Christian thoughts on repentance and communion

“Lord King, grant me to see my sins!” Mol. Ephraim the Syrian. “Test me, O God, and convince my heart: test me, and understand my paths: and see if the way of iniquity is in me, and guide me in the eternal path.” Ps. 138:23–24. Since the first man sinned, people have been so darkened by sin in the very center of their being (in the heart) that they very often do not have the consciousness and feeling of the omnipresence of God and think that four walls and a ceiling close them from the One who fills everything, who sees, and the One who hides in the hidden place. If someone hides in the hidden, will I not see him? Do I not fill heaven and earth with food? ( Jer. 23:24 ) Naked I am and hidden! (Gen. 3:10) But no. Watch your heart all your life and look closely and listen to it, what prevents it from connecting with the all-blessed God? Let this be the science of sciences, and with God’s help you can easily notice what separates you from God and what brings you closer to Him, unites you with Him. This is evidenced by the heart itself, which is sometimes united with God, sometimes rejected from Him. Most of all, the evil one stands between our hearts and God - it is he who alienates God from us with various passions or the lust of the flesh, or the lust of hair and the pride of life. Test yourself more often: where do the eyes of your heart look - to God and to the life of the next century, to the exemplary, blessed and luminous powers of heaven and saints established in heaven, or - to the world, to earthly goods: food, drink, clothing, housing, to sinful people and their vain occupations? Oh, if only our eyes were fixed on God! Otherwise, we only turn our eyes to the Lord in times of need and trouble, but in times of prosperity our eyes are turned to the world and its vain affairs. What, you say, will this looking to the Lord bring me? Deep peace and tranquility to your heart, light to your mind, holy zeal for your will and deliverance from the snares of the enemy. I will lift up my eyes to the Lord, says David, and gives the reason for this: for He, he says, will pluck my noses from the snare (Ps. 24:15). The Lord speaks peace to those who turn their hearts to him (Ps. 84:9). Sin closes the eyes of the heart: the thief thinks that God does not see; the fornicator, indulging in filthiness, thinks that God does not see him; the money-lover, the glutton, the drunkard think that they are hiding their addictions. But God sees and judges. Naked I am and hid myself (Gen. 3:10). This is what every sinner says through his actions, hiding from the omnipresent God. The greatest, constant delusion of our heart, with which we need to fight continuously - throughout our lives, is its secret thought that we can be without God and outside of God somewhere, someday, even for one moment. It is necessary to continuously affirm it in God, from Whom it constantly mentally turns away, and great success in the Christian life has been achieved by the one who can sincerely exclaim with Anna, the mother of Samuel: my heart is established in the Lord, my horn is exalted in my God, my mouth is enlarged against my enemies, they rejoice in Your salvation (1 Samuel 2:1). It is necessary to wash oneself from dirt, and prayer is washing oneself from spiritual dirt, i.e. from sins, especially tearful ones. We sin in thought, word and deed. In order to become pure images of the Most Holy Trinity, we must strive for the holiness of our thoughts, words and deeds. Thought corresponds in God to the Father, words to the Son, deeds to the Holy Spirit, who accomplishes everything. Sins of thought in a Christian are an important matter, because all our pleasing to God lies, according to the testimony of St. Macarius of Egypt, in thoughts: for thoughts are the beginning, from them come words and activity - words, because they either give grace to those who hear, or they are rotten words and serve as a temptation for others, corrupting the thoughts and hearts of others; things are even more so, because examples have the strongest effect on people, attracting them to imitate them. Conscience in people is nothing more than the voice of the omnipresent God walking in the hearts of men. As He who created everything and is one, the Lord knows everyone as Himself - all the thoughts, desires, intentions, words and deeds of people, present, past and future. No matter how I run ahead with my thoughts, my imagination, He is there before me, and I always, inevitably, make my run in Him, I always have Him as a witness of my paths. His eyes are open over all the paths of the sons of men (Jer. 32:19). Where shall I go from Your Spirit? and will I flee from Thy presence? (Ps. 139:7). Oh, that we would pay attention to the consequences of our sins or our good deeds! How careful we would then be, avoiding sin, and how zealous we would be for good; for we would then clearly see that every sin, not eradicated in time, strengthened by habit, takes deep roots in the heart of a person and sometimes confuses, wounds and torments him to death, awakening, so to speak, and coming to life in him at every opportunity, reminiscent of the sin he once committed, and thus desecrating his thoughts, feelings and conscience. Clouds of tears are needed to wash away the old dirt of sin: it is so sticky and caustic! On the contrary, every good deed that has ever been done sincerely, unselfishly, or through repetition has turned into a skill, pleases our heart, constitutes the joy of our life in the knowledge that we have not entirely lived our lives in vain, full of sins, that we are like people and not like animals, that we are also created in the image of God, and there is a spark of divine light and love in us, that although some good deeds will be a counterweight to our bad deeds in the scales of God's unwashed truth. The heart is pure, so the whole person is pure; the heart is not pure - and the whole person is not pure: from the heart come evil thoughts, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, blasphemy... (Matthew 15:19). But the saints, through fasting, vigil, prayer, contemplation of God, reading the word of God, martyrdom, labor and sweat, acquired a pure heart, and the Holy Spirit dwelt in them, cleansed them from all defilement and sanctified them with eternal sanctification. Try above all to cleanse your heart. Create in me a pure heart, O God (Ps. 50:12). How damaged I am by sin! something bad, evil, unclean is immediately thought and felt in the heart, but good, good, pure, holy is often only thought and said, and not felt. Alas for me! Evil is even closer to my heart than good. In addition, I just thought or felt evil, and am immediately ready to do it, and you will do it quickly and conveniently, if you do not have the fear of God, but good, even if I want it, is within my reach, but I do not find the strength to do it (Rom. 7:18), and the planned good deed is often put off in a long, long box. “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” 1 Pet. 5:5. The manifestation of satanic pride in people. – Pride usually shows itself in the fact that the person infected with it makes himself equal to everyone, or at least many, who are higher than himself in age, in power, in ability, and does not tolerate being inferior to them. If a proud person is a subordinate, he does not respect his boss as he should, does not want to bow to him, does not respect his orders, carries them out reluctantly, out of fear; he equals himself with all educated people and does not give preference to anyone or to a very, very few; if he is a scientist or even an unlearned son or daughter, he does not pay due respect to parents and benefactors, especially simple and rude ones, considering them equal to himself and even lower. You must be extremely careful not to compare yourself with others in any respect, but to place yourself below everyone else, even if you really were in some way better than many or equal to very many. Everything good in us is from God, not ours. This is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God: not because of works, lest anyone should boast (Eph. 2:8-9). All this is shared by one and the same Spirit (1 Cor. 12:4–11). How can I be proud of someone else’s good and be equal to those who are placed above me by God Himself and public trust? So, don’t sit in the first place: whoever is more honest will give you food. Anyone who exalts himself will humble himself, but he who humbles himself will exalt himself (Luke 14:8, 18:14). Our self-love and pride are revealed especially in impatience and irritability, when one of us does not tolerate the slightest trouble caused to us by others intentionally or even unintentionally, or an obstacle, legally or illegally, intentionally or unintentionally, opposed to us by people or objects around us. Our self-love and pride would like to put everything on our own, to surround ourselves with all the honors and comforts of temporary life, we would like all people to obey our beck silently and quickly, and even - how far does pride not extend! – all nature; whereas - oh woe! – we ourselves are very inert in faith and in every good deed, to please the one Lord of all! Christian! you must certainly be humble, meek and long-suffering, remembering that you are clay, dust, insignificance, that you are unclean, that everything good in you is God’s, that God’s gifts are your life, breath, and everything; that for the sin of disobedience and intemperance you must now atone for your future bliss in paradise with long-suffering, which is necessary in the world of imperfections and countless falls of fallen people who live with us together and make up numerous members of a single humanity, enfeebled by sins. Bear each other's burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ (Gal. 6:2). He who is impatient and irritable does not know himself and humanity and is not worthy to be called a Christian! In saying this, I pronounce judgment on myself, for I am the first to suffer from impatience and irritability. A proud person, while others talk about the virtues of a person, slyly fears that this person will be superior to him in virtues and eclipse him, for the proud person puts himself above everyone else and does not imagine finding the same or better virtues in other people. The trouble for him is the collaboration of others. What is most desirable for a person? Avoidance of sin, remission and forgiveness of sins and acquisition of holiness. Why? Because sins, such as: proud, evil behavior towards others, evil suspiciousness, covetousness, stinginess, envy, etc. separate us from God, the Source of life, remove us from communication with people and plunge us into spiritual death, and meek, humble, kindly treatment of everyone, even our enemies, simple-heartedness, non-covetousness, contentment with the small and necessary, generosity towards everyone, goodwill and other virtuous deeds unite us with God, the Source of life, and make us amiable to people. Grant, then, Lord, to completely avoid sin, and to become accustomed to every virtue, according to Your grace. To her, Master, Lord, without You we cannot do any good, nothing evil exists (Matthew 12:34). Sometimes the enemy tricks us in that when we see any sin or vice in a brother or in society, he strikes our heart with indifference and coldness, reluctance or, rather, shameful cowardice to say a firm, accusatory word to untruth, to break the horn of the sinner. Christ the King! Grant me apostolic zeal and the fire of the Holy Spirit in my heart, so that I may always boldly rise up against the impudent vice that has especially infected many, and may I not spare anyone for the sake of their salvation and the rest of Your people, so that they are not tempted, seeing the spread of vice, and do not fall themselves. If he seduces one from these little ones who believe in Me, he shall not eat, and the millstone of the donkey shall be struck upon his neck, and he shall drown in the abyss of the sea. For the son of man came (to seek and) to save the lost (Matthew 18:6, 11). Flatterers are our great enemies: they blind our eyes, do not allow us to see our great shortcomings, and therefore block our path to perfection, especially if we are proud and short-sighted. Therefore, we must always stop the flatterers who speak flattering speeches to us, or avoid them. Woe to him who is surrounded by flatterers; good - who is surrounded by simpletons who do not hide the truth, although unpleasant, for example, exposing our weaknesses, errors, passions, mistakes. When a reckless thought comes into your head - to count any of your good deeds, immediately correct yourself in this mistake and quickly count your sins, your continuous, countless insults to the all-good and righteous Master, and you will find that you have them like the sand of the sea, and in comparison with them there are no virtues. “Love is patient and merciful.” 1 Cor. 13:4. Fear malice like fire; Do not allow it to reach your heart for any plausible pretext, especially because of something unpleasant to you: malice is always malice, always a fiend of the devil. Malice sometimes comes to the heart under the pretext of zeal for the glory of God or for the good of others; Do not believe your jealousy in this case: it is a lie or jealousy not according to reason; be jealous that there is no malice in you. God is glorified in nothing so much as by love that endures everything, and in nothing is he dishonored and insulted so much as by malice, no matter how it is covered up by appearances. Under the guise of caring for the poor, Judas, hiding his anger at his Lord, betrayed Him for 30 pieces of silver. Remember that the enemy is vigilantly seeking your destruction and attacks you when you least expect him. His anger is endless. Do not be bound by pride and lust, lest they conveniently captivate you. When anger flares up in your heart against someone, then believe with all your heart that it is the work of the devil working in your heart: hate him and his offspring, and it will leave you. (Do not recognize her as something of your own, do not sympathize with her). Tested. The trouble is that the devil hides behind us, hides his head and his tail, hides, and we are blind and think that only we ourselves are doing this, we stand for the devil’s work, as for something of our own, as for something just, although every thought about any justice of our passion is purely false, ungodly, destructive. Be guided by the same in relation to others; when you see that someone is angry with you, do not consider his anger to be a direct matter; no, he is only a passive instrument of the all-evil enemy, he has not yet fully learned his flattery and is being deceived by him. Pray that the enemy will leave him and that the Lord will enlighten the eyes of his heart, darkened by the corrupting breath of the spirit of malice. We must sincerely pray to God for all people subject to passions: the enemy is active in them. You are angry with your neighbor, you despise him, you don’t want to talk to him peacefully and lovingly because he has something rude, abrupt, careless, unpleasant to you in his character, in his speech, in his manners - because he is aware of his dignity, perhaps more than proper, or that he is somewhat proud and disrespectful; but you are more guilty than he, doctor and teacher of your neighbor: doctor, heal yourself (Luke 4:23); teacher, learn for yourself. Your malice is the worst evil of all evil; Is it possible to correct evil with malice? Having a log, is it possible to take a knitting needle from someone else? Evil and shortcomings are corrected with goodness, love, affection, meekness, humility, and patience. Recognize yourself as the first of the sinners who seem to you to be sinners, or who are actually sinners; consider yourself worse and lower than everyone else; purge all pride and anger towards your neighbor, impatience and rage, and then heal others. Otherwise, cover the sins of others with condescending love. If you see all the iniquities in your neighbor, what will happen? Eternal enmity and disorder, for who is without sin? For this reason we are commanded to forgive our debtors, for if the Lord sees our iniquities, which of us will stand (Ps. 129:3) before His righteousness? If you forgive men their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you (Matthew 6:14). At the meal of love we are with Love Himself embodied, but we have no love for each other. Strange thing! and there is no concern about this. But love itself will not come without our zeal and suffering and activity. There is no reason for a Christian to have any malice in his heart against anyone; malice, like malice, is the work of the devil; a Christian should have only love in his heart; and since love does not think of evil, it should not think of any evil regarding others, for example: I should not think about another without an obvious reason, that he is angry, proud, etc., or if I forgive the offense, he will hurt me again, laugh at me. It is necessary that evil does not nest within us under any guise; and malice usually comes in too many forms. Do not give in to gloomy, angry dispositions of your heart towards your neighbor, but master them and eradicate them with the power of faith, in the light of a sound mind - and you will be complacent. I walk through my kindness (Ps. 25:1). Such dispositions often manifest themselves in the depths of the heart. He who has not learned to master them will often be gloomy, thoughtful, and heavy with himself and others. When they come, force yourself to be in good spirits, to be cheerful, to make innocent jokes: and like smoke, they will dissipate. - Experience. Grant me, Lord, to love every neighbor of mine as myself, always, and not to become embittered towards him for anything and not to work for the devil. Grant me to crucify my self-love, pride, covetousness, lack of faith and other passions. Let our name be: mutual love; Let us believe and trust that the Lord is everything to all of us; let us not worry, let us not worry about anything; may You, our God, be the only God of our hearts, and besides You there is nothing. Let us be in the unity of love among ourselves, as it should be, and let everything that separates us from each other and separates us from love be in contempt for us, like dust trampled underfoot. Wake up! wake up! If God has given Himself to us, if He abides in us and we in Him, according to His true word, then what will He not give me, what will He spare me, what will He deprive me of, what will He forsake me? The Lord shepherds me and will deprive me of nothing (Ps. 23:1). With Him, not everything is given to us (Rom. 8:32). So be very calm, my soul, and know nothing but love. This I command you, that you love one another (John 15:17). “The essence of the matter of the flesh has been revealed... And those who are Christ’s are, the flesh has been crucified with passions and lusts.” Gal. 5:19–24. The spirit is strong and powerful, which is why it easily carries heavy matter; and the flesh is inert, powerless, and therefore it is easily suppressed by its native substance. Therefore, God, as if nothing else, carries the whole world with His powerful word (Heb. 1:3), and therefore the spirit of a person blessed with grace easily, with God’s help, subdues his flesh, even the flesh of others - to their spirit (as we see in the saints), it is easy to cope with the letter of the word in prayer, transforming it all into the spirit; and the carnal man at every step submits to his flesh and is burdened by the letter of prayer, which he is unable to turn into spirit, being himself flesh, or to penetrate his unclean, embodied spirit into her pure, holy spirit. Oh, our deeply fallen nature! Oh, most damned Satan, who through poison plunged us and is now plunging us into thousands of evils! O poison, O food and drink, which seduce us so much now! How long will we be enticed by you and place our life in you? How long until we deeply imprint on our hearts the words of the Savior: man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4) and carry them into our lives and activities? How long will greed, delicacy, satiety and drunkenness last? How long is vile stinginess? How long is the love of money? How long will there be pride, enmity and anger towards one’s neighbor because of money, because of clothing, housing, food and drink? Thousands of Satan’s deceptions through food, drink, clothing, money are revealed before our heartfelt eyes, and we all continue to be carried away by his charms as something real, useful for us, and we are jealous of nothing more or less than a destructive dream and our own extreme mental and physical harm. Do not believe, brethren, the deception of the enemy even for a moment when it comes to food and drink, no matter how plausible it may seem. Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you (Matthew 6:33). Do not pay attention to the bread, but beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, which is hypocrisy (Matthew 16:11; Luke 12:1) in matters of faith and piety. Pay the greatest attention to faith and piety: do not do what is worthless that perishes, but do what is worthless that abides in the eternal life that the Son of man will give you (John 6:27). Give the latter too, if need requires it, remembering the words of the Savior: to the one who wants to sue you and take your robe, let him also have the swearing (Matthew 5:40), i.e. and give the last of what you have. As long as we lead a carnal life and do not approach God heartily, as long as demons lurk in us, hiding under various passions: greed for food and drink, lust for lust, pride and proud free-thinking about faith, about the Church, about the dogmas of faith, malice, envy, stinginess, love of money, so that we live according to their will; but when we begin to sincerely work for the Lord and touch the living demons of our passions nesting in us, then they arm themselves against us with all their hellish malice, with all their fiery and varied insurances, strong, burning addictions to earthly goods, until we drive them out of ourselves with fervent prayer or Holy Communion. Tyne. Thus, those possessed by demons are at peace until they are brought to the shrine, but when they are brought to the shrine, where will the extraordinary power come from, aversion from the shrine, blasphemy, spitting on the shrine, a piercing cry. Here is an explanation or solution to the confusion - why the possessed, or the so-called cliques, scream in church during mass or when they are brought to St. relics; this is because demons meet with a good force, hateful to them and stronger than them, which scorches, oppresses, strikes them righteously, drives them out of their beloved home. Sometimes there is such a petrified insensibility in the soul that you don’t see or feel your sins; You are not afraid of death, or the Judge, or the terrible judgment; everything spiritual is, as they say, trin-grass. O wicked, O proud, O evil flesh! It is not without reason that the saints complain: I am possessed by a slothful slumber and a sinful sleep weighs heavily on my heart. For the souls of you, it’s time to repent, shake off the heaviest sleep of laziness and quickly wake up. Sometimes there is such terrifying laziness and insensibility in your soul that you are overcome by complete despair to drive away this laziness and insensibility. It seems better to be sick than to feel lazy. One of the most powerful deceits of the devil is relaxation through laziness of the heart, and with it all spiritual and physical strength: faith, hope and love dry up in the heart, you become faithless, despondent: insensitive to God and to people, like salt. Most people voluntarily carry the satanic burden in their hearts, but are so accustomed to it that they often do not feel it and even increase it imperceptibly. Sometimes, however, the evil enemy increases his weight in them tenfold, and then they become terribly despondent, faint-hearted, grumble, and blaspheme the name of God. The usual means of driving away melancholy among people of this century are evenings, cards, dances, theaters. But these remedies then further increase boredom and languor of the heart. If, by happiness, they turn to God, then the heaviness will fall from their hearts, and they will see clearly that previously the greatest burden lay on their hearts, although they often did not feel it. Oh, how many people there are who have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters, and dug up broken treasures for themselves, who are not able to contain (living) water (Jer. 2:13). People have a lot of these broken wells - almost everyone has their own. Contrite treasures are our hearts, our passions. Here is our contemporary idolatry in Christianity: self-love, ambition, earthly pleasure, gluttony and covetousness, fornication; it completely turned our eyes and hearts away from God and the heavenly fatherland and nailed us to the ground; It is this that has eradicated love for one’s neighbor and armed us against each other. Woe, woe to us! The Word of God says: do not get drunk with wine (Eph. 5:18), but you, tavern tabernacle workers, say: get drunk with wine, and you have set up darkness for the taverns to seduce your brethren. And also go to church, sing and pray at home, with your tongues flattering. Judge for them, O God, that they may fall away from their thoughts; because of the multitude of their wickedness, I will purge them, for I have made You very bitter, O Lord (Ps. 5:10-11). God! always give me a meek heart, a clear, direct, meek gaze. Wake up! - Glory, Lord, to the change made in me by Your right hand, I thank You, for You have taken away from me the thorns that burn my passions and my oppression, and my shame, and my weakness, and have granted me peace, silence, freedom, strength, boldness. Confirm what you have done in me. Glory to the power of faith, the power of prayer: everything I ask of You in prayer as a believer, I accept according to Your Word (Mark 11:24). I thank you, Lord, for you have raised me from the dead many times over (2 Cor. 1:9) and destroyed the mortal, sinful kingdom in me. Deep sorrow and contrition for sin “The sacrifice to God is a broken spirit.” Ps. 50:19. Jesus looked at Peter, and (Peter) went out weeping bitterly (Luke 22:61–62; Matt. 26:75). And now Jesus, when He looks at us, we weep bitterly for our sins. Yes, our tears in prayer mean that the Lord has looked upon us with His all-reviving gaze, searching our hearts and wombs. Oh, how sometimes our soul becomes entangled in various sins, like a bird in a net! Sometimes you don’t see a way out of your sins, and they torment you: sometimes your heart feels terribly sad because of them; but Jesus will look - and streams of tears will flow, and with tears, all the tangle of evil in the soul will turn into nothing: you cry and rejoice that such mercy has suddenly been unexpectedly sent to you; and what warmth there is in the heart, and how easy it is: I would have flown away then to the Lord God Himself! I thank the Lord with all my heart, who cleanses all my iniquities! (Ps. 103:3) Carnal bliss, petrified insensibility towards everything spiritual, sacred, is the crampedness of the enemy, although the carnal man does not consider it cramped, because he favors it; but those who want to live spiritually consider it to be cramped, because it does not allow God to reach our hearts, it does not allow the grace of God to be poured out in the heart, reviving and enlightening our soul, it makes our soul barren with deeds of faith, hope and love. You become somewhat carnal and lacking in spirit. Oh, how many different persecutions there are! How you grieve from your heart over this petrified insensibility, how you cry before the Lord: it will pass; and the heart will warm and soften, and become capable of spiritual contemplation and holy feelings. When you stand for prayer, burdened with many sins and overcome with despair, begin to pray with hope, a burning spirit, then remember that the Spirit of God Himself helps us in our weaknesses, interceding for us with groanings that cannot be uttered (Rom. 8:26). When you remember with faith about this action of the Spirit of God in us, then tears of tenderness will flow from your eyes, and in your heart you will feel peace, sweetness, justification and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17), you will cry out with the verb of your heart: Abba Father! When you pray for the forgiveness of your sins, always strengthen yourself with faith and trust in God’s mercy, which is always ready to forgive our sins through sincere prayer, and be in every possible way lest despair set in your heart, expressed as a heavy despondency of the heart and forced tears. That your sins are against God’s mercy, whatever they may be, as long as you sincerely repent of them! And it often happens that a person prays and does not inwardly hope in his heart that his sins will be forgiven, considering them, as it were, above God’s mercy. For this he really does not receive forgiveness, although he sheds springs of involuntary tears and with a sorrowful, constricted heart departs from the generous God - that is what he is worthy of: believe as you receive, says the Lord, and it will be done for you (Mark 11:24). Uncertainty about receiving what you ask from God is blasphemy against God. If you sin in any way before God (and we sin a lot every day), immediately say in your heart, with faith in the Lord, who hears the cry of your heart, with a humble consciousness and feeling of your sins, the psalm “Have mercy on me, O God, according to Your great mercy,” and read the whole psalm heartily; If it didn’t work once, try another trick, just read it even more heartily, even more sensitively, and then salvation and peace to your soul will immediately shine from the Lord. So always lament: this is a sure, proven remedy against sins. If you don’t get relief, blame yourself; it means that you prayed without contrition, without humility of heart, without a firm desire to receive forgiveness of sins from God; It means that sin has hurt you greatly. It is as if another prays to the Lord, but he himself works for the devil, who nests in the heart, because he prays only with his lips, but his heart is cold, does not feel and does not desire what his lips ask and what they say, and is far away (Is. 29:13) from the Lord. There are also many communicants who partake of the Body and Blood of Christ not sincerely, not with great love, but only with their lips and belly, with little faith, coldness, with a heart partial to food and drink, money, or prone to pride, malice, envy, laziness, and their hearts are far from Him who is all love, holiness, perfection, wisdom and kindness ineffable. Such people need to go deeper into themselves, repent more deeply and reflect more deeply on what prayer is and what communion is. Coldness of heart towards God and prayer is from the devil; it is the coldness of tartar, and we, as children of God, will love the Lord with the most ardent love. Grant, Lord, for without You we can do nothing (John 15:5). After all, You are everything to us, and we are nothing. You brought us from non-existence into existence and provided us with everything. Diligent, tearful prayer not only cleanses sins, but also heals bodily infirmities and illnesses and renews a person’s entire being, and, so to speak, regenerates (I speak from experience). Oh, what an invaluable gift - prayer! Glory to Thee, Father of bounties and God of all joy! Glory to You, Son of God, only begotten, who interceded for us endless forgiveness of our sins! Glory to Thee, All-Holy Soul, interceding for us with groanings that cannot be uttered (Rom. 8:26), giving fiery prayer with sighs and tears, warming a cold soul, giving tenderness and sorrow for sins, cleansing, sanctifying, pacifying, strengthening and renewing us! Glory to Thee, Holy Trinity, beginningless, life-giving, blessed forever from all intelligent creatures! “If we say that there is no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous, and may he forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1John 1:8–9. He told the Lord his sins with contrition of heart - and they melted away; sighed, regretted his sins - and they were gone. The words of your iniquity, that you may be justified (Isaiah 43:26). As they come, so they go. A dream is a dream. He realized that they were a dream, an absurdity, a madness, and he intended to behave properly from now on - and God cleansed them through His servant and St. Sacraments. About repentance. Repentance must be sincere and completely free, and in no way forced by time and custom or by the person confessing. Otherwise it will not be repentance. Repent, it is said, for the Kingdom of Heaven is drawing near (Matthew 4:17), drawing near, that is, it has come on its own, you don’t need to look for it for a long time, it is looking for you, your free disposition, that is: repent yourself with heartfelt contrition. Being baptized (said of those baptized by John), confessing their sins (Matthew 3:6), that is: they themselves confessed their sins. And since our prayer is primarily repentance and a petition for the forgiveness of sins, it must always be sincere and completely free, and not involuntary, forced by custom and habit. Prayer should not be like this even when it is thanksgiving and doxology. Gratitude presupposes in the soul of the recipient the fullness of a free, living feeling, freely flowing through the lips: out of the abundance of the heart the lips speak (Matthew 12:34). Doxology presupposes the delight of surprise in a person contemplating the deeds of the infinite goodness, wisdom, and omnipotence of God in the moral and material world, and therefore also naturally should be a completely free and reasonable matter. In general, prayer should be a free and completely conscious outpouring of a person’s soul before God. I pour out my soul before the Lord (Prayer of Anna, Mat. Samuel; 1 Samuel 1:15). Repentance is helped by consciousness, memory, imagination, feeling, will. Just as we sin with all the strength of our soul, so repentance must be all-soul. Repentance only in words, without the intention of correction and without a feeling of contrition, is called hypocritical. The consciousness of sins is obscured; it must be clarified; the feeling is muffled, dulled, it must be awakened; the will grows dull and becomes weak for correction; it must be forced: the Kingdom of Heaven is taken by force (Matthew 11:12). Confession must be heartfelt, deep, complete. The carnal man considers Christian freedom involuntary, for example: going to Divine services, fasting, fasting, confession, communion, all the sacraments, but does not know that all this is a requirement of his nature, a necessity for his spirit. Whoever gets used to giving an account of his life in confession here will not be afraid to give an answer at the Last Judgment of Christ. Yes, for this reason a meek court of repentance was established here, so that we, purified and corrected through local repentance, could give a shameless answer at the terrible judgment of Christ. This is the first impulse to sincere repentance and, moreover, certainly annually. The longer we do not repent, the worse it is for ourselves, the more confusing the bonds of sin become, the more difficult it is, therefore, to give an account. The second impulse is peace: the calmer your soul will be the more sincere you confess. Sins are secret snakes that gnaw at a person’s heart and his entire being; they give him no rest, constantly sucking his heart; sins are thorny thorns that constantly gore the soul; sins are spiritual darkness. Those who repent must bear the fruits of repentance. What does fasting and repentance lead to? What is the labor for? Leads to cleansing of sins, peace of mind, union with God, sonship, and boldness before the Lord. There is something to fast about and confess from the heart. The reward will be invaluable for conscientious work. How many of us have a feeling of filial love for God? How many of us boldly, without condemnation, dare to call on Heavenly God the Father and say: Our Father!.. Isn’t it the other way around, in our hearts such a filial voice is not heard at all, muffled by the vanity of this world or attachment to its objects and pleasures? Is not the Heavenly Father far from our hearts? Shouldn’t we, who have moved away from Him to a land far away, imagine Him as God’s avenger? Yes, for our sins we are all worthy of His righteous wrath and punishment, and it’s amazing how He is so patient with us, how He does not cut us down like the barren fig trees? Let us hasten to appease Him with repentance and tears. Let us enter into ourselves, examine our unclean heart with all severity and see what a multitude of impurities block the access of divine grace to it, we realize that we are spiritually dead. You will endure the difficulty and painful sting of the operation, but you will be healthy (they talk about confession). This means that in confession you must reveal all your shameful deeds to your confessor without concealment, even though it is painful, embarrassing, shameful, and humiliating. Otherwise, the wound remains unhealed and will ache and ache, and undermine mental health; it will remain a leaven for other spiritual infirmities or sinful habits and passions. A priest is a spiritual doctor; show him the wounds, without shame, sincerely, openly, with filial trust: after all, the confessor is your spiritual father, who must love you more than your relatives, father and mother, for Christ’s love is higher than carnal, natural love - he must give an answer to God for you. Why has our life become so unclean, full of passions and sinful habits? Because so many people hide their spiritual wounds or ulcers, that’s why they hurt and get irritated, and no healing can be applied to them. Even if you fall, rise up and be saved. You are a sinner, you constantly fall, learn to rise; take care to gain this wisdom. This wisdom consists of this: learn by heart the psalm “Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy great mercy” (Ps. 50), inspired by the Holy Spirit to the king and prophet David, and read it with sincere faith and hope, with a contrite and humble heart; after your sincere repentance, expressed in the words of King David, forgiveness of sins will immediately shine from the Lord, and you will feel peace of mind. The main thing in life is to be jealous of mutual love and not to judge anyone. Everyone will give an answer to God for themselves, but look within yourself. Beware of malice. He who knew no sin (it is said about Christ) commit sin for us, so that we may be the righteousness of God in Him (2 Cor. 5:21). After this, will you be ashamed to admit to any sin or accept the accusation of a sin you did not commit? If the Son of God was guilty of sin according to us, although he was sinless, then he must also accept the accusation of all sins with meekness and love, for you are truly sinful of all sins. But if you are not a sinner, accept the accusation with humility. For the sake of our faith alone, the mountains of the heart are moved, i.e. the height and severity of sin. When Christians lift the burden of sins in repentance, they sometimes say: “Thank God, the weight has been lifted from our shoulders!” “The path of your commandments flowed when you enlarged my heart.” Ps. 118.32. How pleasant it is for you, how fun it is when you find some lost, necessary and valuable thing! You are ready to jump for joy. Imagine how pleasing it is to the Heavenly Father at the sight of His lost child - a sinner, but found, at the sight of His lost and revived sheep, at the sight of His lost and found drachma, i.e. this living image of God - man? It is impossible to describe this joy. The Heavenly Father's joy over His lost and found prodigal son is so great that the entire loving and benevolent heaven strives for joy: for there is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents (Luke 15:7). Perishing brothers and sisters! return from the path of destruction to the Heavenly Father. Repent, the Kingdom of Heaven is drawing near (Matthew 3:2). How good it is to conquer passions! After a victory, you feel such lightness in your heart, peace and greatness of spirit! In this age we sin constantly, and yet we are so proud that we do not want to endure any reproach, especially in front of others; but in the next century our sins will be exposed before the whole world. Remembering this terrible judgment seat, may we endure the convictions here in humility and kindness, and may we be corrected from all our shortcomings and sins; especially, let us endure reproof from leaders, and may the Lord admonish them not to reprove out of malice, but with love and a spirit of meekness. Pay attention: for cleansing your heart from sins, you will receive an endless reward - you will see God, your all-good Creator, your Provider. The feat of purifying the heart is difficult, because it is associated with great hardships and sorrows, but the reward is great. Blessed are those who are pure in heart, for they will see God (Matthew 5:8). How quick we are to do evil and slow to do good! So I want to be kind to the enemy and express my kindness in practice, but before I have time to become kind in my heart, I am already angry, already a fiery arrow of anger is scorching my insides; I want to be patient, but before I establish my heart in patience, I become irritable and impatient; I want to be humble, but satanic pride has already found a spacious corner in me; I want to be affectionate, but when I need to show affection, I turn out to be rude; I want to be not money-loving and generous, but love of money and stinginess at the slightest provocation, like hungry and roaring lions, already demand food for themselves; I want to be simple, trusting, but deceit and doubt are already gnawing at my heart; I want to be sedate, focused and reverent in serving the Almighty, but frivolity and heartfelt inattention have already preceded me; I want to be impartial, abstinent in food and drink, but when I see pleasant food and drink and sit down at the table, I, like a slave, am carried away by my belly into a pleasant captivity, easily allowing myself to eat and drink more than my nature requires: greed and intemperance again precede and overcome my desire to be indifferent to food and drink. I am like that paralytic who lay on his bed for thirty-eight years and no matter how many times he came to the sheep font, which healed everyone who was the first to immerse himself in it after the disturbance of its water by an angel, he did not get him down first (John 5:7). And when I, weakened by my sins, gather my efforts and come to myself - with the intention of immersing myself in God and changing for the better - and before me, sin crawls into my heart, the devil forestalls me in my own home, in my own heartfelt font, does not allow me to reach the Source of living waters - the Lord, does not allow me to immerse myself in the cleansing font of faith, humility, heartfelt contrition and tears. Who is healing me? - One Jesus Christ. When He sees my sincere and firm desire for healing from spiritual relaxation, my warm prayer for this, then He will say to me: take up your bed and walk (John 5:8) - and I will get up from the bed of heartfelt relaxation and walk, that is, conveniently - by His grace - I will conquer all passions and perform every virtue. Zealous for piety, brother and sister! You will have to hear, and perhaps often more so from your family, that you are a difficult, unbearable person; you will see strong dislike towards yourself, enmity for your piety, although those at enmity will not express what exactly it is for piety that they are enmitying against you, do not be indignant at this and do not fall into despair: because the devil can actually exaggerate to enormous proportions some of your weaknesses, from which you are not free as a person, but remember the words of the Savior: a man’s enemies are his own household (Matthew 10:36), and correct your shortcomings, but hold fast to piety. Trust your conscience, your life and your deeds to God, who leads our hearts. However, look at yourself impartially: in fact, are you not heavy in character, especially for your household; Maybe you are gloomy, unkind, uncommunicative, taciturn. Open your heart for sociability and affection, but not for indulgence; in reprimands, be meek, non-irritable, gentle. Let all love be with you (1 Cor. 16:14), said the apostle. Be patient, do not reprimand for everything, tolerate others, pass by in silence, and turn a blind eye to them. Love covers all things and endures all things (1 Cor. 13:7). Sometimes, due to an impatient reprimand, enmity arises, because the reprimand was made not in the spirit of meekness and love, but in the spirit of a self-loving claim to the other’s submission to oneself. Place in your soul a firm intention to strongly hate every sin - thoughts, words and deeds, and when there is a temptation to sin, resist it courageously and with a feeling of hatred towards it; just beware that your hatred does not turn on the face of your brother, who gives rise to sin; Hate sin with all your heart, and feel sorry for your brother; admonish him and pray for him before the Most High, who sees us all and tests our hearts and insides. It is not for the sake of shelter that one struggles against sin (Heb. 12:4). Without hatred of sin established in the heart, it is impossible not to fall into it often. Self-love must be uprooted: every sin comes from self-love; sin always pretends to be our well-wisher, promising us contentment and peace. The tree is good for food, and it pleases the eye to see, and it is red to eat, which you understand (Gen. 3:6). This is how sin always seems to us. “And now says the Lord your God: Turn to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.” Joel. 2:12. Whoever desires to save his soul will destroy it (Matthew 16:25), i.e. whoever desires to save his old, carnal, sinful man will destroy his life: for true life consists in crucifying and putting to death the old man with his deeds and putting on the new man, renewed in the image of Him who created him (Col. 3:9-10). Without the mortification of the old carnal man, there is no true life, no eternal bliss. The stronger and more painful the mortification of the old man, the more perfect his renewal and rebirth, the higher his purification, the more perfect his life, and the higher his bliss in the next century. Mortify yourself and you will come to life. Oh! I myself feel that when I am completely healthy and do not bother or exhaust myself with labor, then I die in spirit, then the Kingdom of God is not in me, then my flesh has possession of me and the devil with the flesh. It is necessary for a Christian to fast in order to clarify the mind and excite and develop feelings and motivate the will to good activity. We overshadow and suppress these three human abilities most of all through gluttony, drunkenness and the worries of life (Luke 21:34), and through this we fall away from the source of life - God and fall into corruption and vanity, perverting and desecrating the image of God in ourselves. Gluttony and voluptuousness nail us to the ground and cut off, so to speak, the wings of the soul. And look how high all the fasters and abstinents were! They soared in the skies like eagles; They, earthly beings, lived with their minds and hearts in heaven and heard inexpressible verbs there, and there they learned divine wisdom. And how a person humiliates himself with gluttony, gluttony and drunkenness! He perverts his nature, created in the image of God, and becomes like dumb cattle and even becomes worse than him. Oh, woe to us from our addictions, from our lawless habits! They prevent us from loving God and our neighbors and fulfilling God’s Commandments; they root in us criminal carnal selfishness, the end of which is eternal destruction. So a drunkard, for the pleasure of the flesh and stupefaction of himself, does not spare a lot of money, but spares pennies for the poor; a tobacco smoker throws tens and hundreds of rubles into the wind, and begrudges the beggars the pennies that could save his soul; those who love to dress luxuriously or are hunters of fashionable furniture and utensils spend huge amounts of money on clothes and furniture with utensils, and pass by beggars with coldness and contempt; those who love to eat well do not spare tens and hundreds of rubles for dinners, but they spare pennies for the poor. It is necessary for a Christian to fast because with the incarnation of the Son of God, human nature is spiritualized, deified, and we hasten to the heavenly kingdom, which contains food and drink, but truth, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17); meat to the belly, and the belly to waste: God will bring to naught both this and this (1 Cor. 6:13). Eat and drink, i.e. to have an addiction to sensual pleasures is characteristic only of paganism, which, not knowing spiritual, heavenly pleasures, spends its entire life in the pleasure of the belly, in heavy eating and heavy drinking. That is why the Lord often denounces this destructive passion in the Gospel. And is it reasonable for a person to constantly live in gastric fumes, in gastric fumes rising inside from the incessant cooking of food and its fermentation? Is man just a walking kitchen or a self-propelled chimney, to which all those who smoke incessantly can rightly be likened? What pleasure is it to live in constant fumes, evaporation and smoke? What will our homes be like? Why would we contaminate the air with stench and breathe it, and most of all, darken and suppress the soul, kill its last spiritual strength? As a person satisfies his sensuality, he becomes carnal and removes from himself the Most Holy Spirit of God, Who cannot dwell in people who lead a carnal life: what kind of fellowship does light have with darkness (2 Cor. 6:14)? This tear-worthy condition is experienced by many people and - alas! - they do not recognize that they do not have the Spirit of God in them, just as those who were blind from birth do not realize the great loss that they do not see the light. Such people do not have faith and love in their hearts and the spirit of prayer; they avoid communication with the Church. My God! there are so many dangers in life for me. I become my own greatest enemy when I satisfy my flesh too much. If you eat and drink a lot greedily, you will be flesh, and if you fast and pray, you will be spirit. Do not get drunk with wine, but rather be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18; 1 Thess. 5:6–8). Fast and pray, and you will accomplish great things. A well-fed person is not capable of great things. Have simplicity of faith and you will accomplish great things: for all things are possible to him who believes (Mark 9:23). Have diligence and diligence, and you will accomplish great things. he soon makes it clear to anyone who fasts that every person needs very little food and drink, and that in general we are greedy and eat and drink much more than what is proper, i.e. whatever our nature requires; fasting helps or reveals all the infirmities of our soul, all its weaknesses, shortcomings, sins and passions, just as muddy, stagnant water that begins to clear itself reveals what reptiles are found in it or the quality of rubbish; he shows us the necessity of running to God with all our hearts and seeking His mercy, help, and salvation; fasting shows all the cunning, deceit, all the malice of the disembodied spirits with whom we previously, unknowingly, worked, whose cunning, when we are now illuminated by the light of God’s grace, is clearly revealed, and who now viciously persecute us for leaving their ways. He who rejects fasting forgets what caused the fall of the first people (from intemperance) and what weapon against sin and the tempter the Savior showed us when he was tempted in the desert (fasting forty days and nights), he does not know or does not want to know that a person falls away from God most often through intemperance, as was the case with the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah and with the contemporaries of Noah - for intemperance causes every sin in people; whoever rejects fasting takes away from himself and from others weapons against his many-passionate flesh and against the devil, who are strong against us especially through our intemperance, he is not a warrior of Christ, for he throws down his weapon and surrenders voluntarily into captivity of his voluptuous and sin-loving flesh; he, finally, is blind and does not see the relationship between the causes and consequences of affairs. They say: it’s not important to eat meat during Lent, it’s not about food during Lent; It’s not an important thing to wear expensive, beautiful clothes, go to the theater, to parties, to masquerades, to have magnificent expensive dishes, furniture, an expensive carriage, dashing horses, to collect and save money, etc.; but why does our heart turn away from God, the Source of life, and why do we lose eternal life? Is it not because of gluttony, is it not because of precious clothes, like the evangelical rich man, is it not because of theaters and masquerades? Why do we become hard-hearted towards the poor and even towards our relatives? Is it not because of our addiction to sweets, to the belly in general, to clothing, to expensive dishes, furniture, carriage, money, etc.? Is it possible to work for God and mammon (Matthew 6:24), to be a friend of the world and a friend of God, to work for Christ and Belial? Impossible. Why did Adam and Eve lose paradise and fall into sin and death? Is it not because of the food alone? Take a good look at why we do not care about the salvation of our souls, which cost the Son of God so dearly; Because of this, we add sins to sins, we constantly fall into resistance to God, into a vain life. Is it not because of an addiction to earthly things, and especially to earthly sweets? What makes our heart hard? because of which we become flesh and not spirit, perverting our moral nature, is it not because of addiction to food, drink, etc. earthly goods? How can we then say that eating meat during Lent is not important? This very thing that we say so is pride, vanity, disobedience, disobedience to God and moving away from Him. Man is dear to the Lord, the whole world is submissive to him; The Son of God himself came down from heaven to earth to save him from eternal torment, to reconcile him with God. All kinds of fruits, various animal flesh were given to him as food, various drinks were given to him to delight his taste, but not for addiction, not for his only pleasure. A Christian has great, spiritual, divine pleasures; These are the pleasures of the flesh that must always be subordinated, moderated or completely stopped when they interfere with spiritual pleasures. This means that food and drink are forbidden not to sadden a person, not to restrict his freedom, as they say in the world, but in order to give him true pleasure, lasting, eternal, and that is precisely why modest foods and wine drinks (during Lent) are prohibited, because man is very dear to God and so that instead of God his heart does not cleave to the corruptible, which is unworthy of him. And a person damaged by sins conveniently cleaves to earthly pleasures, forgetting that his true pleasure, his true life is the eternal God, and not a pleasant irritation of the flesh. Do not have any addiction not only to food and drink, to clothing, to a spacious and well-decorated home, to rich household utensils, but also to your health, even to your life, do not have the slightest addiction, having given up your whole life to the will of the Lord, saying: for me to live is Christ, and to die is gain (Phil. 1:21). Hate your soul in this world, but you will keep it for eternity (John 12:25). Addiction to temporary life, to health leads to many deviations from the commandments of God, to indulgence of the flesh, to breaking fasts, to evading the conscientious performance of service duties, to despondency, impatience, and irritability. Never sleep in the evening before the evening rule, lest your heart become white from untimely sleep, and lest the enemy prohibit it with petrified insensibility in prayer. Be sober and watchful (1 Peter 5:8). Watch and pray, so that you do not fall into misfortune (Matthew 26:41). Watch out, for you do not know the hour of the day, in the same day the Son of Man will come (Matthew 25:13). Be on the lookout: you don’t know when the Lord will come home, evening, or midnight, or at the sound of a loop, or morning: lest he come suddenly, he will find you sleeping. And as I say to you, I say to everyone: watch (Mark 13:35, 37). The root of all evil is a proud heart, or self-pity, self-sparing; from self-love or excessive and unlawful love for oneself stem all passions: coldness, insensibility and hard-heartedness towards God and neighbor, evil impatience or irritability, hatred, envy, stinginess, despondency, pride, doubt, lack of faith and unbelief, greed for food and drink, or gluttony, covetousness, vanity, laziness, hypocrisy. Never feel sorry for yourself in anything, crucify yourself - your old man, nesting mainly in the flesh - and you will cut off all your passions. Endure complacently everything that happens that is unpleasant for the flesh, do not spare it, go opposite to it, and you will be a true follower of Christ. The whole wisdom of a Christian consists in prudently walking contrary to his flesh in everything in his life, for nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh (Rom. 7:18), says the apostle. With satiety and drunkenness, the incorporeal enemy enters a person’s heart—everyone who is attentive can feel this. This is the reason why, with increasing drunkenness, the inclination to drunkenness increases so terribly (because the power of the enemy over a person increases), why such a force is noticeable among drunkards, attracting them involuntarily to satisfy a passion or internal desire for wine - these unfortunate people have an enemy in their hearts. How to cast out the demon of drunkenness? By prayer and fasting. The enemy enters because people indulge in a carnal lifestyle, gluttony and do not pray; it is natural that he can leave them for the opposite reasons: fasting and prayer. Oh, how terrible it is to eat and drink for fun, to become satiated and drunk! A well-fed womb loses faith, fear of God and becomes insensitive to prayer, thanksgiving and glorification of God. A well-fed heart turns away from the Lord and becomes like a stone, hard and insensitive. That is why the Savior carefully warns us against overeating and drunkenness, lest the day of death suddenly come upon us (Luke 21:34), because of the Lord’s anger against us, for frivolous and idle spending of time in food and drink. Perfect pleasing to God consists in having perfect impartiality towards one’s body for Him; for example, when during prayer we, despite laziness and a strong disposition to sleep, force ourselves and do not give in to it, then we have dispassion for the body. The martyrs and ascetics had perfect impartiality. When you feel that there is no peace in your heart due to addiction to something worldly, but instead irritability and anger are breathing in it, immediately stand guard over your heart and do not let the devil’s fire fill it. Pray with heartfelt prayer and strengthen your passionate, impatient heart with God’s power. Be firmly convinced that the evil kindling of the heart is the work of the enemy; and the enemy fights strongly in the heart through a full stomach. Experience. Do not believe your flesh, which threatens you with failure during prayer: it lies. If you begin to pray, you will see that the flesh will become your obedient slave. Prayer will revive her too. Always remember that the flesh is deceitful. Begin to fulfill the commandments concerning the small, and you will fulfill the commandments concerning the great: the small leads to the great everywhere. Begin to fulfill at least the commandment about fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays, or the tenth commandment concerning evil thoughts and desires, and you will fulfill all the commandments; but he who is unfaithful in few ways is unfaithful in many ways (Luke 16:10). By eating extensively, you become a carnal man, not having a spirit, or soulless flesh; and by fasting, you attract the Holy Spirit to yourself and become spiritual. Take cotton paper that has not been moistened with water, it is light and floats in the air in small quantities, but if you wet it with water, it will become heavy and immediately fall to the floor. So it is with the soul. Oh, how one must protect the soul through fasting! The substance of the world is like nothing (Ps. 39:6); everywhere and in everything the Spirit of God, life-giving, supreme of all. When you pray to God, imagine that matter does not seem to exist and all creatures seem not to exist, and that there is only God, existing everywhere and one, for whom there is no place, who fills, embraces, builds and preserves everything with Himself. If you are impartial to the material and practice fasting and prayer, then the spirit in you will, as it were, absorb the flesh, and you will be spiritual, you will contemplate the Spirit-God in nature everywhere; - whereas, on the contrary, those who are addicted to earthly things, especially to food, to drink, to money, are bodily, not possessing the spirit (Jude 1:19), and in everything they see only the flesh, without contemplating the spirit, and even rejecting the spiritual side of objects. To repent means to feel in your heart the lie, madness, guilt of your sins, it means to realize that you have offended your Creator, Lord, Father and Benefactor, who is infinitely Holy and infinitely abhors sin, it means to desire with all your soul their correction and atonement. Don’t rush to food and drink, but rather hurry to the work of God, and while doing God’s work, do not think about food and drink. Remember firmly before Whom you stand, with Whom you talk, Whom you sing; be entirely in God, belong entirely to Him alone, pray with all your heart, sing with all your heart, serve for your neighbors as you would for yourself, cordially, wholeheartedly, without double hearts and thoughts. God! help: without You I can do nothing (John 15:5). Why does the Lord add day to day, year to year of our existence? So that we gradually wean away, throw away the wickedness from our souls, each in his own way, and assimilate blissful simplicity, so that, for example, we become like gentle lambs, like simple babies, so that we learn not to have the slightest attachment to earthly things, but like loving and simple children cling with all our hearts to one God and love Him with all our hearts, with all our souls, with all our strength and with all thoughts, and your neighbor as yourself. Let us hasten with heartfelt and tearful prayer to ask the Lord for simplicity of heart and be jealous, let us take care in every possible way to cast off the cunning of our souls, for example: evil suspicion, malice, gloating, malice, pride, arrogance, self-praise, contempt, impatience, despondency, despair, resentment and irritability, timidity and cowardice, envy, stinginess, gluttony and satiety, mental and heartfelt fornication and actual fornication, love of money and in general the passion for acquisition, laziness, disobedience and the whole dark horde of sins. God! We cannot do anything without You. Bless us for this work and grant us victory over our enemies and our passions. - Wake up! When you're hungry, don't go too heavy on food—you'll burden both your heart and your body. Eat without greed, quietly, with meditation, for the glory of God, remembering God the Nourisher, especially His incorruptible food, His Body and Blood, how He, for love’s sake, gave us Himself for food and drink, and about St. The word of the gospel. Pay the most strict and active attention to this daily action of yours, to eating and drinking, because your spiritual, social and family activity depends very much on food and drink, on their quality and quantity. Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be burdened with gluttony and drunkenness (Luke 21:34); and tea and coffee also belong to drunkenness if they are consumed untimely and in excess. Oh woe to us, who are now saturated and often look at the gifts of God with disdain! God! just as it is characteristic of the Proto-Image to attract, to assimilate images, to inhabit and live in them, so it should be characteristic of those who are in Your image to strive with all love, with all zeal for the Proto-Image, to cleave to It. But behold, our greedy and voluptuous, plump, inert flesh tears us away from You; we need: fasting, abstinence, and we are passionate about sweets. Strengthen us to abstinence! And do not condemn my brother, for blessed are you forever and ever. (Mol. Ephraim the Syrian). “Today, O Son of God, accept me as a partaker of Your secret supper.” “Do this in remembrance of Me.” 1 Cor. 11, 24. The Divine Liturgy is truly a heavenly service on earth, during which God Himself is present and abides with people in a special, closest, closest way, being Himself an invisible priest, offering and being offered. There is nothing on earth holier, higher, more majestic, more solemn, more life-giving than the liturgy! The church, at this particular time, becomes an earthly sky, the clergy depict Christ Himself, Angels, Cherubim, Seraphim and apostles. The Liturgy is a constantly repeating triumph of God’s love for the human race and an omnipotent intercession for the salvation of the whole world and each member individually. The Marriage of the Lamb is the marriage of the Royal Son, in which the bride of the Son of God is every faithful soul, the Evil Spirit, the Holy Spirit. With what kind of prepared, pure, exalted soul one must always be present at the liturgy, so as not to be among those people who, not having the wedding garment, but having the defiled garment of passions, were bound hand and foot and thrown out of the bridal chamber into utter darkness. And now, unfortunately, many do not consider it necessary to go to the liturgy; others walk only out of habit, and as they came, they leave as they are - without lofty thoughts, without a contrite heart, with an unrepentant soul, without determination to reform. Others stand not reverently, absent-mindedly, without any concentration, without any preparation of themselves at home through reflection and abstinence, for many will have time to get drunk before mass, and sometimes even eat. When the Lord descended on Sinai, the Jewish people were commanded to prepare and cleanse themselves; here is no less than the Sinai descent of God (see Ex. 33:23), but more: there is only the back of God, and here is the very face of God the Lawgiver. When the Lord appeared to Moses in a bush at Horeb, he was commanded to take off his boots; and here there is more of the Epiphany of Horeb: there is a prototype, here the Transformer Himself. Oh, how we are partial to earthly things! We don’t want to devote even one hour, as we should, exclusively to God! During the divine, heavenly liturgy, even then we allow ourselves to dream about earthly things and fill our souls with images and desires of earthly things, sometimes - alas! – even unclean images; while we should pray fervently, reflect earnestly on this great mystery, repent of our sins, desire and ask for cleansing, sanctification, enlightenment, renewal and confirmation in Christian life, in fulfilling the commandments of Christ, pray for the living and the dead; for the liturgy is a sacrifice of propitiation, thanksgiving, praise and supplication. Great liturgy! It remembers the whole life not of some great person, but of God who became incarnate, suffered and died for us, rose again and ascended, and will again come to judge the whole world! The Liturgy is the supper, the meal of God’s love for the human race. Around the Lamb of God everyone gathers on the paten - the living and the dead, saints and sinners, the Church triumphant and militant. Remember that the fulfillment of life-giving Mysteries is the unchanging consent of the life-giving Trinity, predetermined from the creation of the world; it cannot not be. When you perform the Mysteries, then God the Father Himself, by His Holy Spirit, transforms bread and wine into the Body and Blood of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ - you are only an instrument. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit Himself through you performs the liturgy and illuminates the gifts. You are the one who offers and the one who is offered, it is said, Christ our God (Priest's Prayer in the lit. before the Cherubim). Remember the immutability of God and faithfulness in all His words. The Holy Mysteries are called Divine gifts because they are given to us by the Lord completely undeservedly, freely, undeservedly on our part; Instead of punishing us for our countless iniquities, committed every day, hour, minute, and giving us over to spiritual death, the Lord in the Holy Mysteries gives us forgiveness and cleansing of sins, sanctification, peace of spiritual strength, healing and health of soul and body and every good, solely according to our faith. If the Lord daily gives us Himself, His Divine Mysteries, freely for us to partake of, then shouldn’t we urgently give tuna, freely, perishable goods: money, food, drink, clothing - to those who ask them from us? And how can we be indignant at those who eat our bread for free, when we ourselves eat for free the priceless and immortal meat of the Body and Blood of the Lord? From him who takes yours, do not torture (Luke 6:30). The bread of life is Christ; let us put aside other concerns about bread. The Lord, who gives us the flesh and blood of His Son for food and drink, will much more give us natural bread; He who clothes our soul in Christ will much more send us material clothing; He who deigns to dwell in us will not deprive us of our perishable dwelling. What is surprising if God the Word Himself, the Creator of everything visible and invisible, transforms and transubstantiates bread and wine into His most pure body and His most pure blood? In these - bread and wine - the Son of God is not incarnated again, because He was once incarnate - and this is enough for all endless centuries - but is incarnated with the very body that was previously incarnated - in the likeness of how He multiplied the five loaves and fed several thousand with these five loaves. There are many secrets in nature that my mind cannot comprehend even in things, but things exist with their secrets. So in this sacrament of the life-giving Body and Blood, it is a mystery to me how bread and wine are made by the body and blood of the Lord Himself; - but the secrets of the Body and Blood actually exist, although it is incomprehensible to me. My Creator (I am his poor - or the Lord created me from flesh and blood and put the spirit in me) - like the all-wise, infinitely omnipotent God - has many secrets; I am a mystery to myself, like the work of His hands. For my soul - the spirit of the Lord, for my soul and body - His Body and Blood. Appreciate the greatest miracle of Jesus Christ, the son of the living God, revealed in communion with faith in His divine Mysteries. What miracle? Calm and revitalization of your heart, deadened by sin, so obvious after the heartache and spiritual death that often precedes communion. Out of habit, never consider it to be something ordinary and unimportant: such thoughts and dispositions of the heart bring the wrath of the Lord upon you, and after communion you will not taste peace and life. With the most lively, heartfelt gratitude for the gifts of life, obtain life from the Lord, and let your faith grow more and more. Fear and anxiety come from unbelief. Consider their appearance during communion as a sure sign that you are moving away through unbelief from the Life presented in the Chalice, and do not pay attention to them. O faith, faith! You yourself are a miracle for us! You save us: your faith will save you (Mark 5:34). And after living faith in the truth of God, we always depart from the Lord in the world; on the contrary, after lack of faith - always without peace. Oh! Satan often enters after the unworthy communion of St. Secrets, and he tries in every possible way to plant his lies in our hearts, i.e. unbelief, because unbelief is the same as lying. A murderer from time immemorial, he tries in every possible way and now to kill a person with his lies and various thoughts, and, having crept into the heart in the form of unbelief or some kind of passion, he then shows himself in a manner worthy of himself, more so with impatience and malice. And you see that it is in you, but you don’t suddenly often get rid of it, because it usually tries to lock in your heart all the ways to get out of it - through unbelief, bitterness and other creations of its own. You labor in vain in me, fallen archangel. I am a servant of my Lord Jesus Christ. You, exalted pride, humiliate yourself by fighting so hard against me, weak. So speak mentally to the evil spirit that lies as a heavy burden on your heart and forces you to do evil of various kinds. These words are like a fiery scourge to a proud spirit, and he, disgraced by your firmness and spiritual wisdom, will run away from you. You will now see this, feel it and be surprised at the wonderful change in yourself: the heavy, soul-killing burden in the heart will no longer be, it will become so light, easy, and you will be tangibly convinced that there are spirits of evil in the heavens, constantly seeking our destruction, poisoning our heart with the poison of dark and evil thoughts, intensifying to destroy love for people and sociability with them. Communicating with undoubted faith the life-giving Mysteries, I tangibly learn from the omnipresence of Christ. How? This is how: in every particle of the body and in every drop of blood I accept the whole Christ and, thus, I see with the eyes of my heart that He is at the same time complete in all particles and drops, no matter how many there are, to infinity. Likewise, the Lord is all in every church; and since Orthodox churches are located throughout the entire earth, the Lord is present not only in Divinity, but also in His soul and body throughout the entire earth, everywhere communicating with the believers inseparably and producing sweet fruits in them: the cleansing of sins, the sanctification of Christian souls and bodies, righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, uniting everyone with Himself, with the Father and His Holy Spirit. We know, moreover, that through fervent prayer He dwells in the souls of believers with the Father and His Holy Spirit. Being inherent in the entire material world and at once animating it all and every part of it separately, the Lord is all the more inherent in people and especially Christians, living in them: or you do not know that Jesus Christ is in you, unless you are unskillful by nature (2 Cor. 13:5). Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit living in you (1 Cor. 6:19). God the Father, acting in our mind and heart through His hypostatic Word (in our word expressed by the Holy Spirit, resting in the hypostatic Word) and through our word of faith, hope, meekness, love, emanating from our lips, in an instant, once and for all from the foundation of the world, performs the predetermined miraculous works of our rebirth in Christ, sanctification, strengthening, spiritual nutrition and healing, although preparatory The rituals for these actions are very long, for God is a simple, omnipotent Being. For example, the transformation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ is accomplished immediately upon the utterance of the words: create this bread, therefore, the honorable Body of Thy Christ: and in this cup - the honorable Blood of Thy Christ, translating it with Thy Holy Spirit - after these last words and blessing, crosswise with the hand, in an instant the bread and wine are offered both the Body and Blood of Christ, but not before, for divine omnipotence awaits the priest’s co-operating word: For God is an assistant (1 Cor. 3:9). In this case, the blessing of the cross in the name of the Lord means that the mystery is accomplished by the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus Christ and for the sake of Jesus Christ, for the sake of His intercession, with the blessing of God the Father. When you receive the life-giving Mysteries, firmly imagine Christ Himself in the forms of bread and wine; make a mental inscription on them: Jesus Christ, and with this mental inscription (and there is a sensory one), send it mentally to the depths of the heart, and there mentally place the life-giving Guest. If so, with such faith will you accept St. Secrets, you will see what they will produce in you: the deepest peace of spiritual forces, everything will be incredibly easy for you. According to the measure of our faith, the Lord benefits us; to the extent of heart readiness, the Body and Blood turn out to be a life-giving coal on the heart of the believer. Church is heaven; the altar is the throne of life, from which God descends to nourish and revive those who believe in St. most pure Mysteries. Wonderful are Your works, O Lord (Apoc. 15:3). You prepare us in advance for the contemplation of the throne and the One who sits on it, by the vision of the earthly throne in the church and by the contemplation with the eyes of faith of the One who sits on it. Reverence with all the powers of your soul before all the sacraments and speak within yourself about each sacrament before performing or communing it: this is the Mystery of God. I am only an unworthy leader or participant in it. Otherwise, our proud mind wants to explore the Mystery of God, and if it cannot explore it, then it rejects it as not fitting the insignificant standard of its mind. I am with you always, even to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20). So, Master, You are with us - all the days, not a single day, we live without You, without Your co-presence! You are with us especially in the Sacrament of Your Body and Blood. Oh, how truly and essentially you are in the Mysteries! You clothe yourself, Master, at every liturgy with a body subservient to us, except for sin, and feed us with Your life-giving flesh. Through the Mysteries You are completely with us, and Your flesh is united with our flesh and Your spirit is united with our soul - and we feel, we feel this life-giving, premium, sweet union, we feel that, clinging to You in the Eucharist, we become one spirit with You, as it is said: cling to the Lord, there is one spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6, 17). We become like You, good, meek and humble, as You said about Yourself: I am meek and lowly in heart (Matthew 11:29). True, often the evil and blind flesh or the prince of this age living in our sinful flesh whispers to us that in the Mysteries there is only bread and wine, and not the very body and blood of the Lord, and sends sight, taste and touch as evil witnesses for this. But we do not allow ourselves to listen to his slander and reason like this: for You, Lord, everything is possible; You create flesh for people, animals, fish, birds, reptiles - all creation; Will You not create flesh for Yourself, who are everywhere and fulfill everything? What sculptor, making a sculpture for others, is not able to make it for himself? Moreover, You transform dead matter into a living being, for example, the staff of Moses into a serpent, and nothing is impossible for You. Won't You create flesh for Yourself from bread and wine, which are so close to our flesh, being used for food and drink and transformed into our flesh and blood? You do not allow our faith to be tempted beyond what it may suffer (1 Cor. 10:13), You do not transform the lump of the earth into your most pure body and blood, but white, soft, clean, pleasant-tasting bread; You do not create water with Your blood, but wine suitable to the color of blood, which is called the blood of grapes in St. Scripture (Sir. 39, 32), pleasant to the taste and gladdening the heart of man. You know our weakness, the weakness of our faith, and therefore you deigned to use the most suitable substances for the sacrament of Your Body and Blood. Let us firmly believe that under the guise of bread and wine we partake of the true Body and true Blood of Christ, that in the sacrament of communion the Lord will be with us all the days until the end of the age (Matthew 28:20). Preparation for Holy Communion “Let a man tempt himself, and let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.” 1 Cor. 11, 28. Fasting brothers and sisters! Let us be afraid of the petrified insensibility of our sins; let us fear the pride of our hearts, which says: I do not need forgiveness of sins, I am not guilty, I am not a sinner; or: my sins are light, human, - as if it were necessary for them to be demonic; or: It’s not bad for me to live in my sins. This is satanic pride, and Satan himself repeats the same words in our hearts. Let us feel deeply, deeply, with all our hearts, our countless iniquities, we will sigh for them from the depths of our souls, we will shed tears of tenderness for them and we will appease the angry Master. Let us not justify ourselves in the least, like the Pharisees and hypocrites, for, as it is said, everyone who lives is not justified before God (Ps. 142:2), and only by sincere repentance of sins can we appease God. Let us leave indifference and coldness, let us work for the Lord with a burning spirit; Let us not forget that after a long period of lawless life, we have now come to appease the Lord of our life and our righteous Judge. Is this the time for coldness and indifference, which are not approved even in the community when dealing with people? Shouldn't our whole soul turn into spiritual fire and pour itself out in tears of sincere repentance? O our God, our God! our iniquities, in the proper sense, have multiplied more than the power of our head, more than the number of the sand of the sea, and we do not feel them, we are indifferent to them, we do not even stop loving them. What if You see through all our iniquities, Lord?.. Who then will stand before You, Lord? (Ps. 129:3) Grant to all of us, Lord, a contrite spirit and a humble heart, so that we may bring You true repentance. Amen. What is your duty, partaker of the divine Mysteries? You must philosophize on high, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God (Col. 3:1-2), and not philosophize about earthly things, for for this reason Christ came down to earth, so that he may lead us to heaven (Acath. Is. Slad. Cond. 8). In My Father's house there are many abodes. I go to prepare a place for you (John 14:2). Our life is in heaven (Phil. 3:20). Blessed are the poor in spirit, for to them is the Kingdom of Heaven. Unless your righteousness comes out more than the scribe and the Pharisee, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven (Matthew 5:3:20). Leave the children to come to Me, for such is the Kingdom of God (Luke 18:16). Do you see what is the final purpose for which Christ came to earth, for which He teaches us His Divine Mysteries - Body and Blood? This goal is to give us the Kingdom of Heaven. Strive for it. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in Me, and I in him (John 6:56). It is tangible, and experience confirms this. Blessed is the person who, with faith, receives Holy Communion, is filled with life. Secrets, with heartfelt repentance for sins. This truth is tangible, it is clear from the contrary. When, without sincere repentance for sins and with doubt, you approach St. More often than not, then Satan enters you and remains in you, killing your soul, and this can be extremely noticeable. Taking St. Mysteries, be also undoubtedly sure that you accept the body and blood of Christ, just as you have no doubt that you breathe air every minute. Say to yourself: just as it is certain that I constantly breathe in the air, so it is certain that I now, together with the air, accept into myself my Lord Jesus Christ, my breath, my belly, my joy, my salvation. - He is before the air, at all times of my life; there is my breath; before words, my word; before thoughts - my thought; before all light is my light; Before all food, this is my food; before any drink is my drink; Before any garment, my garment; Before every fragrance is my fragrance; before all sweetness is my sweetness; before my father - my Father; before my mother - my Mother; Before the earth - the solid earth that bears me, unshakable by anything forever. Because we, the earthly, forget that at all times we breathe in Him, live, move and exist, and have dug up broken treasures for ourselves (Jer. 2. 13), then He revealed in His Mysteries - in His blood - a source of living water flowing into eternal life, and He Himself gives Himself to us as food and drink, so that we may live by Him (1 John 4:9). Those who attend the Divine services of the Orthodox Church and study the science of Divine services must remember that service here on earth is a preparation for the most joyful service of God in heaven; that while serving God with the body, one must even more so serve God with the spirit and a pure heart; that, while listening to the Divine service, we must learn to serve God as the saints served, about whose lives and deeds we hear during the Divine service, about their faith, hope and love; that we must serve God most of all with deeds and truth, and not only with words and tongue. By our very existence we are called to serve God: for this we have received a straight stance, to look unceasingly to God, to thank and glorify Him; for this we have been given a mind, a heart, a will, and for this we have all our feelings. How long will St. The mysteries we receive will remind us that we are one body of many (1 Cor. 10:17), and how long will we not have mutual heartfelt unity among ourselves, as members of the one body of Christ? How long will we be self-legislative in life, quarrel with each other, envy each other, bite each other, sadden and devour each other, condemn and scold each other? How long will there not be in us the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of meekness, humility, kindness, unfeigned love, self-sacrifice, patience, chastity, abstinence, simplicity and sincerity, contempt for the worldly, complete striving for heavenly things? Master Lord Jesus Christ! Enlighten the eyes of our hearts and may Your good Spirit guide us all to rightness on earth (Ps. 142:10). Give us Your spirit! He who believes in the Savior and feeds on His flesh and blood has eternal life in himself: and this is the reason why every sin produces severe illness and confusion in the heart; Having no eternal life in them, they drink iniquity like water, and do not get sick: because there is no eternal life in their hearts. Some put all their well-being and service before God in reading all the prescribed prayers, not paying attention to the readiness of the heart for God, to their internal correction; for example, many read the rule for communion this way. Meanwhile, here, first of all, we must look at the correction and readiness of the heart to accept St. Tyne; if your heart has become right in your womb, by the grace of God, if it is ready to meet the Bridegroom, then thank God, although you did not have time to read all the prayers. The kingdom of God is not in words, but in power (1 Cor. 4:20). It is good to obey the mother of the Church in everything, but with prudence, and if possible, let him accommodate - long prayer - let him accommodate. But not everyone can comprehend this word (Matthew 19:11); if prolonged prayer is incompatible with fervor of the spirit, it is better to say a short but fervent prayer. Remember that one word of the publican, spoken from a warm heart, justified him. God does not look at the multitude of words, but at the disposition of the heart. The main thing is the living faith of the heart and the warmth of repentance for sins. Who comes to St. More often than not, with some passion in his heart, that Judas comes to flatteringly kiss the Son of Man. In order to partake with undoubted faith of the life-giving Mysteries and defeat all the machinations of the enemy, all slander, imagine that what you receive from the cup is Sy, i.e. One eternally existing. When you have such a disposition of thoughts and heart, then from accepting St. Through the mysteries you will calm down, rejoice and be revived, you will know with your heart that the Lord truly and essentially abides in you, and you are in the Lord. - Experience. The fruits of worthy Communion “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.” In. 6.56. By their fruit you will know them (Matthew 7:16). From the fruit of the liturgy - sweet, blessed, life-giving - the most pure Mysteries of the Body and Blood of the Lord, you know that it is from God, that it is the inspiration of the Divine Spirit, and this Most Holy Life-giving Spirit breathes in all its prayers and sacred rites. What a wonderful living tree this liturgy is! What leaves! What a fruit! Even the leaves of a tree for healing with the tongue (Apoc. 22:2), not only the fruit. For who has not received great spiritual benefit, peace and sweetness in the soul from one reverent presence at the Divine Liturgy! And whatever produces good fruit must itself be good; such is the law of things, such is the creative law. To the glory of the most holy name of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Lady Theotokos. “I felt a thousand times in my heart that after the Holy Communion. Mysteries or after fervent prayer at home, ordinary or on the occasion of some sin, passion and sorrow, and cramped conditions, the Lord, through the prayers of the Lady, or the Lady Herself, through the goodness of the Lord, gave me, as it were, a new nature of the spirit, pure, good, majestic, bright, wise, blissful, instead of the unclean, dull and lethargic, cowardly, gloomy, dull, evil. I have undergone many wonderful, great changes, to the surprise of myself and often of others. Glory to Your power, Lord! Glory to Your goodness, Lord! Glory to Your mercies, O Lord, which You have shown to me, a sinner! I marvel at the greatness and life-giving nature of the Divine Mysteries: an old woman who was coughing up blood and completely exhausted, not eating anything - from the Holy Communion. The secrets I taught her, she began to get better that same day. The girl, completely dying, after receiving Holy Communion. Tine, on the same day, began to recover, eat, drink and speak, while she was almost unconscious, tossed about violently and did not eat or drink anything. Glory to Your life-giving and terrible Mysteries, Lord! Participants of the Divine Mysteries! know how you sincerely commune with the Lord if you commune worthily. What boldness you have towards the Lord and the Mother of God! What purity they must have! What meekness, humility, gentleness! What dispassion for earthly things! What an ardent desire for heavenly, purest, eternal pleasures! Throughout their entire earthly life, people seek everything except Christ the Giver of Life - that is why they do not have spiritual life, and that is why they are given over to all sorts of passions: unbelief, lack of faith, greed, envy, hatred, ambition, the pleasures of food and drink. Only at the end of their entire life do they seek Christ - in communion, and then out of blatant necessity, and then as if according to a custom accepted by others. Oh, Christ God, our Life and Resurrection! How fussy we have become, how blind we have become! What would happen to us if we were looking for You, if we had You in our hearts? The tongue cannot express the bliss that those who have You in their hearts taste. For them you are strong food, and inexhaustible drink, and bright clothing, and sun, and peace, surpassing all understanding (Phil. 4:7), and joy unspeakable, and that’s all. With You all earthly dust and decay. It is good for me to pray for people when I receive communion worthily, i.e. consciously: then the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, my God is in me, and I have great boldness before Him. “Then the king is in me, as in a monastery: ask for whatever you want.” We will come to him and make our abode with him. If you want it, ask, and it will be done for you (John 14:23, 15:7). Opening for others the door to the Kingdom of Heaven through baptism, shall we not enter ourselves? By cleansing others through repentance and resolving the sins of others, will we not receive remission of our sins? Uniting others with Christ in the sacrament of communion, shall we ourselves not unite with Him sincerely in the non-evening days of the Kingdom of Christ? By giving the strengthening grace of the Holy Spirit in Confirmation, will we not ourselves receive strength and strength from the All-Holy Spirit and will we not increase the gift of our spirit? Truly we firmly hope to receive the promised good things through the grace, generosity and love of our Savior God. May God grant everyone to receive them! Just let us not be lazy, let us not become discouraged, let us not please the flesh in lust (Rom. 13:14), let us keep the sacrament of faith in a clear conscience (Tim. 3:9) and let us prosper in love for God and our neighbor. I thank You, Lord, for you have granted me new life every time I perform the Divine Liturgy with tears of repentance and thanksgiving and partake of Your most pure and life-giving Mysteries. To Your holy Mysteries I owe hitherto the continuation of my existence, the integrity of my ways and good glory among Your people. May Thy great name be hallowed more and more in me and in all Thy people, and upon them Thy holy name is called, and throughout Thy whole world; may Your kingdom come, the kingdom of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, into all our hearts, as You said: I will dwell in them and will walk in them, and will be their Father, and they will be My sons and daughters (2 Cor. 6:16; Lev. 26:12; Jer. 3:19), and may Your holy, wise, all-good will be done, all-perfect, all-blessed, as in heaven and on earth in all Your people, and in me, a sinner, for our own will is erroneous, short-sighted, for it is sinful, destructive, unloving, evil, envious, proud, lazy, luxurious, money-loving, stingy. Just as in Jesus Christ dwells all the fullness of the Divinity bodily (Col. 2:9), so also in the life-giving Mysteries of His Body and Blood. In the small human body is the entire fullness of the infinite, incontainable Divinity, and in the small lamb, or bread, in every smallest particle of it, is the entire divine fullness. Glory to Thy omnipotence and goodness, Lord! How many times, O Master Lord Jesus, have You renewed my nature, frivolously corrupted by my sins! There is no limit to this! How many times have You taken me out of the cave that was burning inside me, from the cave of many different passions, from the abyss of despondency and despair! How many times by Your name alone, called upon by me with faith, have You renewed the corruption of my heart! How many times have I done this through the life-giving Mysteries? Oh, Master! Your mercies towards me, a sinner, truly have no number or measure. What will I bring to You, or what will I repay You for Your immeasurable benefits to me, Jesus, my life and my lightness! May I be prudent in my ways according to Thy grace, for you are pleased with all those who are prudent on the way, as you have spoken through your Spirit through the mouth of our father David (Ps. 119:1); I will try to be faithful to You, humble, meek, not irritable, kind, long-suffering, hardworking, merciful, generous, non-covetous, obedient. May the communion of Your Most Pure Mysteries not be a judgment or condemnation for me, Lord, but for the healing of soul and body. “Lord, have mercy on me, heal my soul.” You might be interested in: