ 1 Cor. 1, 20]. Every sin: gluttony, greed, envy, malice, pride, fornication, despondency, fear, vanity - is the power of the devil. Hate every sin. Love the opposite virtues. You are preparing for the coming autumn and winter warm clothes and shoes, not only necessary, but sometimes beyond the need, and sometimes very valuable - but in the midst of caring for your body, do you think about the poor brethren, walking barefoot and half naked and shaking from the cold, so as to be able to supply one of them with clothes and shoes? After all, this is the responsibility of each of us, and not just some. You prepare various food supplies for the fall and winter, sometimes in quantities exceeding the measure of need - but in the midst of these worries about your own stomach, do you think about the poor people who do not know what they will eat today and tomorrow, and if people of sufficient means do not serve them, then they will have nothing to satisfy their hunger? But there are many of these in our city. You live in a clean, bright, comfortable, spacious dwelling, sometimes richly and luxuriously decorated - but do you, amid your luxury and splendor, among your bliss and peace, think about your brothers who do not have where to lay their heads tonight? But there are a lot of them in the city. It is the duty of a Christian to help these poor people according to the strength or means of each of us. During our prayer, a certain moral turning point takes place, purification, sanctification, renewal of soul and body, therefore the enemy tries with all his might to prevent sincere, deep prayer and brings various temptations and misfortunes to those praying: either fear, or nasty, evil and blasphemous thoughts. But we must always pray and not lose heart, according to the word of the Lord [Lk. 18:1], and wait for the mercy of God, which will not be slow to appear in us if we sincerely pray. During public, diligent prayer, cleansing, sanctification, renewal of those for whom we sincerely pray is accomplished, therefore the enemy puts obstacles in prayer for them, brings fear, lustful thoughts, dumbness, etc. But the Lord will crush his wiles and have mercy on His inheritance. I thank my Lord with all my soul, who showed me His endless mercy this day before mass in the church, when I, out of anger or grief at the multitude of beggars, at their idleness and drunkenness of some, was oppressed by inner fire, oppression, shame, and, entering the church and falling repeatedly to the throne of grace and mercy and kissing it, asked for mercy from the Lord, forgiveness my sins: anger, pride, impatience and irritability - and healing of my spiritual wounds, I asked for peace, weakening of unfreedom, and after long prayer and repentance (for a quarter of an hour) I received great and rich mercy. I rose spiritually from the dead, felt peace after great confusion, freedom and space after cramped conditions, lightness after heaviness. He served the entire mass in a clear, sonorous voice, freely, almost without stumbling; I took communion with my father, the deacon, somewhat coldly, struggling with the enemy’s breath, and after communion I felt a struggle with coldness and lack of faith in my heart. As a result, the divine life did not penetrate the heart. But through prayer and heartache I overcame the cold and vain fear. The sermon was spoken by Gregory vividly and freely. The clear, bright, loud voice during mass and earlier at private prayer services was because yesterday I ate much less than usual all day, namely: at lunch I ate only boiled cod with potatoes and black bread (with Provençal butter), and in the evening one fried perch without bread; I drank tea twice. Lenten food is healthier for me, much easier. I thank the Lord, who accepted my repentance in irritation with the poor (at ten o’clock in the evening) and gave peace to my soul. There's no need to get irritated. This is killer. It is good that the Lord is long-suffering and abundantly merciful and revives me, killed by sin, but if he had not had mercy and revived me, what would have happened to me? Disappearing like smoke [Ps. 36:20], I would have disappeared, according to the Psalmist, or I would have exhausted my life in cramped conditions and sorrow. Glory to the infinite mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. Sitting at the tea table in Leopardov’s apartment with Alexandra Petrovna Silina and Alexander Stepanovich Kedrov, I asked only out of politeness, according to the accepted custom, without heartfelt concern about the health of Anna Petrovna Lamanova, and, having received the answer that she was completely healthy, instead of sympathy and rejoicing, I felt in my heart insensibility, annoyance and sorrow (what corruption!) about her recovery from the blues, melancholy, despondency, with which, I thought, she was punished for her evil tongue, which cut everyone and everyone. O evil, envious, unkind, malicious heart! What torment are you worthy of! Devil's weapon! In sorrow, cramped conditions, confusion, shame and disgrace, I cried out in repentance to the Lord for mercy, and the Lord saved me, removing the lawless feeling and giving me peace. After this, do the will of your vile heart! God forbid that you follow him in any evil way. What if others wished me the same harm as I did, and if I knew this, what would I do? How would that feel for me? So in everything, whatever you want people to do to you, do so to them [Matt. 7, 12]. Good and good! May the Lord’s endless mercy towards me not be forgotten in this day. For even now I have tasted the Body of Christ and the Source of Immortality, and I have perceived a wonderful world in my heart, silence, freedom. I thank the Lord, who many times saved me from the fury of anger at my sister Anna K., in whom all her looks and movements seemed to be malice and pride, ill will, in a word, a deliberate war against me. What if it did? It is not she, but the devil who is rebelling against me for my sins. And I must overcome evil with good, pride with humility, all troubles and malfunctions with patience, and most importantly, by not allowing the shadow of evil on anyone in myself. The devil (that is, the slanderer) incessantly slanderes my family, especially the widow and the orphan and the wife and the poor, and irritates me against them, as if with fiery butts, spurring me to be angry and angry with them. You need to arm yourself against yourself and your passions, and not against people. Try to have peace with everyone and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord [Heb. 12, 14]. Having food and clothing, we will be content with this [1 Tim. 6, 8]. Where do you get hostility and strife? Is it not from here, from your lusts that war in your members? [James. 4, 1]. God! Let me always remember the word I said at the Council on September 14, the day of the erection of Your Cross, on the text: And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to Me [John. 12, 32]. Here I promised to completely change the way of my life. Keep silence at home; set a guard over my mouth, O Lord, and a guard over my mouth [Ps. 140, 3]. Do not be too demanding and demanding regarding your household, but leave them to God and your own prudence. God will enlighten them. And you keep the peace. All restless claims are from the devil, seeking enmity between you and them. I thank the Lord, who saved me from the intense agony of anger after repeated prayers of my repentance. I wish too jealously for my freeloader Anna Konstantinovna, who lives in idleness, to work; It’s already not good that, with this jealous, persistent desire, I feel dislike and enmity towards her, as if I were lazy and idle and loving quarrelsomeness. Why don’t I feel towards her the Christian feeling of meekness, kindness, condescension, patience, peace-lovingness?.. Lord! You weigh everything, You have mercy on us. You direct our life according to Your will! September 16. One o'clock in the afternoon. How can we apply the words of the Lord’s Prayer to our everyday life: Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done? Here's how: for example, let's say you are stingy with your family - leave your stinginess; if you are greedy, love of money, and persecute someone from your household because of money, considering him an unnecessary person in the house, leave your greed and love of money; if you are wayward, capricious, irritable, change yourself and don’t allow yourself to be like that in the future. All my property is the Lord’s only gift to me, unworthy, - let me squander it without sparing, for the benefit of my household, my relatives, for the benefit of the poor, and let me not be madly upset and out of addiction to the short-term blessings here for the widow and her orphans, because she lives with me (and my life will also be extended for their sake) and does not want, apparently, to go anywhere, but I don’t care about this, Yes, I keep her with me, ready for all kinds of services, for this is my duty. It is the mercy of God that God sent me these children with their mother, so that, in the absence of their own children, I could raise them as if they were my own. I slept very poorly from pain in the lower back due to dinner, although it was light - fried perch with black bread and, perhaps, the passionate shock from yesterday. I got up and read the sequence of the service for all days to the Lord Jesus, and then fell asleep well. I thank the Lord. I thank the Lord for the kind, unfailing service of the Liturgy and Vespers and the celebration of the marriage (of Vasily and Catherine). Glory to grace! Good abstinence, malnutrition! The Christian faith for us is like a shiny harness that lies on us without any benefit, because it does not curb us at all, due to our negligence and inattention. Through coldness, irritation, anger, enmity, quarrel, hatred, envy, stinginess, covetousness, gluttony, drunkenness, fornication, laziness, disobedience, despondency and other passions, a person morally defiles himself, destroys and kills. Therefore, in the interests of one’s own peace, honor, and life, a person must keep himself from all sin, not to mention the highest motivation to keep himself in holiness - about the image of God in us, about likeness to God and eternal bliss. A sinner who repents. Do you admit, sinner, burdened with many sins, which you named by name, that you have extremely disfigured and desecrated, weakened with them your soul, created in the image of God, and thereby caused an extreme insult to God Himself, the Creator, Your Benefactor, Provider and Savior; Have you firmly decided not to disgrace your soul in the future and not to defile it with sin, which defiles and destroys everything? Have you decided to henceforth achieve your destination - holiness and eternal bliss in God, from which you constantly shied away and about which you rarely even thought? Do you think of changing and starting a new life according to the Gospel of Christ, that is, denying yourself, taking up your cross and following Christ, imitating His life? What good is it to a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul? [Matt. 16, 26]. A damned man, I have lost my soul by clinging to the blessings of this world. I indulged in delicacy, burdensome satiety, covetousness, the search for differences, I became blinded by them, carried away by the vain decoration of clothes, I am daily under the spell of this decay, and - alas! Alas! I remain uncorrected in heart even to this day - I have lost my imperishable soul, acquiring corruption and multiplying and strengthening my passions! This is how deceptive and charming the blessings of the world are! Just as we, being Christians, are a chosen race, people of renewal [1 Pet. 2:9], we remain slaves of this world and its lusts, forgetting the true life and the honors of the high calling [Phil. 3, 14], and the heavenly beauty, and the heavenly bliss, and the countless spiritual wealth there, indestructible forever! After mass. I thank the Lord for suppressing the flames of passions at the most important time for me, precisely before the beginning of mass, when I prayed to the Lord with all my soul and venerated His holy throne. Thank you for the peaceful, bold service of the Divine Liturgy and the non-judgmental communion of the Divine Mysteries into peace, joy, sanctification and health of soul and body. Oh, how joyful, blessed, wonderful, easy it was for me! But, Lord, in my house give me peace with my family: for now the demon of enmity begins to approach me and the stinking sweat of Anna Konstantinovna worries me. Grant me, Lord, to neglect the feeling of the flesh (stench) and kindle the feeling of the heart - love, for we are one. Let me deny myself. Keep me, O Lord, from hostility; by this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another [II. 13, 35]. The Church clothes its servants in the splendor and luminosity befitting the servants of God, for the Angels of God, standing in the heavens of God's throne and showered with the lordships of the world... the luminaries are eternally radiant and are the second lights 63; clothes in splendor and beauty, like a bridegroom or bride adorned for her husband, for the priest is preparing for the marriage of the Royal Son, for the marriage of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, he will perform the most heavenly, most holy, terrible Sacrament of Christ God together with the Angels, as it is said: Even the cherubim secretly form (in conjunction with them) the Life-giving Trinity a hymn chorus, or: Now the powers of heaven serve with us invisibly... Therefore, clergy and, of course, clergy, must be holy in spirit and body in order to worthily stand before the throne of God and perform such the highest Mysteries. I thank my Lord for giving me peace with my family after the great demonic storm of evil. It is terribly difficult, unbearably difficult to endure the attacks of anger. It is necessary to offer a prayer of repentance to God many times, constantly, in order to get rid of anger. I thank the Lord, who gave me fiery prayer during the all-night vigil in the Duma on September 17. I must abandon my demanding, arrogant tone regarding the poor and treat them kindly, humbly, kindly, patiently, respecting their dignity as a person and a Christian. In general, they should be pitied, not vilified. Regarding those at home, observe the same kindness, meekness, kindness, patience, according to the Psalmist: I walked in the gentleness of my heart in the midst of my house [Ps. 100, 2 ]; I walk through my kindness [Ps. 25, 11]. A despotic tone is a sign of pride and pride and lack of heartfelt love. I thank the Lord, who destroyed the tightness of sin in my heart and gave me the grace to perform the Divine Liturgy with peace, freedom, and with boldness and partake of the life-giving Mysteries for the revitalization of soul and body and the world of spiritual strength. Gregory spoke the sermon about the true treasure with boldness and power. I thank the Lord for everything. Grant me, Lord, to fulfill what was preached - to enrich my mind with sound knowledge, to have a firm determination to resist all the deceptions of sensuality, the world and the devil, to have true love for mankind and to save those living around me. Wake up! How can one not endure and endure long with joy, when for patience for the sake of God eternal life and eternal bliss are promised?! Let us be patient and long-suffering in the fight against passions, sorrows, misfortunes, and troubles. He who endures to the end will be saved [Matt. 10, 22]. I thank the Lord that yesterday at mass at the great entrance to the Duma church, I boldly pronounced all the names of the royal persons and read the prayer behind the pulpit without skipping, as happened due to the influence of the devil’s fear. I thank the Lord, who saved me this morning (September 18) through my prayer from the surge of devilish malice that Anna K seemed to bring with her... Does she have the Spirit of God? God! You weigh this. But her appearance is heavy, I don’t know why. There are people with whom it is extremely difficult to live together, due to their spirit of opposition and differences of opinion, and with whom one would not want to live for the sake of peace of mind. May the will of the Lord be done. He who does not gather with Me scatters [Matt. 12, 30]. He who does not give alms out of stinginess, and generally does not care about good deeds, wastes or destroys the talent that he has, and is deprived of God’s help in necessary cases, unless he repents. (I often ate food instead of giving alms - for there are countless beggars in our city.) I thank the Lord, who saved me last night before the wedding from the terrible embarrassment of Father Deacon Sofronov’s failure to show up for the wedding (I had to wait an hour and a half), although two horses were sent for him at different times. I thank the Lord, who has girded me with strength from above to consummate this marriage. I rarely read, but at the beginning, unfortunately, the enemy tore out a few words. I thank the Most Merciful Lord, who saved me yesterday from the pretext of the devil’s malice because of the crafty youth, who repeatedly asked me for money as if for a need, but in fact used it for nothing (instead of a passport for a delicacy) and boasted to his comrades that I gave him so much money. I prayed to the Lord in the overcoat school, and the Lord had mercy on me, delivering me from the cramped conditions of hell. The result of my 17-year-old treatment of beggars should be that I should not be angry with any of them, but coldly discuss their requests and then give alms or not. For irritability and abuse do not lead to anything good, but only upset my spirit and make it painful and restless. I thank the Lord, who called me on September 21 to serve the early liturgy in the Duma church for the repose of Demetrius and made me worthy to perform it without stumbling, except for the great entrance. The Empress could not speak out of demonic fear. Oh, cowardice! I received Holy Communion into the world of spiritual powers. I thank the Lord, who had mercy on me through the prayer of my repentance and delivered me from fire and hardship after irritation with the poor. I thank the Lord, who has twice had mercy on me with His great mercy on the morning of this day (Friday, September 22). I was annoyed with my wife for the disturbances. The disorder was joined by a new disorder—irritation. He who does not serve God serves his passions. Therefore, it is necessary to serve God so that passions are tamed. Those who do not serve God, who do not go to church, what do you think are most often carried away by, what passions? - Greed, stinginess, greed, gambling, absent-mindedness, idle talk, condemnation of neighbors, drunkenness, lustful rage, malice, envy. This is true. They become stubborn in all kinds of sins. The Lord crucified on the cross constantly reminds us of the following words, as if from the Lord Himself: this is what I did for you - what have you done for yourself and for Me? What have you done to save yourself? Have you conquered any vicious inclination, passion, or skill in yourself? Have you crucified your flesh with its passions and lusts? Has the enmity among the relatives been extinguished? Have you eradicated envy? Have covetousness and the inseparable hard-heartedness towards others left behind? Have you abandoned unclean and nasty thoughts and views and prodigal words, and perhaps even deeds? Have you abandoned your wickedness, your immeasurable addiction to earthly pleasures, entertainment, amusements, which corrupt the soul and plunge both into darkness and into oblivion of spiritual and eternal blessings? Have you put on the womb of generosity, kindness, [humility], meekness and long-suffering? Are we merciful to each other? Do we forgive each other? Resurrection. I thank the Lord, who made me worthy to get up at midnight and offer Him my prayer, unfinished in the evening due to extreme exhaustion; I thank the Lord, who deigned to give me the gift of tears while reading the akathist to the Mother of God and the Guardian Angel. I thank the Lord, who has vouchsafed me to cheerfully perform Matins and the early liturgy, with tenderness and goodwill, although with the resistance of opposing forces, and to partake in the world of the soul of the Divine Mysteries with the strong resistance of evil spirits. At the prayer behind the pulpit, I did not utter the words: You glorify those with Your Divine power to the insult of those who decorate the church and who visit it diligently. At the prayer service I missed the words from the Gospel of the Mother of God: behold, as if the voice of Thy kiss was swift... and further to: the speech of Mariam... [Lk. 1, 42 – 46]. At Denisov’s christening (followers M.M. Dmitriev, general and daughter Zueva, a married, dressed up secular woman), with extreme obstacles and embarrassment from evil spirits, I read some prayers, but in general - with boldness and strength. When leaving his house, he was embarrassed by the influence of evil spirits from Anna Konstantinovna’s cooking: he didn’t like the fact that she was dirtying it with her hands. I sinned: I did not retain respect and love for a person like myself: for this the evil one tormented me for a long time, for a long time I prayed to the Lord in repentance. At the prayer service at the former clerk in Kononova’s house, there were also temptations - obstacles from evil spirits, failure to pronounce words. Everywhere there are intrigues, resistance, dirty tricks of disgusting and all-evil spirits. This morning the Lord sent three rubles to the poor through an unknown simple man. I thank the Lord, who provides for the poor. For carrying out the funeral service I received six rubles with the sexton. Thanks be to God, who does not abandon us, sinners, ungrateful and evil, and voluptuous and lazy. You should not eat so much during lunch or in the evening that you feel heaviness in your stomach and that you need to move in the fresh air; You should always eat little to satisfy your hunger. You don’t tolerate others (people) for being idle, but you yourself live in idleness very often - is that okay? Are you fair? You are demanding of your family and the poor, but why aren’t you demanding of yourself: why don’t you judge yourself mercilessly for your whims, for your impatience, for your pride? Evening. I thank the Lord, who, in His great mercy, gave me the prayer of sweetness and tearful tenderness during the all-night vigil, especially during the singing of the irmos. I thank the Lord, who accepted my repentance in hostility towards one beggar boy of about thirteen years old, who squandered the clothes I bought for him and came to ask me for alms: I despised him (forgetting my many sins), scolded him and drove him away without giving a penny. It was cold. I thank the Lord, who touched my wife and drove away the spirit of contradiction from her, because of which she was disgusting to me. Oh, how good it is to be in Your house, in the village of Your glory! How you bring joy to those who turn to You with all their hearts, as You said: I will make you glad in the house of My prayer [Isa. 56g 7]. For I deign to sneak into the house of my God rather than live in the villages of sinners [Ps. 83, 11]. In houses there is vanity, sin - in Your house there is true life, repentance, cleansing, enlightenment, fervor for God, renewal, consolation, affirmation! Fiery in the Spirit, working for the Lord [Rom. 12, 11]. The Church, in its daily worship, instills in us mutual love and mutual prayer for each other. But we in the community suffer from a lack of mutual love, coldness and indifference towards each other, or we envy each other, we are hostile to each other, we are hard-hearted towards each other: we see the poor and do not sympathize with him, we see the sick and do not sympathize with him, we see the sinner and do not admonish him, we see the falling one and do not lift us up, we say: he is a stranger, God is with him, we don’t care about him. We suffer from a spirit of division. The ecclesiastical are alienated from the ecclesiastical, the brethren from the brethren, the ecclesiastical from the secular, the secular from the ecclesiastical, the laity from the clergy, the clergy from the laity, the secular from the military, the military from the secular, the learned from the unlearned, and these again are learned, the rulers from the subordinates, the subordinates from the rulers, while by faith and by blood we are all one. Our love is mostly hypocritical; We love each in our own way, and not according to the will of the Lord: we love only those who love, only those who are pleasing to us, often only according to the flesh, according to self-interest, according to earthly and carnal views and calculations, in a pagan way, and not in a Christian way. Early mass. During mass, I suffered a lot from the dirty tricks of demons because of yesterday’s satiety: there was painful hiccups, violence and resentment from the enemy hiding in my insides. I cursed my satiety; The enemy caused me countless amounts of bitterness: I could hardly speak because of his dirty tricks, embarrassment, fear, doubt, humiliation, shame, and binding. But I thank the Lord for His indescribable mercy towards me, revealed in the communion of His Divine and life-giving Mysteries, for under the grave violence of the enemy, Divine goodness and power defeated his treachery in me, and I became revived, calmed down and invigorated in spirit upon communion of the Divine Mysteries, especially after consuming them at the end of the Liturgy. At ten and a half o'clock in the morning I lay down to rest; after resting, having washed, he went to serve a prayer service to [T...], opening the windows of the house; Upon leaving the house, noticing that the window in the living room was closed, I was upset with Anna Konstantinovna for her self-will, feeling hostility towards her (because of such trifles! Apparently, there is no love for man!) and barely drove away the spirit of hostility with internal repentance during the journey; He tormented me hard. Oh, how necessary it is to observe perfect love, unfeigned, selfless! Brovtsyn's lieutenant, Alexei Fedotovich, performed the christening by God's grace boldly, cheerfully, with a firm voice, in only a few places he was shocked by the devil's fear and apprehension. Before baptism, he met with everyone who was in the house in an intimate conversation. Bravo! Glory to the Lord, who covered me with His grace. Forgive me, Lord, for my insolence with my hand against Your poor: I tore one severely by the hair for real or imaginary deception, I wanted to grab the other, but he ran away; Forgive me, Lord, my anger, my cruelty, my murmur in Thy path, for Thou hast left me alone to give alms to the poor, while other rich people have widened and thickened [Deut. 32:15] and they don’t want to know the poor; forgive me my insolence before You, my blasphemy against You, all-righteous and most merciful Master, Lord our God! (He gave the guys forty kopecks each for bread for several days.) I sinned - I offended the poor, the hungry, the cold, who had been waiting for me on the street for a long time; I unfairly thought that they were deceiving me and asking me for money as a prank, but they really needed it. I offended him by pulling one of them by the hair and getting angry and shouting at everyone. Forgive me, the thief, my grave sin, Lord! I repent before You. I punished the beggars, but also provided them with what they asked for. When a person of little faith and sin begins to pray to God, he feels in his heart wickedness and coldness towards God and His holy things; his heart is alien to what he says with his lips; he internally fights with the enemy and is defeated by him, unless with strong determination he rises up against evil and in repentance does not cry before the Creator of him. With tears of repentance and tenderness, our sins melt away like wax, and the soul is filled with the dew of God’s grace, cleansing, refreshing, renewing, strengthening, pacifying, and gladdening the heart. Glory to the Lord for this! Thursday. I thank the Lord for the immeasurable mercy shown to me during the service of the early liturgy, for deliverance from spiritual death, sin for my sake, which raged in me; from the invisible enemies who tormented me, confused and oppressed me, for the complete pacification of me when I mourned myself as a spiritual dead man, when I prayed for the repose of the deceased Nikolai (Gulyaev). How does a person differ from a parrot when he says memorized words of prayers or lessons? Because he thinks and understands what he says, but the parrot does not think and does not understand. Thursday. I am struck by the extreme, endless humility and exhaustion of the God-Man, who exhausted and humbled me for His own sake; I am struck by the Bethlehem manger and the wretched shrouds of the poor Virgin, His Most Pure Mother; I am struck by the free crucifixion on the cross and the most painful and most blasphemous death for the world, when I imagine who this is, born in a Bethlehem manger, who this is, crucified on the cross, when I say: this is the one in whom all things were, by whom everything was created that was in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, to whom the heavenly powers serve with fear, to whom the Cherubim and Seraphim tremble! Wonderful are Your works, Holy Master! Your love for the human race surpasses all understanding! Christianity is Divine wisdom, the all-wise Divine system, or the wise and majestic building of the Divine Architect and Economist, which began before the foundation of the world and will end with the second coming of the Lord to judge the living and the dead and the final decision of the fate of all people, from first to last. This wise system of the great book of redemption of the human race is shown daily and annually in the worship of our Orthodox Church, in the reading and singing from the sacred books of the Old Testament and New Testament, showing the fulfillment by the New Testament of all Old Testament revelations, prophecies and prototypes, the unity of the Church of the Old Testament and New Testament. The churches of the Old Testament and the New Testament thus converge in our worship in one place and respond to one another. The possessed Irina (a peasant woman with a mother) came to me today, over whom I, a great sinner, out of one obedience, prayed to the Lord God, His Most Pure Mother, calling as intercessors both Her, the Queen of heaven and earth, and all the Angels and saints, and when I began to read the second incantatory prayer against evil spirits, the spirit of malice began to beat the servant of God strongly: she fell and began spring up, then soon stood up; again he began to read, and again he fell, and again he began to beat and throw up to five or several times; Finally, she prayed fervently - asked for blessings, got dressed and left. Oh, after this all connection with the deeds of evil must be severed - oneself, one’s will and everything, one must renounce and live only for God. Because of my wife and sister-in-law, there was again great embarrassment: the rooms are stuffy, and they won’t let me open the windows when the doors are locked, they resist, don’t listen, get excited, scold, get angry, raise their eyebrows high. God! Humble them and enlighten them, for they cause great confusion to me, the weak one. Lord Lover of Mankind! I have sinned greatly before You this day, giving rise to domestic feud by opening the windows, through which my wife and sister-in-law Anna K. rushed at me like angry lionesses; They made me angry, Lord, I became angry with them, scolded my wife, the greatest culprit of the enmity, and cursed her, although later I lifted the curse from her, repenting of my word. God! For the sake of Your name, turn confusion into peace, anger into goodness, foolishness into reason, stubbornness into obedience. But let there be no more confusion in future. Because of a very necessary thing - fresh air, Lord, remove servant Anna and her children from my chamber and give her a separate residence [in the world], like Hagar and Ishmael, for I see that for their sake there will be no peace in the house. Forgive me, Lord, for the great sin that I in anger hit on the head with an umbrella a beggar boy, who was dressed by me and provided with money, and at the same time, according to the accepted habit, came to beg for alms and gave me a cold, and that I severely tore out the hair of one beggar youth, who squandered the clothes I bought for him and walked around in rags and bothered me with a request for alms. And I tore the hair of another beggar adult for taking off the caftan I bought. I sinned before You, Lord, my Joy, my Benefactor, my Savior, in the morning - by being full and drinking at the wrong time: I ate too much black bread and drank sweet tea, and it was Friday. In class I still felt a lack of peace and freedom of spirit, embarrassment, and at lunch early (at two o’clock) I again ate too much fried fish, which is why the beggars were confused and impatient, and irritated with them, beating them. But forgive, Lord, for bearing sin, conquering Your love for mankind, and correct me. God! Forgive my wife and sister Anna K. for their sins, for they do not know what they are doing, they are not maliciously sinning against me, they are indignant against me, they are brutally hostile to me. Let them go and change their hearts! Convert the wolf's ferocity into sheep's meekness, for You do not want sin, but salvation and righteousness. Give me, Christ, the grace not to be without You for a single moment, so that Satan does not kidnap me like yesterday (September 29). It is remarkable that the students in the second class behaved very badly yesterday because of my restlessness in my heart and the violence of the spirit of malice. By the grace of God, we must suppress in ourselves the first movements in the heart of impatience, anger, indignation, malice, envy, greed, stinginess, love of money, fornication, despondency, etc. The enemy fighting against us is subtle: we must be extremely attentive to ourselves, observe all the thoughts, movements, feelings, intentions, bends of our heart. Most of all, we must strive for love, which is long-suffering, merciful, does not boast, is not proud, is not irritable, does not behave unruly, does not seek its own, endures all things, covers all things, and never fails [2 Cor. 13, 4 – 7]. One must reject one’s will as ungodly, diabolical; and one’s own will lies in the passions listed above and in many others; the will of God consists in the virtues opposite to them. When you give alms to the poor and generally serve your neighbors in any way, do it willingly and rejoice that in these moments you live not for yourself, but for Christ and your neighbors, according to the Scripture: no one lives, but Christ lives in me [Gal. 2, 20], or: I live not for myself, but for You, our Master and Benefactor 65. Until now, your pride prompted you to be angry at many beggars and despise them, and you followed it, lived for yourself, and not for God and your neighbor, making your life useless. My enemies are my benefactors by the grace of Christ God, so let me always look at them not only with my mind, but also with my deed, and show such a view. To tell the truth, there are no enemies among my neighbors, except imaginary ones, whom the demon of malice slanders to me. But my real enemies are my passions and the evil demons that tempt and confuse me - these are enemies: I must arm myself against them day and night, and be lenient with my neighbors, be patient, love them, pray for them, even if they were my worst enemies, for they are blinded and stifled by the devil, deceived, enslaved by him. I thank the Lord, through the prayers of His Most Pure Mother, who drove away the spirits of anger and pride from us and reconciled us: me, my wife and Anna Konstantinovna. I prayed about this in church and at home. Glory to the Lord! It’s hard to live in hostility, like in hell. Last night my heart was sad, especially in the morning; I went to bed without saying goodbye, considering myself right and extremely offended. The mother of the possessed Irina told me that her daughter now, thank God, feels good, that their affairs are good. Glory, glory, glory to God! September 30, 1872. For my sole obedience, the Lord heard me, unworthy, incontinent, and expelled demons from His servant Irina. He sinned before the Lord and people: he hit an innocent, gentle boy on the cheek because of his covetousness, because he persistently asked for alms another time in the same day; He strangled a man in the image and likeness of God, he insulted the member of Christ, Christ Himself in His member. I repent and ask for mercy and forgiveness! I ask the Lord for forgiveness and forgiveness of my sins and transgressions. Observing with your inner eye the state of my soul, its thoughts, heart movements, feelings, aspirations, intentions, goals, you see that there is another person in you, and it’s as if you are not you - a vain person, drowning in abomination, greed, covetousness, cruel, evil, impudent, envious, absurd, rebellious, low, hypocritical, crafty, prodigal, selfish, voluptuous, lazy, indecent, sad, fearful, unfaithful - you see and are horrified by yourself, a hellish monster; and on the other hand, there is a person in you with opposite properties. The first is the old, Adam's man, and the second is the new, Christ's, born of water and the Spirit 66. Every Christian needs to take off the first, and put on the second. The old man is strengthened by gluttony and excessive drinking, therefore it is necessary to fast and distribute his property to the poor, but the new man is strengthened by fasting and non-covetousness, vigil and prayer. Dogmatist, voice 4: “For Your sake, Godfather Prophet David...” A sheep of peas - stolen in the mountains (that is, from a state of heavenly bliss) by the mental wolf-devil: of course, the human race, carried away by the devil into sin and death. Inde (Church Glav.) - in another place, in other places. Irmos of the 6th song of the Sunday canon at Matins, tone 2. Renan Joseph Ernest (1823 – 1892), French writer, historian and philologist; became widely known for his book "The Life of Jesus", in which he presented Jesus Christ as a wonderful man, while at the same time denying his Divinity. Bauer Bruno (1809–1882), German philosopher, representative of the Hegelian school. Büchner Ludwig (1824 – 1899), German physician, naturalist and philosopher. Ludwig Büchner was a famous exponent of so-called vulgar materialism; believed that consciousness, as a mirror reflection of reality, is material. In addition, Buchner denied dialectics and the social nature of man. He was a supporter and propagandist of Darwinism and extended its principles to public life, thus sharing the ideas of social Darwinism. Pain – experience, contrition, repentance. Nebreschi’ (Church Glav.) – don’t try, ignore Service to the Bodiless, I cried stichera to the Lord. Otonudny (Church Slavic) - originating from there. Utyti (Church Glav.) – to become fat, to be fat; become white. The 1st prayer of thanksgiving for Holy Communion. Birth by water and spirit is the Sacrament of Baptism, which is rebirth (rebirth) to new life. You might be interested in: