SPIRITUAL INSTRUCTIONS OF FRATE JOHN PEASANT

1. When you wake up in bed, first of all remember God and place the sign of the cross on yourself.
2. Don’t start your day without a prayer rule.
3. Throughout the day, everywhere and with every task, pray short prayers.
4. Prayer is the wings of the soul, it makes the soul the throne of God, all the power of a spiritual person is in his prayer.
5. For God to hear a prayer, you need to pray not with the tip of your tongue, but with your heart.
6. Let none of those around you be left in the morning without your sincere greetings.
7. Don’t give up prayer when the enemy makes you feel insensitive. He who forces himself to pray with a dry soul is superior to him who prays with tears.
8. You need to know the New Testament with your mind and heart, learn from it constantly; Don’t interpret anything you don’t understand yourself, but ask St. for clarification. fathers.
9. Take holy water with thirst for the sanctification of your soul and body - do not forget to drink it.
10. Greetings of gratitude to the Queen of Heaven - “Virgin Mother of God, rejoice...” say more often, even every hour.
11. In your free time, read the writings of the fathers and teachers of spiritual life.
12. In temptations and misfortunes, repeat the Psalter and read the prayer canon to the Most Holy Theotokos “We contain many misfortunes...”. She is our only Intercessor.
13. When demons throw their arrows at you, when sin approaches you, then sing the hymns of Holy Week and Holy Easter, read the canon with an akathist to the Sweetest Jesus Christ, and the Lord will loosen the bonds of darkness that have shackled you.
14. If you cannot sing and read, then in a moment of battle remember the name of Jesus: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.” Stand at the cross and heal yourself by crying.
15. During fasting time, fast, but know that God is pleased with fasting not only of the body, that is, abstinence of the belly, but abstinence of the eyes, ears, tongue, as well as abstinence of the heart from serving the passions.
16. A person embarking on spiritual life must remember that he is sick, his mind is in error, his will is more inclined to evil than to good, and his heart remains impure from the passions bubbling in it, therefore from the beginning of spiritual life everything should be aimed at acquiring mental health.
17. Spiritual life is a constant, incessant struggle with the enemies of the salvation of the soul; never sleep mentally, your spirit must always be alert, always call your Savior in this battle.
18. Be afraid to unite with the sinful thought that approaches you. Anyone who agrees with such thoughts has already committed the sin he thought about.
19. Remember: to perish, you need to be careless.
20. Constantly ask: “Instill Your fear, O Lord, into my heart.” Oh, how blessed is he who is constantly in awe of God!
21. Give your whole heart to God without a trace - and you will feel heaven on earth.
22. Your faith should be strengthened by frequent resort to repentance and prayer, as well as by communicating with people of deep faith.
23. Create a reminder for yourself, write down there, if possible, all your living and dead acquaintances, all those who hate and offend you, and remember them daily.
24. Seek constantly acts of mercy and compassionate love. Without these works it is impossible to please God. Be the sunshine for everyone, mercy is above all sacrifices.
25. Don’t go anywhere unless absolutely necessary (don’t spend time in idleness).
26. Talk as little as possible, don’t laugh, don’t be curious with idle curiosity.
27. Never be idle, and honor church holidays and Sundays according to the commandment of God.
28. Love holy solitude (to the full extent for monasticism, partly for the laity).
29. Endure all insults in silence, then reproach yourself, then pray for those who offend.
30. The most important thing for us is to learn patience and humility. With humility we will defeat all enemies - demons, and with patience - the passions that war against our soul and body.
31. During prayer, do not show anyone but God your tears of tenderness and zeal for salvation.
32. Consider an Orthodox priest as an angel of good news, sent to rejoice you and bring you deliverance.
33. Treat people as carefully as you would the messengers of a great kingdom, and as carefully as you treat fire.
34. Forgive everyone everything and sympathize with everyone in their suffering.
35. Don’t just rush around with yourself, like a chicken with an egg, forgetting your neighbors.
36. Whoever seeks peace here cannot have the Spirit of God abide in him.
37. Melancholy and confusion attack from lack of prayer. 38. Always and everywhere call your Guardian Angel to your aid.
39. Always keep your heart crying for your sins, and when you confess them and partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, then quietly rejoice over your liberation.
40. You should only know your own indecencies and shortcomings, be careful about the sins of others and think and reason, do not ruin yourself by condemning others.
41. Do not be self-willed, seek spiritual advice and guidance.
42. Every evening confess to God all your sinful deeds, thoughts, words that happened during the day.
43. Before going to bed, make peace with everyone in your heart.
44. You should not tell your dreams to other people.
45. Fall asleep with the sign of the cross.
46. ​​Night prayer is more expensive than daytime prayer.
47. Do not lose touch with your spiritual father, be afraid of offending him, offending him, do not hide anything from him.
48. Always thank God for everything.
49. Human nature must always be divided into your own self and the enemy who is attached to you because of your sins - and watch yourself carefully, check your thoughts and actions, avoid what your inner enemy, and not your soul, wants.
50. Inner sorrow for one’s sins is more salutary than all bodily labors.
51. There are no better words in our language than “Lord, save me.”
52. Love all the church rules and bring them closer to your life.
53. Learn to vigilantly and constantly (always) monitor yourself, especially your feelings: through them the enemy enters the soul.
54. When you recognize your weaknesses and powerlessness to do good, then remember that you do not save yourself, but your Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, saves you.
55. Your faith should be your impregnable fortress. The fierce enemy does not sleep - he guards your every step.
56. We are brought closer to God by the cross of life: sorrow, hardship, illness, labor; do not murmur against them and do not be afraid of them.
57. No one enters heaven living well.
58. As often as possible, with tenderness of heart, partake of the Holy Life-giving Mysteries of Christ, you live only by them.
59. Never forget that He, the Lord Jesus Christ, is near at the door, do not forget that the Judgment and reward is coming at what hour for whom.
60. Remember also what the Lord has prepared for those who love Him and for those who do His commandments.
61. Read this alphabet, Christian, at least once a week, it will help you in fulfilling what is written, it will strengthen you on the spiritual path....

“In our souls, alas, instead of meekness, Lord, there lives almost constant irritability. Everyone and everything irritates us, our heart is literally charged with irritability... We are all mired, drowned in the muddy muddy swamp of condemnation,” says Father John. And he not only speaks, but also advises how to get out of this swamp.

Those who are tired of their own irritability, despondency, envy, resentment, resentment - let’s read these words!

Have we ever wondered why we don’t have God’s holy life? Why do we always do nothing but violate the will of the Lord? Do we sin all the time, repent and sin, repent again and sin again?.. There are moments: good, joyful things will flash by... But these are just moments - they will flash and disappear, and again the darkness of sin and again “the work of the enemy”, again service to Satan...

What's the matter? Haven't we thought about this? Or will this secret of our life remain a secret? This shouldn't happen. What to do? We hear this question often. Is there an answer - there is no particular concern...

There is an answer. Let's think about this... We hear that we must lead a pious life, we need work and deeds, we read about this in books, we learn the commandments of the Lord in general confession, we also learn how people violate these commandments, we hear a priest who convinces us to fulfill the commandments, We sincerely promise in confession that from this hour we will be different, but nothing comes of all this... We sin again, we offend the Lord again. We sincerely make our efforts to become better, in order to go to the Kingdom of Heaven, but in reality we are not getting anywhere... Moreover, it happens even worse when we cannot hold on to this place, we have no strength, and we roll back into the same abyss, from which, it seems, they have already crawled out...

What a sad situation! After all, the years don’t stand still, they just fly by; sheets of paper are torn off the calendar and cannot be put back. Days and years pass, and death and the coffin are getting closer and closer...

There is some secret hidden here that we absolutely need to know. It cannot be that the Lord, who cares more about our salvation than we do, “wants all men to be saved,” it cannot be that the Lord will hide from us what we so need, without which, simply put, we cannot live. And this secret was revealed by our Lord Jesus Christ a long time ago and it lies in His words: “Without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

And we are all accustomed to living and thinking that the main support in all our affairs “I myself” is my understanding, my strength... And we fight, and we try, we try to do something good and... nothing comes of it! (from conversations of priest Boris Nikolaevsky, 1951). It doesn’t work out because we, blinded by our selfishness, our pride, completely forget that the first step on the ladder of virtue is humility.

First Beatitude: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for among them is the Kingdom of Heaven.

This is where the beatitudes begin, or the commandments of our true happiness, not that earthly illusory, fleeting happiness, which we, like a shadow, fruitlessly chase all our lives, but true, complete and eternal bliss, the beginning of which was revealed by the Lord Himself for all Christians in His Sermon on the Mount.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit” - that is, happy are the extremely poor in spirit... What is it like to be poor in spirit? This means “...to have a humble concept of one’s spiritual qualities, to humiliate oneself, to consider oneself a sinner.” This means having qualities in yourself that are opposite to pride, vanity, and self-love. Why does the Kingdom of Heaven belong to them, that is, to the poor in spirit? Yes, because the humble in spirit, “aware of his sinfulness and unworthiness, completely surrenders to the guidance of Divine grace, not at all relying on his spiritual strength, and grace leads him to the Kingdom” (Archimandrite Michael. Explanatory Gospel. Gospel of Matthew).

Why do we neglect to follow the straight path to perfect joy?

Before you begin to repent of crimes against this commandment of the Lord, I would also like to explain to you that “by the nature of a person’s natural abilities, there is an urge or desire to reveal, improve his strengths, become equal to others, acquire the good opinion of others, honor, glory, favor. This desire is useful when it encourages a person to improve himself mentally and morally. Likewise, a good name is useful for the improvement and happiness of ourselves and others when it is based on true excellence, acquired in an honest way, and used correctly. But our nature, corrupted by original sin, our pride abuses this desire, and from disordered love and respect for our superiority comes pride, which manifests itself in different forms and actions” (Bishop Peter. Indicating the path to salvation).

Now we listen carefully to these words of the ascetics of piety and think that we recognize ourselves as sinners, that we, it would seem, have nothing to be proud of, but this is self-deception. In fact, we also sin with pride of mind by not respecting God as the Supreme Lord and the source of all good things. In their audacity and madness they even reached the point of denying God, denying the Gospel, denying the Sacraments of the Church.

We sinned by not giving God due honor, by not attributing to Him every good we receive. We did not thank the Lord for His mercy to us. They sinned without thinking that they were completely dependent on Him, did not rely on Him alone, did not first of all ask Him for grace and help, but relied on their own strengths, sought help from people, and even, perhaps, while in the greatest madness, turned to sorcerers, sorcerers and fortune tellers for help.

There is another terrible sin - insulting the greatness of God - this is a direct appeal to Satan for help. If there are such people among us, then we must personally repent of this sin by approaching for permission prayer.

We sinned by attributing to our own merits the benefits we receive from the Lord. And the Lord is disgusted by our arrogance, for everyone who is proud is an abomination to God (cf. Proverbs 16:5). These are violations of truth and love of God, generated by pride.

The poor in spirit, according to the Monk Macarius of Egypt, constantly remains in great humility and heartfelt contrition for his insignificance, always before the gaze of his soul is its sinful ulcers.

We also call ourselves, and maybe we really consider ourselves sinners. However, this feeling is still far from humility, for, in the words of St. John Climacus, “the heart is tested when others dishonor.”

Which of us, hand on heart, can say that he gladly endures reproaches, annoyances, and reproaches? Why do we lose our presence of mind, fall into despair and even become so upset that we lose our health? Because our pride, according to St. Theophan, when touched with a finger shouts: “They tear the skin!” That's why we are so touchy. But if we look carefully, our touchiness comes mainly from pride, and it turns out that this is what is evil. We, Lord, are ambitious, we love only praise, and at best we cannot humbly accept tacit recognition of our imaginary merits and not the slightest remark from anyone, not even our spiritual father, our boss at work, our parents at home, let alone to thank the Lord who opens our eyes to our shortcomings through people.

Expecting praise and approval and not receiving it, we become irritated, annoyed, lose peace, carried away by self-aggrandizement, we are filled with envy of the perfections of other people! We simply cannot bear the virtues and perfections that deserve exaltation, which we see in others, and we try in every possible way to humiliate, denigrate, or in any way obscure or interpret for the worse the virtues and merits of others! But on the contrary, we find out their shortcomings with curiosity and satisfaction, as if we examine them through a microscope, and treat them with the greatest intolerance . This is where the gravest sin comes from, the terrible leprosy of our spirit - the sin of condemnation.

Lord, we are all mired, drowned in the muddy muddy swamp of condemnation, who and for what we do not condemn, arrogating to ourselves Your power and forgetting Your command: “Judge not, lest you be judged...” (Matthew 7: 1).

Here we are all striving for elevation, striving for recognition of ourselves. Once upon a time, the Lord, seeing this desire among His disciples, said: “... whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant...” (Matthew 20:26). Have we thought about these words of the Lord? Do we have a desire to put ourselves in the position of a servant in relation to our neighbors? No. Lord, forgive our selfishness! We expect services from our neighbors, we are mortally afraid of reaching the position of a servant, and to justify our pride we cite age, position in society, fatigue, illness, etc. And just imagine for a moment how your life would be transformed if Each of us, from this moment on, would make it a rule to prevent the desires of our neighbors, to strive to the best of our strength, talents and ability to serve our neighbors, forgetting ourselves - according to the word of the Lord, to be a servant of all.

Consider your life, your circumstances and try to begin to live, humbling yourself to the position of slaves, according to the word of the Lord: “... and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave...” (Matthew 20:27). And if you do this at the behest of your soul, from a pure heart, you will undoubtedly feel joy, the bliss of humility. Until now we. Lord, with pride and its evil offspring we have poisoned our lives, moving ourselves away from You, closing the access of God’s grace to our souls, and therefore we do not have joy, happiness, bliss. Because of pride, instead of mental health, we suffer heavily from arrogance - we do not even ask for Your blessing in prayer at the beginning of the day and every task, at the coming sleep. We dare to do things that exceed our strength, and then we groan and languish under their excessive weight.

From pride we suffer from curiosity, passion for novelty, hypocrisy, stubbornness, argumentativeness, disobedience, envy, jealousy, slander, and ingratitude.

We even put pride into our prayer and other spiritual deeds. And “if humility is not the basis of any deed or good done in a person, then good is not good, it is harmful to us and alien to God” (Bishop Varlaam Ryashentsev). For example, here is the post now. Maybe some of you went to church more, prayed more at home, maybe did something good for your neighbor. But if even the thought arose to count one’s imaginary merits, then everything was lost. For the vision and self-esteem of spiritual achievements is rottenness on the spiritual color (of the Christian soul), heartfelt lies, blindness, pride. This self-esteem belittles our complete hope in God’s sole mercy, they say, “I have worked, and therefore have mercy.” The most faithful and pleasing thing to God from us is the following: “Lord, I have nothing, I do not dare to lift my eyes, have mercy according to Your great mercy.” And the greater the mercy, the greater the contrition and trust in God, not in works or anything of one’s own (Bishop Herman).

There is another subtle type of pride that is very dangerous for our soul - vanity. Vanity strives to pervert all our work so that it is not for the glory of God, but for its own glory and man-pleasing. Vanity attracts and craves human praise and glory.

The Lord commanded that all good deeds should be carefully hidden from human eyes, that all good deeds and love for one’s neighbor should be sacrificed entirely to the one God. Therefore, if one of us does any work or good deed for show, makes virtue itself a means to satisfy his passion - vanity, he arouses the wrath of God upon himself, like a blasphemer. Because the work that should be done out of love for God and for His glory, done for one’s own glory, offends God, for we please people whom we prefer to God; We prefer worldly glory to the glory of God!

Vanity and pride give rise to the desire for luxury and splendor, the desire to stand out from others with something special. It would seem that everything is there for simple everyday use, but no - it’s not enough for us, we need to flaunt polished furniture, carpets and other unnecessary luxury items in front of our friends and neighbors, in front of our relatives; we are chasing fashionable toiletries - this applies to younger people.

Even in vices we try to serve vanity! This is how far we are from spiritual poverty, how far we are from the humble in heart...

It was only upon a cursory examination that we discovered so much sin in ourselves; let us now move on to the second commandment of beatitude.

Second Beatitude: Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted

It is very difficult for us, worldly and carnal people, to understand this commandment! It, according to the words of John Chrysostom, seems to contradict the opinion of the entire universe, for everyone considers those who rejoice blessed, and those who mourn, the poor and those who cry are unhappy. The Lord, instead of the former, calls the latter blessed, saying: “Blessed are those who mourn,” although everyone considers them unfortunate.

But you can cry about different things! And the blessed ones here are not those who cry about everyday things, for powerless anger also cries, humiliated pride cries, and offended pride cries... But who knows, there are a lot of vain tears? But these are all sinful tears, useless tears, extremely harmful tears for those who cry, for they cause death to the soul and body, according to the words of the Apostle: “...the sorrow of this world makes death” (2 Cor. 7:10). This sadness of this world often leads to the mortal sin of despondency and despair.

Bliss and consolation are given to those who cry that we serve the Lord imperfectly and unworthily, or even deserve His wrath through our sins.

Let's examine our conscience, our heart!

1. Do we cry because we have desecrated and are constantly desecrating the image of God within ourselves with our sins? That we daily throw this image into the dirt with worldly passions, addiction to the world, unbelief, pride, hatred, envy, intemperance, drunkenness and other passions, and through this we extremely anger our Creator and irritate His patience!

2. Do we cry because we only bear the name of Christian given to us at baptism, do not fulfill the law and live as non-believers in Christ - clinging to the earth, not thinking about Heaven, about life there, which has no end, about death, about our unpreparedness for the terrible and righteous test at the World Judgment?

We are careless in the matter of our salvation, what tears there are - we even completely forget about all this!

3. Do we cry because our hearts tirelessly strive to do everything contrary to the Lord? How much we pray, repent, read, sing, how much we partake of the Holy Life-Giving Mysteries, which can transform a heart of stone and make it soft as wax, and we do not change through negligence. And we cry that we do not bring to God the fruit of faith and love, the fruit of meekness and gentleness, the fruit of abstinence, purity and chastity, the fruit of alms, etc.

4. Do we cry when:

– we feel a rush of unclean thoughts to the heart;

– we get carried away by pride, anger, envy, greed, stinginess;

– we feel not love, but enmity towards our enemy;

– we are carried away by the passion of drunkenness, love of money and covetousness;

– we are embarrassed and carried away by resistance and disobedience to parents, bosses or elders.

We, Lord, do not have this constant crying about our sins; It’s only at confession, when the priest lists our sins, that we learn a little about our sinfulness, but we still don’t even have time to prepare for confession and Holy Communion. There is no time to think before confession about how I angered the Lord in my personal life. We hope that the priest will list our sins for us, but we will say “sinful,” but we still don’t know how to bring personal repentance.

What kind of constant crying about sins is there?! We are too lazy to read the prescribed prayer rule before communion, so that, at least striking the petrified heart with the words of repentant prayers compiled by those who knew how to cry before the Lord about their sins, somehow awaken the sleeping conscience and set the heart to repentance (not to mention the prescribed fasting before Sacrament of Confession and Holy Communion). All this seems to us excessively difficult and inconvenient to implement.

And here is how the holy prophet David lamented about his sins: “I am weary with my groaning, I will wash my bed every night, I will wet my bed with my tears” (Ps. 6:7).

5. There are also saving tears that we have no idea about. “And then,” says St. Macarius the Great, “the ascetics cry and lament for the human race, shed tears, inflamed with love for humanity.” But we don’t know how to cry about our sins and don’t want to, because our insensibility and coldness towards the cause of salvation pushes us to look not for true, perfect joys, but for empty entertainment, ridicule, clowning: we have fun playing cards, endless passion for television or cinema and theater , reading empty, or even corrupting, books, telling jokes, indulging in dances, songs and other violent manifestations of feigned, vain, “fun” that devastates the soul and often kills the body.

That's how far we are from this second stage of moral perfection! We completely forget that we are “under the wrath of God: we are going through a desperate struggle for life or death, when troubles are everywhere, when all-destructive and seductive sin with such impudence and ferocity destroys everywhere the souls of men, redeemed by the Blood of the Son of God; when this fiend of hell threatens every hour to throw us into fiery hell, ready to open up!” (Righteous John of Kronstadt).

Is now a time for us Christians to laugh and have fun? “The time of laughter and fun will come after tears and sobs about sins in this life and after victory over sin” (Righteous John of Kronstadt).

Third Beatitude: Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth

Why are the meek blessed immediately after those who weep? Because meekness is the fruit and consequence of contrition and mourning for our sins.

Most of all, we seek peace of mind in the world, but we do not have it, because this peace is the fruit of meekness and kindness. “...Learn from Me, that I am meek and lowly in heart: and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:29).

You see, the Lord does not invite us to learn from Him prayerfulness, hard work, patience and other qualities and virtues, but above all meekness and humility of heart.

We have already said a few words about humility. Let us now see what meekness is and what horde of negative qualities opposes this virtue in our souls. Meekness is such a disposition of spirit, combined with caution, so as not to irritate anyone with anything and not to be irritated by anything (St. Philaret of Moscow. Catechism).

And one more definition of meekness: meekness is an unchanging disposition of the mind, in which a person remains the same in both honor and dishonor and sincerely prays for the offender (Rev. John Climacus).

The Apostle Peter refers to the incorruptible beauty of a meek and silent spirit as one of the most hidden gifts of the human heart, precious before God (cf. 1 Pet. 3:4).

Let us look into ourselves: what can we tell You, Lord, regarding the fulfillment of this commandment?

In our souls, alas, instead of meekness, Lord, there lives almost constant irritability. Everyone and everything irritates us, our heart is literally charged with irritability.

We woke up in the morning, instead of saying: “Glory to You, Lord, I thank You that You did not destroy me with my iniquities, but gave me the continuation of life,” we tear our heads off the pillow with irritation and frustration and complain that we didn’t get enough sleep. We react with irritation to the comments of our family, even our beloved and loving parents, or we ourselves become excessively irritated by this or that behavior of those close to us in our household, we shout at our children, we unnecessarily harass everyone around us with petty nagging: we are annoyed by other people’s slowness or, conversely, infuriated by their impetuosity and speed. We left the house and everything was also annoying: the weather and the transport. And on the street, and in the store, and even in the church where we come to pray, and even standing in confession, and even approaching the Holy Chalice, we all get irritated: here they press, there they push. When we come to work, we get irritated at any slightest remark from our boss or workmate, if they say something we don’t like. And like this all day until we fall asleep! Eternal tension! Eternal irritability! Eternal annoyance at others!

Our irritation is like some kind of reserve of flammable gas. Therefore, only a small push, like a small match, is enough for irritability to result in anger.

And what doesn’t give rise to anger? Anger is literally temporary madness! It's scary to look at us! Not only do we lose the Christian image in anger and rage, but there is simply nothing human left in us. It’s not for nothing that they say about a person overwhelmed by anger: “He has gone wild.” And what streams of criminal words spew out from our lips and tongue? We insult in every possible way and use obscene words. Maybe someone, out of licentiousness, swears or mentions the name of Satan? We become more sophisticated in pronouncing caustic and offensive phrases and words. Yes, this is not enough, then for a long time we feed our anger with annoyance that we said little, but it’s not so offensive, but this and that should have been said.

Maybe some of you completely unleashed your furious temper and went so far as to stomp your feet, pound your fists, shout furiously, slam doors, break some objects in a rage, or even wound or brutally beat people and animals. Repent with tears to the Lord.

The trouble is that we almost always consider our anger to be just; it seems to us that we stand up for the truth, completely forgetting the words of Holy Scripture that “... the wrath of a man does not accomplish the righteousness of God” (James 1:20). This is how our mind has become darkened in sin, that we accept the greatest evil for good. Some people say in justification: “Even though I’m hot-tempered, it soon goes away for me.” But listen to what the great and most skillful teacher of piety and asceticism, Saint John Climacus, says about this: “... sometimes during times of anger, wicked demons quickly leave us for the purpose of making us neglect our great passions and... make our illness incurable” (Ladder Word 8, paragraph 9). That is, if you do not learn to stop temper, then it will become a passion of anger and will be very difficult to eradicate, like any evil habit. God! In anger and hot temper, we kill the good name of our neighbors with our words. In a rage, they brought out the secrets of their friends, denounced and dishonored them. They acted like traitors, divulging what was entrusted to us out of friendship.

By doing this, we didn’t even think about repenting. A meek person will not contradict, will not cry, and no one will hear his voice (cf. Matt. 12:19).

But even here there may be a lot of sin hidden. Not everyone who is silent is meek. You can remain silent, but in your soul you can be angry, hate, despise.

Whoever recognizes his inner “I” in these words - recognizes himself - repent to the Lord, for if from people, by the natural structure of your secretive, silent character, you manage to hide the irritation and anger nesting in your heart, then the Lord looks straight into the heart and He judges us.

If the anger pouring out in itself already exposes the sinner, then it is even harder for a secretive person to admit that he does not have meekness. Saint John Climacus considers these to be “the most damned of the violent.” And how absurd and unnatural is anger and rage! Look at the face of the meek - how beautiful, clear, calm, imperturbable, attractive it is! What a spiritual fragrance flows in meek human souls... And look at an angry, angry person - his face is restless, gloomy, ugly... In addition, with a meek mood of the soul it is easy to do any task, but with annoyance and anger it is very difficult, and prayer with anger at one's neighbor turns into sin and condemnation.

All this, Lord, we experience ourselves, looking at others, we see the benefit and beauty of one and the ugliness and harm of another. But we do not know how to control our hearts and conveniently fall into sin.

Most often, irritability comes from impatience. She is the source of our many sins!

1. In relation to God, who sends or allows us certain trials, we sin:

– hopelessness;

- murmur;

– even blasphemy against God, who sends, in our opinion, “unjust” and “unbearable” crosses.

Maybe some of you yourself said or joined the words of others, or agreed with them in your soul, that if God were good, then there would be no wars, children would not suffer, there would be no diseases, there would be no sudden deaths in the prime of life youth and strength, etc. Maybe some of you in these thoughts went so far as to deny even the existence of God, the Providence of God?! Repent to the Lord!

How reckless it is to judge Your Economy with your limited mind and draw crazy conclusions from what is beyond our understanding!

2. In relation to people, impatience pushes us to consider them the perpetrators of evil. From here:

countless and unreasonable suspicions; unfair accusations, and this in turn gives rise to quarrels and hostility, complaints and mutual insults. And we senselessly drown in this abyss of sin, as if we are not going to die or do not believe in life beyond the grave, in the Last Judgment, in the existence of hell and heaven.

3. In relation to ourselves, impatience produces:

– disturbance of the spirit;

- clouding of mind - hence we lose sound judgment and do not find remedies against evil;

- strong, prolonged sorrow in the heart, leading to despondency - another sin that weakens mental and physical strength until all useful activity completely ceases (we say: “Everything falls out of hand”).

We fall into cowardice, and some even reach despair, this mortal sin, that is, spiritual death.

This is all instead of practicing patience, trusting in You, Your wise fatherly leadership, leaving it to You, Lord, “who weighs our destinies” to save us. In our country, this virtue is opposed by evil, unreasonable stubbornness, the desire to insist on one’s own in any case, and how often, because of insignificant trifles, all peace is lost. “I will never give in to anything, in any way!” - this is the slogan of our stubbornness and hard-heartedness with which we live: I will not give up a single piece of land in a common garden, or a tiny space in a common kitchen, or even some “my” place in the temple, I will angrily push out the person who dares to stand on “ my” place, or resent it if you can’t survive, instead of praying. I will not give up my place on the choir, I will not give up to someone else if I read something during the service, I will not give up in an argument, although I clearly understand that I am wrong.

We even reach the point of judgment in our intransigence, in our excessive passion for everything earthly, in our litigiousness, forgetting and not even knowing the commandments of the Savior, because we do not read the Gospel. “...And whoever wants to sue you and take your shirt, give him your outer clothing too...” (Matthew 5:40).

God! How far we are from this commandment! Forgive our reckless evil stubbornness!

Have you ever wondered why we have become so touchy? This all comes from the lack of meekness and humility in our hearts! Resentment comes from “self-worth,” because each of us imagines that he is “something” and “something important,” and therefore, when someone dares not to give us our due, we become seething and offended to the point of tears and quarrels and plot revenge (St. Theophan the Recluse ). This “self-worth”, this “something” must be destroyed and thrown out the window, as Bishop Theophan says, then some kind of support for the inner world will be formed in the spirit. And we thought that we were offended because we are such unusually sensitive, gentle natures, but all around us we are insensitive, malicious rude people.

There is one more quality of meekness that completely surpasses our understanding - it is sincere goodwill coming from the heart to one’s enemies according to the Savior’s commandment: “...Love your enemies, bless those who curse you... and pray for those who offend you...” (Matthew 5:44). Are these feelings in your hearts? No, Lord, this seems completely inconvenient to us. We can still somehow be tolerant towards those who love us, who do good to us. But this is a universal property, “for sinners also love those who love them” (Luke 6:32).

And Christian virtue consists in not only not hating the enemy, but even loving him, doing good to him, praying to God for him, that is, seeing in him your neighbor, the same as each of us, called to salvation, but spiritually ill , and therefore in need of our help and even service to him.

In hatred and irritation we wish all sorts of misfortunes for our neighbors, we gloat secretly and openly if our offenders and enemies suffer some kind of disaster, and we still dare to think and say that they also deserve great misfortunes, and maybe even death in their souls wished it on his enemies, or, which is really scary, rejoiced at the death of his enemies and the grief of their relatives.

This is how we should deal with those whom we consider our tormentors and enemies. Listen to what John Chrysostom says: “If anyone rises up against us, we will be humble; if anyone acts impudently, we will be obliging; “If anyone insults us with ridicule and curses, we will not respond in kind, lest we destroy ourselves by taking revenge.”

According to people, the meek are the most defenseless and persecuted. However, the Lord promises those who acquire meekness that “they will inherit the earth”! And this has already been tested for centuries! In the first centuries of Christianity, it seemed that they were to be exterminated by the rage of the pagans, but they inherited the land that the persecutors had previously owned. And in the villages of the righteous, the meek receive goodness from the Lord “in the land of the living.”

Grant us, O Lord, before the end to repent, to offer You a meek and humble heart as a fruit worthy of repentance, and to receive a spiritual inheritance in the villages of the righteous. What is the next step to perfect joy for a Christian?

Fourth Beatitude: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied

What is greed and thirst for truth? God created man righteous, sinless, holy. Spiritual food for man was truth or the ever-flowing Source of truth - the Lord God. In union with God, man did not know what it meant to hunger and thirst for truth, because he was abundantly satisfied with it. Man became aware of hunger and thirst when, through sin, he lost righteousness and fell away from the Source of righteousness - God, in whom he could find eternal satiation. The soul, having lost through sin its natural element - truth, began to feel deprivation, hunger and thirst, sorrow and cramped conditions from the lack of food that is natural to itself.

Who among us is righteous and does not suffer from spiritual hunger?! However, languishing with this hunger, we are in no hurry to be satisfied; the feeling of this hunger of the soul has dulled in us, just as the feeling of bodily hunger dulls in the sick. We are seriously ill with sin, blinded by wisdom and our constantly sinful, voluptuous, riotous and selfish life; Constantly raping, finally, they completely drowned out their conscience. This insensitive state of the soul is the sinful death of a person, which can go from temporary to eternal.

We are dead to the truth and, unfortunately, alive to darkness! We are cold to the matter of saving our soul, strengthening our saving faith, while the Savior’s commandment calls us to hunger and thirst for righteousness, that is, to have a strong desire to be righteous before God by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Redeemer of the world. Do we have a desire to live a righteous life? Do we try with all the strength of our souls to direct our will towards good?

We are gravely, mortally ill in spirit, but we are not looking for means to recovery. We do not even accept what the child-loving Mother Church offers us, wanting to water us with the healing grace of God!

How we take care of our physical health! If we see a book about some medicinal herbs or hear a recipe, we rush to read it, write it down, remember it, and recommend it to others. But it never even occurs to me to look for a recipe for a mental illness from which we suffer incurably in books of spiritual content!

What do we ask priests and elders about! But how many of you have thought at least once in your life to seek advice on how to get rid of a tormenting bad habit, a sinful habit! You will say that now there are no spiritual books, there are no experienced elders, but almost each of us has at home the most important Book - the Gospel (and if anyone does not have this Book, then this is also a sign of extreme negligence; now even non-believers are trying to acquire the Gospel and Bible). This Book contains comprehensive answers to all the queries of the spirit, for all ages of life! How much do we read this Book of Truth? Yes, we don’t open it for months, years! The Church offers our attention saving reading at almost every service. Do we listen reverently and carefully? No!

We rather consider this moment of worship to be some kind of respite in prayer and fill the time either with conversations, or walk back and forth, disturbing those who are listening to the reading, or reach out to adjust the lamps and candles. And if we stand in outward reverence, our thoughts wander to God knows where!

Those who care about the beauty of their body, those who achieve some results in the now fashionable hobby of sports, look at them, what they do not do, sparing neither effort nor time! They exercise for hours, limiting themselves in food, and even came up with a new way to treat and renew the body by long-term fasting! And all this is done for physical health, that is, for an insignificantly short period of earthly life!

But we, Christians, redeemed from eternal death by the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ, do not care about the health of our soul, which will live forever, but in heaven with God, or in hell with Satan!

The path to God is prayer. If the soul recovers from sin, it reaches out to prayer and strives for unity with God in it. And we pray very little! We rarely go to church; the house rule has become an extraordinary burden for us. There is enough time for everything, but not for prayer!

The Church offers us saving fasts for the healing of our spirit, for the refinement of spiritual perception. But we are burdened by fasts, we reject them due to our voluptuousness and intemperance. What reasons do we not give to justify violations of fasts? But the Monk Seraphim of Sarov said that “no one has ever complained about bread and water.” And no one died from them. We come up with all sorts of subterfuges and excuses for abstaining from food.

And who among us still remembers spiritual fasting, which consists of curbing passions, intense self-sacrifice and doing good deeds? We don't have any of this.

Lord, forgive us sinners! And grant, Lord, the hunger and thirst for truth here, so that through sincere repentance we can reject all untruth and prevent Your terrible and righteous judgment! For “blesseds are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.”

The fifth beatitude: Blessed be the mercy, for there will be mercy

Having quickly, in general terms, checked our conscience according to the four previous beatitudes, we already seem to understand how sinful we are before God! How we need pardon! Because it is impossible to even simply list our sins with which we continue to torment and crucify the Lord!

So, the fifth commandment of beatitude explains to us how we can persuade God to have mercy on us sinners.

Let's examine our conscience - do we live in such a way that, while showing mercy to our neighbors, we boldly, with the hope of mercy, ask for mercy from the Lord?

The Lord said: “...in everything you want people to do to you, so do you to them...” (Matthew 7:12). Who among us does not need a kind word, participation in difficult life circumstances? How glad we are to see a virtuous, sympathetic person around us! Each of us is glad when he has good, friendly neighbors in the apartment, in the house, conscientious colleagues at work. A responsive, compassionate person carries within himself the initial traits of mercy. For everyone, he is a desirable, close and necessary person. And who among us does not want the Lord to be merciful to us in days of sorrows, illnesses, trials, to look at our sorrows and sighs with His loving fatherly gaze?

The path of mercy leads to this.

The Word of God says: “Blessed is he who is poor and needy; on the day of cruelty the Lord will deliver him. May the Lord protect him and live him... May the Lord help him on his sickbed...” (Ps. 40: 1-4).

Let's examine our conscience, are we standing on the path of mercy?! There are works of physical mercy, and there are works of spiritual mercy.

The main works of bodily mercy:

- to feed the hungry;

- thirsty to drink;

- to clothe the naked or lacking in decent clothing.

Let us dwell on these three types of virtue for now. Do we always perform these acts of mercy with love and willingness? No! We are self-seeking and stingy, we still don’t have enough money, we still don’t have enough of our property, and even when we have torn away a small amount from ourselves for works of mercy, we are unusually pleased with ourselves, we consider ourselves to be fulfilling this commandment.

Even in a moment of inspiration, in a moment of passion, we are sometimes ready to make any sacrifice, but constantly, unswervingly doing works of mercy in everyday life, among constant small daily irritations, seeing ourselves misunderstood, unfairly condemned, rejected by everyone, meeting only silent reluctance, not receiving an answer, completely alone - we consider this an impossible feat for ourselves! Because we are all restless, afraid to oppress ourselves in some way, to limit ourselves in some way, mortally afraid to sacrifice our comforts for the convenience of our neighbors. Hence we suffer incurably from the sins of heartlessness and unmercifulness.

We are not looking for those unfortunate people who need help. Even if someone points out to us the poverty of another, we begin to count his income, discuss his life, in every possible way looking for an excuse for our greed.

Sometimes a good thought will come to my heart - to give away the excess that has accumulated in a closet or chest, but we start looking, and a sly thought comes that this dress will be useful to me for such and such an occasion, these clothes will still suit for another occasion, but these things can still be sold and... by the end of the review, an insignificant pile of rubbish you don’t need will be set aside for charitable works, according to the scary-sounding proverb: “On You, God, what is worthless to us!” Or maybe someone who collected money and things for himself for a “rainy day” and hid it from people’s eyes, even from his loved ones, and often for the sake of this passion denied himself and his neighbors when necessary, just to preserve his savings, rejoiced when these savings increased , and grieved when they had to part with them - thereby committing the sin of trusting in their property, and not in Christ. Saint Simeon the New Theologian says very strictly: “...whoever has hidden money, it is impossible for him to believe and hope in God” (Homily 21, paragraph 2).

So, whoever of you suffers from this passion, quickly untie your soul, give away the hidden money to those in need, donate to a poor church, give your soul and your relatives for commemoration.

There is another type of sin - this is when relatives and friends hide the true situation from the dying, reassure them with false hope - this is instead of setting up the dying person to accept the Sacraments of Unction, Confession and Communion of the Holy Mysteries of Christ.

Repent to the Lord if, through your fault, any of your loved ones or acquaintances went into eternity, not being guided by these saving Sacraments, or due to extreme inattention to their situation on their deathbed, or due to a false fear of frightening them with death. Only people who do not believe in life beyond the grave can do this. It is very scary if such a sin of extreme unmercifulness towards your neighbor lies on your conscience.

It is so difficult for us to part with our goods, it is so difficult for us to detach ourselves from things and money, that if we happen to lose it all for some reason, then we are not happy with life. Lord, dispose our hearts to give away at least that which we can easily do without, deliver us from the passion of covetousness and wean us from placing our hope in wealth, so fragile and fleeting!

- visit someone in prison;

– visit the sick person, serve him and help him recover or Christian preparation for death;

- to take the wanderer into the house and put him to rest. Do we devote even a little of our time to these works of mercy? We all know someone who is sick, weak, or infirm - do we help them? No!

We still don’t have the time and energy for this! That’s what we say when we meet their relatives: “Sorry, there’s no time to come in, there’s no free minute!” But we have plenty of gossip, gossip, entertainment, reading empty books and other empty and harmful pastimes; here we don’t value time! And then again greed takes over - after all, the patient needs to bring something, and even something better, but we feel sorry for the money to buy it, so we reassure ourselves that we have no time to go to the patient at all.

Do you always welcome and repose strangers at home with joy, with an open heart and soul? Have you been involved in extorting gifts or money from them? Forgetting that these are not some rich people who come, but people with the same income as yours, only spending a lot of money on the trip. Is this good deed really overshadowed by greed? And what a blessing it is to provide shelter to a person who has come to pray to God, and if income and strength still allow, then to serve them, to calm them down, feed them and give them something to drink, whatever God sends!

And here is an example of Saint Philaret the Merciful. He lived in Asia Minor in the 8th century and was rich. He loved the poor and needy and generously provided for them. After the raid of robbers on his village, he was left with two oxen, a horse, a cow and some land (arable land). Like righteous Job, he did not complain, but surrendered himself to the will of God and did not stop helping the poor from the goods that remained with him. So first he gave one ox, then another to a villager whose oxen had died in the arable land. Gave the calf to the poor...

If someone has not yet repented, but is sinful in this, it is especially necessary to tell the priest when receiving a prayer of permission. And this applies not only to those who lived in a city starving to death, but to all of us in general, if we did not show a drop of mercy to the starving, shoeless, naked, without a roof over their heads (how many of these there were then!). Maybe someone died from our indifference and cruel callousness of heart?! But we never repented and forgot about it! If this weighs on our conscience, if anything from those years lies like a heavy burden on our conscience, repent to the Lord!

Deeds of alms are then pleasing to the Lord when they are done from one’s own property, acquired by honest labor, and not by theft, deception and untruth. And in order to give sufficient alms, it is necessary to limit your expenses, for example, not to buy excessively expensive things that you can easily do without, for this is the theft of the property of the poor, since our surplus belongs only to them. This is how the holy fathers think.

We steal so often! Many people find this accusation strange and offensive. Check your conscience, which of you didn’t bring something from work! Even if this is the smallest thing, we make excuses that not everything can be bought, but it’s not ours, which means we are stealing!

How many of you honestly work all the required hours, without being distracted by anything, with full dedication of strength, knowledge and patience? This especially applies to those who do not receive income from production. But we receive a full salary! Whether you worked honestly or dishonestly, you get your money dishonestly again.

And we don’t even consider this a sin, although in fact we are deceiving the state, stealing time and money from society. Maybe some of you will think: “Yes, everyone does the same, there are only a few who work especially honestly.” So, Christians are obliged by their rank to be particularly honest workers. We do every task as entrusted by the Lord Himself, who observes with what zeal, honesty and conscientiousness we work.

We read in our morning prayers: “...I strive for Thy works through Thy mercy...” What kind of Thy works are these? God? But all those tasks at home for the family, and official work at work, and obedience in the monastery for monastics, tasks that are included in the circle of our responsibilities, are the very tasks that the Lord has put us on at the present time, for honesty and conscientiousness the fulfillment of which we are responsible primarily to Him. This never even occurred to many of us! And we worked somehow, just so that time would pass quickly, and we could get more money, and work less, and make it easier!

If someone works in the field and brings something home in his pocket or under a blanket, then it’s all stolen. And then a person will look: “Eh, tomatoes, cucumbers, apples are good: I’ll take them to my sick neighbor; It’s a pity, the poor man is sick, let him eat!” We rejoice as if we are doing a good deed, but such a gift is vile in the eyes of God. This is how the evil conscience distorts our concept of good!

And there is also a condition under which our alms will have some price. Saint John Chrysostom says: “Alms do not consist in giving money, but in giving with a Christian sense of mercy.” This means that one must do charity voluntarily, willingly, cordially, with respect and unfeigned love for the poor, with a feeling of gratitude to the recipient, remembering that “it is more blessed to give than to receive.” We must try not to humiliate or insult the person we want to help with our help. And further St. John Chrysostom says: “If someone does not give with such a disposition, then it is better not to give, for this is not alms, but a waste...”

Let's examine our lives and conscience, are we happy to do good? The great expert on human souls, Saint Bishop Theophan the Recluse, spoke as if about himself, in denunciation of his spiritual co-questioners: “I am a very greedy person, because everything that I give to others, I give “through pity.” These words are incriminating for us too! We are the same. We either don’t give at all, or we give through this “sorry.”

Finally, one must certainly do alms in secret! One should help not out of vanity and pride, not out of a desire for gratitude and reward from God, but out of sincere love for one’s neighbor! And if you still “trumpet” about your deeds, then you will add vanity to hypocrisy. And then your goodness, visible to others, will turn into obvious evil for you.

So beware! When doing good, it is better not to know about your good, that is, to immediately forget it. And move on to other good deeds. And then the right hand will not have time and will not want to know what the left hand is doing. And God, who sees in secret, will reward you openly.

While we are still at peace with those to whom we do a little good, it is as if we do not remember our small services and goodness, but as soon as a quarrel or enmity arises, we begin to list our good deeds in relation to the current “enemy” and complain at his ingratitude. This is where all the vain emptiness of our works of mercy is revealed!

Lord, forgive us sinners, and teach us to do good deeds in a Christian manner in the name of love and for Your glory!

We already talk a lot about the virtue of mercy towards others; due to lack of time, it seems that we need to move on to the second - spiritual - side of this virtue, but how can we not repent of our attitude towards the people closest to us - our parents? Don’t we consider it a great burden to feed them, clothe them, and generally provide for their old age? Are they provided with everything they need? Has anyone ever pushed your mother or father out of the house? After all, this also happens among us Christians, although it’s scary to admit it! Maybe it wasn’t rude, but cunning and clever, did we send the mother or father to other children or to a nursing home? Maybe, refusing to take seriously ill parents from the hospital, burdened by caring for those who raised us for years, did not sleep at night at our cradle, sacrificed everything to raise us?

Maybe, on the contrary, they lured you into your family, into your home, not out of sincere love and a desire to serve your parents, but to get more living space or a separate apartment, or so that your mother could become a free nanny and housekeeper in your family. And the grandchildren grew up, mother grew old, weakened and became a burden, began to irritate!

If among you who repent to the Lord, someone has such a terrible guilt before God on their conscience, hurry up to change everything while your parents are alive, and if it’s too late, then cry and repent, ask for forgiveness from them and from the Lord, pray for your deceased parents, give alms for them!

There are also spiritual works of mercy:

- to put the lost on the path of truth, that is, through exhortation to convert the sinner. For example, to be able to turn a drunkard, a fornicator, a spendthrift, or an unbeliever away from sin. Such an act brings grace to the soul of the one who has mercy. “...He who converts a sinner from his false path will save his soul from death and cover a multitude of sins” (James 5:20).

It seems to you that such works of mercy are completely impossible. However, there are many such examples in the history of the Church. When holy ascetics appeared at the behest of a merciful heart in depraved cities and, by the power of their spirit, led great sinners to places of repentance, and they became saints.

Even in secular literature there are such examples - anyone who has read “Les Miserables” by V. Hugo knows how great simplicity, extreme non-covetousness and holy trust in man, shown by a village priest, in one minute turned the heart of a convict ossified in evil, made him a Christian who From this moment of grace, he lived only by deeds of charity.

We, who call ourselves Christians, do not have the right to treat the unfortunate people who are perishing in sins with indifference or with irritation and malice. Vices are eradicated not by malicious reproaches, but by great pity, patience, and sometimes even just silence. And the main help to such unfortunate people is prayer for them! And not just a one-time sigh, but prayer, constant prayer with tears and faith that what is impossible for us is possible for God! We don’t know how, Lord, to do such good to our neighbors!

We would rather encourage a drunkard to sin by paying him for his work with vodka. We welcome into our home an adulterer who abandoned his family. We commit disgusting acts in front of children, corrupting their souls. Having no patience in a difficult and sorrowful moment, we begin to loudly reproach God, blaspheme the Christian faith, and thereby sow the seed of doubt in hearts that are not very steadfast in the faith.

Never forget that words edify, but examples lead! And evil never gets rid of evil! Sometimes it is easier to do a good deed, to provide great help to someone in need, than to constantly show attention, avoid confrontation, or refrain from making a caustic remark or a word that could offend your neighbor.

Here is a whole field for doing spiritual good:

- to console the sad;

- give good advice to a person who is in difficulty or in danger that he does not notice;

- do not repay evil for evil, do not take revenge, do not annoy;

- Forgive offenses from the heart.

Are we always inclined to perform these works of mercy? No, Lord! Rather, it's the other way around!

We feel uncomfortable and difficult with sad people, we try not to spoil the mood by communicating with them, we get irritated even if the person does not get out of a depressed state for a long time. We see a person in difficulty or learn that he is in danger, and at best we pass by, or we also gloat, saying evil words that, they say, it’s not enough for him, let him suffer now.

We do not tolerate the slightest offense against us, especially if the person we love has done us harm; we certainly want to take revenge. And if in reality we are afraid of causing obvious evil - we are not afraid of God, but of even greater troubles for ourselves: the policeman, the court - then in our minds we cannot imagine any kind of revenge, we do not wish for any kind of evil, right up to the eternal torment of the offender! But the Lord sees our heart and judges us based on our inner state of soul.

Lord, forgive our hardness of heart! And plant a spark of love and compassion for people in our cold hearts!

Always remember that even without us there are many who want to offend and insult, to cause harm, but we need to learn, first of all, to at least feel sorry for everyone, try every day to remove at least a little from the huge mountain of human suffering and add to the small mound of human joy.

Sixth Beatitude: Blessed are those who are pure in heart, that they may see God

Here is the next step to God - the spiritual ladder to Heaven. “Keep your heart with all your guard, for from it are the springs of life” (Proverbs 4:23). The source of life, holy and immaculate life, is the fruit of a pure heart, and sinful, vicious life is the fruit of heart impurity.

The Lord, the knower of the heart, says: “...from within, from the heart of man, come evil thoughts, adultery, fornication, murder, theft, covetousness, malice, deceit, lasciviousness, the envious eye, blasphemy, pride, madness” (Mark 7:21-22). This is what impurity of heart consists of! What do we need to repent of with great tears, unceasing weeping and spiritual contrition, with the words of the psalmist David: “Create in me a pure heart, O God!” (Ps. 50:12).

Where does sinful impurity of the heart come from, when we are created in the image and likeness of God, and God is Pure and Most Holy?! It comes from the devil, who is most often called in Scripture an unclean spirit, and in church prayers - an alien, foul and disgusting spirit.

This unclean spirit, having become, after its fall from God, an unclean vessel of all uncleanness and sin, initially desecrated the hearts of the first people with its unclean breath and, deeply infecting their entire being, soul, body, with the uncleanness of sin, passes on this uncleanness, like hereditary corruption, to all posterity, even before us. And this sinful impurity is so great, so deeply ingrained in the human heart, so difficult to get rid of, that even the holy saints of God, who all their lives were vigilant over all the movements and thoughts of their hearts, at times felt within themselves, as it were, an influx or storm of evil ones. , nasty and blasphemous thoughts. So great that some men, who had already ascended to the heights of purity and holiness, quickly fell into the sin of uncleanness. So great that, despite our frequent prayers, the grace of the Sacraments, our receipt of reason in the word of God, and all the punishments with which God visits us for our sinful impurity, it still remains in us and will live with us until the grave, and in others, to the shame of mankind, it is revealed with particular impudence and shamelessness (Righteous John of Kronstadt).

The most dangerous enemy of heartfelt purity is thought, especially prodigal and blasphemous thoughts - this is the emergence in our consciousness of certain ideas, images, assumptions, intentions, desires, memories, etc., independent of our will.

Thoughts are of different kinds: some vegetate from the grace of God, planted in every Orthodox Christian through Holy Baptism, while others are inflicted by fallen spirits. “In the thoughts and sensations of a fallen nature, good is mixed with evil, and in demonic ones, good often hides evil, acting, however, sometimes with open evil” (St. Ignatius Brianchaninov). We are all almost always slaves to thoughts. They burst into consciousness, clogging it with unnecessary, empty, even harmful, corrupting ideas, pictures, and memories. The correct and calm course of thinking is interrupted by thoughts, memories and ideas that do not go to the point and interfere with work, for example, about yesterday’s meeting, about an unpleasant conversation, about plans, impressions, about newspaper reports, etc. And especially all this clogs the consciousness and the heart when a person stands for prayer or in the temple of God. As if on purpose, as if from a cornucopia, all sorts of extraneous thoughts, plans for the future, petty worries, worries about the forgotten, sometimes irritation against another person, the need to do this and that will pour into your head... And your prayer begins to go wrong, it interferes with you, delays you , you begin to pray hastily in order to quickly finish the rule and get down to business, etc.

Why is all this happening to us? Of course, first of all, from the lack of discipline of our consciousness, from the lack of habit of keeping it within the limits of the work assigned to it.

But not only from this! In our enlightened 20th century, especially among the more educated part of people, they are even embarrassed to think seriously, and not just talk about that external extraneous demonic force that seeks in every possible way to clog, defile and pollute our consciousness and heart in order to enslave us to its power, to take us away from us. us clarity and purity of thought and tear us away from God. And we often, without realizing it and not wanting to realize it, become the toy of this external and evil force.

The Holy Fathers and the Orthodox Church offer us a true and centuries-tested method and path to cleansing our hearts and consciousness from this contamination with thoughts. But we have lived to see gray hair, and we don’t even realize the need to fight our thoughts. We are so attached to our earthly wisdom, bodily concerns, so far from spiritual life, that we do not even consider this horde of predatory thoughts as evil, mercilessly plundering what we receive from the Lord when approaching the Sacraments of the Church! But we need to break away from the endless cycle of vanity, think about the immortality of the soul, and take care of cleansing the heart! For a pure heart is the wedding robe that the Lord spoke about in his parable, and only in this robe can we become participants in the Heavenly table in eternal life! (Metropolitan Nikolai of Krutitsky). Usually fasting is a blessed time for us if we are able to at least slightly reduce our vain preoccupation with worldly earthly well-being, if we try to devote at least some of our attention and energy to our poor, abandoned, hungry and cold soul, if we try to look into our heart and try to understand what is happening to it, what lives in it. Therefore, despite the lack of time, let us devote a few minutes to the teaching of the holy fathers on the fight against thoughts.

The holy fathers depict the gradually increasing power of the capture of our soul by thoughts like this.

1. First comes the so-called adjective. This name is used to describe any simple thought, or the idea of ​​some object, or any thought that comes to the mind of a person. As such, the preposition is called sinless, deserving neither praise nor condemnation, as long as it does not evoke in us one or the other attitude towards itself.

2. The second moment comes when we notice this object or this thought, begin to look closely at it, or, in the words of the holy fathers, begin to talk with them passionately or non-passionately. In this case, we do not push away the thought and allow it to remain in us, although without accepting it. This is called combination. The holy fathers no longer always consider this to be sinless, but it can also be praiseworthy if this consideration of a thought is done in a godly manner, that is, when we reject it, seeing its sinfulness.

3. The third moment occurs when we begin to sympathize with the emerging thought, incline towards it and are ready to follow it. This is called addition or agreement with thoughts. But in this case there can be two outcomes:

– after a temporary inclination towards the thought, we can come to our senses and, repenting and confessing our mental sin to God, we overcome the thought;

- another outcome, according to the words of Saint Gregory of Sinaite, happens when “when someone, by his own will, accepts the thoughts inflicted from the enemy and, agreeing and making friends with them, is defeated or so that he not only no longer resists them, but also decides to do everything according to their suggestion; if he does not fulfill his decisions in practice, then for no other reason than because there was no time or place, or for another reason that did not allow him to fulfill his intention!” This is already an obvious sin.

4. The fourth point is that a thought involuntarily or forcibly takes possession of our heart, merges with it, as if into one life, is retained in it and destroys our good dispensation. This moment is called captivity. But even in this case, the mind captivated by a thought, with the help of God, can free itself from it. It happens, however, that the mind, as if carried away by a storm and waves and carried away by evil thoughts, can no longer come to its senses and come to a good dispensation. This especially happens from bustle and from many useless conversations.

5. Finally, the highest degree of mastery of our thoughts is called passion. This happens when an evil thought that has been nestled in our soul for a long time becomes, as it were, its disposition and constant habit. A person comes to such a state of his own free will, and in it he is constantly warmed by passionate thoughts, implanted by the enemy and taking root from constant exercise and daydreaming. You can get rid of this condition only through repentance, otherwise a person is subject to eternal torment.

You see now that we must, as St. John Chrysostom says, sit at the door of our heart all our lives and protect it from being clogged with what deprives us of communion with God. Our main trouble lies precisely in the disorder, homelessness and neglect of the heart.

Lord, forgive us our extreme carelessness in the matter of saving our souls!

We live as if we are not going to die. In order to somehow cleanse our hearts a little with today’s repentance, let’s look at what thoughts we especially blacken our souls with, regardless of age, knowledge and position.

All of us, as one, without exception, are subject to prodigal, unclean thoughts, we delight in them, warming them up and rooting them in our hearts. We stare at beautiful faces with lust, sin with foul language, amorous thoughts, shameless body movements, coquetry, red tape, pandering, satiety in food and drink, excessive sleep, reading novels, watching all kinds of shows with love scenes (whether in the theater, cinema or on TV ), looking at seductive pictures, disgusting postcards and photographs, freely treating the other sex, excessive ostentation, using any cosmetics to give yourself, as you think, a more attractive appearance, wearing inappropriate clothes that shamelessly expose you, or dressing your hair and clothes, inappropriate for your sex, talkativeness, obscene jokes, telling and listening to obscene jokes and other ambiguous dirty phrases, hints, witticisms and jokes, arbitrary lustful release, looking with a guilty conscience at the copulation of animals.

Not only did we not resist lustful thoughts, we did not rebel against them immediately when the devil threw them at us, we did not turn to You, Lord, in prayer for help, we did not beware of the fire that could in a second ignite our lust-prone flesh, but they received them into their hearts with rapture, enjoyed them secretly, and at the first appropriate moment, if the Lord did not avert or destroy this vile mental structure of whoredom with His grace, they committed terrible mortal sins: fornication, adultery and all sorts of unnatural sins that are scary and not only to speak, but even to think!

Repent with tears about the prodigal impurity of your heart, which, according to the word of Blessed Augustine, is what angels flee from, and when they see it, the eyes of the devil are closed! There are numerous examples in church legends that confirm the truth of the words of Blessed Augustine. A certain sorcerer, one of the so-called warlocks, summoned the devil to him for some service to him. The devil did not appear for a long time, but the sorcerer did not stop calling and begging him. Finally, the devil appeared to the sorcerer in human form and, standing in the distance, covered his nose with his fingers. Then the sorcerer asked the devil: “What does this mean?” And the devil answered him: “The stench of your fornication does not allow me to approach you.”

“Oh, damned fornicator! - exclaims St. Demetrius of Rostov, - to what extreme wretchedness do you reach, that not only God and His holy Angels, but also the most unclean demons abhor your uncleanness and, seeing it, close their eyes, close their nostrils from the stench!

The same saint gives another story, how a man in confession said that when he committed lawless carnal uncleanness, the voice of the devil was heard, who seemed to be standing behind a wall, cackled terribly and said three times: “Fe, fe, fe!”

Woe to us, poor, unfortunate sinners who do not have purity of heart, who do not care about it, who wallow in the mire of autocratic passions!

Sinful defilement is washed with tears of repentance, the kind of repentance when the sinned heart is ashamed of what it has done, and it is painful to lose communication with its Lord, and it is scary to die with unrepentant sin.

Lord, we are ashamed, hurt and scared. Forgive us sinners!

From this moment of our repentance, we must finally give the Lord a decisive promise in all the ways that the Church, the holy fathers and devotees of piety offer us, to purify our hearts, to accept without complaint any sorrows and hardships, as a healing remedy sent by Divine Providence, for we everyone is seriously spiritually ill!

“And sorrows destroy traces of spiritual pleasure in the heart, uproot the deeply penetrating subtle roots of sin” (St. Philaret of Moscow).

Each of us must work tirelessly and without weakening throughout our lives to acquire purity of heart, so that—God forbid! - not to die in the sinful impurity of the heart, because the word of the Lord is terrible: “What I find you in, that’s what I judge!”

Seventh Beatitude: Blessed are the peacemakers, for these shall be called the sons of God

Those who want to receive eternal bliss must be peacemakers, that is, firstly, restore the broken peace, try to stop the disagreements that have occurred. But only one who has acquired a peaceful dispensation in his heart can be a peacemaker. Only the one who himself comes to a peaceful dispensation can shed peace on others. And therefore, we Christians must try with all our might to preserve spiritual peace. What disrupts the peace of the heart? The world of the heart is disturbed by passions! And first of all, such as anger and rage. We already talked about them when we repented of our lack of meekness and humility.

However, we repeat: in order to maintain peace of mind, we are obliged to put ourselves in such a state that our spirit is not disturbed by anything. One must be like a dead person or completely deaf and blind in the face of all the sorrows, slander, reproaches, and deprivations that inevitably happen to everyone who wants to follow the saving paths of Christ.

If it is impossible not to be indignant, then at least you need to hold your tongue, according to the verb of the psalmist: “... confused and speechless” (Ps. 76:5). In order to preserve spiritual peace, one must drive away despondency and try to have a joyful spirit, according to the words of the wise son of Sirach: “...for you kill many sorrows, and there is no benefit in it” (Sir. 30, 25).

To maintain peace of mind, we must avoid judging others in every possible way. Peace of mind is preserved through condescension and silence.

Perhaps some of you who have a hot temperament, like the Apostle Peter, who instantly, out of the heat of his heart, took out a knife and cut off the ear of a slave, will seem that such a dispensation looks like indifference! No! Indifference is coldness of heart and mind, it is a manifestation of extreme selfishness, it is a sin against the commandment to love one’s neighbor. And true, gracious peace and silence of the heart are the fruit of fiery and pure love, the crown of all exploits and struggle with passions! Those who have acquired true peace of mind forgive offenses not out of indifference, but for the sake of Christ. They are not indignant, enduring slander and slander, because they have acquired true humility. For there is no other entrance to the peaceful dispensation of the heart. “My brother, if you love peace of heart, strive to enter it through the door of humility. There is no other entrance into it except humility” (Reverend Nicodemus the Holy Mountain).

The same elder Nicodemus the Holy Mountain describes a whole system of virtues for acquiring inner peace: humility, conscientiousness, abstinence from passions, patience, love, etc. And we, standing here today in confession and bringing repentance, what can we say to the Lord? Have we strived with these virtues to strengthen and preserve our hearts from disordered confusion! No!

We didn't even think about it. And we live as we live at the behest of unbridled nature, according to the behests of evil power, and we also justify ourselves that we have such a character, such a temperament that we cannot do otherwise, that’s just the way we are. We didn’t even think for a minute about our deplorable fate, we didn’t stop our attention on the words of the Apostle: without peace no one will see the Lord (cf. Heb. 12:14). For us, who lead chaotic lives, these are terrible words! The Holy Fathers, who directed their lives towards salvation and, out of great love for their neighbors, desiring a path of salvation for them, commanded that the preservation of peace of heart be an unceasing feat throughout life. Lord, we are so indifferent, so careless in the matter of saving our souls! Forgive us, Lord! Help us start a spiritual life!

How scary these words sound if life is already approaching the end, and so much precious time has been spent carelessly!

Forgive us sinners, Lord! At the eleventh hour, those who came to You, who have not acquired the good fruits of the years they have lived, but who can only bring repentance.

While we pacify ourselves, we must be peacemakers towards our neighbors. Discord within a person, discord and alienation from each other, hostility, suspicion - these are all the results of the violation of the grace-filled peaceful connection with God by the fall of the ancestors Adam and Eve. Without restoring this connection, without reconciliation with God, salvation became impossible. The Apostle Paul speaks about this this way: “For it pleased the Father... that through Him [His Son] he might reconcile all things to himself, making peace through him through the blood of his cross, both things on earth and things in heaven” (Col. 1:19-20).

If we turn to our time, it is especially characterized by the alienation of people, the loss of heartfelt connection, mutual trust and sincere, benevolent attraction of one to another. Even among members of the same family, there is a noticeable desire to isolate themselves, to isolate themselves with partitions, in order to have their own, special corner. This happens because each family member has not created harmony within themselves, so that on the basis of this inner peace they can seek and create peace with loved ones and with all other people. Only when inner peace is restored in the human heart in Jesus Christ is the connection between this heart and its neighbors restored. This connection is expressed in the unity of word, spirit and thought. “I appeal to you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same spirit and in the same thoughts” (1 Cor. 1:10).

How do we violate harmony and peace? We are stubborn and capricious, persistent to the extreme in our opinions and desires, uncompromising in disputes, even if we understand that we are wrong, as long as our word is the last. We are vain and love-loving, we consider ourselves smarter, better than others, we have no intention of conceding in anything, we have no signs of modesty, we envy absolutely everything: wealth, happiness, health, abilities, and success in the lives of others. Hence, we try in every possible way to belittle the merits of others, or even to denigrate or slander our neighbor. What kind of peacefulness is this?

The next reason for violating harmony and peace is the desire to rule and teach others. Who among us in our circle is not sick with this sinful desire? And what discord, irritation, even hatred, these desires lead to in our relationships!

Now no one wants to obey anyone, give in, listen to anyone... This applies to both children in relation to their parents, and subordinates in relation to their superiors. Everywhere we show our obstinacy and deliberate pride.

Another enemy of peace is self-interest, that is, preferring one’s own benefits to the benefits of others. Who among us can say that in order to preserve peace, in the name of brotherly love, he knows how to sacrifice his own comforts and benefits? Yes, we are ready, as people say, to rip out the throat of anyone who tries to oppress us in some way.

If the peace is somehow disturbed, then brotherly love requires that the spark of discord that has flared up be quickly extinguished. If we ourselves gave rise to insulting someone, then we should rather calmly explain our intention and action, which he understood in the opposite sense. If someone has actually suffered an insult or harm from us, then we are obliged to humbly ask for forgiveness and compensate for the harm. And if we ourselves are offended or offended by others, then we must be willing to reconcile: when those who offend us ask for forgiveness, we must immediately readily forgive, and sometimes for mutual benefit it is useful for the offended person to seek reconciliation himself, when the offender, due to the cruelty of his character, does not care about this. Do we act this way in our relationships with our neighbors? No!

We constantly offend someone, we are constantly sulking at someone, we get angry, we quarrel without reconciliation. Look at yourselves - constantly quarreling, fighting, distrusting each other! Isn’t it your portrait that Saint Gregory of Nyssa described: “They meet gloomily and always disdain each other: their lips are silent, their eyes are averted, and the hearing of one is closed to the words of the other. Everything that is pleasant for one of them is hateful for the other, and, on the contrary, what is hateful for one is liked by the other.”

It’s embarrassing, ashamed to look at yourself from the outside. We ourselves don’t even notice that, constantly being in disagreements and quarrels, discord and enmity with our neighbors, we become more and more cold, insensitive, cruel, wild, ferocious, and not human and not Christians. This applies to us the formidable warning of the Apostle: “If you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another” (Gal. 5:17). Look! Someday the fruits of our earthly enmity will be revealed to us, and we will be horrified! God wants peacemakers, but we are quarreling! God wants the creators of the world, and we destroy it even where it exists, with our talkativeness and malicious gossip and gossip with a distortion of the truth.

“The Lord completely destroys and destroys everything unnatural and alien to good. He commands similar activities to everyone who calls himself a Christian. Each of us must extinguish hatred, stop enmity, revenge, destroy quarrels, drive out hypocrisy, extinguish the memory of malice in the heart, and instead introduce everything opposite: love, joy, peace, kindness, generosity, in a word, the whole collection of good things...

The Lord calls the peacemaker the son of God because he who brings such peace to human society becomes an imitator of the True God” (St. Gregory of Nyssa).

If bitterness and unworldliness manifest themselves among believers in Christ, if people treat each other with bitterness and unfriendliness for some reason or because of the narrowness of their views, then what a shame we are putting on the name of Christ! How often do such conversations arise among non-believers, they say, what’s the point that they believe in God, keep fasts, don’t leave church, but look how they live: they quarrel, and condemn, and slander, and are at enmity with each other, and we They don’t consider them people at all!

Lord, forgive us sinners! Tame our lives, Lord, soften our cruelty, give us love that conquers everything that rises up against us. Let obedience to this word - seek peace and strive for it - triumph over all the strife that poisons life and heart.

Have peace “and the God of love and peace will be with you” (2 Cor. 13:11).

Eighth Beatitude: It is blessed to drive away righteousness for the sake of them, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.

By righteousness in this commandment we mean the Christian faith and life according to the commandments of Christ. This means that blessed are those who are persecuted for faith and piety, for their good deeds, for constancy and steadfastness in faith.

But why does the world persecute true faith, piety, truth, which are so beneficial for people, because they bring unity, mutual love, good morals, peace, silence, order into human society?

Because the world lies in evil, and people have loved evil more than goodness.

In the Sermon on the Mount, the Savior pointed out two paths of life: wide (spacious) and narrow (cramped). The broad path - the “wide gate” - leads to destruction, and many follow this path, but the narrow one leads to life, that is, it grants salvation. The narrow path, or “narrow gate,” requires achievement, constant spiritual struggle with sin and all the obstacles along this path. Our flesh rebels against this path, our nature, corrupted by original sin, for which it is embarrassing to care for the purity of body and heart. An enemy of the human race is rising, who is disgusted by people’s concern for their salvation. The people around them also rebel, to whom the good life of believers seems to be a reproof for them, a reproach for them.

All this rebellion, especially on the part of people who are maliciously opposed to believers, is directed against the very truth of God. Evil, corrupt people have always hated and persecuted the righteous, and will continue to hate and persecute. History remembers many of these persecutors. The first of these was Cain, who killed Abel for his piety. The evil Esau persecuted his meek brother Jacob. The children of Jacob persecuted their brother Joseph and sold him to Egypt so that he would not be a thorn in their side with his good character. Meek David was persecuted to death by the unfortunate Saul. The Jews persecuted and beat their prophets, who denounced their lawless life, and finally persecuted and killed the greatest Righteous One, the Fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets, the Sun of Truth - our Lord Jesus Christ. After the ascension of the Savior, a long period of terrible persecution began against the followers of Jesus Christ. All these persecutions occurred and are occurring, as the Lord Himself indicates, for the sake of righteousness. Not for the truth in general - everyday, official, social, but for the most essential for a person - for the truth of Christ. Only this truth meets the basic needs of the human spirit, and only it helps to truly resolve all other needs (or truths) of human life: everyday-family, work-related and social. Persecution for truth is expressed in many forms. From incredible, brutal torments to which Christian martyrs were subjected for confessing Christ in the first centuries of Christianity, to ridicule, condemnation, insults and disdain for believers, as supposedly backward, out-of-date and even harmful people. The basis of this enmity is misanthropic hostility, and not only towards people, but, as we have already said, towards the very truth of God.

What demands does this commandment place on us?

1. Love of truth, or truth. Do we worthily love the truth of God? Our Christian faith and life according to the commandments of Christ? No!

Lord, forgive us sinners!

If we loved the truth of God, our Christian faith and life according to God’s commandments, then we would cherish every minute of our lives, we would use them for teaching in the Law of God, for prayer, for doing good, for eradicating the bad inclinations of our nature. And we dissolved in love for the world and “what is in the world.” We have dissolved so much that we differ from other non-believers only by going to church and observing, with great exaggeration, some rules of church and external rituals, or by our emphatically special manner of dressing. Maybe one of you put on specially cut black clothes, wrapped your head in black to the tip of your nose, put rosary beads on your hands - all these forms of clothing that do not correspond to your rank and therefore are ridiculous, to the ridicule of unbelievers - and already thought that you were pleasing God your external personality? Repent to the Lord!

For the Lord also said to the scribes and Pharisees, who loved to be distinguished from others by their outward, supposedly pious appearance of clothing: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, who are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside seem beautiful, but inside are full of the bones of the dead and all uncleanness; So, on the outside, you seem righteous to people, but inside you are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness” (Matthew 23:27-28). Lord forgive us sinners for this.

Maybe one of you did not at one time instill in your children religiosity, love for the temple, faith in the Sacraments of the Church, and now insisted by force that your son or daughter come to church, take communion or get married? And they, in order to somehow get rid of your persistent requests, approached the Sacraments without faith, and perhaps with blasphemy in their souls, and you also rejoiced at this imaginary conversion of theirs to faith.

Repent to the Lord, for through this the shrine has been desecrated by you personally!

Forgive, Lord, us sinners, who so foolishly strive to correct the mistakes of many years of our careless life, when we ourselves did not think about God, and did not instill anything religious in our children.

Maybe some of you doubted the truth of the Church to which you belong by baptism? They sympathized with the sectarians and the self-initiators who had broken away from the Church and who were tearing apart the robe of Christ. Moreover, they embarrassed others with their judgments and condemnations, which are definitely far from the truth, because you need to know a lot, feel a lot, understand a lot in order to have the right not only to condemn, but simply to talk about the Church.

Lord, forgive us sinners who have lost all fear and in their audacity have gone so far that they dared to judge the fate of the Church!

Lord, we are all almost entirely illiterate or semi-literate in matters of religious doctrine, church rules, church statutes, not answerable to the Lord for anything except the salvation of our souls, not having the slightest moral right, we are accustomed to constantly condemning the clergy and in our condemnation we have already reached church hierarchs and even up to the Patriarch. Repent!

Such are foolish children of the Church, both by their position in the Church, as flocks, and by their spiritual mind, they do not have the slightest idea about the depth of difficulties and the greatest responsibility before God of those to whom the Lord has entrusted to shepherd His sheep. It is our sacred duty to help them with our prayers from the bottom of our hearts, and not to throw stones of condemnation at them. And without you there will be crowds of people who want to stone the servants of Christ’s Church.

Lord, forgive us sinners!

We scold and condemn those whom the unbelieving world despises and hates even without us, we repeat the sin of Ham, who did not cover the nakedness of his father - this is the case when we condemn the clergy for ordinary human weaknesses and shortcomings, and we condemn with incredible bias, as if a priest, by his physical nature, is not the same person as the rest of us. Have any of you, formidable and merciless judges, thought to what dishonor in the midst of the world a person who is ordained a priest is now dooming himself, so that a liturgy is served in churches, during which you partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, in order to baptize, unction, perform funeral services, and forgive your sins? , which no one except the priest can resolve for you! At least for this good deed that comes to you from God through those who, along with their ordination to the priesthood, undertake the feat of voluntary martyrdom, leave behind the evil condemnation.

Saint John Chrysostom says: “If the insult inflicted on the servants of the earthly king, who carry out his will, brings great punishment on the offenders of the royal servants, then what punishment will those Christians be subjected to who not only do not respect, but even insult the servants of the Heavenly King!” Always remember - where there is no respect for the priesthood, there is no respect for religion. Immoral people of all times have never cared more about anything than to weaken respect for the holy order through slander and slander. This is who we are helping by condemning and slandering the ministers of the Church! And we imagine that we stand up for the truth!

Lord, forgive our blindness and extreme lack of understanding!

Or maybe there are terrible blasphemers among you who, hiding behind the visible appearance of going to church, approach the Sacraments of the Church and especially the Sacrament of Communion of the Holy Body and Blood of the Lord, being secret sectarians or infected with all sorts of philosophical fabrications? Do not dare to further tempt God’s patience. Remember, God cannot be mocked; be careful that you do not burn from touching the Holy Mysteries, which are fire unworthy of scorching. You must finally see the light, come to your senses, sincerely, personally repent to the priest, who, after repentance, must also prayerfully join you to the Church, from which such people have long been invisibly excommunicated by God. If any of you personally know such people, avoid communicating with them, as if they are an infection that spreads extremely easily.

From the life of the preacher of love, who meekly treated all sinners with love, who ran to the mountains after a robber to turn him away from sin, the Apostle John the Theologian, one story has come down. Having met a heretic in a bathhouse, he hastily said to his student: “Let’s run away from here, the bathhouse may catch fire, for this unfortunate sinner is in it!”

Why should you, an Orthodox Christian, be curious about false doctrines and make friends with those infected with sectarianism?

“If you want to be saved,” says John Chrysostom, “stay in the Church, and it will not betray you. The church is a fence. If you are inside that fence, then the wolf will not touch you, if you go outside, you will be kidnapped by the beast. Do not shy away from the Church. There is nothing in the world stronger than her. She is your hope, your happiness lies in her!”

Perhaps there are no secret sectarians or heretics among us, and we with all sincerity consider ourselves Orthodox Christians, Orthodox, that is, having the correct, true faith in Christ. Is this really so? Don't we often replace faith with superstitions, that is, with vain, false faith? Maybe some of you, not believing in the good Providence of God for us, have ever turned to wizards, fortune-tellers and sorcerers? Repent to the Lord, this is a great sin!

God Himself, through the holy prophet Jeremiah, says: “But do not listen to your false prophets, and to those who speak sorcery to you, and to those who see dreams for you, nor to your enchantments, nor to your charmers... for they prophesy lies to you...” (Jeremiah 27:9-10). According to the rules of the Holy Church, those who turn to wizards and all other fortune-tellers and sorcerers must be excommunicated from Holy Communion for six years. Repent to the Lord!

Lord, forgive our lack of trust in You!

Maybe some of you went to talk to various fortune-tellers, whisperers and grandmothers about illnesses, and even made excuses that they were saying prayers and baptizing the sore spot. But is the Sacrament of Unction, established by the Church for the healing of the sick, by the will of God, less helpful through the grace of the Holy Spirit to receive healing? Why do you, who call yourselves Orthodox Christians, advise your loved ones to go to “grandmother” to speak up their illness, and do not advise them to quickly begin the Sacrament of Anointing? It turns out that you believe conspiracies more than the Sacraments of the Church?

Lord, have mercy on us sinners!

We have mixed true faith with superstition, we believe in all sorts of powers, premonitions, fortune telling, and witchcraft. This is the legacy of our pagan past. 1000 years have passed since the Baptism of Rus', but we still cannot put aside superstitions and be truly Orthodox Christians!

2. The second thing the eighth beatitude requires of us is courage and firmness when we need to testify to or defend the truth.

Maybe some of you have betrayed Christ, cowardly agreeing with those who blasphemously ridiculed the holy teaching, Sacraments and rites of the Church. Repent to the Lord!

Lord, forgive us sinners!

Maybe some of you, in a circle of non-religious people at work or in a shared apartment, kitchen or yard, were embarrassed by your religiosity for fear of being branded as a backward, inferior person, or afraid of ridicule at yourself. Repent to the Lord!

Lord, forgive us, sinners, cowardly and cowardly!

In part, this fear also comes from the fact that we are ashamed to admit that we are a Christian or a Christian, because our relationship with our colleagues and attitude towards the work we do disgraces Christianity. Maybe some of you were ashamed in your home and afraid to hang icons openly. And it’s all because of the lack of faith in God’s Providence, which protects and guides our lives. What if unbelieving colleagues come in and there will be trouble at work. If our neighbors see the icons, they will use our religiosity as the most caustic and effective weapon against us, we justify ourselves. But if our behavior is impeccable in everything, then our confession will consist in courageously enduring only verbal bullying. No one will kick you out of your apartment, hometown or village for your faith, so why are you afraid?!

Lord, forgive us, those who have little faith and are immensely fearful!

Maybe some of you are afraid to wear a cross? Are you afraid to go to the doctor or to the bathhouse with your cross? Ask the Merciful God for forgiveness for your lack of determination to openly confess His name, but never go, do not be left without a cross! Even if it’s somehow hidden, wear the cross laid on you by the hand of the priest during the Sacrament of Baptism! In one of the stichera of the Octoechos it is sung:

“Those who are protected by the Cross, we resist the enemy, not being afraid of that treachery and deception!” How can a believer be without a cross on his chest?

Lord, forgive us sinners!

We are not only afraid of unbelievers, but even some of us are embarrassed to cross ourselves before eating in a house where everyone knows that we are believers, where no one will mock or mock us, but in which the owners themselves do not observe this rule of piety, even though there are icons hanging. The hand, as if filled with lead, is not able to rise for the sign of the cross - ashamed of your religiosity, your prayerful appeal to the Lord! This is how unfaithful we are to You, Lord! Forgive us sinners!

Maybe someone has renounced Christ in some other way? Be sure to repent of this when receiving a prayer of permission. The words of the Lord, spoken without any reservations to everyone, are very terrible: “... whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in His glory and the Father and the holy Angels...” (Luke 9:26). Which of us can then plead ignorance of this formidable warning from the Lord?

Lord, forgive us sinners for our fear, shame and embarrassment - these are all sure signs of our lack of faith! Increase our faith and instill courage and strength in our hearts!

Just think, what are we ashamed of?! The highest, most honorable title in the world - Christian - that is, that we are Christ's disciples, people who serve the highest truth with their whole lives.

3. And finally, we are obliged to patiently endure all persecution for the sake of righteousness, combining patience with firm trust in God.

How does the law of Christ oblige us to treat the persecutors of the truth? We must respond to hostility and hostility with calm and goodwill. And how do we treat at least those who, with idle curiosity, often simply with a bunch of bad manners in the universal human understanding of the word, come or come to us on excursions and prevent us from praying? We get irritated with them, on occasion we even act out angrily and contemptuously, but if we were given free rein, we would throw them out and beat them up pretty bad! Well, who would we please in this way? Only our enemy, who feeds on all malice, hatred and hostility, and we will not attract anyone to faith in Christ. And unbelievers will spread throughout the world: “There, in the Monastery, in the churches, some notoriously evil old women and old men have gathered.” If any of you committed any tactlessness or malicious behavior towards any person in the temple of God, repent before the Lord!

Lord, forgive us sinners!

We are obliged to respond to lies and slander with patience, silence or a calm, serious explanation of the truth, if we have enough knowledge and intelligence and the circumstances allow us to speak out. A Christian responds to evil behavior according to the rule: move away from evil and do good. We must firmly remember that evil is never defeated by evil. The Apostle Paul instructs: “...repay no one evil for evil, but make provision for what is good in the sight of all men” (Rom. 12:17). It is better to experience pain and humiliation yourself than to inflict it on the persecutor and offender by striking back.

There is no need to enter into bickering and disputes about faith, nor to wish for thunder and lightning to strike our persecutors and oppressors, those stubborn, blasphemous atheists who, with their mockery of faith, cause us incredible pain, but we must pray for them and feel sorry for them, because These are the most unfortunate people on earth, for earthly life is fleeting, but eternal life is endless. Now they stubbornly resist the truth, and some openly persecute it. But when their earthly eyes close and their spiritual eyes open, then their insight will be terrifying! Don't you feel sorry for these people! Can a Christian heart wish anyone eternal death and hell? If anyone is capable of wishing such irreparable evil upon anyone, repent to the Lord!

Forgive, Lord, our in no way Christian attitude towards non-believers who suffer from such a terrible disease of the soul as unbelief!

Accept our prayer, Lord, for them, our Russian people, our compatriots, who are perishing in unbelief in You as God and Creator of the world! Open their eyes, so that even during their earthly life the scales fall from their eyes, so that they understand Whom they are persecuting and whose evil will they are fulfilling! They don't know what they're doing! Lord, forgive them and us, especially since the current generation is our children and grandchildren, whom we did not raise in faith and love for You!

The ninth beatitude: Blessed are you when they revile you, and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil things against you who lie to Me for your sake. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is abundant in heaven!

Here is the promise of a great reward for those who are patient!

Look at our lives, how hard we all suffer under the yoke of spiritual sorrows! “Our entire life on earth is painful and filled with sadness from slander, annoyance, reproach and other many types of troubles and misfortunes! our spirit." This is how we prayerfully cry out in the akathist before the icon of the Mother of God, called “Joy of All Who Sorrow.” Mental anguish is especially severe when our most sublime spiritual aspirations are not understood, that is, exactly what the Lord said in our lives in the words “ you are lying for my sake«.

So you, seeing the misfortune of your neighbors (children, husband, relatives), rush to the temple, knowing that only prayer can help them, and those for whom you just prayed with tears greet you at home with streams of abuse or angry glances, in an irritated tone just because you took a few hours away from the endless stream of hectic tasks around the house. How painful and bitter my heart is!

Or a person lives far from the temple, the years he has lived have bent him to the ground, and therefore he is afraid of the distance. But the desire to be in church, to pray, to give a note, to serve a prayer service, to take holy water overcomes everything! And so such a person hurries as best he can to the temple at night on a bad road, overcomes incredible difficulties in transport, and then he enters the temple as an intercessor for his entire village, for those who would like to, but are no longer able to get there. , and about those who have completely forgotten the temple, and are showered with reproaches and ridicule: “You’re still dragging yourself to church, you should sit at home and pray, but you’ll die somewhere on the road!” or: “It looks like you didn’t have to work hard enough to still carry your legs so far!”

How such a misunderstanding hurts my heart! Misunderstanding that love for the temple overcomes the seemingly insurmountable.

You value a sacred item kept in your home: a blessing icon. The Gospel, holy water - and what words can you convey the mental anguish when one day, coming home, you see the complete destruction of a dear corner - your shrine was violated by the people closest to you!

You unselfishly, out of a feeling of pity and compassion, for the sake of Christ, helped someone with your work, but you were slandered, mercilessly accused of self-interest, dishonesty, suspected of God knows what kind of dirt... How hard it is to endure such slander!

You strive to serve something for the temple, the monastery, doing it with all your heart, with great love, putting all your talents, all the abilities of your soul and physical capabilities into the work, but they stubbornly refuse to understand you, they persecute you, vilify you and humiliate you in every possible way, and they humiliate you not only morally, but maybe even physically - they beat you, push you, kick you, or drop something on you. How much courage is required not to give up, not to grow cold, not to despair and, most importantly, not to hate the persecutors! And how many other misunderstandings, false ideas, unthinkable accusations there are that give rise to unbearable torment of the soul, those sufferings that exceed the suffering of martyrdom and surpass the greatest feats of Christian ascetics of the first centuries.

General conclusion of confession on the beatitudes

Now we have come to the end of our confession, which today was based on the fulfillment of the beatitudes.

And probably each of you who sincerely repented realized that he was “empty and naked” of spiritual virtues. It would seem that one might come to despair: what should we, great sinners, do?

We are not capable of anything, Lord! We have neither humility, nor meekness, nor purity of heart, nor love, nor even crying for sins!

And in response to such a question full of despair, one of the ascetics of piety answers: “If you cannot bring anything else to the Lord, then bring to Him your life’s cross and your suffering.” A lot can be said about the benefits of suffering for us. And since now is the Sacrament of Confession, that is, a test of our conscience - a spiritual hospital and a bathhouse that washes away the filth of our hearts - then we need to sincerely admit before the Lord that we do not know how to patiently, in a Christian manner, bear grievances, troubles, and injustices. We are all the greatest murmurers! Which of us accepts sorrows with joy, as a cleansing medicine from the Lord Himself, and sees our friend and healer in the offender?

Forgive us, Lord, we are extremely cowardly!

We complain excessively, even to the point of losing our health, we are offended by the offenders, we harden our hearts and ourselves become impatient with people, because we greedily rush towards life, towards happiness, which is vain, empty, short-lived, like a dream. We put him above everything, above the Church, God, love for Christ, and the misfortune that befalls takes us by surprise, embitters and coarsens us.

We shed tears, sweat and blood - we lose our health, but, alas, Lord!

Sweat is shed with internal resistance, anger, curse. Tears - from resentment, anger, frustration, impossibility of revenge. Blood (disease) is without faith, and therefore our soul does not acquire anything good.

Meanwhile, the mood with which we endure suffering in our hearts and souls is the touchstone of our spiritual growth. “Courage in the face of them, readiness for them – this is the sign of a “right soul.” Courageous souls instinctively seek sacrifice, suffering, and grow spiritually stronger in trials. " For our momentary, light affliction produces eternal glory in exceeding abundance...." (2 Cor. 4:17). And not only suffering that comes from outside, but every spiritual effort, every voluntary deprivation, every refusal, sacrifice, is immediately exchanged for spiritual riches within us” (priest Alexander Elchaninov).

Lord, forgive us, weak in spirit!

Maybe some of you, unable to bear the weight of sorrows, made a mental attempt on your life, thought about suicide, sought in your thoughts ways to end your suffering by ending your life, while also thinking of annoying the offenders! Repent to the Lord!

And separately, when approaching the prayer of permission, personally repent to the priest, for this is a terrible sin that leads to death.

Lord, forgive us sinners!

We still somehow tolerate what we bring upon ourselves through our inattentive life. But there, in Heaven, only then does some assessment of us begin, when we innocently endure something, and endure it with all humility, without complaint, as God’s permission and test (Bishop Varlaam Ryashentsev).

Here we are, to great regret, we all live in vanity, our souls hurt from all sorts of sorrows and troubles, we are all waiting for peaceful, quiet earthly well-being; sorrow comes, and we become faint-hearted! And the Apostle Paul, revealing the great meaning of the suffering of a Christian, says: “... for the sake of Christ it has been given to you not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for Him"(Phil. 1:29). Do you hear? It is given to suffer for the Lord, as a great mercy, it is given to believe and suffer! As St. Isaac the Syrian says: “More precious than any prayer and sacrifice before the Lord are sorrows for Him, and more than all fragrances is the smell of their sweat.”

The Apostle also writes: “ Beloved! do not shy away from the fiery temptation sent to you to test it as a strange adventure for you, but as you participate in Christ’s sufferings, rejoice, and at the revelation of His glory you will rejoice and triumph"(1 Pet. 4, 12-13). Have you ever thought about these words of Holy Scripture?

No, Lord, many of us are consciously listening to him for the first time, despite our already gray heads.

Forgive us sinners!

But this is available to all of us and is still in the same Book - the Gospel, which is collecting dust on our shelves!

What we are going to is too high, and what we are leaving here is too insignificant. In this world all our virtues are insignificant, all our understanding of truth is insignificant. And therefore there is no higher beauty on earth than suffering for the sake of truth, there is no greater radiance than the radiance of innocent suffering (Archbishop John Shakhovskoy). This is how great courageous Christian souls think and speak!

Lord, forgive us sinners!

How far we are from such an understanding of Christian life! And each of us wants to be saved. According to John Chrysostom, there are three conditions for salvation for a Christian:

– do not sin;

– having sinned, repent;

- whoever repents poorly must endure the sorrows that come.

And who can say that he repents diligently enough? Hence, the way to get rid of suffering for one’s sins is repentance. The strength of repentance must be proportionate to the degree of sin. If there is no sufficient consciousness of sin, there is no strength to bear active, deep repentance, then we must humbly accept the suffering sent and give thanks for them as for mercy, as a sign of God’s care for us.

Lord, forgive us sinners!

Our sins are innumerable, our concepts of spiritual life and Christian worldview are extremely small. The pharmacy with spiritual medicines against our sinful ailments is inexhaustibly rich in the spiritual hospital of the Mother Church!

I can talk to you for a very long time and a lot for the benefit of my soul, but the time has long expired.

Lord, accept our repentance!

Now everyone must show You, Lord, a firm determination to renounce sin, to hate sin, to turn their life around... And having confirmed this determination with an oath, to kiss the Cross and the Gospel. In this decision, promise to improve your life.

Lord, I sincerely want this! And I pray to You, help me keep my oath!

Lord, accept our prayer!

Lord, my Lord!

I am a bottomless abyss of sin: no matter where I look into myself, everything is bad, no matter what I remember, everything is done wrong, said incorrectly, badly thought out... And the intentions and dispositions of my soul are one insult to You, my Creator, Benefactor!

Have mercy on me, Lord Jesus Christ, our God! I, like an insignificant person, sinned, but You, like a generous God, have mercy on me.

Receive me in repentance. Give me time to bear the fruits of repentance. I don’t want to sin anymore, I don’t want to offend You, Lord! Allow me to partake of the Holy Mysteries, may Your gracious power descend upon me through them. Destroy the sin that lives in me. Live in me, Immortal Lord, so that neither life nor death separate me from You.

Weigh the fates - as you want, as you know - just save me, a poor sinner! And I will bless and glorify Your Most Honorable name forever. Amen.

Archimandrite John (Krestyankin) “The experience of constructing a confession”

Archimandrite John (Krestyankin), T. Moskvina, N. Levitsky

Every person. Instructions and covenants of St. Seraphim of Sarov

Lamp of Faith

The name of St. Seraphim, the great lamp of the Russian land, is near and dear to every Christian; it is revered throughout the Christian world and is pronounced with especially touching love and tenderness. The spiritual appearance of this saint never ceases to amaze with the greatness and depth, brightness and versatility of his talents. Living in a relatively close time from us (the peak of ascetic service falls in the 1st third of the 19th century), St. Seraphim not only recalled, but perhaps even surpassed the ancient ascetic monks in his exploits, combining in his spiritual path different types of asceticism and revealing to each of them a model of holiness: in desert living, seclusion, silence, fasting, pillar service, eldership... Is it not because the image of the saint of God has a special attractive force for many of us that it seems to hide a certain secret of holiness, which the Lord providentially revealed to the Russian earth almost a century before the start of the terrible events of the 20th century? It’s as if Holy Rus', before finally ceasing to be “holy,” “lit” in the image of St. Seraphim one of its brightest “lamp of faith”, embodied in him the ideal of holiness that had been cultivated and cherished for centuries. Nowadays, with the return after decades of godless power to Orthodox Christian traditions and values, it is the name of St. Seraphim that has become for many a symbol of the spiritual revival of Russia. The unexpected discovery of the holy relics of the saint who were considered lost in 1991, the celebrations in honor of the 100th anniversary of the glorification (2003), which, like a hundred years ago, were attended by the head of the church and the head of state, and the celebration of the 250th anniversary of his birth (2004 d.) of the saint became events of an all-Russian scale, attracted the attention of the entire Orthodox world and were accompanied by an unprecedented gathering of pilgrims from all over the country to the Seraphim-Diveevsky Monastery, to the final resting place of Father Seraphim, where his relics are now located. Perhaps the words of the Reverend that “he will open a sermon of worldwide repentance in Diveevo” relate specifically to our time? And one of the opportunities for us, people of the 21st century, to hear and deeply perceive this sermon is to study and imprint in our minds and hearts the words of the spiritual instructions of Father Seraphim, the great elder, wonderworker and seer.

Initially, the spiritual instructions of the Monk Seraphim were collected, recorded and submitted for publication by the tonsured priest of the Sarov Hermitage, Hieromonk Sergius (Vasiliev), the first author-compiler of both the biography and the instructions of the holy elder. A contemporary of the Rev., his self-witness, Hieromonk Sergius, shortly after the death of Father Seraphim in 1833, left the Sarov monastery (he ended his days among the brotherhood of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra), but while still in Sarov, for several years he collected and recorded information about life , exploits and miracles of the Sarov ascetics, elders Seraphim and Mark. The spiritual instructions of the Venerable Father Seraphim to the laity and monks were first published, oddly enough, earlier than his life, separately from him. They were published in 1839, six years after the death of the ascetic, and not as an independent publication, but as an addition to the life of the Sarov Elder Mark, as part of the book “A Brief Outline of the Life of the Elder of the Sarov Hermitage, Schemamonk and Hermit Mark” (M., 1839 ). The first “Tales about the life and exploits of Father Seraphim” appeared only in 1841, and without his instructions. Such a separate publication of instructions and biography was associated with the incredible difficulties of passing the first life of St. Seraphim through spiritual censorship. The publication was constantly delayed due to doubts about the truth of the cases of miraculous visions and healings presented to the saint of God from above. Therefore, wanting to provide the Orthodox reader with the opportunity to receive spiritual consolation from the words of the great elder as soon as possible, Metropolitan Philaret (Drozdov), a zealous admirer of the memory of St. Seraphim, proposed publishing spiritual instructions separately from the life, which, without encountering any obstacles from censorship, was carried out quite quickly .

This is a brief background to the first publication of the “spiritual instructions” of St. Seraphim. Subsequently, they were published as part of the life of the holy elder, and were expanded and supplemented by other biographers of Father Seraphim, also from the Sarov monastery. In this edition, the reader is offered a fairly complete version of the instructions of St. Seraphim, based on the book of the pre-revolutionary author-compiler N. Levitsky, republished in our time (see: N. Levitsky. The life, exploits, miracles and glorification of St. Seraphim, the Wonderworker of Sarov. Diveevo: Holy Trinity Seraphim-Diveevo Monastery; M.: Father's House, 2007. P. 505-536).

The significance of the teachings of the great elder, miracle worker and prayer book, their role in the formation of the spiritual image of modern man today is enormous. The saint, whose memorial days unite all of Russia in a single prayerful impulse, whose name has become a symbol of the spiritual revival of Russia, the unity of Church and state, in his instructions reveals the only true path to which we are called. By following this difficult path of struggle with passions, improving in love for God and neighbor, each of us can achieve one degree or another of spiritual perfection. Each line of St. Seraphim’s instructions speaks, openly or covertly, about man’s eternal calling to God, about his destiny for the Kingdom of Heaven. The holy elder places special emphasis on the need to acquire love for God and neighbor. “We must treat our neighbors kindly, without even the appearance of an insult,” “we must be pure in word and thought in both word and thought and equal to everyone, otherwise we will make our life useless“- says Father Seraphim in his teachings. At the present time, when there is a certain uncertainty, “blurring” of spiritual guidelines even for those who want to follow the path of internal improvement, these words are especially relevant. St. Seraphim calls us not to external ascetic deeds, not to strict fasting, silence and wearing chains, but, first of all, to love for God and neighbor, to non-judgment and forgiveness of offenses (whole separate chapters of his spiritual instructions are devoted to these topics). From the life of the Reverend it is known that when one Sarov monk came to him for a blessing to wear chains, the wise old man replied that for us, who do not know how to endure reprimands from our neighbors painlessly, “chains” should consist in non-judgment of our neighbors, in complacent patience with insults and Roots.

This same idea is emphasized by the words spoken by Father Seraphim to his co-secretary and disciple N.A. Motovilov in his famous “Conversation on the Purpose of Christian Life”: “The Lord seeks a heart filled with love for God and neighbor - this is the throne on which He loves to sit ...”, and that He “listens equally to both the monk and the layman, the simple Christian, as long as both are Orthodox and both love God from the depths of their souls...” (see: Veniamin (Fedchenkov), Metropolitan. The Life of St. Seraphim, the Wonderworker of Sarov. M., 2006. P. 79, 80). It is the heart, filled with love for God and neighbor, that is abundantly given the grace of the Holy Spirit, the acquisition of which, as we know, is the goal of Christian life.

St. Seraphim, who captured in his meek, loving appearance the treasures of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, through his instructions continues to illuminate and transform us, modern people, influencing our hearts with the gracious power of his divinely inspired word.

T. Moskvina

Instructions and covenants of St. Seraphim of Sarov

The lips of the righteous drip wisdom.

Proverbs 10, 31

The words of the mouth are wise and grace.

Eccl. 10, 12

What did St. Seraphim teach the Russian people? What was the subject of the holy elder’s conversations with those who came to him? Let us listen with reverence to the speeches, to these conversations of the wondrous Sarov ascetic, let us reproduce, although not in full, the instructions that he taught to his many visitors. This is wise advice, these are the sacred covenants of the God-bearing elder, which we must follow, which we must preserve if we want the benefit of our soul, which we must fulfill, just as we sacredly and accurately fulfill the wills of those dear and close to us who have passed on to eternity. Isn’t Father Seraphim close to the Russian people, whom the entire Russian land knew and knows, from the royal chambers to the wretched hut of a peasant, to whom during his lifetime whole thousands came with the most diverse needs and requests, and to whose multi-healing relics countless masses of people now flock?..

Today, on the day of the departure to the Lord of the “All-Russian confessor” Archimandrite John (Krestyankin), the Pravoslavie.Ru portal presents his selected sayings and advice.

Spiritual life

The main thing in spiritual life is faith in God’s Providence and reasoning with advice

With God, everything happens on time for those who know how to wait.

Our wings sometimes hang and we don’t have the strength to fly into the sky. This is nothing, this is the science of sciences that we go through - as long as the desire to see the sky above our heads, the clear, starry sky, the sky of God, does not disappear.

Why don't you become a pianist, a surgeon, an artist? Answer: you need to study. And in order to teach others the science of science - spiritual life - in your opinion, there is no need to study?

If sin is initially laid in the foundation of life, then it is doubtful to expect good fruit in this case.

Love for humanity is verbal fornication. Love for a specific person, on our life path given by God, is a practical matter, requiring work, effort, struggle with oneself, one’s laziness

Temptations of time, tax identification number, new documents

70 years of captivity could not but leave its mark on people. Captivity is over, but a new misfortune is on the doorstep - freedom and permissiveness to all evil

Experience shows that those who came to the Throne from rock music cannot serve for salvation... Some cannot stand at the throne at all, and some sink to the bottom of hell with iniquities such as they did not do before taking holy orders

Some publish religious literature on computers, while others create disgrace. And, using the same technique, some are saved, while others die here on earth

Turning to bioenergetics is turning to the enemy of God

You cannot simultaneously take in the Blood and Body of the Lord and urine. There is no blessing from the Church for treatment with urine

Take the cards: you are not yet asked about your faith and are not forced to renounce God

On February 5, 2006, after receiving the Holy Mysteries of Christ, the confessor of the Holy Dormition Pskovo-Pechersk Monastery, Archimandrite John (Krestyankin), reposed in God, whose letters and words turned the hearts of many people to the Lord. With his meek preaching of Christian love and “small acts of goodness,” Father John warned his children against making hasty and rash decisions fraught with discord and disorder, against replacing life with a spiritual “game of spiritual life,” against selfishness, against the temptations and temptations of modernity, against distortions of the teachings of the Church of Christ. He was called an all-Russian elder, a seer, but Father John himself did not consider himself a prophet who wrote out recipes for people to do the right things. “The Lord gave man spiritual freedom,” taught Father John, “and He, He Himself, in no case and never deprives a person of it—this freedom.” And “the purpose of spirituality is to cultivate and cultivate the seed of life that is given to the human soul by the Lord, to protect it on the unknown paths of spiritual life, to be a guide, to reconcile a person with God through the grace-filled powers of the Sacraments.” In his spiritual deed, Father John was a faithful servant of the One who said about Himself: “I am the good Shepherd; and I know Mine, and they know Mine. ...And they will hear My voice, and there will be one flock, and one Shepherd” (John 10, 14.16).

Spiritual testament of Father John (Krestyankin)

Compiled on June 25, 2005 and announced at the funeral service of the elder in the Sretensky Church of the Pskov-Pechersk Monastery by Hieromonk Iosaf (Shvetsov)

My dear, family and friends, the day of my life has come to a close. And I have already received notification about this twice. The first time was ten years ago, but someone’s prayers bowed to the Lord’s mercy and extended my stay in the earthly vale. On December 2, 2004, I visibly saw that I had swum across the river of my life and was standing on the threshold of eternity. And, as gratitude to God and the Holy Mother of the Church, and most importantly, evidence that God’s Providence leads us along the path of life, I leave brief notes, as a mirror reflecting this obvious truth.

My scattered episodic narratives have been recorded since 1981, and these were not stories about me, but illustrations of some life situations. Now, when this patchwork quilt was put together, and I rewrote it, leafed through it, returning to the past, I myself was touched, seeing the wealth of God’s mercy towards me, a poor and sinful person. And on the threshold of a new life I stand with bated breath in anticipation of a meeting with my Lord, a meeting for which my soul has been striving all my life. And to you, as a request for prayerful memory of me, I leave these notes about life in God, and a testament verified by my very life.

My dear children of God, believe God, trust Him! Accept everything in life: joy, joylessness, prosperity and evil, as the mercy and truth of the ways of the Lord, and fear nothing in life except sin. Only he deprives us of God’s favor and gives us over to the power of the enemy’s arbitrariness and tyranny. Love God, love Love and each other to the point of selflessness. The Lord knows how to save those who love Him.

His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy II sent a message expressing condolences to Archbishop of Pskov and Velikoluksky Eusebius, the viceroy, the brethren of the Pskov-Pechersk Monastery and all the spiritual children of Archimandrite John (Krestyankin) in connection with the death of the elder:

His Eminence, the Most Reverend Eusebius, Archbishop of Pskov and Velikoluksky

Your Eminence, dear Lord!

The news of the death of the oldest resident of the Holy Dormition Pskovo-Pechersk Monastery, the dearly loved and revered elder Archimandrite John (Krestyankin), resonated with pain in my heart.

Offering prayers to the Lord for the repose of his soul in the heavenly villages, I express my sincere condolences to you, dear Master, Fr. to the abbot and brethren of the monastery, relatives, friends and all the many spiritual children of the late dear priest.

On the feast of the Council of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, the Chief Shepherd Christ the Lord called to Himself a faithful and zealous servant, who, throughout his long and difficult life, carried unquenched the fire of the faith of Christ, who preserved intact even until his last breath the pledge of the Church, given to him more than six decades ago. in the sacrament of the priesthood. He, like many of his contemporaries, suffered a lot for the Holy Church and truly became a living witness of the promise of Christ: “I will build My Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.”

Ardent faith, constant prayerful attitude, sacrificial love for the Church and flock, zeal for the glory of God earned Fr. John enjoys pan-Orthodox fame and deep veneration. Everything he did was dedicated to one thing that was needed - the living preaching of the Crucified and Risen Christ. His pastoral words, addressed both to those who came to him and to people living far from the monastery, were filled with warmth and concern for salvation.

Visiting his monastery cell and talking with him about many pressing issues of church and public life, I saw how balanced his judgments were, in line with the patristic traditions of spiritual sobriety. Not only the people of the Church listened to his visionary voice - he was known and revered by many secular people. He became a truly people's mourner and man of prayer. That is why thousands of his spiritual children are now grieving. But at the same time, the Truth of God triumphs, which was so convincingly revealed to the Orthodox world in the life and pastoral works of Fr. John.

I mentally give the last kiss to the deceased and express the hope that, according to the word of the Savior, he will hear the desired voice: “You have been faithful in little things, I will put you over many things, enter into the joy of your Lord.”

May the Lord grant the newly departed Fr. Eternal memory to John!

With love in Christ,

ALEXIY, PATRIARCH OF MOSCOW AND ALL Rus'

Father John is known and revered in various countries of the world. It is impossible to express in words what Father John meant to his spiritual children and to the entire Russian Orthodox Church. In recent years, due to age and illness, he was not able to receive everyone who sought his advice. However, letters from different parts of the world continue to arrive at the address of the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery. Father John's sermons and books continue to open up a new, spiritual world for thousands of people and bring yearning souls to God.

Among the most famous and popular books compiled from his conversations and letters are “The Experience of Constructing a Confession”, “Sermons, Reflections, Congratulations”, “Handbook for Monastics and Laity”, as well as the collection “Letters of Archimandrite John (Peasant)”. Conversations and letters of Father John have been translated and published in foreign languages.

The book about. John in Serbian “Let us quicken our hearts for God”, published in Belgrade in 2004.

On April 11, 1910, in the city of Orel, the eighth child was born into the family of Mikhail Dmitrievich and Elizaveta Illarionovna Krestyankin. The boy was named John in honor of St. John the Hermit, celebrated on this day. It is significant that on this same day the memory of Saints Mark and Jonah of Pskov-Pechersk is celebrated. Even as a child, Vanya served in the church and was a novice under the Oryol Archbishop Seraphim (Ostroumov), famous for his monastic severity. When Vanya was two years old, his father Mikhail Dmitrievich died. A deeply religious and pious mother, Elizaveta Illarionovna, was involved in raising her son.

Father John retained in grateful memory the labors of love of those who led and instructed him spiritually. From infancy to youth, these are the Oryol archpriests: Father Nikolai Azbukin and Father Vsevolod Kovrigin. At the age of 10, he experienced the influence of the elder archpriest Georgy Kosov from the village of Spas-Chekryak, Oryol region, who was the spiritual child of St. Ambrose of Optina.

Father John received his first instructions about future monasticism in his adolescence from two friends - bishops: Archbishop Seraphim (Ostroumov), the future hieromartyr, and Bishop Nicholas (Nikolsky). The Oryol elder nun Vera Aleksandrovna Loginova, blessing him to live in Moscow, looked into the distant future of the young man John, scheduling him a meeting with her on Pskov land.

The bright image of the Oryol Christ for the sake of the holy fool Afanasy Andreevich Saiko imprinted in the mind for the rest of his life the charm of the man of God, the strength of his spirit and the warmth of his love for people.

After high school, Ivan Krestyankin completed accounting courses and, having moved to Moscow, worked in this specialty. On January 14, 1945, in the church on Vagankovo, Metropolitan Nikolai (Yarushevich) ordained him to the rank of deacon. On the feast of the Jerusalem Icon of the Mother of God on October 25 of the same year, Patriarch Alexy I ordained Deacon John to the priesthood at the Izmailovo Church of the Nativity in Moscow, where he remained to serve.

Father John passed the exams for the seminary course as an external student, and in 1950, having completed 4 courses at the Moscow Theological Academy, he wrote his Ph.D. thesis. But it was not possible to finish it. On the night of April 29-30, 1950, Father John was arrested for his zealous pastoral service and sentenced to 7 years in forced labor camps. Returning from prison early on February 15, 1955, he was appointed to the Pskov diocese, and in 1957 moved to the Ryazan diocese, where he served as a priest for a total of almost 11 years.

The young priest was taken under their spiritual care by the Glina elders, and one of them, Schema-Archimandrite Seraphim (Romantsov), became his spiritual father, and it was he who accepted the monastic vows of his spiritual son, and the last Optina elder, Hegumen John (Sokolov), saw in the parish priest his own according to the spirit of man. Father John became a monk on June 10, 1966, on the feast of St. Sampson the Host, in the city of Sukhumi.

On March 5, 1967, Hieromonk John entered the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery. On April 13, 1970 he was elevated to the rank of abbot, and on April 7, 1973 - to the rank of archimandrite.

Monasticism was taught by the priest and the monastery charter of life, and by the living elders who labored in the Pechersk monastery: Hieroschemamonk Simeon (Zhelnin), Schema-Archimandrite Pimen (Gavrilenko), Archimandrite Afinogen (Agapov), Viceroy Archimandrite Alypiy (Voronov); also the last Valaam elders: hieroschemamonk Mikhail (Pitkevich), schema-abbot Luka (Zemskov), schemamonk Nikolai (Monakhov); Bishops who retired in the monastery: Bishop Theodore (Tekuchev) and Metropolitan Veniamin (Fedchenkov).

It is no coincidence that Father John departed to the Lord precisely on the day of remembrance of the new martyrs and confessors of Russia, because he himself suffered for his faith during the years of persecution, going through a difficult ordeal in prison. We believe that, having joined the host of his companions, he will appear before the throne of God with fervent prayer for us.

Father John will forever remain in the memory of all who knew him as a wise, joyful and perspicacious priest, a strict monk, a zealous faster and man of prayer, a sincere novice, as a man who generously shared his rich life experience, who warmed with his love everyone who sought his advice, as a worthy heir to the traditions of Pechersk eldership.

Photo - “Orthodoxy.Ru”, “Saratov Diocese”

About clergy

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, and forever. (Hebrews 13:8)

Clergy is one of the treasures of salvation, given and blessed by Christ to His Holy Church.

I am the Good Shepherd; and I know Mine, and they know Mine. ...And they will hear My voice, and there will be one flock, and one Shepherd (John 10, 14.16).

And they walked, and continue to this day, and are saved, embodying God’s commands in life, and the Church of God and the world of God were built by teaching, preaching, and spirituality. And the Church of God lived in the unity of the spirit and in the union of peace.

The Church has grown and flourished throughout the centuries through great universal teachers, Holy Fathers, Holy Elders, martyrs, and the people of God. Obedience to the Church and the Fathers created the great cause of salvation for mankind. The voice of truth, heard and accepted by the heart, gave birth to the truth of life, and the response and reward to this truth was the gift of God - piety, which appeared in its great power. And the image of Holy Orthodox Rus' grew before the nations, before the whole world, attracting and preaching the blessing of peace and truth.

What fed the truth of life? What fed and nurtured people of spirit, strength and courage?

Firstly, faith in God - the Creator and Provider, secondly, love for God and awareness of His infinite greatness and goodness, and next to this there was a humble consciousness of one’s extreme weakness and insufficiency.

And the great ideals of purity and holiness gave rise to the desire to live and work in the name of these ideals, and humility rewarded workers with strength from God to accomplish them.

Faith, love and humility were the unmistakable guides of people in the stormy sea of ​​life and led truth, sincerity and simplicity into life.

The confessors and the people of God lived with one spirit, one concept and the same desire for salvation. And the power to bind and decide, given by the Savior to confessors, bound them with great responsibility for the souls of their flock, promoting creation rather than destruction.

The terrible words of the Apostle: “Know this, that in the last days difficult times will come” (2 Tim. 3:1) - were a kind of figurative allegory that had not yet invaded life in all its power and disaster. But then unbelief, hatred and demonic pride appeared and grew with incredible speed in all spheres of life and, most importantly, in the human soul, and they brought with them their offspring: lies, deceit and falsehood, which distorted life. And as a consequence of these new norms, confusion, confusion and confusion appeared in life. They also affected the Church in the form of heresies and schisms, and invaded the relationship between confessors and flocks, revealing hitherto unknown spiritual illnesses.

Looking at everything that is happening in the world, in our state, in the Church and in ourselves, there would be reason to become despondent now if it were not for the eternally living, unchangeable and life-affirming promises and truths of God that showed us the purpose of life - the search for the eternal living God . The goal is unchangeable, so is service to God, His Holy Church, and clergy unchangeable.

There are no coincidences in life and cannot be, God the Provider rules the world, and every circumstance has a higher spiritual meaning and is given by God to fulfill this eternal goal - to know God. It is necessary and possible to maintain fidelity to the highest goal, fidelity and devotion to Holy Orthodoxy, despite externally hostile circumstances.

Every person enters the school of life from birth and moves through life, led by parents, teachers, and mentors. The school of spiritual life is so much higher, more important and more complex, how much greater is the final goal of spiritual education - knowledge of God, unity with God and confirmation in God. And everyone comes to the school of spiritual life in their own time, depending on their turn to the truth, but there is a danger of avoiding it completely.

The purpose of clergy is to cultivate and cultivate the seed of life that is given to the human soul by the Lord, to protect it on the unknown paths of spiritual life, to be a guide, to reconcile a person with God through the grace-filled powers of the Sacraments.

Spirituality is fatherhood, when in the throes of birth the confessor frees from the shackles of sin and from ignorance in man the image of God that has been given to him, and shows the path to likeness.

The task of the confessor is great and complex, and the responsibility of this obedience is great - to accept the great heritage - the image of unshakable faith, firm hope and Gospel love, and thereby crush all obstacles on the path of the child following God. Having received the priest's cross at ordination, and with it the right to spiritual mentorship, the confessor accepts a covenant from God for his service: be an image of the faithful word, life, love, spirit, faith, purity (Tim. 4:12).

The task of a spiritual child is not easy, and it places many demands on him, the most important of which is the will of his own salvation. The path to salvation begins from the moment you turn to God with the feeling and awareness of your destruction. This consciousness compels us to seek the Savior and now brings many to the Church. It is here, on the threshold of the Church at the source of salvation, that lies the first stumbling block for a person awakening to spiritual life and for a confessor who accepts a spiritual baby into childcare. Inspired by new sensations, a person, entering the Church, rushes with his consciousness straight into the Kingdom of Heaven, to the height of the secrets hidden under the impenetrable veil of God's revelation. And at this moment, the confessor and the spiritual child enter into combat with a dark force that is ready to turn the convert off the path of salvation with flattery.

The charm of the enemy will pursue a person throughout his life, offering him the enemy’s sweetness, but it is especially dangerous during this period of formation, for it is still very consonant and akin to the carnal man and finds sympathy and response in the depths of his soul. The strength of the confessor in this battle is in prayer and in love for the soul of the child who desires salvation. The protection of the child is in trust in the confessor and in the consciousness of one’s sinfulness and in distrust of oneself.

The current children of the Church are completely special, the product of general apostasy; they come to spiritual life, burdened by many years of sinful life, perverted concepts of good and evil. And the earthly truth they have assimilated rises up against the concept of Heavenly Truth that comes to life in the soul. And these two truths are essentially completely different and irreconcilable. On earth, Heavenly Truth is nailed to the cross.

The false earthly mind, which has become the guide of modern man, also actively opposes spiritual life. Hearing words of instruction from confessors, so simple and seemingly accessible, hearing the Word of God, they cannot accept that these life truths are learned and understood only when they are fulfilled by life itself, otherwise the Word will be distorted and desecrated.

And again there is a stumbling block - life does not come to the point of fulfilling the word heard. Execution requires a lot of work and effort.

The Word of God, penetrating the heart and taking root there, gives the selfless soul courage, strength and strength to endure temptations. And the word of the confessor is a spiritual sword, trying to cut off impurity, gives rise to torment and pain in the heart of the child and requires humble self-denial and a lot of patience.

And all these difficulties - the need to work, endure, humble one’s self - become for many, accustomed to looking for only joy and pleasure in life, an obstacle to the continuation of spiritual life.

The saving cross, which every person must take up and carry consciously and with love, the cross with which only we can tear ourselves away from earthly attachments and addictions, is rejected as an unbearable burden.

And outwardly worshiping the great Cross of Christ and His Passion, chanting the instrument of our salvation, a person will deftly and ingeniously shun his personal saving cross.

And then the most terrible substitution of spiritual life often begins - the game of spiritual life.

This game, giving rise to false concepts of spirituality, begins to overwhelm the world with false spirituality. And it is increasingly difficult for the Church to resist this modern disaster, which, responding to the inner aspirations of people, leads them away from the saving path of the cross, following God, to the search for their “I”, which has already grown in the soul and is now shielding God from it.

There are countless difficulties and stumbling blocks on the path of spiritual life. This is the science of sciences, which is taught to us by the Holy Gospel and the circumstances of life sent by the Lord.

How much patience does a spiritual child need, how much time to wait in order to understand and come to terms with his spiritual weakness and with the consciousness that the goodness of his soul is nurtured by the One Lord, not himself (the worker), not the confessor, but God. This is where truly spiritual life is hidden - in the depths of humility.

But the path to humility is long and extremely painful, especially in the current time consumed by pride. And how much spiritual tact and love and, again, patience does a confessor need, so as not to get ahead of events with his selfhood, to see the fruit of his life’s labors in the child, so as not to let the child become exhausted in expectation and hope. And what can we expect if the Kingdom of God does not come in a noticeable way in the soul.

The spiritual work is maturing and ripe, and this is the work of our whole life, there is no end or limit to it, because our aspiration and love are for the infinite and all-perfect and eternal God.

Yes, the great work of clergy continues and will continue until the end of days. But the experience of spirituality of the ancient fathers and even of modern times cannot be transferred to the modern era. And we believe, undoubtedly, in the goodness of God, that just as He now brings spiritual sheep, even sick and wounded, into His pastures, so He will give and is already giving shepherds, in whom spiritual grace will heal their illnesses, and enlighten them, and replenish the vessels of their souls that are impoverished in spirit. . In leadership they always want to see a solid rod that you can lean on at any time. But the time has come that sweeps away all hopes for humanity and shows the world one support, one hope in God.

The ancient fathers, with their great exploits, reached this truth. They consciously took upon themselves the burdens and bitterness of feats of illness and self-denial. In our time, this truth is given from God without our intervention, it is given obviously, visibly.

The spiritual fathers and children of God can only understand that their strength is not in their exploits, not in their learning, but in their weakness, which they must accept as their savior, reconcile with it, love it and consciously bring their weakness to the Feet of God so that it can begin to act. the grace and power of God and Christ was reborn in us.

How to live?

(From letters to spiritual children)

Dear V. in the Lord!

Do not hurry. Look at those around you, look more into yourself and live according to your conscience. But it is necessary to treat the sick everywhere: in the Kremlin, and in the countryside, there are people everywhere, so work where the Lord leads. Pray to St. much Tryphon.

May the Lord make you wise!

S., but every person must certainly make his own choice of life path. And this is so that no one can hide behind someone else’s back.

Think it through. After all, only two paths are blessed by God - family and single - monastic.

And both of these are ways of the cross. So choose which cross suits you best for salvation.

May God make you wise!

The first blessing after your choice should be from your parents, and the second from your confessor.

Dear M.!

It would be good for you to work as a cook and until you are 25 years old, take root in Orthodox life and in the Church, getting to know yourself. There is no need to talk about monasticism or marriage now. Everything: both are premature. You need to grow up, M., in order to choose your Cross of life consciously and responsibly. And remember that without your parents’ blessing you cannot go to a monastery or create a family. So work harder so that through you your parents will come to God. There is no other way.

May the Lord make you wise!

Dear A. in the Lord!

Live at home and work for the glory of God in the field that the Lord has given. Our job is to do our job with prayer, and the result is from God. So the issue with the apartment has been resolved - confirming that you need to stay at home.

May God make you wise!

Massage therapists are needed everywhere.

And the sick woman died because her time had come, God called.

Pray to St. to the martyr Tryphon and his intercession you will always be at work. Go to church to pray and you can help everyone, but your main job should be in your specialty in the world.

Believers should be the salt of the earth and not isolate themselves from people. Preach not so much with words, but with your life, patience and love for suffering and lost people.

Don’t look too far ahead, but if you live every day with God and in prayer, the Lord will guide your boat through life and guide it to salvation.

God bless and make you wise!

God has blessed your entry into the seminary - so study diligently, and while there you grow up both physically and spiritually. Over the years of study, you will test yourself where your matured heart will lean. Just be sure to take care of the purity of your soul and body and avoid all “romance”. God needs a pure sacrifice.

In the last class of seminary, the Lord will see what the fruits of your labors are and will determine your future path in life.

God's blessing to you!

Dear A.!

I won’t refuse to pray for you, but neither your mother, nor your confessor, nor I can make a choice for you.

Just thoughtfully and prayerfully look into your heart. And don't rush. Nowadays, when people have lost the fear of God, they often dare to trample on their vows: marital, monastic, and priestly - this is a sign of the times. And that is why every person is responsible before God and people in what he chooses. Honor the creation of St. John Chrysostom about family and marriage, get acquainted with the exploits of monastic life from the writings of the Fathers and think about both. Those who dissuade you do not know the joys and sorrows of monastic life and judge one-sidedly only what they themselves know. Don’t rush, but don’t delay with theoretical knowledge of both.

We will pray for you!

Dear K.!

And A. has not yet made a choice of life path, and you are still free, and you still have it all ahead of you. And each person must make the choice himself. Therefore, for now, enjoy life, with love and desire do what God has blessed you with: warm the souls of the sick and suffering and paint icons. Pray for A. and for yourself, without looking ahead. The Lord will decide your future in His time. He sees your hearts. Just be constant in your election.

May the Lord make you wise!

Dear M. in the Lord!

Your vow has no force, for it was given unconsciously and, one might say, without any understanding of the Providence of God operating in the world. You will have to make the choice of your life path yourself, and the choice will become a vow when you bring it before God in the Sacrament.

There are two paths of salvation - family and monasticism. Look into your heart and ask it where it is drawn.

May God make you wise!

Dear N. in the Lord!

Don’t forget about God, with Him it’s not difficult to experience difficulties, there’s no loneliness, and your powerlessness will be strengthened by the power of God. The turmoil of everyday life engulfed us so that people would understand that it is impossible to live without God. And now many have crossed the threshold of the church, but only externally, but inside there is still hope for themselves, for people, and the Lord is waiting for us to cling to Him with our hearts and like a child. Only then will everything in life change. God's blessing to you and your daughter, and, of course, I will fulfill your request for prayer.

Dear in the Lord K.!

You carry some damage within yourself from your involvement in the occult, and therefore do not rush to take on an additional cross by getting married.

Do carpentry, carving, go to church, pray. The time will come when you will mature both spiritually and physically, level up and feel that you can be a support for another person.

And now you yourself are still hesitating, so hold off on getting married. May God make you wise!

Dear in the Lord E.!

God's blessing to your family.

You know from your own life what happens through prayer to the Lord. So continue to live, really feeling the presence of God in your life. Pray!

There will certainly be tests and exams, and in them we will see ourselves in order to have a living feeling for God and living repentance.

May God make you wise!

Dear in the Lord E.!

The name of the priest chastising you was Archimandrite A., now deceased (schema-archimandrite, and his novice nun N.). I can’t tell you the name of the priest who gave you unction, just as I can’t tell you whether you should grumble against me or someone else. And it would be better not to rely on anyone, because now, my dear, you should already know that our life goes in the Stream of God’s Providence, and without His holy will nothing happens.

I will only add that every person comes out to meet the Providence of God, and he himself is the co-creator of his life. And so it happened for you, the Lord gave the gift of God’s grace to you to feel, but you did not reach for it yet, and life went back to its previous course. Moreover, with your conversations you plundered everything you received, so you were robbed by the enemy. Now who are you complaining about? If Father A. took it upon himself to reprimand, then it was probably from someone. He was an elder of God.

But now what is there to remember? The elbow is close, but you won't bite.

Glory to God for the fact that you are with the Church, and even with grumbling, you are bearing your difficult cross in life.

The enemy is guarding your good desires, but you are not robbed, I assure you of this. Your repentance and continuous struggle will be credited to you as work for God. This is your life cross.

Do not despair. Take communion, if possible, every two weeks, at least, and, of course, gather together annually.

Read one chapter of the Holy Gospel and two chapters of the Apostle every day and surrender your life to the Lord - without grumbling and self-worth, bowing your head on your life’s cross.

Lord strengthen you!

Dear E.!

God's blessing for you to go to college and graduate with diligence. It is premature to talk about the future choice of a life path.

The sinful swamp is flooded even in monasteries for those who wish, and with no less quagmire than in the world, so everything will depend on you.

Having learned to avoid destruction in the world, you will not fall into it in any other place.

Dear M. in the Lord!

God is One everywhere: in Optina and in Dubna, and sin finds man everywhere. Therefore, do not be embarrassed by your thoughts and live where God has now brought you, and do not disrupt S. from work.

If she has a disposition to start a family, then both she and you need to pray about it, so as not to repeat the mistake of your youth, so that she herself will like her chosen path of life and give her daughter a proper upbringing.

And who hasn’t had to make mistakes in life? There is no need to put stigmas, they repented and, thank God, are forgiven, but we need to gain experience from mistakes in order to be wise for the future.

God help you!

Dear V. in the Lord!

We pray for I. with the hope that her suffering brought joy to her. We sympathize with you and pray for you too.

Do not rush to move on to new life tracks. Continue your work begun during your spouse’s lifetime, and the future will be in the future. You live in the present, but in God.

May the Lord make you wise!

Servant of God V.!

I’ll tell you right away about the main thing - you can’t even think about taking ordination. This step will be disastrous for you, but don’t rush into organizing your life; nothing has been decided about you yet. At the moment, you are neither ready for family life, as required by the Law of God, nor for monastic life.

Therefore, work in church and pray, and little by little begin to live like a Christian, binding your sinful self-will.

God strengthen you!

Dear O.O. in the Lord!

Sorry for the delay in responding to your letter, but this is how the circumstances developed, and I began to pray for you right away. Yes, it is difficult and painful to put on the reins of the Law of God, where the game of life must inevitably end and life - bearing the cross - must begin. But you and your spouse, apparently, have so far only entered the outer tabernacle of Christian life, and that is why your desires fluctuate so easily and irresponsibly. The fear of God has not yet touched your heart, and you have no concept of eternal life at all. That’s why I can only talk about the external for now. I don’t know how your trial ended. I know one thing, that you should not have agreed to the divorce.

You can’t start your whole life over again, sliding along its surface. It’s time, it’s high time to go deeper and dig deep with zeal and much sweat. Continue to pray for your husband, ask St. ap. love of John the Theologian for help. Surrender yourself to the will of God, without making any plans for the future. Learn to think about your every step in a Christian way.

May God make you wise!

Dear S.!

God's blessing for you to finish your studies, but artists are needed not only in the theater. But the Lord will determine this in the future. In the meantime, study and make progress, study with love and dedication, study as if in obedience. Don't torment yourself with abstract thoughts. The main thing is to live for God, for the sake of God and do everything for the glory of God. Remember that always and everywhere the main thing for us is to be Christians in our lives.

May God make you wise!

Dear N.N. in the Lord!

The Kingdom of God matures within us and does not depend on the place of life. The Lord is the same everywhere, both in Orel and in Diveevo, and now the time is such that even in Diveevo you will find something that will confuse and upset. So live with R. at home, in the God-saved city of Orel. Don’t get too carried away with trips: once a year is fine, but more often it’s not necessary. But you have to work on your soul yourself and not expect that what you didn’t sow will grow on its own. May God make you wise! There is no God's blessing for you to move. Your desire to move is dictated by spiritual voluptuousness.