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I thank the Lord for the unfaltering performance of the Divine Liturgy and overcoming the machinations of the enemy and for the super-peaceful communion of the Holy Mysteries: the enemy plotted, pressed me hard, but by the grace of God he was defeated and driven away; in the gymnasium I was greatly oppressed, especially by uncleanness, but through prayer the uncleanness went away. I thank the Lord for taking away the evil of the devil from my heart, which invaded me at home and upon entering the church, and retreated through the prayer of repentance. I tasted deep peace and served Vespers peacefully. Glory to the Lord! Carnal, lawless love is the eradication of true love and the planting of enmity and impurity in the heart. By the grace, wisdom, goodness and omnipotence of God, even now, only at forty-two years old, I begin to come into strength and strength - and all thanks to my sacred labors, performed out of the duty of the priesthood and overshadowed from above, especially because of the frequent communion of the most pure, immortal and life-giving Mysteries of my Master and God, the Source of life. Glory to Thee, Lord, glory to Thee! Tomorrow is the christening of Catherine in Kizer's house. All for yourself. Every good thing done sincerely will bring us good and will return to our bosom. Why do I caress this snake, my destroyer, spewing so much deadly poison into my heart? I mean my flesh. Through work, vigil, abstinence, and prayer, let me pacify her constantly. At night I should by no means eat either fish or meat: from eating there is terrible cramping the next day (or from overeating, perhaps). Yesterday (Friday) I greedily ate cod with lingonberry jam and bread, and today I still feel unwell, heavy, lethargic; makes you feel very sleepy (the weather has been very rainy since last night); sore throat. It would be a good idea to be content with just tea, albeit with a bun. Yesterday at lunch I ate oatmeal with Provençal butter and herring with black bread. I thank the Lord for the successful celebration of the Liturgy, with the assistance of His all-effective grace, and the non-judgmental communion of His Divine Mysteries. During the liturgy, there was a weakness of stupid fear of the Green family, especially of Sofya Ivanovna herself, due to the influence of the enemy, there was some kind of reluctance and alienation due to imaginary or real pride, which I noticed when driving her around in a carriage. I'm healing myself. Doctor, heal yourself [Lk. 4, 23]. Why do I always have apathy towards my sister Anna Konstantinovna, while she, apparently, does not have this apathy at all? From my corrupted heart, which was corrupted in my youth by unplaceable deeds, and from my pride, greed, covetousness, lust, rancor, pride, in a word, this apathy, this nasty feeling is the work of the enemy, inciting me to enmity against my neighbor; and I need to break myself, force myself to love this sister, although against my will: she lives in our apartment and uses our support (after all, everything is from God); the deeds of the old man must be rejected, removed from them and put on in the new man, loving everyone, meek, compassionate, and merciful towards everyone. Comment. How harmful it is for a capricious person to offend his elders! Some of these elders cannot for a long time forget the grievances of the younger or younger or extinguish them in their hearts, even if they wanted to. The evil of others terribly infects our heart! But let us leave debts to our debtors! If you love those who love you, what gratitude do you have for that?.. if you do good to those who do good to you, what gratitude do you have for that?.. if you greet only your brothers, what special thing do you do? [ OK. 6, 32, 33; Matt. 5, 47]. A Christian must constantly go against himself, against the old man, deny himself, crucify his flesh with passions and lusts, fulfill not his own will, not his own lusts, but the will of God. Thy will be done! Oh, the spirit of rebellion in Anna Konstantinovna! I'm so tired of him! As a result, I resist her, even internally, in everything, I am at enmity against her, even though I don’t want to, and only as a result of her prayer or service do I have a disposition towards her. But I was never particularly kind to her, remembering her insults to my mother. Meanwhile, she was often kind to me, and very kind and helpful! Good is forgotten, but evil is remembered, although you don’t want it. But I must remember that I myself most often provoked her to enmity with my passions, I was the culprit of her anger against me. Every person is free, and sometimes I encroached on the freedom of my family. I must remember my hell, which happens in my heart and outrages me and others. Lord, have mercy on us; Not perplexed by any answer, we offer this prayer to the Master of sin: have mercy on us! What we need to rejoice about is what our flesh grieves about: for example, that our neighbors are resting with us, under our roof, feeding from us, for example, a mother in labor, or a sick person, or a wanderer, or a beggar, or someone else. I praise, Lord, Your truth, which brought the eminent merchant of our city, Your servant Alexander, to repentance before me of sins against me. You, Lord, exalt my unworthiness; You made it so that such an eminent, and intelligent, and well-read, and old merchant (seventy years old) with such humility bowed down at my feet many times, although I strongly did not want it. The priest’s forgiveness during the service, addressed to the worshipers, from the first words already places them in favor of the priest, because he 1) asks everyone for forgiveness, 2) calls everyone brothers, sisters, children (these names express love) and 3) desires and asks God for mercy for them and for himself. Therefore, one must always urgently ask for forgiveness from the faithful and not be afraid of the false, dreamy fears of an ethereal enemy who does not tolerate repentance and humility. And today, out of false wisdom, shame and fear, I did not say this forgiveness at the end of the all-night vigil on October 3rd on Sunday. That is why I came home restless and angry, pressed and embarrassed by the enemy. (You don’t need to eat meat or drink vodka: they make me angrier.) One should not smoke tobacco, no matter how cramped the health circumstances may be, because tobacco does not help, but increases the cramped state. What a nuisance in the mouth! What irritability in the nerves! (Smoking tobacco is Satan’s real mockery of people! He taught this absurdity.) I thank You, Most merciful, Wonderworking Lord, for through my prayer you healed the baby Elena (daughter of the merchant Gerasim Murashov) from a relative of the baby. Before the end of her illness, she was in pain, just as in the Gospel it is mentioned that a demon came out of one possessed person, having worked a lot [Mk. 9, 26], that is, the patient was beaten a lot. Somewhere there is a blind baby whose eyes began to open after prayer and anointing with oil from the Solovetsky wonderworkers? Something the mother is not. Sister Anna, although she has passions inherited at birth or acquired and strengthened in home life, she was admonished and punished by God in the first pangs of birth, and one cannot demand that she suddenly give up her bad inclinations and weaknesses, which have become stronger from our natural corruption and from time to time. For you yourself have not yet given up your bad inclinations and habits. Remember that our common illness is [an illness] of the spirit, and we all need indulgence and prayer for each other. Sunday. I thank the Lord, who honored me with His mercy and His help during the service of the Divine Liturgy and thanksgiving prayer: by His grace I served the Liturgy without stumbling, I partook of the Divine Mysteries without condemnation; the royal house and the prayer behind the pulpit spoke sincerely, with feeling, freely; preached the sermon boldly and powerfully; I recited the prayer of thanks firmly. But after the prayer service at Kholezov’s, while reading the Lord’s Prayer before the appetizer, Ivan Petrovich Belavenets became timid - he doubted and, reading the prayer loudly, did not finish reading it out of fear of the devil. I thank the Lord, who has given me the grace to make a marriage without stumbling. Twelve o'clock. I thank the Lord, who saved me, through my prayer, from the tightness of my heart, which stemmed from an absurd dislike for Sister Anna and coldness towards her, and who transformed hostility into favor. How long will I have this inner worship of food, drink, money, as a deity, or even more so - as the devil himself, under this false principle of food hope, always acting in me at every opportunity and striking me with the spiritual death of anger, envy, greed, pity for the eaten and drunk? God! May I hope in You alone, and may I love You and those created in Your image and likeness, and may nothing turn me away from this priceless love, for each person is dearer than the whole world and all earthly blessings, as Your image, as the king of all creation. I willingly deprive myself of the blessings of this world for the good of my needy neighbors, in whose person You yourself are pleased to be and to accept what we give to them. May I treasure the grace of Your Holy Spirit, the Life-Giving One, more than all the treasures of the world, and may I count these as rubbish. I thank the Lord, who took away passions and bestowed grace. Just as the grace of God is in everyone and on everyone and through everyone, so is the evil of the devil in everyone and through everyone. Therefore, do not be angry with those who cause you various evils in words or deeds: the devil wields them. November 27th day. 1870 Subsoil (Church Slavic) – interior; the environment in which something happens (in the depths of the soul). You might be interested in: